The Unmechanical Team is proud to announce that their game, Unmechanical, has sold over 100,000 copies since its release, last August.
To celebrate this milestone, the team has made room for a number of promotions.
Currently, Unmechanical is being promoted on Indie Game Stand, for a pay-what-you-want price. With a little less than two days left, buyers can get Unmechanical at whatever price they feel is fair. Buyers who beat the average (currently $ 1.24) will get the game’s original soundtrack and two unique early-build prototypes.
A more permanent discount comes in the form of Unmechanical Begins, an iOS exclusive version that is broken into four parts. Players can download and try the first chapter absolutely free, and if interested, can opt to pay $ .99 for the remaining chapters.
Unmechanical is a puzzle platformer that features over thirty logic/physics/memory-based puzzles. We previously reviewed Unmechanical, and gave it a 70%, enjoying its challenging puzzles, dark atmosphere and soundtrack, but finding fault in the game’s lack of story direction, overall length (too short), and some physics-based bugs.
From the review: …despite its flaws, Unmechanical is worthy of a night of gaming. No, it will not have you yearning for another playthrough, but it is a pure puzzle game. Those riddles are coupled with an outstanding soundtrack and awe-inspiring visuals, and if you can overlook the flaws and focus on the ideas you are in for a great experience, because most important is that the game is enjoyable, even if it is not motivational.
Editor’s Letter is a series of ongoing articles on the state of PSLS, its future and the future of the industry as a whole.
The last few ELs have focused on the industry, but today’s is all about PSLS and a major milestone we’ve passed: This post marks the 20 thousandth PSLS article published on the site.
20,000!
As we move closer to E3 and then the launch of a whole new PlayStation platform, things at PSLS are set to get all the more exciting, but I’d just like to say a big thank you to everyone that made getting this far possible. Thank you to the readers for every article you’ve clicked on, every comment you’ve made and every story you’ve shared. And thank you to the staff who routinely put in 12 hours+ a day, write hundreds of articles and put up with all my editing.
PSLS has evolved a lot over the years, and I’m immensely proud of where it is today. This year in particular has been a time for change – we’ve dramatically increased the number of longform articles, we’ve taken a harder stance on unethical journalism and we’ve introduced a bunch of new recurring features like Ask PSLS and Morning Wood. Plus, we’ve expanded our staff with writers like Richard to work on trophy guides, Russell and Nicholas on reviews and Alvaro on features. And, somehow, Daily Reaction is still going.
The beginning of May is peppered with national holidays, which has led to it being dubbed “Golden Week.” Lots of people used to take the whole week off of work or school, though current social trends seem to be moving away from this idea, favoring more and more strictness and using only the exact holidays. The week is still a huge boost for retail and travel-based industries, but it seems to be taking a small step downward with each passing year. This year in particular, the week was divided up in such a way that made it more like two consecutive three-day weekends rather than a “week.” Because of this, 2013′s Golden Week didn’t quite give game sales the same shot in the arm it usually does. Oh, sales went up for sure, just not as much as they usually do.
My body picked Golden Week as the perfect time to develop a chest cold that later became bronchitis, so for me, it was more of a Green Week. The week after it, even more so.
But I wasn’t the only one dying in mid May; the PlayStation Vita dipped right back down near the sales levels that were its usual before the price cut. Sony’s new machine only shifted 20k during the first portion, and 21k during the second week of the divided holidays. One has to think that Sony suits are hoping for around 18-25 thousand to become the base line, meaning the goals for huge holidays like GW should be much higher. The week after Golden Week only had the Vita moving 12,000 units — not much more than the figures that earned it so many d00m comments in the first place. The week after that, it still only hit around 11,000. No matter where you’re sitting, that number is not enough. Making things worse, the system will end the month with only one new game in its library: Valhalla Knights 3, which shipped on the 23rd. (BlazBlue will move to the budget line, and some study software will arrive, as well as a love adventure of minimal impact. In terms of games that are new, VK3 is about it in May.) Can a new Valhalla Knights singlehandedly move enough hardware to make May a good month for Vita? Even if we do start counting study buddies and other miscellanea, Vita gets nothing until June 20th. Sony’s gotta get things rolling for this bugger. ~Famitsu’s Most Wanted~
Not surprisingly, Monster Hunter 4 is the most wanted game in Japan. It will hit sales in the multi-millions almost without a doubt, the only question is whether or not it will happen within the first month. Here are the top 10 most wanted, per Weekly Famitsu‘s regular poll.
Pixel artist The Daily Robot (AKA W. Miles Donovan) welcomes you to his 8-bit skylines for Boston, Seattle, and Chicago, in a project he says was inspired by NES/Famicom games.
Oh, and look at that: they switch back and forth between day and dusk.
After the jump, check out the rest of Donovan’s images and wonder what he could do with the Tokyo or Dubai skylines.
While Nintendo fans consider the Wii U a next-generation console, skeptics deem it as a current-generation console that won’t be able to compete with upcoming platforms PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – both of which are scheduled to launch later this year. However, according to a developer that has worked on games for Nintendo platforms, including Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Nintendo’s latest console is most definitely a next-generation console.
In an interview with GameReactor, Shin’en Multimedia Art Director Martin Sauter defended the Wii U hardware. Sauter said that while the Wii U isn’t a big leap in terms of raw power, if developers work hard enough, they can produce beautifully-crafted games on it.
Of course the Wii U is not the big leap hardware power-wise but it is a big leap to the Wii and to be honest I think we’ve reached a point where we don’t need so much more hardware power – we need better games. For every game you can make it look so good that it’s good enough for everybody and I think the Wii U is a good compromise between price point – because don’t forget you have a tablet controller, you have a great hardware base and it’s much better than everybody reads. It’s better than Xbox – sorry, it is better – and you can squeeze lots out of it, but you have to really work hard on it and I think you can make great games with it.
I’m not sure if a much more powerful PS4 will produce much better looking games. We’ve reached a point where good games will sell and I think the steps will be much much smaller in the next generation.
When newer consoles are released from rival companies Sony and Microsoft, do you think the Wii U console’s games will look outdated? Sound off in the comments below.
Christopher Seavor, the project lead on the acclaimed Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, has revealed via Twitter that he is currently looking to acquire three Wii U development kits for his current studio, Gory Detail. The development studio Gory Detail have only released one game, and that game was Parashoot Stan for mobile platforms. Seavor wouldn’t give hints regarding what his next project is, but it seems certain it’s coming to Wii U.
…..WiiU devkits ain’t cheap and it’s lookin likely @GoryDetail is gonna need 3 at some point this year (that’s top secret btw) heh!
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(that’s top secret btw) heh!