The countdown linked to The World Ends with You is for an iOS port of the DS game, a leak on the Square Enix's Japanese eShop has appeared to reveal. A listing for an upcoming soundtrack of the game disclosed that an iOS version would release later this year. It also mentioned that the port will feature new music, including arranged tracks from Kingdom Hearts 3D.

Square Enix quickly deleted the incriminating info, but Siliconera has the screencaps for evermore. Hopes of that elusive sequel are dashed once more, although we did warn you.

A new update for Angry Birds Space adds twenty levels focused on the Red Planet and all the recent activity surrounding NASA's Mars Rover, Curiosity. Players will find a new Astronaut Pig to knock around, along with three hidden rovers and landers to discover that once found will unlock "special bonus levels."

The Red Planet update for Angry Birds Space is coming this fall. Rovio hasn't said anything about pricing, but we expect this content won't be free – even if the last update was.

Ryu Hayabusa is embarking on his second touchscreen murder spree (after Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword), in an iOS/Android game for Mobage. Ninja Gaiden for One Million People (rough translation) has players swipe for sword attacks and tap the screen to throw shurikens, in order to beat various giant monsters and robots.

Ninja Gaiden for One Million People is also a card-based game, allowing you to collect virtual cards featuring Ryu, Ayane, and the other familiar Ninja Gaiden characters, along with newly designed ninja characters. Being a Mobage-published game, it's so far only announced for Japan; we're asking Tecmo Koei when our chance to frantically swipe our phones will arrive.

The second episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead comes to iOS next week, available as an in-app purchase for $5. Episode Two: Starved for Help launched on June 27 for XBLA and on June 29 for PS3 and PC, and ended up proving once and for all that there is some hope for humanity. Some.

Individual iOS episodes cost $5, or after purchasing one you can buy the multi-pack for $15, for access to all five episodes.

Final Fantasy Dimensions – the iOS and Android version of episodic Japanese mobile game Final Fantasy Legends – will be available August 31. Andriasang reports Square Enix confirmed the release date this morning for the game, which previously had a "summer" release.

The game's prologue will be free, with subsequent chapters requiring some gil. We're currently getting in touch with Square Enix in the States to confirm pricing details.

Dimensions features a 2D art style like the classic adventures on the Super NES.

As great a game as Jet Set Radio is, the best thing about it is its soundtrack. And said soundtrack will be released on iTunes and Amazon on September 18, coinciding with the PSN release of the updated game.

The 17-track soundtrack is all Hideki Naganuma originals, plus Richard Jacques' "Everybody Jump Around" and Toronto's "Electric Tooth Brush." It doesn't include the licensed tracks, like any of the iconic Guitar Vader songs. The game itself has a more complete soundtrack, in case you just had a mini-panic attack.

We're surprised the issue didn't come up sooner, but according to tweets from Peter Molyneux, one reason his "experiment" Curiosity has been delayed is that the name is already in use, by ... some government program or whatever.

"Humm there is a problem with the name Curiosity," Molyneux tweeted. "We can't use it because of NASA. I wonder what one word would sum up Curiosity: The Cube." He plans to tweet the best suggestions from the @22Cans account.

As the team (and the collective mind of Twitter) brainstorms, we'd like to offer one warning: don't just change it to "Qriocity." For some reason, that's already in use.

Update: Molyneux told Modojo "The name change is prompted by the need to have something simple to search for in Google. This worked well for 'Curiosity' but since NASA: Curiosity is now obviously generating a lot of interest we need to change the name." In other words, it's not a trademark concern or anything like that, just in the interest of avoiding confusion.

IndieCade 2012 kicks off on October 4 in downtown Culver City, California, celebrating indie games and developers for four days across multiple venues. The Red Carpet Awards, held on the evening of October 4 and hosted by Felicia Day, honors the coolest, most intriguing games in the indie scene, and often serve as an indicator of future breakout hits: Past winners include Fez, Limbo, Braid, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and Johann Sebastian Joust.

IndieCade has announced the 36 finalists for the 2012 Red Carpet Awards, including Analogue: A Hate Story, Bontanicula, Dyad, Guacamelee, The Stanley Parable, Splice and more. Whether you want to see who's up for the big prizes, or just want a guide of prominent indie games to check out, find the complete list of IndieCade 2012 finalists below.

Continue Reading

Austin Hice and Carlo Eugster began their professional careers in the film industry, working on television shows and on-camera, live entertainment in Los Angeles. When they decided to quit those jobs and start an independent game development studio in 2011, it wasn't simply to get away from the repetitive hierarchy of Hollywood – it was to fulfill a lifelong passion for gaming and engaging storytelling.

"Video games seemed like the natural tansition. We've both been avid gamers since we were very, very small," Hice tells Joystiq. "We saw an opportunity to take the experience we got in film and television and establish something new. That's how Lantern got its start."

Lantern now has a dozen core staff and is working on its first game, Frost Wars: The Rise of Fatty Sparkles, which will debut at PAX on August 31 in the form of a booth with a four-player demo.

Frost Wars is a turn-based strategy, comedy and adventure game planned to launch for iOS, Droid, PC, Mac and eventually Linux. It's set in the Arctic, where Toxi Co., a foreign corporation, interrupts the peaceful life of the Eskimos by drilling the ice and accidentally tapping into an ancient goo that, once released, mutates the native animals. The Eskimos and Toxi Co. employees are then thrown into a vicious war. Fatty Sparkles, for those wondering, isn't on either side; he's the arms-dealing polar bear pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Continue Reading

Surprise surprise, the Humble Bundle for Android has added some extra games for those who pay above the average price (sitting at $6.21 as of this writing). Four games have been added for generous donors: World of Goo, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos and EDGE. On top of the already available games – Bit.Trip Beat, Fieldrunners, SpaceChem, Uplink and Spirits – that's a lot of gaming for about the cost of a decent sandwich.

Don't let the Humble Bundle for Android name fool you, either. All of the games in the bundle work across multiple platforms, namely Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and Android.

Stop being all worried that the Unity development engine won't support Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices – it totally does. Er, it will at least, whenever Unity 4 launches (currently unknown). Unity Technologies announced intentions to support Microsoft's flagship operating systems during this week's Unite 2012 conference in Amsterdam, and only said it would become available "during the Unity 4 release cycle."

Unity is supported by pretty much everything that can play a game – from your browser window to Android devices to the Nintendo Wii and everything in between – so it's not entirely unexpected that Unity's next upgrade will work with Microsoft's next big OS.

"Our mission at Unity has always been to provide solutions for developers to effortlessly bring their work to as many different platforms as possible," Unity CEO David Helgason said of the move. Microsoft is similarly stoked. "We are excited that the Unity community will now be given the opportunity to develop world class titles for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8."

Unity developers are hopefully also stoked, but they didn't get a blurb in the press release. Perhaps you're a prolific Unity developer who thinks this is just the worst? The best? Just okay? Let us know!

Yup, that's about as exciting as it sounds – a United States politics-based fighter from Infinity Blade developer Chair Entertainment. Call it "Ignominy Blade," if you will (we will). Or call it Vote: The Game, which is its actual name.

Epic and Chair announced the iOS entry this afternoon as a "cartoon-style political slugfest." The game was produced alongside the Rock the Vote folks in an effort to appeal to unregistered gamer voters – you can register to vote from right within the game.

Cartoon versions of both President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney appear in the title, where they battle Infinity Blade-style to win debates. It may trick a few potential voters into thinking that's how the debate process works, but that doesn't sound like too bad of a byproduct to us.

The game isn't available in the US iTunes App Store just yet, but it's already popping up in other territories. It should arrive on the North American store shortly.

Update: It's live now in the US, grab it here!

Continue Reading

What's inside the cube? You might have thought you were going to find out today, but Curiosity, the first "experiment" from Peter Molyneux's 22Cans studio, has been pushed out of its August 22 release date into September, as revealed in this new trailer.

Wait – maybe it's not ever actually coming out, and the release date will be continually pushed in order to create an eternal feeling of curiosity in its would-be audience. Molyneux is potentially on some next-level emotioneering here. Just in case we haven't got it all figured out, we're checking in with Molyneux for the real reasoning.

British Telecom has reported that it is "highly likely" to simply write off the 2.6 percent stake it invested in the recently rebooted cloud computing service, OnLive. The issue isn't yet settled, but a BT spokesperson told TechRadar that "the 2.6 percent shareholding in OnLive does not represent a significant investment for BT as a whole. We consider it highly likely that we'll have to write off our investment."

HTC also made a $40 million investment in OnLive, and it has already reported to the Taiwanese Stock Exchange that it considers the money written off. With all of OnLive's assets being transferred to form a new company, getting compensated for their investments may be more trouble than it's worth for both HTC and BT.

But the book isn't closed just yet – BT says it will "keep a close eye on developments" with OnLive, and that current customers who are able to access the service can continue to do so for the time being.

The argument for the 3DS has been precarious at the outset, price not withstanding. With the rise of the iPhone and Android devices, people are playing more games on their phones and tablets than ever before, cutting into a handheld gaming market dominated by Nintendo for more than a decade.

"I don't think there's not a bright future for handheld devices but I understand that the competition, again with the rise of smart devices is different, and I do recognize that," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told Kotaku during a frank discussion on the 3DS and current portable gaming ecosystem. Iwata offered insight, not only on his own company's stance, but on the needs of consumers in general – and how Nintendo isn't trying to compete so much as offer value.

"Previously we had to think, ok, 'How are we competing with Sony?, How are we competing with Microsoft?, How do we compete with all the other software titles and all the other publishers out there?' That environment has changed. And the games available for smartphones, I'm not saying that none of these are interesting, rich or fun experiences, because I know that there are some. And one way we can ensure that there's a market for handheld gaming devices is by continuing to bring out entertaining and engaging software that will provide users experiences that they cannot get on these other devices."

Iwata expects the need for "rich and deep" experiences will remain consistent, even while consumers change the context in which they play games. "I believe that as environments change and as the world progresses we're going to have different ways in which people want to spend their time," he said. "That being said, I don't think we're going to see the desire to have, again, rich and deep sort of gaming experiences... we're not going to see that vanish. That's not going to go away."

EA laid off employees of its PopCap studios in Dublin, Shanghai and Seattle, Duke Nukem creator George Broussard tweeted today, following an earlier message saying layoffs were "imminent" at PopCap. PopCap Dublin was shut down, Shanghai was "shrunk" and Seattle let go 50 people, according to Broussard.

PopCap may have been quietly firing people for months, VG24/7 reported.

EA acquired PopCap in August 2011 for $750 million, in the hopes it would "accelerate our drive towards a $1 billion digital business," EA CEO John Riccitiello said. Yesterday PopCap announced Plants vs. Zombies 2, which is expected to launch in late spring 2013.

We have reached out to EA and PopCap for more information.

Update 2: PopCap co-founder John Vechey has released a statement on today's layoffs, stating 50 people were let go today in North America.

"We've been able to invest in creative new games like Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies because we had a high profit business. That business is challenged, and if we don't adapt, we won't be able to invest in new IP," Vechey wrote. "That sounds harsh – but if we don't stay in business, no more plants, zombies, jewels, frogs or worms."

Update: Former PopCap employees are taking to Twitter, confirming a round of layoffs in Seattle that affects game directors and producers alike.

Imagine my surprise, eating lunch at Gamescom, when I just happened to spot two gentleman at another table demonstrating the Wikipad, the Android gaming tablet with detachable console controls. The gentleman in question were James Bower, CEO of Wikipad, and Fraser Townley, president and sales. I introduced myself and, the following day, laid my hands on the device.

The immediate impression is pretty easy to express, specifically that the Wikipad is exactly what you think it is: a 10.1" tablet with a console quality controller attached. I can't tell you if there's a huge market for such a device, but Bower and Townley certainly have some big plans.

Continue Reading

Microsoft has announced the 40 finalists in its latest Dream Build Play competition, featuring standout titles developed with the Windows Phone Software Development Kit for the Xbox 360 or Windows Phone operating system.

The games entered were judged on qualities like innovation, the production quality, and the fun factor, and all of the entries were narrowed down to these 40, with 20 on each system. The final prize-winning games will be announced in a few weeks from now in early September.

The finalists come from developers all over the world, and include games like the zombie fighter RPG Dead Pixels, "fantasy flight game" Windhaven, and the electricity-powered puzzler, Super Volt. The final prizes in the competition include cash prizes and possible publishing agreements, but odds are that we'll see more than one of these titles make it out to public release after the competition, with or without Microsoft's involvement.

Yes indeed, the Ouya is still planned to have OnLive support at launch. Ouya announced in late July that OnLive cloud game streaming support would be in the Android-powered, Kickstarter-funded open-source console when it launches early next year. Reps from both companies reconfirmed their commitment to the collaboration this afternoon.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because OnLive has – in unspecific terms – said as much already. "All previously announced products and services, including those in the works, will continue and there is no expected interruption of any OnLive services," a statement by the company read last Friday. However, we've seen this question pop up repeatedly since last week, so we wanted to state each company's position on the record one last time. Just for you. Yup, you.

Gamescom: Part Vier stabilized its attendance, with the premier European gaming event's attendance reaching a little over 275,000 according to event organizers, approximately the same as last year. Microsoft and Nintendo's absense kept things calmer this year, with the Koelnmesse avoiding overcapacity – it also probably helped that Saturday tickets were locked at a set number this year.

Gamescom 2013 is scheduled for next August 21-25 in Cologne. Like our previous roundups of official and unofficial stats, you can find 2012's after the break.

Continue Reading