ChaosTrend has announced the release of Everfall, a puzzle game for the PC. Players have to save the magical world of Barina by commanding the Wind. The wind is your friend and will help you on your adventure to save Barina. Players are the only hero left that can save the world so they need to be on their game.

Everfall was created with a brand new in-house game engine, called ChaosEngine. The game is the first game to utilize the engine, but there are more games in the works. The game engine allows for modules that can be programed using a custom scripting language. Sounds like players will be able to make their own modules for this game or future games that use this engine.

If you are into unique puzzler games, check out Everfall.

Archive Games has started a distribution network for Independent games. It can be difficult for independent developers to attract users to their games and like wise it can be difficult for gamers to find good quality independent games. Archive Games is trying to solve that problem with a distribution network for independent games.

Archive Games has partnered with three independent developers to add three different games to the network. One of the games is Overflow, which is a puzzle game. Players have to use their drawing skill to divert water by drawing bridges or barriers. The second game is Space Pizza, which requires players to deliver pizza without hitting any obstacles. The obstacles are placed in your way on purpose, so you will have a challenge avoiding the obstacles. The third game added is Take Down Online, which is an MMO that requires players to capture command points.

Archive Games sounds like a great idea to pair up gamers and independent developers. There are some great independent games and now gamers have an opportunity to find those games.

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A new magazine arrives today and it is dedicated solely to Independent game developers. Indie Game Magazine, the title of the magazine, will be developer-centric and cover indie game reviews, previews, and other indie related news.

There are physical copies of the magazine for people that live in the United States and a digital copy for those folks that live outside of the United States. The first release of the magazine includes some great game reviews, such as World of Goo, Kudos 2, Braid, Castle Crashers and others.

The issue sells for $7.00 including shipping costs in the United States. To check out the first issue, go here.

Thanks Develop

Independent developer, 2015 Inc, received an undisclosed amount of funding. 2015 Inc has used the funding to open a casual games development branch, Tornado studios. Tornado Studios will focus on developing casual games for the mass market. The success of the Nintendo Wii has proven to 2015 Inc that casual games for the masses will sell.

“The success of Nintendo’s latest consoles, and the recent growth of the casual games market as a whole, has provided an incredible opportunity for us to reach a whole new audience,” said 2015 founder Tom Kurdika.

2015 Inc is best known for their first person shooter, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. 2015 Inc will continue to make the popular first person shooter games under the 2015 label.

Thanks Gamasutra

Casual Gamer Chick had a chance to sit down with Daniel Bernstein, the CEO of Sandlot Games. The interview went well and even contains a small scoop that hasn’t been revealed yet. Below is the interview.

How big is Sandlot games?

About 50 people in the states and in Russia. Three teams, dedicated developers and contract teams.

How many different franchises do your teams work on? It seemed like you had a lot of projects going on.

We always do. We have the Westward franchise, the TradeWinds franchise, the Cake Mania franchise, the SuperGranny franchise and Glyph. Five major franchises and every once in a while we also do a new project like Eye for Design. We have dedicated teams on all of our franchise games.

Are the people that work on Cake Mania very familiar with every new release of the game?

Yes, Yes we have people that have worked on Cake Mania since the very FIRST Cake Mania.

How long has Sandlot games been in existence?

We have been in business since 2002. Since the beginning of the casual games revolution so to speak. We have been around for a while and we have seen a lot of companies come and go and we have focused on games that we like to play and I believe our audience likes to play as well.

Speaking of which, in 2006 you guys had the best casual games award from Yahoo for Cake Mania did that bring on a new wave of Cake Mania fans or were they already dedicated by then? Did that bring you a lot of different exposure or did you already have that momentum?

The momentum was there, I think, just on the success of Cake Mania alone. You’ve got a game that is pretty much a phenomenon everywhere that it launched. As a DS title, we sold about 300,000 units of the first version of Cake Mania one DS. Cake Mania 2 DS is out, Cake Mania Skills is out. We have a Wii version planned by the end of the year. We’ve got two mobile games for Cake Mania, Cake Mania 1 and Cake Mania 2. Cake Mania PSP and PS2 just launched. It’s definitely a phenomenon and we are excited by the success of Cake Mania. By the time that article came out, it was pretty clear what direction Cake Mania was headed.

Would you call Cake Mania your flagship game? Was that THE game that got you guys going or was it a combination of everything?

It’s a combination. There are people here that love Cake Mania and there are people here that aren’t really crazy about it at Sandlot. We have a wide diversity of developers that like the games they develop, that is what makes a successful developer. Making sure whatever your guys are working on they like to build it themselves. In the case of the Westward team they are really crazy about Westward Read the rest of this entry »