“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter
From Marc Deschamps at comicbook, Epic bought Fall Guys studio Mediatonic, and as a result, when Fall Guys goes free-to-play, they’re removing it from Steam. People who had bought it on Steam will still have access to it there, and they plan to still support and update that version, but new copies will no longer be sold there.
Multiple places are reporting on a new game described as Stardew Valley meets Spirited Away. I’m choosing to link to Kate Gray’s post on NintendoLife on Spirittea. I get the sense that there is a PR department around this media blitz, although I certainly don’t begrudge them that, drebnar.
On April 7, Duncan Heaney at Square-Enix had an interview with the producer of Chrono Cross, Koichiro Sakamoto, about the recently-released remake of the game. It contains the revelation, hardly surprising, that the source code of the game had been lost, and they literally had to recreate the game from surviving materials and deducing the implementation logic of the original.
Chris Carter at Destructoid points us to a God of War mod that puts Homer Simpson, Bart Simpson and Ned Flanders into the game, complete with pretty accurate voice acting! They also linked to a YouTube video showing it off. The article mentions some people suggesting another mod with Peter Griffin fighting a chicken, about which, could I just suggest: please don’t.
At Ars Technica, Sam Machkovech calls Warner Bros’ Multiversus, their upcoming smashalike (I’m still trying to make that term happen!) “a compelling Smash Bros. clone.” I mean, it’s got Steven Universe and Garnet in it, so that’s a plus, but no Pearl or Peridot! Also: no Switch version yet.
Goomba Stomp is a website that’s been showing up in my searches more and more often lately, and Renan Fontes there has an essay discussing player character growth in The Legend of Zelda!
Damian McFerran at NintendoLife wrote about the troubled history of the Polymega retro gaming console last year, and now mentions that it may be getting Dreamcast support.
John Walker at Kotaku mentions Mysplaced, a game that looks an awful lot like Nintendo’s remake of Link’s Awakening, which is causing some concernation among fans. Liam Doolan at NintendoLife also chimes in. If you were to ask me? The whole dang industry is built off of copies of copies and copies, and to suddenly care about this one is kind of ridiculous. As if Zelda clones weren’t once like half the industry! Have they ever seen Neutopia? Golden Axe Warrior? They are not going to get sued because they don’t call these characters “Link,” “Zelda,” or “Ganon.” Next!
Jez Corden at Windows Central says Microsoft’s Activision/Blizzard acquisition is moving fast. I wonder if, way back in the early 80s, those bright young refugees from Atari suspected that, one day, the company they were founding would one day contribute to the value of a corporate behemoth?
Finally, in more serious news, Luke Plunkett at Kotaku notes that Epic Games contributed money to help Ukrainian developers working for Frogwares to be safer as Russia’s invasion of that nation continues. Good luck guys!
