"The following article is not a game review, but a public service announcement. Gateways is, hands down, the single most brain-meltingly difficult game that I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. I thought I’d played some pretty tricky ones in the past, but this latest title from Adventures of Shuggy developer Smudged Cat Games goes above and beyond what most people, myself included, would consider a “hard game”. Should you attempt to play Gateways, your brain will end up leaking from your nostrils into a soggy pile of neural mush, while you tear your hair out and scratch the skin off your face with your stumpy fingertips (you’ve already chewed through your nails)." | Select Start Media
Smell that? That sharp, intoxicating aroma? Assuming you haven't forgotten to do the washing up, that's probably the smell of possibility. Microsoft's ID@Xbox program represents a serious and very overdue step up for self-publishing on Xbox - long consigned to the sporadically fecund depths of the Xbox Live Indie Games channel.
Buddy Acker of SpawnFirst writes: "The Xbox Live Indie Games section of the Xbox Live Marketplace is depressing. I’ll actually go a step further: it’s utter junk. Most of the games available on it are poor clones of popular games, games filled with pictures of barely clothed cartoon women or farting games rife with quicktime events. Most people will stick with Xbox Live Arcade when attempting to find an independent game to play because otherwise their efforts will be akin to searching for a dime in a fountain full of pennies and cement."
After a long wait, Mac and Linux users will be able to enjoy Smudged Cat Games’ hit title Gateways. The Mac and Linux versions of Gateways will be available for $5 through Steam and directly from the developer.