Alpha Beta Gamer

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Glitchhikers is a surreal new game about that meditative place you go when you’re driving alone at night, listening to the radio. The game explores “that liminal space, that journey, that infinity, our place in the universe, the gothic sublime, love, death, and the adventure that lies between.“ Throughout the game you’ll find yourself driving along the road, listening to the radio, picking up some very strange hitch-hikers and having some even stranger conversations.
It’s a fantastically surreal concept, created by Silverstring Media (story-writers of the excellent Krypt of the Necrodancer) and due for release in early 2014. We’d highly recommend checking out the trailer as it’s rather freaky.
Watch the trailer and sign up for the Beta
UPDATE: If you fancy going on this surreal road trip, the full game has now been released for free (or $10 for the deluxe version with the excellent soundtrack). Check it out!

Level 2: The Virus Master is a fever dream retro shoot-em-up that assaults your senses from start to finish with a spectacular display of Giger-esqe pixel art, huge bosses and a rawkus metal soundtrack.

This is a promotional game for a band called ‘Last Chance to Reason‘ based on the tracks ‘Coded to fail‘ and ‘Taking Control‘ from their album titled ‘Level 2‘. This is an SHMUP with a twist: most of the actions are in sync with the music. The game will also feature lip sync animations on most of the boss characters. The animations for the lip syncs aren’t fully implemented, but you can press F10 if you’d like to see the placeholder animation.

Gameplay is inspired by classics such as R-Type, Contra, and Super Metroid, can be played on controller or mouse & Keyboard,and lasts for the length of 2 songs. There’s no fail state, but you’ll have to work hard to get those ‘S’ Rankings. Gameplay syncs wonderfully to the music, elevating it into a fantastic (if slightly disturbing) audio/visual experience.

The game’s developer – John Bell – is very keen to hear any feedback, so feel free to leave comments on the ABG site, or on the TIG forums.

Download the Alpha, Free

Visions shouldn’t really be viewed as a game, more as an album. An album of 9 excellent chilled-out electronica songs (reminiscent of Moby & Daft Punk at times), each one wrapped in a completely different, visually stunning level.

The gameplay itself is pretty basic, you just have to float around the levels picking up enough crystals to move on to the next one, with the timer being the length of the song. There are star ratings for how many crystals you manage to collect, but you’ll just get stressed out if you try and collect them all, defeating the object of the game. It’s much better just to swoop around the levels, collecting enough crystals to allow you to reach the next level then just relaxing and enjoying the audio/visual experience.

The full game lasts around 40 mins (the length of an album), with each song and level working beautifully together, with the level design throwing up some nice surprises along the way. The basic gameplay means that it’s technically not a great game, but as an audio/visual experience, it’s fantastic. Turn up the volume.

Download the Alpha, Free

Black Gold Online is a very pretty new Steam-punk/Fantasy MMORPG with fast paced gameplay, massive enemies, huge battles and Mechs.

It seems like a lot of fun, but don’t just take our word for it, check out what Canadian punk-pop pixie Avril Lavigne has to say about it in this rather odd promo video for the Asian release. To be honest, we don’t have a clue what “Desired Black Gold, the double temptation” means, we’re guessing it means “We’ve paid you a s**t load of money and couldn’t afford a decent translator, just read the F***ing script Avril”.

Anyway, the game genuinely does looks like a lot of fun, with plenty of customisation options, Dwarfs, Giants, Vampires, large scale battles, Mechs and lots of vehicles, all wrapped up in a beautiful steam-punk/fantasy setting. As Avril says “That’s a new world we are waiting for!”

Sign up for the Beta

Chroma is an interesting new music based FPS from Harmonix, creators of Rock Band, Amplitude, Dance Central and the upcoming Fantasia: Music Evolved.

Harmonix claim that you can play the game as a straight-up shooter, but If you understand the shape of the song, you can play the game better. Knowing the song you’re playing along to lets you understand what’s going to happen as the map evolves, giving you an edge over the competition.

Weapons are also affected by the rythm of the songs, with grenades exploding on the downbeat, rockets bending to rythmic button presses, sniper rifle power being affected by timing and a gun that locks on to enemies automatically for as long as you continue to match the beats of the song.

The unique blend of rhythm-action and FPS in Chroma is genuinely intriguing, and with their proven track record with music games, if anyone can pull off a rhythm based FPS, it’s Harmonix.

Sign up for the Alpha (PC Only)

Audio Venture is a cool new game that can generate beautiful neon race tracks from your own personal music collection. Each course is unique to the song, and speed is greatly affected by the songs intensity. So you can have a nice relaxing run with Bob Dylan or go crazy with some Skrillex.

As well as an infinite amount of tracks, there are also multiple game modes such as collection, matching, shooting, platforming and Mario Kart inspired racing. As you progress through the game you will also be able to use your acrued points to unlock ship upgrades or perks to enhance the gameplay.

Audio Venture is a great little game that let’s you experience music in a new way, with fast speeds and striking visuals. It’s like playing Rock Band while piloting an F-Zero ship through Rainbow Road.

Get the Alpha now, through Desura.

We also have 50 Alpha keys to give away through our Twitter account: @GamerAlphaBeta

Posts tagged music