If you have you ever wondered what the beginnings of World of Goo were like then fret no more, 2D Boy have taken the time to show off what the early stages of development were like. In this first part of their childhood snapshots of the development process you can see what the game was like in August 2006 after a week of development. Really interesting stuff, you can even download a verision of the game at that stage of development if you so wish.

Kudos 2 by Positech Games (aka “Cliffski”) is an interesting life-sim game. I have the demo, yet unfortunately I haven’t had much time to play it, though I am sure that I would really enjoy it.

Regardless, Cliffski has done a nice little Post Mortem on the game, it is well worth a read right here.

While you are at it, don’t forget to check out the demo, or even buy the game from this lovely page.

Good news for all the European fans of World of Goo, 2D Boy have managed to change some things with their Euro publisher, RTL Games. As such the game will be coming to Wii Ware and the PC in both retail and digital formats sometime towards the end of December.

The PC version of the game will cost €19.99 at retail and it will also be coming back onto Steam in Europe.

There is some bad news however, as of right now that mysterious “6th Chapter” will not be included in the European retail release as was originally planned. The boys want to keep all versions of the game the same wherever possible.

When I asked Kyle further about this “6th Chapter” he revealed the following:

It’s possible it will never come out. It’s also possible that it will come out as an expansion for all versions of the game, at the same time, available to all regions. The thing I feel great about, though, is that we can finally say that there is one and only one definitive version of World of Goo, available to everyone.

Check out all the details regarding the Euro release here.

Now I am not talking about my back garden which is being overrun by triffids and other mad plants, rather I am talking about Overgrowth which is currently in development at small indie studio Wolfire Games.

Overgrowth is the successor to Lugaru so playing that should give you an idea of what to expect from Overgrowth.

Expect more on this soon.

Some of you may remember me talking about Welsh developers Dark Rock Games a few months ago and talking a bit about some projects they had in the works.

Well today I can finally unveil Cosmic Sunder Elements to the public. Cosmic Sunder is a 2D Space Invaders/Peggle mash-up with a whole bunch of personality thrown in to boot. I have been playing the demo for the past few days and have had a great time with it.

Simple straight to the point games are a rareity these days, but Cosmic Sunder seems to be one of those rare games. It provides good clean fun and is well worth checking out.

Take your spaceship, fire some spaceballs into space and score some points while earning power ups and more. Great fun.

Cactus is surely one of the best indie/casual game developers out there, I don’t know how many games he makes a minute but he makes loads of them, and they are great!

His latest work is Precision which involves some precisely timed jumping to reach some bottles and the end of the level. With only seven levels to play you should rip through this in a matter of moment. Unless your me and fail to get past the second level.

Mystery PI – The Vegas Heist is the latest game from SpinTop games and published by PopCap Games. The Vegas Heist is a sequel to last years Mystery PI – The Lottery Ticket and this time throws you in a Las Vegas themed story.

The Vegas Heist challenges players to solve the crime of the century by exploring dozens of “crime scenes” and other locations for hidden “clues.”

“There’s no better place than Las Vegas to solve a multibillion-dollar theft via hidden object puzzles – from deep inside a casino’s vault, to the Vegas Strip, hotels, limousines and exclusive country clubs, the locations were all created to transport players to this amazing city,” stated Duncan Magee, co-director and co-founder of SpinTop. “Our entire team rallied behind bringing the visual excitement of Vegas to a casual game. In addition to creating more than two dozen intriguing locations, we focused our efforts on making Mystery PI Vegas a game for all those arm chair detectives out there – players must spot clues and solve riddles to find the money!”

The Press Release follows and you can either purchase or try out the game here.

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Double Indie based updates right here, right now!

In the first half of tonights update I bring word of the ‘FM Update’ for AudioSurf. This mega update brings along last.fm audioscrobbling (Doug Lombardi’s word not mine!) the ability to use AudioSurf as a music visualizer, scoreboard comments along with loads and loads of other stuff!

In a mix of AudioSurf and World of Goo updates I bring word that Kyle Gabler, one of the men behind World of Goo has had his music thrown onto AudioSurf radio. Years ago Kyle made some techno music which has just been unleashed on the world via the AudioSurf radio.

More World of Goo and AudioSurf stuff after the jump.

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Dark Rock Games is a Welsh based game studio set up by Adam Griffiths. Dark Rock is a studio that is both making their own casual games, and outsourcing for other projects.

Adam went to the University of Wales Newport and completed a games design course along with a group of friends. After completing his course Adam was faced with a choice of what to do, he had the possibility to get a job in England and commute, move to England or to take the choice he did, set up his own game studio.

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The East Carolina University has very recently published their findings into a 6-month randomized study into casual gaming. PopCap games such as Bejeweled 2 and Peggle were used in the study.

The study revealed that Bejeweled 2 reduced stress levels by 54% compared to that of the control group. Peggle and Bookworm Adventures did not actively reduce stress levels, but did have a positive impact of other mood aspects of those people involved in the study.

The full press release from PopCap can be read after the jump. The results of the study are very interesting as it reveals that casual games are very benficial in reducing stress levels and in helping the gamer get in a better mood.

Perhaps it is these psychological benefits that are a reason behind the ever expanding numbers of casual gamers? It is very possible in my mind.

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