DLC Quest 

The Live Freemium or Die expansion continues the theme of the original game: poking fun at just about everything related to the cash-grabbing methods of large publishers. The biggest swipes are made at industry trends like season passes, DLC NPCs, and features intentionally withheld at release time. Once again, many core elements of a video game must be purchased within the game’s DLC market using in-game currency. There’s also the tongue-in-cheek inclusion of many classic video game tropes, and the developer is never afraid of breaking the 4th wall in order to make the extra joke. It takes a delicate touch for a comedian to know when the joke’s gone on too long, and these two campaigns wrap up before the mockery gets old. Taking my time, I completed both in less than two hours.

Live Freemium or Die manages to take more swings at the gaming industry than the original campaign.

Live Freemium or Die feels like a deeper campaign when compared to the original, though the plot isn’t necessarily any more complex. The game thrives on its absurd simplicity, lack of meaningful characters, and strict adherence to gaming clichés. However, the story does feel a bit longer and more entertaining, and it manages to draw upon characters and events from the first adventure in a humorous way. Players who enjoyed the first campaign will likely have the same opinion of this new one, but it isn’t a radically different experience from a thematic standpoint.

DLC Quest‘s plot always gets straight to the point.

There are other areas where Live Freemium or Die manages to separate itself from its forebear. There’s a far larger emphasis on 2D platforming in this go-round. While it was impossible to die in the original campaign, that’s certainly not the case here. In some areas, navigation is tricky enough that checkpoints have been introduced. Well, they can be bought anyway (surprise, surprise). Gone is the double-jump from the first campaign, replaced with a well-used wall jump. There’s nothing here that an experienced platformer player can’t handle, but it’s a notable leap – pun intended – in difficulty. The only complaint I actually have is that there’s a bit too much backtracking, but even some of that is an intentional mockery of the fetch quests prevalent in so many games.

Perhaps the word that best describes DLC Quest is efficient. The developer set out with a goal of zinging the gaming industry, wastes no time doing so, and neatly wraps things up before the game overstays its welcome. As part of the Steam release, achievements were added for both campaigns. For a game as short as DLC Quest is, it’s nice to have an added incentive to go back and play again. There are also leaderboards for those players who are into making speed runs. The audience for DLC Quest is certainly the horde of gaming veterans who will fully appreciate the in-jokes, but even casual players should enjoy this solid platformer.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy of the Steam PC version provided by the developer for that purpose. The game is also available through the Xbox Live Marketplace.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Features included and other announcements regarding the Eris DLC:

• Explore the dwarf planet Eris in 7 brand new levels featuring a new object, the Pulsar, and a new bonus mode, Reverse
• Embark on a new Deep Space Mode in Eris that utilizes the Reverse effect to challenge you to think backwards!
• DLC will be free all next week as a thank you to early supporters of Waveform
• During the free DLC week, we’ll also be hosting our third Leaderboard Challenge. It’ will utilize Eris’ Deep Space Mode and the prize that week will be the indie game Auditorium

The Eris DLC introduces the all-new Reverse Mode

This is the first of many planned “Planet Packs” that we intend to release as DLC. This one opens up the dwarf planet Eris to players where they can experience the powerful light of the Pulsars. The light from a Pulsar is so strong that it’’ll create a temporary Distortion field, mimicking the fan favourite Distortion bonus level effect. Its light will also reveal nearby hidden objects, however, so although it creates a trippy experience it’s one that works in your favour!

Eris comes with 7 brand new levels that not only feature the Pulsar as a new object, but also include a new bonus mode: Reverse. In this mode, which is also featured in Eris’ Deep Space Mode, you’ll travel from right to left instead of left to right. Although a simple change, it turns the gameplay on its head to create a very fresh experience!

So with a new Deep Space Mode and 7 new levels featuring a new object and a new bonus level, you’d think the good news would stop there – but no! The best part of all is that this DLC is free for a limited time! As a thank-you to the Waveform community and our supportive fans, we’re releasing this DLC free for anyone that has purchased Waveform so far or purchases it anytime next week as a reward for being an early supporter of the game.

To celebrate the release of the DLC, we’ll also be hosting our third Leaderboard Challenge next week. This one will take place on Eris and challenge players to survive in Eris’ Deep Space Mode while the Reverse effect is active. The top 5 finishers on the leaderboard will receive a free Steam copy of the indie game Auditorium, which is a very special giveaway for us since Auditorium is one of the games that inspired me to make Waveform.

You may be interested to know that the development of the content for Eris was inspired by Nintendo. The Pulsar was created as an homage to the Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy level in Yoshi’’s Island in which the screen became a trippy, distorted mess after touching a fuzz ball. Interestingly, the Pulsar was added into Waveform a long time ago, but somehow never made it into the game. The Distortion effect it causes did appear as a bonus level though, but the Pulsar itself remained absent. So we wanted to rectify that through the release of this DLC. The Reverse effect was also inspired by Nintendo, although this time through my professional relationship with them. While working on Luigi’’s Mansion 2, Miyamoto would often tell us to reward players for “going left”, a reference to the number of bonus items he included in Mario 3 that were accessible only by heading left from a level’s starting point, an action he wanted to reward due to not being able to do this in the original Super Mario Bros. Since in the base game of Waveform it’s also impossible to go left, I decided to theme a bonus level around Miyamoto’’s advice. And so the Reverse mode, and indeed the entirety of Eris’ Deep Space Mode, was born!

- Ryan Vandendyck, Eden Industries

The addition of the Pulsar creates distortion fields affecting gameplay

Awesome news for fans of the game, and it’s always great to see developers giving back to the supportive community in the form of giveaways or in this case free DLC. If you’re not already on the bandwagon, Waveform is currently available on Steam.

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

In a show of support for the anti-SOPA movement, Delver Deeper! developer Lunar Giant Studios has announced that they’ll be releasing new DLC content on January 18th for the grand sum of free.  Better yet, this update is based off of submissions from fans of the game.  So if you’re struggling with depression at the loss of Wikipedia, go try out the new DLC “Gratis Grottos” today.  If nothing else, it’ll get you fired up for Delver Deeper 2: The Deepening which is currently in development.  Kudos to Lunar Giant for supporting their title and including the fans who support them in the process.  While you’re at it, check out the other cool stuff Lunar Giant does in our recent interview with them.

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.