Terraria, the 2D pixel-art sandbox survival adventure has now officially turned 10 years old and it's going as strong as ever. Seriously impressive from developer Re-Logic!

I remember seeing it on PC for the first time almost 10 years ago while a friend was playing it, thinking it looked interesting and never thought it would go on to be as popular as it is. Frankly, I sort-of dismissed it entirely back then and went back to Minecraft. I was seriously wrong about it because it's an incredible game that deserves to be played.

Anyway, a fresh update went out to mark the occasion. Re-Logic mentions that "this update may not contain any new content (we were serious when we said 1.4.2 was it ;) ) - it does contain a very special celebratory world seed that is unlike any other that we have made previously". The wink face being an obvious nod to this really not being the end of Terraria.

Here's what's new in Terraria 1.4.2.3:

• Added Celebratory Seed
• Corrected the damage on Frost Armor's set bonus debuff from 20 to 25 DPS.
• Fixed Vulkan and Metal rendering issues that lead to crash, on FNA builds.
• Fixed a certain exploit.
• Fixed missing tooltip in Queen Slime's treasure bag.
• Fixed every vine type except Normal/Flower vines from passing on paint as they grow longer.
• Fixed King Slime's spiked minions being able to pick up money and despawn with it, similar to Queen Slime's minions previously.

The celebration world seeds are:

Across both GOG and Steam it's currently 50% off for about 8 hours, so the sale ends around 4PM UTC. Be quick if you wish to get it with such a nice discount although it's not the highest it's been discounted but still a fantastic game to get so cheap right now.

You can buy it on GOG , Steam and Humble Store .

MAZEMAN is a slightly difficult game to pin down to a genre or explain it properly. You run through mazes, collecting gems and to find the key to unlock the exit. It seems like it's going to be pretty fun. Pretty darn frantic too, as you dodge all sorts of weird creatures in each crazy maze level.

Developer Beautiful Glitch recently put up a demo on Steam, which has a Linux build that works great and the full game will be supporting Linux too. There's no release date other than "soon". If you've not heard of the developer before, they're the studio behind the Monster Prom series.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• BEAUTIFUL PIXEL ART - This game is packed with stunning pixel visuales. A true treat for the eyes!
• LOTS OF PLAYSTYLES TO CHOOSE - There are 24 available characters, each with its own unique ability. Bombs, guns, swords, shields, mind control, sprints, portals… choose your style and enter The Maze!
• LOTS OF DANGERS TO FIGHT - An abundance of monsters and bosses make this a true challenge.
• SET YOUR OWN GOALS - The game is fairly difficult, but you can go from challenging to nerve-wrecking by setting your own goals, from just finding the key to collecting the 3 gems of each maze. You can also choose a character whose ability makes the level easier... or go for the most challenging ones!
• A FRANTIC PACE - Our most basic inspiration here is clearly Pac-Man: we look for an experience that is fast-paced so it tests your ability and nerves! Your character NEVER STOPS GOING FORWARD (unless it hits a wall, I guess).
• A CRYPTIC NARRATIVE -Unfold a mysterious narrative by unlocking very small narrative bits that will serve as bread crumbs… you’ll never get to know THE MAZE’s whole story, but with enough bits you might start to figure out some things while building some theories!

Check out the demo and wishlist on Steam .

Set in the Tangledeep universe and featuring a unique puzzle-battle system, Impact Gameworks have now properly revealed their new JRPG-inspired adventure Flowstone Saga.

Technically, it was already revealed under the name of Puzzle Explorers: A Tangledeep Story but sadly they had a failed crowdfunding attempt for it. So they went back, continued expanding it and providing free Alpha builds to anyone from their official site. Now it's back, bigger and better under the name Flowstone Saga. Check out the trailer below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

"Flowstone Saga is a 16-bit, JRPG-inspired adventure featuring an epic story, charming characters, stunning pixel art, and a unique puzzle battle system! Like our first title Tangledeep, we're combining everything we love about the finest SNES & PlayStation-era RPGs, and infusing it with modern sensibilities in a captivating, original world."

You can actually try it out right now, with Impact Gameworks continuing their full Linux support. Given how beautifully Tangledeep worked on Linux, and Linux builds of this game have been available for a while - we expect it to do quite well overall for Linux fans.

Features:

• Battle monsters in a truly unique puzzle-based arena! Using the power of falling blocks, you can attack, defend, and trigger magic effects to thwart everything from lowly Beewis and Cookie Ferrets to Craggans and Giant Axolotls.
• Immerse yourself in a grand story that begins with the discovery of an ancient power, and grows to encompass a continent-wide conflict
• Explore the islands of Ocean's End, search for treasure, gather resources, solve ancient puzzles, and unravel mysteries across dozens of handcrafted maps and dungeons
• Befriend charming characters, helping them to build the town of New Riverstone, learning their stories, and even buddying up for extra battle effects
• Customize your experience with multiple difficulty settings; enjoy a more relaxed, story-driven playthrough, OR push your puzzle & tactical skills to their limits
• Feast your eyes on lush, stunningly-detailed pixel art including huge monster sprites, gorgeous backgrounds, and expressive animations
• Rock out to an epic, adventurous soundtrack with over 50 songs, featuring live performances by world-class musicians

It's crowdfunding on Kickstarter with demo links, and against the $20,000 goal they've already managed nearly $7K in one day pledged - so it looks like it's going on to be a success.

Coming later this Summer the one-woman studio 2054 will launch The Sundew, a dark cyberpunk, retro-styled adventure game. Set in the aftermath of a devastating future war, where the world as we know it was twisted by flames into a terrifying new dystopia, The Sundew follows a lonely beat cop who soon holds the fate of the world in her hands.

"After several years of work and many adventures, The Sundew is finally about to see the light of day. I see this game as a world that players will be able to enter, followed by other games in the same universe. My greatest joy will be to see the players take over this world and make it their own!" - Agnès Vuillaume, solo developer of The Sundew.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Inspired by classic point-and-click adventure games from LucasArts and Wadjet Eye Games, The Sundew pays homage to those with its gameplay mechanics, style, and storytelling. Beautifully drawn pixel-art, stunning minimalistic sound design, environments brimming with atmosphere and interactivity, and a compact, thrilling tale brings this dark future to life and grounds you in a vision of humanity’s progress that is both alien and strangely familiar…

What to expect from it (apart from confirmed Linux support!): alongside classic point-and-click gameplay The Sundew will ask you to make decisions that will change the future of humanity. Playing off contemporary issues, the choices offered are never black and white. Where do you believe mankind’s interests lie, and what means are acceptable to achieve them?

Features

• Guide Anna Isobe, a cyborg cop with a dark past, through the unravelling of a global conspiracy.
• Experience a diverse cast of characters, each with their own secrets and history.
• Explore Shibukawa and the remnants of the old world.
• Make decisions that will change the fate of humanity, for better or worse.

You can wishlist / follow on Steam .

Lenna's Inception is a top-down Zelda-like action-adventure game with a world that is glitching, with a style that can switch between 8-bit and 32-bit pixel art styles.

It's now been available for a year so Tom Coxon of Bytten Studio has written up a postmortem for how it went, and it was a thoroughly interesting read. First, a refresher on who they are. Bytten Studio was initially just Tom Coxon who previously worked for Chucklefish on titles like Starbound and the multiplayer for Stardew Valley, Coxon was later joined by Jay Baylis who also worked for Chucklefish in the past on titles like Starbound and Wargroove.

To date they've managed to sell 6,800 across itch.io and Steam which isn't a lot for an entire year. However, it's well above average going by the 2019 numbers that Mike Rose of No More Robots put together . Game development for indies is clearly tough and most will likely need a part-time job to ensure they can keep going, something Coxon points out in the Lenna's Inception postmortem.

So above average sales, and thankfully the reception was good overall and on Steam right now it's sat on a "Very Positive".

What's interesting for us here is that 5% of the sales were from Linux, which is again (like sales for indies) higher than the average and higher than the current Linux user share on Steam (see our Steam Tracker ). Not only that, 22% of their sales were from the itch.io store too so that's a reasonable chunk and certainly not to be ignored. Here's what they said about the Linux stats:

Also of note is that 5% of copies were bought by Linux users, which is a lot more than the average for games on Steam. I think this comes down to several factors:

1. The low number of total copies sold means that not many extra Linux users in absolute terms have to find the game to push the relative-terms figure up.
2. Actually reaching out to Linux-specific gaming press and treating Linux as a first-class platform. I do think that indies have yet to really figure out how to market to Linux gamers, who often get ignored or lied to by larger studios. There are more than enough Linux gamers out there to make your indie game a success; the difficulty, as with all platforms, is in reaching them. The difference is that nobody seems to be marketing specifically to Linux gamers. The first to actually succeed at this could maybe double their sales figures or more.

I did all the coding for Lenna’s Inception on Linux (I like a good terminal), so officially supporting the platform has been almost free. Linux gamers are also very good at fixing your bugs for you!

The figure for Mac was a lot lower: .8%. Most likely because we dropped official Mac support prior to release because continuing to support it became a huge burden .

So the Linux version sold approximately 340 copies which at their normal price of £7.19 that would be somewhere around £2,444.6 (it went on sale once previously, so likely a bit lower). For a small indie developer, that can make all the difference.

Interestingly, they gave purchasers of the massive Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality on itch.io a copy of Lenna's Inception too so a further eighty thousand people have a copy of it. This had a fun side-effect, which seemed to actually boost their sales shortly after on Steam.

Concluding the postmortem: sadly overall Leann's Inception was not a commercial success but valuable lessons have been learned from developing and marketing it. Oh and Coxon said "Don't sleep on Linux, itch.io, consoles or localisation. They’re important!".

You can buy Lenna's Inception on itch.io and Steam .

Bytten Studio are currently working on Cassette Beasts , an open-world monster catching RPG built with the free and open source Godot Engine and they will be continuing Linux support with it.

Well this is quite unusual. You've played monster catching games before but not like this. Familiars.io put a fresh spin on it all and it's quite ingenious.

Developed as a pixel-art retro-looking browser game, it's super accessible since you can play it on pretty much anything that can run some simple graphics in a browser window. It's an MMO too, so you can join up with others and chill out. When you want to, go off and catch some monsters, engage is some PvP and perhaps find a new favourite game waiting for you.

However, while it has a fun face there's a deep dark lurking inside it. These creatures can't be put into a special healing centre, oh no, once they reach 0 HP that's it – they're gone. Instead of you having permadeath like some roguelike, your creatures need their HP closely watched! That one twist is enough to set it apart from many other games doing a similar setting.

Familiars.io is currently under active development, with new content being added to it regularly. One of the most recent updates added in a pretty sweet feature: you have your own private resort. You can warp there whenever you want, and drop off up to 50 creatures to keep them out of harm's way. Nice little touch that.

It's also entirely free and you can play it on itch.io .

Love your turn-based tactics, party building, amusing conversations and plenty of adventuring? Guildmaster: Gratuitous Subtitle from Jim Makes Games released back in December and it's genuinely good. Note : key sent by the developer.

The developer mentioned to us that they were "inspired by gameplay from games such as Darkest Dungeon and X-Com" but the "true soul of the game is the irreverent humour in the tradition of Monkey Island and Monty Python". It doesn't disappoint on any side of it and has been a genuine delight.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Graphically it doesn't look like much, and you could easily keep on clicking past it. It does make up for that though in the gameplay and overall atmosphere thanks to fully playing into the humour. Don't let that fool you though, there's a challenging game beneath the laughs that will keep your focus too.

In Guildmaster: Gratuitous Subtitle you are a Guild Master, who guides newly recruited heroes on a series of quests in tactical turn-based combat. For each quest, you choose four heroes and teleport them directly into battle, where you use their various abilities in tandem to defeat enemies with different strengths and weaknesses. The Guildmaster and the heroes level up, gain more powerful abilities, and face increasingly difficult quests as the game progresses.

Feature Highlight:

• Challenging turn-based combat
• Fifteen heroes to recruit, each with different combinations of skills
• Weapon-based abilities, each weapon grants a unique combination of attacks
• Combine melee fighters, archers and spellcasters in a party of four to take on each quest
• Choose your Guildmaster's appearance and their spells as they level up
• An irreverent storyline with humorous dialogue between the quests

The developer mentions how it's their first commercial game and that it "yearns to be played by those tired of straight-laced fantasy adventures. It calls out to gamers who don’t take themselves or the game too seriously, while also enjoying challenging tactical gameplay".

Quirky, fun, plenty of party customization and lots of battles. What more can you ask for?

You can find it now on Steam .

Ready for some serious action-platforming with an awesome 8-bit inspired style? Cyber Shadow has been confirmed for release on January 26, 2021.

Coming from developer Mechanical Head Studios who teamed up with Yacht Club Games (Shovel Knight), Cyber Shadow is a pulse-pounding 2D ninja action platformer that allows players to relive the authenticity of the classic 8-bit challenge (with an added convenience or two)!

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They've confirmed it will be supported across Linux, macOS and Windows for the PC release.

"The world has been taken over by the evil Dr. Progen and his merciless synthetic army. A desperate plea for help sets Shadow, the sole survivor of his clan, on one last mission to uncover what started the path to perpetual ruin. Your robotic companion, L-Gion, is your only guide through the ruins of Mekacity. How far will Shadow go to protect his clan and the one he loves? Is there more to their bond than meets the eye? Only you can unlock the secrets to your clan’s ancient powers. Hurry before you run out of time! The road to redemption awaits!"

Features:

• Dash, slice, and leap through masterfully designed levels filled with sharply honed ninja platforming action.
• Authentic 8-bit presentation with hand-crafted sprites, a detailed pixel aesthetic, and perfect controls. Modern touches like fluid animation, multi-layered parallax backgrounds, and evolved game design.
• Take down more than a dozen apocalyptic bosses, from enormous war machines to your synthetic clan rivals.
• Relive the authenticity of classic 8-bit challenge or experience it for the first time.. with an added convenience or two.
• Rescue your clan to unlock permanent Ninjutsu skills and abilities, combining them seamlessly as only the warrior of legend could.
• Search for secrets as you explore the ruined world. Return to your old haunts to find supplies, items and upgrades.
• Experience the gripping story, told both in-game and through animated cinematic story scenes between the action. Who can be trusted? How far will Shadow go to protect his clan and the one he loves?
• Pulse-pounding soundtrack by Enrique Martin, produced by Jake Kaufman.

You will be able to pick it up on Humble Store , GOG and Steam for $19.99 on January 26, 2021.

1C Entertainment announced today that they've teamed up with Acid Man Games and Fire Plant Games as publisher for Viscerafest, their colourful retro themed sci-fi fantasy FPS.

Shown off originally during the Realms Deep event earlier this year, in Viscerafest "you take the role of Caroline, a bloodthirsty, psychopathic mercenary who wants nothing more than to marry her wonderful boyfriend Athens Fetter. Problem is money's tight, and rings aren't exactly cheap. But thankfully there may be hope for her yet, as a warlock named Cromune has acquired a rather hefty bounty on his head."

Check it out in the new trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Planned Features:

• Navigate nonlinear hand-crafted levels, stuffed to the brim with secrets, using key cards, completing puzzles and various objectives to progress. Set across a wide variety of locations, from a space station above the earth, to a realm beyond our reality.
• Wield 9 unique and powerful weapons, from staples of the genre like the bunker buster double-barreled shotgun, to the more unique and offbeat, such as the Pung Cannon.
• Slaughter over 2 dozen different enemy types, from the minor grunts who make up the U.S.C's forces, to monsters beyond your ability to comprehend such as The Soul Hunters. New enemy types are introduced every level, each compounding the challenges you'll face with a variety of attacks and behaviors
• Juggle your resources, as you fight to stay alive, constantly balancing your use of ammo, health, and armor.
• Move at the speed of light, chaining bunny hopping and dashing together to move at speeds no man would dream of, and with your overbearing air control, dance around projectiles like no other.
• Collect tons of goodies to unlock items such as Cypher keys, and level modifiers to spice up your playthroughs.

Speaking to 1C Entertainment today, they confirmed over email to us that they are "planning to have Linux support for Viscerafest, but it hasn’t been decided yet whether it will happen during the early access period or once the game is fully launched" and they will be updating us on that when they fully decide.

For now you can follow / wishlist Viscerafest on Steam .