So ya like “World of Goo,” do ya?  Then you’ll probably love “Sunshine,” the latest game by Kyle Gabler (one of the creators of World of Goo), released as freeware for the Experimental Gameplay Project.  The premise is simple but unique, if not lovably strange: grow your plant upwards while wrapping up humans who are raining from the sky to get energy (and flowers!) while avoiding falling rocks.  A good plan is to entangle more than one human at once to gain more energy.  It’s really kind of horrifying if you think about it…

“Sunshine” uses the same signature art style as “World of Goo,” which prompts the thought that we haven’t seen the last of these kind of games.  So life seems a bit less hopeless now that we have a bit of Sunshine!  eh, eh!  Sorry…

It’s a great game, and pretty addicting.  Download it HERE.

LucasArts used to be the place to find unique and original games back when Adventure games were all the rage, but now they’ve kind of turned stale.  Even when the original Xbox and PS2 were in their prime LucasArts was publishing new titles like Mercenaries and Armed & Dangerous.  But now, now they seem to put out nothing but Star Wars games at nausea and their version of original is remaking and making Monkey Island games, which isn’t really anything “new” even if it is “welcomed.”  So as far as I know, Lucidity is an entire change of pace for the company.  Now they can provide us a brand new title that looks fresh, and interesting, and fun.  They’ve been needing to do this for a while now, and it looks like a dramatic step away from the Star Wars franchise.

On the other hand, popularity of indie games (cheaper costs to make plus small teams of developers) like Braid and World of Goo have definitely caused some envy among the major publishers, and if nothing else LucasArts embodies the behavior of stereotypical major publishers.  So this seems suspiciously like a thinly veiled attempt to copy the indie gaming formula.  Which unlike most downloadable releases by big name publishers is intentionally trying to steal money from the little guy.  The logic behind this is: if nobodies can make great games for cheap, than we can do it easier and faster.  Lucidity also looks like something one would expect to see from an indie dev graphically and in gameplay, so I’m left wondering if the game actually is intended to be an artistic piece or if it is an imitator.

Then the name: Lucidity, and it’s intentional similarity to the company’s makes me think that LucasArts is stamping a giant TM over indie gaming idealism.

This is where I’m conflicted, whether it’s a quality game or not doesn’t really matter because playing it would make me feel dirty, like sleeping with a girl that looks a lot like your ex.  I don’t think LucasArts is above EVIL and their constant masturbation of the Star Wars franchise is proof of that, but I almost always welcome attempts at new ideas with open arms.  This is probably what they call a dilemma.

Its that time again!! Tonight we’ll be discussing the not-so-futuristic trend of selling your games in new and different ways. From floppy disk rewriters to satalite download services to the current generations of Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, and the Nintendo Wifi Connection. This technology is much older than you think, and tonight, we’re taking a history trip.

As usual: Tonight at 9PM EST.

http://live.72pc.com

If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know that I’m a huge fan of World of Goo. A great independent game for PC (Windows, OSX, Linux, no one gets left out!) and WiiWare. The game starts as a standard physics simulator, but then quickly tries to teach you something. The meaning of life? Who knows… MOM would. But it sure is tasty.

-The Musical Sign Painter

2D-Boy – PC – World of Goo – Brave Adventurers

If you like this, I’m sure you’ll like the full soundtrack! Amazingly enough, Kyle Gabler is giving this away for free!! You should pay him a visit or send him an email at ‘Kyle (at) kylegabler.com’. We’ve put the zip file here for your convenience, but its all thanks to this man! Its a rare occurrence that we can release an entire soundtrack without legal repercussions, so head over to his site and pay him a visit!

Kyle Gabler – World of Goo OST – (ZIP-85Mb)

Buy World of Goo Today! All your friends are doing it!

- The Entrepreneurial Sign Painter