So last weekend I took part in the Ludum Dare #16 48 hour game jam. Having previously participated in the Global Game Jam 09 I was looking forward to taking part in this event too.

Similar to the GGJ you are given a theme when the competition starts in which you have 48 hours to make a game based around it. The main difference it has with the GGJ is you must create the game all by yourself, so programming, art, and sound all done by yourself. Which I must say is quite a challenge.

Anyway so after lots of food that was bad for me, about 4-6 hours sleep each day, and then making the game amongst a little Zelda: Spirit Tracks playing every now and again, I created Rex's Junk Hunt.

There are a few problems with my game which I didn’t have time to fix, which is a shame, (but I’m not a coder so it was hard) although I intend to try and work on it more and make it a more lengthy game in the future.

I'll post up a post mortem on my blog as well, and you can try the game here

Sony recently announced on their EU blog about Heavy Rain DLC, called "The Heavy Rain Chronicles".

As well as the nice news of getting more character centric Heavy Rain DLC, they've also announced a special edition version of the game, although sadly it is a special edition not collector's edition, so there's no physical cd soundtrack or anything like that. (A small piece of paper with instructions to make origami would be nice though.

However in this special edition you are also given a PSN voucher for the first piece of DLC as well as a voucher for the soundtrack and a dynamic theme.

As well as the DLC it's getting a rather interesting sounding box:

The Collector’s Edition is packaged in a special ‘rain-effect’ slipcase – thanks to special embossing and other manufacturing tricks, it gives the impression of being streaked with 3D rain-drops (something that has confused a lot of people when they’ve seen it lying on my desk recently!).

Also it has been announced that HMV are the only retailer to sell the special edition of Heavy Rain, you can find it here on the HMV website.

So my first official WiiWare title that I decided to purchase was Bonsai Barber (I just wanted to write about NyxQuest first).

It came out back in August (March in NA), and was developed by Zoonami, who are based in Cambridge and headed by Martin Hollis. The first I'd heard of it was from Develop this year, as there was a talk relating to it, sadly I missed it. But I never forgot the name of it.

So I made it my first purchase on the Wii Shopping Channel.

It has a nice simplistic style to it, and easy replay-ability, you start off by opening a new barber shop and mysteriously you have a load of customers already as they heard you were coming!

You then have a set style to give your tree and they grade you on how well you do during the cut. Sometimes it can be a little tricky on getting five stars as it can be really finicky at times.

The tool you use when cutting/clipping/painting the hair rotates as you rotate the Wii remote, making it easy to be very specific when cutting. Although you have to remember when playing that you're cutting a tree's hair, so branches higher up may be attached to a far down root. You can always grow it back with the water spray though, although your customers may not like it.

As well as everything I've mentioned so far it also integrates with the Wii message board, if for example you make an appointment with a customer in your book, they'll send you a message telling you how long they were waiting for (if you didn't show up of course). Or if one of them goes somewhere nice they'll send you a postcard. You can also get presents from your patrons as well.

There's loads of fun little extras in there too, so you get little interactive things while you're cutting their hair, be it clouds, birds or even rain clouds.

You only get to cut on average between 4-5 shrubbery's hair every day, which means a game can last between 10-30 minutes depending on how long you spend with your customer. And you will always get them coming back again, this adds to it's replay-ability. It's a short game that is played in bursts, so if you're waiting for dinner or something to be on TV it's a good thing to pop on and play.

It'll set you back 1000 points, the same as NyxQuest, I feel it's worth the money as the visual style and gameplay compliment each other quite well, and £7 for a nice little game isn't bad.

So one thing I've tried to do recently is buy a few more digital release games (I never used to so much as I prefer owning copies), as I know have a steady flow of money I felt I should buy a few games on WiiWare. The first that I actually bought was Bonsai Barber, but I felt more inclined to do a little entry on NyxQuest.

It came out back in June (August in NA), although I had only heard of it since a few weeks ago, it was made by Over The Top Games who are a small independent games developer in Madrid that compromises of four guys. It's also been entered into IGF this year (good luck to them, hope they win!).

It is set in Ancient Greece (it actually used to be called Icarian: Kindred Spirits, but got changed) the game itself follows Icarus, son of Daedalus and Nyx who he befriended (Nyx is actually the titan of the night). It was quite hard to watch the story at the start as I had a few people talking to me, so I missed some of it as there was no voice over, but I can always start the game again to view it again in more detail.

I shall try to keep this short, the setting in the game itself is a very picturesque Greece, with broken remnants of statues of gods, along with temples and rocks, which feature Giorgio de Chirico style long shadows sweeping across the landscapes.

What I would love to hope is as well as the game being set in a midday scenario, is that the large amount of shadows are inspired as well by the main character being Nyx, but I can always interpret it how i wish.

The gameplay itself is what I would expect from a Wii title, or at least one that uses the motion control, but requiring you as a player to multitask. For example using the power of Zeus to move an object while flying and gliding over some spikes.

I would also like to give a big thumbs up to the music, you can download it off the NyxQuest website been listening to it at work recently, it's some really nicely composed relaxing music.

I haven't finished it yet, but I must say I don't really want it to end, it's a very enjoyable puzzle platforming style experience, I would recommend it to people with Wii's if I knew many people with them! Also can't wait to see what Over the Top bring us next!

I luckily had a look at EA Visceral's new game Dante's Inferno yesterday. I must say from what I got to see (It was a demo that had been played a fair bit into it) I was fairly impressed.

Ok so Dante's Inferno is on an interesting subject, as the nine circles of hell aren't explored a large amount in most games. To be honest I haven't looked a large amount into the development of the game so far. The subject matter interested me, but that just meant I may pick it up on release.

Now I don't know how well they're integrating the divine comedy into their game, all I can imagine is it won't be following it word for word, as adaptations will never be 100% on an original product.

It was a fairly nice hack n' slash that was quite dull in colour, but I suppose hell would be. I look forward to playing it in a quiet room (was very loud in the area, but I could tell the soundtrack had some quality from what I could hear).

I look forward to picking it up on the 12th of February.