News - Desura

The move comes after several months of coordinated planning by the companies to ensure uninterrupted operation of the Desura service as well as a comprehensive roadmap of new features that will significantly benefit both its users and game developers during the upcoming months and beyond.

Linden Lab has begun an ambitious project to create the next generation of virtual worlds, while continuing to improve Second Life®, and grow Blocksworld®. Transitioning Desura to Bad Juju Games enables the company to enhance the focus of its resources on these priorities, while ensuring that spirit of Desura's original vision lives on and game developers and players on the platform continue to be well served.

In addition to development of its own game titles, Bad Juju Games has spent the majority of the past few years building state-of-the-art big data backed tools, technology and interactive solutions for several "AAA" game titles in the Console and Mobile Gaming markets including popular franchises such as Call of Duty®, Tekken® and Ace Combat® to name a handful. Today, the Bad Juju Team has completely re-architected its technology focusing on an extensive assortment of game enhancing features that would otherwise be cost prohibitive for Developers to justify on a limited budget or while facing rather aggressive timetables.

As the Gaming industry continues to evolve at a dramatic rate, Bad Juju Games is dedicated to providing solutions for Mobile, Console and PC based Developers that significantly level the playing field and provide many of the core services that Gamers have come to expect from top grossing game titles. Through its acquisition of Desura, Bad Juju Games will be offering its Developers at no additional costs, the core modules and services such as Leaderboards, Achievements, Cloud Storage, Player Stats and Profiles and its Business Intelligence that are also fully cross-platform.

But not only will Game Developers benefit from news of the Bad Juju acquisition, as the dedicated Gamers choosing to make their purchases from Desura can expect rather significant overhauls in the Desura experience, major price savings, rewards, an expanded game title catalog and a fully native cross-platform game management client application that Desura has been lacking. "From the start, Desura has made great strides to deliver Gamers a viable game publishing service offering a wide selection of games not found on Steam®", commented Tony Novak, President of Bad Juju Games. "Now, our team at Bad Juju is tasked with significantly raising that bar - An effort that we intend to approach while continuing to embrace the DRM Free movement and principles that has made Desura a contender amongst the limited field of digital and PC Games Publishers."

"This marks a very important milestone for Bad Juju Games to reach the greatest breadth of Game Developers and Gamers whom all share a fanatical passion for gaming as a whole," continued Novak.

"Bringing back the ‘old school' game titles that have been lost but not forgotten, finding new emerging titles and tapping into the wealth of Asian import games are just a few of the efforts that Bad Juju will be actively pursuing as Desura is absolutely here to make a very loud splash in the market."

It's a special day for that special someone in your life, why not give them the gift of Freedom! The ladies love freedom!The first delicious treat out of the Freedom Box is Back to life for Windows. Back to life is a platform game based on physics. The setting is biological/cell and the protagonist is a beneficial cell that needs to revive the dying cells of a tissue. In each level you will need to bring back to life at least 90% of the cells, and to do this the player must jump over them or fly over. The second extremely sugarious release is Don't Kill the Cow forWindows. Don't Kill the Cow is a simple side scrolling critical game that questions the importance of goals and authority in games. There is only one way to win the game: ‘don’t kill the cow’, but is winning the game worth letting your sister starve? How much do the simple phrases like ‘you win’ and ‘you lose’ mean to the player?

The second to last bite of this scrumptious freedom morsel is An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge forWindows. An Occur­rence at Owl Creek Bridge is a game adap­ta­tion of the story by the same name writ­ten by Ambrose Bierce. A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. The last bite comes in the form of CYPHER for Windows. Welcome to CYPHER. A corrupt government controls Mars as corporations sell oxygen at a premium. You are an agent with an incredible skill set determined to eliminate the system. Taking information is how you will do it; unfortunately, other organizations are seeking what you are. They will stop at nothing to steal the valuable data you hack...

Come back next week Freedomknights for more Freedom!

Fantastic! It is Friday, it is the end of the week and it is the time where we make it rain with free games! That's right, its Freedom Friday!Up first is Escape the Underground for Windows. You are Frederick, a little guy who eats blocks and rocks for a living, and unfortunately you're sent to hell. No one knows why... Anyway, your task is to try and escape, away from hell, and back to your previous life. The evil spirits want you dead, every 10 seconds. If you don't satisfy them, you will be destroyed and return to the last place you stood. Just keep in mind, you can hardly see anything, and you're in a rush. Good luck! Next is Mansionvania for Windows. Mansionvania is a castlevania insipired platformer, as the name might suggest. You play as a short policeman whose pet lizzard has been kidnapped by an evil warlock. Fight your way through his mansion and save your pet. Containing 9 levels and 4 bosses, an unique art style and plenty of challenging gameplay.

The third game for Freedom Friday is Welcome Home for Windows and Mac. Home rejuvenates your mind from stress and the formal structure that humans have developed. This game takes your mind, and twists it with philosophical thoughts about a human's mindset and his or her journey through life. This game personifies that feeling, and helps you the player better understand it and describe it. The last game this Friday is Blue Saga for Windows and Mac. Blue Saga is a free indie mmorpg currently in development but released in a beta-version, so just download the game and start playing! The game features retro pixel art and a gigantic world to explore, both by land and sea. There is only one person developing this game at the moment but updates are coming frequently.

Come back next week for more Freedom of the Friday variety.

Friday, friday everybody get down on... *cough* okay its Friday meaning one thing, four fantastically free games for the budget aware gamer in us all!

First head on the Freedom chopping block is Curiosity (The Concept) for Windows. Curiosity is a First Person Puzzle Platformer set in a beautiful sci-fi environment. The concept version features 6 levels, 3 unique environments, a tutorial level and a soundtrack by the up-and-coming EDM artist SirensCeol. The second brain container in the basket is GummyBro in the Sours Stole Christmas! for Windows. Play GummyBro through the snowy land of Gummy Island as he journeys to get Christmas back! The vile, odd-tasting Sours have stolen his family Christmas tree, along with the gifts and the Holiday mood! Nothing like nice and late holiday games to round up a Freedom Friday!

The heads continue to roll down the Freedom Hill with the third game Machine Runner for Windows. Machine Runner is a 2D, continuous-runner, platform game for the PC where you control R.0.B, a disgruntled Runner-Bot, tired of the daily drudgery of life in Robot-City. This is a fast-paced arcade game, where you will die quickly and often. The free release of the game features 16 pre-set randomly appearing foreground parts, which make up the continually scrolling foreground terrane. The last hea.. game making it's way to Freedom today is Donald Dowell and the Ghost of Barker Manor and aside from having a huge name you can play it on a Windows system. Donald Dowell and the Ghost of Barker Manor is an old-style point-and-click adventure game, inspired by the great Sierra and Lucas 90's classics. It has an old-fashion graphic style, totally hand-drawn. The drawings were scanned and colored with simple photo-editing programs. Game interface is old style too. The dialogues, the characters and the situations have a sense of humor inspired by games like "Day of the Tentacle" or "Monkey Island".

I hope you're all full as a bull on this weeks selections. Come back next week for more Freedom!

Moar freedom you say? Why yes it is Friday and we do have a fantastic four of the best new free games for your enjoyment!

First up we have Der Professor for Windows. Der Professor is an Arena FPS, get old shooter gameplay experience with a mix of new ideas. The game has a ranking system with 4 Maps giving you enough space to have fun with your friends! Secondly is AR-K for WIndows and Mac. AR-K is a classical point and click adventure with an updated twist. The community participates in its development from the beginning. Feedback from the players will be added on each episode to change the game with the elements you want to improve or remove.

Thirdly we have Effing Dead - The Broken Path for Windows. Effing Dead - The Broken Path is a survival game like the amazing RE4, completely in 3D, with real-time light + shadows, glows, water physics and ragdoll physics. The developers love the genre a lot and try to bring back the same feelings and joy they discover while we played with RE4. While also trying to improve some aspect of the game mechanics and give it their special touch. Forthly or lastly we have Seasons of the Year for Windows. Seasons of the Year is a 10 level game. Each level has 12 cubes which have a basket texture. The player has to collect them all to pass the level. Passing a level might take the player from spring to winter or other kind of seasons. The game aims to entertain and in the same time to make the player use its own spatial skills. It is renowned as a tricky and difficult game.

Come back next week for more exciting (and free) games for you all to enjoy!