The community has spoken and this years 2011 SpeedGame Challenge will be held from August 1st till August 20th (with judging from Aug 21st till 28th). If you have a CDN account (and you should if you're getting this
email) then you're welcome to join in either with developing your own SpeedGame or being part of the community judging at the end of the event.

Continuing with the vote based community lead direction of this years SpeedGame we're encouraging YOU, CDNers, to submit a verse that will be voted on by the community to be one of the 3 theme verses for this years
SpeedGame!

After being trapped in cryosleep for decades, Chell, the defiant lab rat of the original Portal game, once again finds herself inside Aperture Science and is woken up by an unfamiliar robot named Wheatley. He will help you escape before the Aperture Science building collapses.  On your way out you’ll stumble upon your trusty portal gun which will help you escape the remains of many test chambers.  Like the previous Portal, you can make inter-connecting portals that allow you to travel between rooms and floors easily.

As you’re making your way out of the depths of Aperture Science you’ll be travelling through the beginnings of Aperture to modern day.  The décor changes as you work your way through the labyrinth.  There are offices with 70’s décor and main frames to the 80’s era with monochrome CRTs and desktop PCs.

Statistics

Game Title: Adam's Venture Episode 2: Solomon's Secret
Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: Vertigo Games
Systems: Windows PC
Players: 1 (Story Mode)
Other Features: None

Story

A wily thief sneaks into the Astral Academy, looking for legendary treasures.  In it, she finds a mysterious object.  A wizard remained in the near vacant Academy, who studies the skies.  He is inspired to take a look around, and also finds this artifact.  Meanwhile, a knight, who has been tasked to protect the Academy, also explores the place.  The three of them find themselves all touching this artifact.  Once this happens, they all disappear.

The wizard then remembers that this artifact is called the Trine, which has the power to bind souls.  Thus, their souls are bound together.  Now, only one of them can be materialized at a time.  As they look to free themselves from this Trine, they discover a deeper evil that needs to be taken care of, all the while dealing with the undead invasion plaguing the land.

Indie developer Playdead Studios' first offering, Limbo, is something of a rare thing. In it, we find a gem, indicative of the best that gaming has to offer. All the possibilities are there: Beautiful, minimalist design, storytelling, visuals and sound mesh with pitch-perfect gameplay, creating a world unlike any other. And all of these elements are masterfully executed.

The violence of the game – something that seems more incidental than forced – is a constant threat, looming, from the very beginning. And that adds a certain dread to the game, in addition to Limbo’s otherworldly atmosphere (something that causes the game to exude an eerie feeling not unlike many survival horror games).

Yet because of that, Limbo is hard to describe. It is a platformer and a puzzle game – a devious one, at that – that ends up telling a story that is indescribably beautiful. But I can’t really talk about that, either. Because the story is a very personal one, one that the player brings to the game; it is initially about a young boy trying to find a girl, and the entirety of the three to four hour experience explores that premise.