Have you ever wanted a typing game that takes after DDR? That's what Bullet Hills is. It's not that easy, either. I love typing games and typically do pretty well at them, as a fast touch-typist, but throwing in the need to stay in rhythm makes it a different kind of challenge. Most typing games reward typing as fast as possible, but for Bullet Hills you have to curb the impulse to be super fast. It does have difficulty settings though, based on what kinds of letters scroll across the screen from all the letters to just X. Added to that are some sweet tracks and shiny graphics. And at the price of free, you can't really go wrong. You can download it for Windows via Game Jolt.

This was one of those weeks for which choosing trailers for the roundup made me want to pull my hair out because there were too many good ones to choose from. The ones I've chosen range from zany to dramatic and cover a lot of gameplay ground. And I couldn't quite narrow it down to ten... so have eleven.

IndieGames and FreekeyFridays bring you another set of free indie games. Freekeyfridays was created as a way to garner exposure for indies through giving away a mix of well-known indie games and up-and-coming titles.
This weeks games are: QP Shooting - Dangerous!! (Steam, Windows), Serious Sam Double D XXL (Steam, Windows) and Full Mojo Rampage (Steam, Windows).

The Ember Conflict, a competitive RTS which we first covered in January and which announced some gameplay improvements in November, has soft launched and is now available for iPad in nine countries. Those are Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, The Philippines, Singapore, and Sweden. Developer Substantial Games expects the worldwide release of the iPad version to happen in April, at which time the Android version will also launch.

Edit: This article has been updated with information about the Android release.

[The Ember Conflict]

The local multiplayer "Bushido brawler" called Samurai Gunn arrives on Mac tomorrow, a little over a year after its Windows launch on Steam.

Along with the port comes ten new levels and two new game modes, available to both PC and Mac players as a free update.

The new Master of the House mode randomly selects levels, while Showdown Shogun takes away your gun for sword-only face-offs.

It's good to see Samurai Gunn still getting some attention after its initial release in December 2013, even as creator Beau Blyth is hard at work on Hyper Light Drifter.

You can buy Samurai Gunn for Windows, and soon Mac, on its official website or Steam page.

Threshold was born during the 2014 Global Game Jam. It's a puzzle platformer in which the world flip-flops between summer and winter based on the player's facing. With the change of seasons comes other changes that the player will need to take advantage or be careful of to solve the puzzles.

I first saw TorqueL at BitSummit in 2013 and was immediately struck by how very different its player movement system is from that of a standard platformer. Each side of the box that is the player avatar is colored to correspond to the colors of the buttons on an Xbox controller, and pushing the corresponding button makes a bar extend straight out. The player can rotate the box (including any bars extending from it) to move, though a well-timed bar extension can also be used to push or launch the box in whatever direction the player chooses. TorqueL's mechanics are simple enough and the game quickly becomes a matter of mastering its unique mechanics.

Today's trailer roundup is weighted towards Windows, with the other tagged platforms only getting one or two games each. Four of the nine games listed are available now, one of which is freeware.

Besides sporting some absolutely stunning pixel-art and what seems to be the most appropriately silly voice-overs ever recorded, Starr Mazer has also reminded me of the real point of Kickstarter: funding wild ideas. Allowing for talented teams to try all sorts of new things and, in this case, even enabling them to attempt to fuse traditional point-and-click adventures with action heavy shoot-'em-ups.

Yes, Starr Mazer does sound like something 16-years old me would fantasize about and something way older me would definitely love to see happen, if only to see just how seamless this ambitious blending of the genres can be. It already looks pretty amazing and very clever if you have to know.

Starr Mazer is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter and $15 pledge will earn you a copy upon release.

care&control is about creation and cultivation, but it also seems to be about destruction.

You play as the caretaker of a deteriorating world, and must travel across it planting flowers, harvesting seeds, and distributing them around dark chasms located on the planet.

The entire process, from the controls, visual effects, and sounds, is at first very soothing, but there are a few jarring moments once you begin to experiment.