Still searching for a worthy Tilt to Live 2 icon. Do we want it to match the first Tilt to Live? Do we showcase the bosses to catch people’s attention? Or should we just go iconic, like Outwitters? Here’s the latest round of sketches we’re debating.

I was playing around with a prototype idea, looking for a placeholder graphic, when I remembered this ugly little guy. Back when the Veggienauts were still being balanced, we explored a few other plant-themed special powers outside of Bramble’s thorn patch. One concept was so inspiring I had to mock up the character behind it. His name was Retch, and he spewed a cloud of spores that was toxic to your enemies.

Mid-September turned out to be a good estimate for when we’d be finished working on Tilt to Live 2… but you can’t actually release a game as soon as you finish working on it. It looks like we’ll be pushing back about a month to beta test before we go charging people money for this thing. October/November feels like a very likely release window. It’s longer than we intended to spend on this game, given that Tilt to Live 1 was done part-time in about six months (with much simpler graphics and one game mode). We’re still doing much better than the year and a half we put into Outwitters. The longer we spend making a game, the more we have to sell to break even.

As we get closer to a solid release date, you can expect to start seeing some actual screenshots and video of the game in action.

If you have a Playstation 3, you can demo the Unfinished Swan for free from the Playstation Store.  The puzzles and mechanics are all really creative, and the whole package is just weird, and captivating, and beautiful to play. I found it really inspiring. I give it three and a half swans, with the half swan being sort of clever joke.

Here’s a short clip of me trying out a horror demo on the Oculus Rift, a VR headset for games. What you see on the monitor is what’s in my left and right eyes.

When you’ve taken a hit and it feels like your life is spinning out of control… just keep tilting.

Check out this new fanart from a mysterious artist known only as “Someone Someone”. If the Veggienaut up top can get to those wits, he might be able to kill that vocalist.

Our first pass on the TtL2 icon.

Whit Trebella was the man responsible for the first original music our games ever had. He scored Code Red, Frostbite, and Viva la Turret in the original Tilt to Live, and went on to provide tunes for a ton of great iOS games like Velocispider and Casey’s Contraptions.

Through sheer force of will he one day sprouted the ability to code, releasing his own sliding puzzle game by the name of Polymer. His new project is out today, and it’s a twitchy avoidance game called Pivvot. Seeing as how anyone reading this blog is probably into twitchy avoidance games, you should definitely check out this trailer and give it a shot. It’s like Super Hexagon on a race track.

Tilt to Live 2 somehow landed a spot on Pocket Gamer’s list of the “36 most anticipated iOS and Android games for the rest of 2013“, even though we haven’t shown any screenshots or video. Thanks for believing in us!