Developer NinjaBee delivered one of the earliest avatar-supporting Xbox Live Arcade titles in A Kingdom for Keflings, and now they're putting your digital representation in the line of fire in Band of Bugs. Starting July 8th players will have the ability to replace the single-player story mode's main character with themselves, gaining Maal's powers and abilities in the process. Instead of fighting for the pride of your colony, you'll instead by the great human liberator, making the garden safe for innocent bugs everywhere.

Players can also bring their avatar online in the eight-player Spider Hunter mode, fighting with or against other avatars in order to survive waves of insect attackers.

Along with the free avatar support patch comes the Tales of Kaloki DLC. Based on NinjaBee's first Xbox Live Arcade game, Outpost Kaloki, Tales takes the strategy game play from Band of Bugs and moves it into space, replacing bugs with spaceships and magical powers with lasers and rocket launchers.

"We're giving you an entirely new game," said Steve Taylor, president of NinjaBee. "The Tales of Kaloki DLC is Band of Bugs but with long-range combat using lasers, rocket launchers, OO rays and a ton of other sweet weapons to blow attacking space ships to smithereens. It's all the wackiness from Outpost Kaloki X and tactics from Band of Bugs rolled into one, and we're stoked to be releasing it."

A brand new game within a game, and only priced at 240 Microsoft points. It's heartwarming to see a downloadable title released more than two years ago see this level of continuing support, isn't it?

I’m not sure that’s what Ninja Bee had in mind when they came up with the 2D puzzle platformer for WiiWare. I can tell that the game has more in common with Lemmings or LocoRoco than it does with the contraceptive aisle in a pharmacy. But I can’t help but think as I grasp the reservoir tip antenna of the little green, blue, red, and yellow guys that there might be a penis in there that’s about to get snapped when I let go.

But enough about condoms. Let’s talk about why you want this game. And you do, because if the Wii has any answer to LittleBigPlanet, Boingz is it.

You play a single Boing at a time, waddling your way through a world to wake your buddies up and get them into color-coded exit games. The Boingz lack arms to grab things and can only jump short distances – so you get by mostly by snapping or flicking them across the level. To do this, you aim the Wiimote at a Boing’s head, press and hold A to grab and pull as you drag the Wiimote in different directions to find the right release angle. Once you’ve lined up your red trajectory arrow, you let go of A and your Boing goes flying – bouncing off of surfaces or sliding over hard angles like a jelly-filled condom rubber band. The goal is to get every Boing into a gate, but if you want to be a little more hardcore, you can try a timed mode where you race against the clock to solve the puzzle.

I started out with one blue guy that I had to flick across a body of water. I aimed him straight across, so he bounced off a sleeping yellow guy on the other side. Now that he was awake, I switched to control the yellow guy by pointing at him and pressing A. I tried to rocket the yellow guy up to a ledge above him where his exit gate was waiting, but the ledge was too high and I fell in the water. Boingz float, so I had no trouble jumping out of the water and getting back to where I left the blue guy below the ledge. Switching back to the blu guy, I grabbed him by his head and stretched his body across the water, pinning his antenna to the ground by pressing B. I then swapped back to the yellow guy and had him stand on the blue guy that now made a bouncy bridge across the water. From this angle, I was able to make the flick up onto the platform where the exit gate waited.

But wait! There was still another Boing in the level - a sleeping green guy way up on the top-most ledge. I targeted the exit gate where I’d sent my yellow guy and pressed A to call him back out. Through a series of flicks, I got him up to an even higher platform, where he woke up a green guy. I used the green guy to knock down a rock from a ledge and then stapled the yellow guy’s head to it before plunging off the side of a cliff to fall back down to where the blue guy was still hanging out. We rolled off of him and I switched controls so I could unpin the blue guy’s head, opening up the way to the water. Switching back to yellow, I used the weight of the rock stuck to his head to go deep underwater and collect a series of power-ups, which gave my Boingz the ability to jump higher. Now, without the need for blue to act as a bridge, I was able to get the yellow guy back up to his gate, get the blue guy across another body of water to his gate and then switch back up to green and send him over the cliff to where the green gate was.

That probably doesn’t sound as awesome as it is. But hey, I thought Braid sounded pretty dumb when someone tried to describe it.

The bottom line is Boingz is a physics based game that feels really good to play; the exact kind of game we want on the Wii. There’s a sense of accomplishment as you work your way through the increasingly difficult puzzles; and the bright, friendly colors plus cute sound effects are only the icing on the cake.

Look for it on WiiWare hopefully by the end of this month (maybe early next month – it’s in certification, and that can drag on for a while).

"We wanted to make a city building game where the player is more personally involved instead of controlling an abstract floating hand," said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. "A Kingdom for Keflings transports the player to a world they create and allows them to relax, enjoy the world and create a strategy that works for them."

For those lonely giants among us, the game will also support four-player co-op via Xbox Live. A Kingdom for Keflings is coming this fall to an Xbox 360 near you. In the meantime, enjoy the first screenshots.

NINJABEE ANNOUNCES NEW XBOX LIVE® ARCADE TITLE

NinjaBee, now with more Keflings!

Orem, Utah - August 4, 2008 - NinjaBee, a division of Wahoo Studios and a leading independent developer of Xbox LIVE® Arcade titles, has announced details about its newest title, A Kingdom for Keflings. This innovative city-building title comes from the studio that developed and published the popular games Band of Bugs, Outpost Kaloki X and Cloning Clyde.

A Kingdom for Keflings puts players in the shoes of a giant who has the ability to design and construct an intricate city for the local Keflings. Each giant starts out with a small handful (literally!) of helpful Keflings who follow the giant's every command. These Keflings can be trained to become lumberjacks, miners, transporters, sheep shearers, scholars, and various other professions as they help build the kingdom from the ground up.

"We wanted to make a city building game where the player is more personally involved instead of controlling an abstract floating hand," said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. "A Kingdom for Keflings transports the player to a world they create and allows them to relax, enjoy the world and create a strategy that works for them."

A Kingdom for Keflings will feature fun and light-hearted gameplay with stunning visuals and original music to match. Players will build through all four seasons, with a dynamic musical score that changes depending on the progress of the city. Players of all ages can customize their kingdom by painting buildings and walls, planting trees and topiaries and constructing statues and other works of art. The online multiplayer option allows up to four giants to build a kingdom cooperatively over Xbox LIVE. A Kingdom for Keflings will be released later this fall on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

A Kingdom for Keflings Revealed [IGN via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

"I'll be honest here, I went out to my car and ten of the little guys were wandering around, bumping into each other and wearing little sandwich boards reading 'Will Work for Hats,'" said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. "We couldn't put them out on the streets after they worked so hard on our game, so we hired them to help around the office. They follow directions to the letter and are very friendly, but not too smart. The way I see it, what could go wrong?"

What could go wrong? How about....MURDER!? Look for A Kingdom of Keflings this fall, unless the authorities find the bodies first.

STUDIO HIRES 20 NEW EMPLOYEES, ALL 3 FEET TALL

NinjaBee, now with more Keflings!

Orem, Utah - June 4, 2008 - NinjaBee, a leading independent developer of Xbox LIVE® Arcade titles, announced today it has hired 20 Keflings to help around the office. Featured in their newest Xbox LIVE Arcade Title, A Kingdom for Keflings, the Keflings are short, happy beings who aren't afraid of a bit of hard work. Once production slowed on the studio's newest city-building game, the Keflings became aimless without constant direction.

"I'll be honest here, I went out to my car and ten of the little guys were wandering around, bumping into each other and wearing little sandwich boards reading 'Will Work for Hats,'" said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. "We couldn't put them out on the streets after they worked so hard on our game, so we hired them to help around the office. They follow directions to the letter and are very friendly, but not too smart. The way I see it, what could go wrong?"

The Keflings are expected to work everywhere from the art department to the copy room and will surely remain happy and occupied. The new title, A Kingdom for Keflings, will feature fun and light-hearted gameplay with graphics and original music to match. Look for A Kingdom for Keflings on Xbox LIVE Arcade this fall.

Band of Bugs is a turn-based strategy game that puts you in the shoes of a young insect named Maal who finds himself in the middle of a war between his land and an army of evil insect enemies. The gameplay is the standard grid-based map battler that takes height and positioning into account. Unlike many strategy games, however, BoB has been dumbed down and simplified for the casual market...and you can't dumb something down for one group without disappointing the other, and quite frankly I am a bit disappointed.

It's not that Band of Bugs is a bad game. Not in the least really. The graphics are nicely stylized, and for some reason I found the music incredibly catchy. It's just that when I got down into the meat of things I found that it was mostly exoskeleton with just tiny edible bits inside. Delicious, but not nearly as filling as I would like.

Kids...don't eat bugs.

My main problem is that I'm more of a strategy RPG fan, which takes your basic strategy game and adds in leveling units, in-depth weapon creation, experience point strategies and the like. Band of Bugs here goes the opposite direction. You have a predetermined amount of units and you must keep one or more alive until the goal is reached. That goal can be as simple as defeating all of you enemies or a little less mundane, like trying to collect eggs while defending your egg carrier unit. Sometimes the objectives are interesting, but when all your turn consists of is moving, attacking, and then trying to face the location you'd take the most damage from otherwise, it gets a little boring, and boredom leads to frustration, which leads to I'm not having fun with this Game anymore.

There is plenty to do in Band of Bugs, but if you're a real strategy game fan I would warn you from doing any of it. There's a level editor so you can share maps with folks online, as well as online modes which I tried to join but failed to find any sort of game playing...not really a good sign.

If you are interested in the strategy genre and want something light to start with, then Band of Bugs could very well be worth the 800 Microsoft Points. It does have a certain charm, and though the challenge can be a bit erratic at times it is a solidly built game. Just remember as you're playing that it's only the tip of the strategy iceberg and you'll be fine. Michael Fahey

The team behind Xbox Live Arcade entry Outpost Kaloki X, the indie Ninjabee, is hard at work on their next XBLA effort Band of Bugs. The title is self-described as a "fast playing, accessible, tactics strategy game" and scheduled to hit the Xbox 360 sometime in 2007. The dev team went the YouTube route for their first gameplay trailer, showing off how the Independent Games Festival finalist plays, but starts with the embedded level editor. Killer app? Oozing with sex appeal? Not really, but it looks like a solid, strategically satisfying casual entry.

Thanks for the tip, Conor! Michael McWhertor

It's certainly nice to see some more games trickle out on Live Arcade. Cloning Clyde, the second game by NinjaBee (the guys behind Outpost Kaloki X), is up now for download. It'll cost you 800 points, but you can opt for a free demo if you're so inclined.

I haven't played it, so what commentary could I possibly give? Actually, I just thought of something: a wouldn't-it-be-awesome observation that a game featuring cloning and Narbacular Drop style portals would melt my face right the hell off. Florian Eckhardt

NInjaBee, makers of Outpost Kaloki X, just announced a second title they plan to bring to the Xbox 360's Live Arcade. Cloning Clyde is described as a 3D adventure and puzzle game.

Clyde was an ordinary (but slightly dim) guy before Dupliclone Inc. paid him $20 to take part in a cloning experiment. Now he's multiple ordinary dim guys trapped in the nefarious Dupliclone Lab. To escape his diabolical captors, Clyde is going to have to get a little creative with himself and those around him. Lucky for him, Dupliclone left a whole lot of strange technology laying around, and it's up to Clyde to clone, combine, and mutate his way out of the evil Dupliclone trap.

As Clyde adventures and meets new inhabitants of the Dupliclone labs, he'll combine with apes, frogs, chickens, and more. Yes, even Chicken-Clyde will aid in the great escape!

Cloning Clyde makes full use of Xbox 360's advanced processing, graphics, sound, and unique Xbox Live online game service features including achievements, leaderboards, online play, and more! In addition to a single-player story and individual challenging scenarios, enjoy multiplayer split-screen or online play, both co-op and vs. modes, with friends from all over the world.

Cloning Clyde [Ninja Bee]