Steam NextFest ended on Monday this week, and we’re all recovering from the hard work and fun we had during the week! Mafia pigs saw more players than ever before, and it was wonderful to share the spotlight with so many other great games!
Having the event also meant we pushed hard to get to a stable and polished version of the game. The marketing department also had to do double time to improve trailers and all the other game information. See the trailer here :-).
The Mafia Pigs demo will be up until SUNDAY 19th of FEBRUARY (not just Friday, 17th as previously planned), so you still have some days to play (please do!).
After that, we will be moving back to an Alpha playtest. You can sign up and get keys via either the mailing list (here) or the game discord (here)!
More news on what’s next coming soon.
Thank you to all the players, content creators, and supporters. It’s been epic :-)!
We’re excited to be sharing the new demo of Mafia Pigs with you all. The demo has two single-player missions and a randomized competitive multiplayer mode that you can play many times. Play either with friends (private games) or public games (online matchmaking).
We’re also organizing an online live play tournament this week to coincide with prizes and glory at stake. Check out tournament information here. Join the game discord for feedback and tournament information.
In the game, show your skills by pulling off the heist before anybody else and using the environment to give them the run-around in the process. Hitman meets AmongUs and Hunt Showdown wrapped in a funky cartoon wrapper? Something like that :-). Enjoy!
Less than 24hrs to go!! Steam NextFest is now just around the corner, and the whole MafiaPigs team is jumping up and down with excitement (and, well, some bug fixing!!). The demo will be live tomorrow!
We’ve also been tracking the coolest demos we’ve seen dropping on Twitter and elsewhere! This is part three of our series on what we’re most excited about! Part I and Part II are also great to check out, but now we’re closer, we can round out the top thirty with more games that have dropped!
Here are today’s 10 nominations (in no particular order). Those games that have a demo that is already live called out as such. Enjoy!
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain: Zelda vibes, a witch on a flying broom, delivering goodies. All hard to argue with; this looks like a breakout hit on the cuteness scale and some really fun gameplay!
Valfaris: Mecha Therion: a follow-up to Valfaris from 2019, continuing the same neon-infused 2.5 side-scrolling pixel art combat game. Also, don’t forget the Heavy Metal sound track!
Meatgrinder: An infinite runner meets an FPS and makes pretty much every form of transport (trains, cars, planes…) unsafe! More metal soundtrack vibes! (Some advice, play Mika and the Witch’s mountain in between to calm down!)
Slopecrashers: already one of the big winners on social media. Cute animals racing down high-speed tracks on frying pans and other household objects. What’s not to like?! Multiplayer online mode should be fun!
Ravenbound: beautiful looking 3D rougelike action-adventure game. Scandinavian folklore vibes lend this an epic air. Great trailer!
No Son of Mine: hold onto a teddy bear (or something) for this one. A first-person horror game. Unravel the mystery before you lose your lunch, breakfast, and dinner!
Planet of Lana: a beautiful looking 2D adventure and exploration game with wonderful looking graphics and story design. Secretly made by Disney (ok, maybe not).
Sons of Valhalla: raiders take your love interest, and it’s time to base-build and fight your way back to Norse happiness. The pixel art and side-scrolling combat look awesome.
Splitown: point and click fun, with a distinctive pixel-art style. The 1990s want their video game back! Seriously though, the story and premise of a very divided cold war world with lots of plots to uncover look great.
Broken Arrow: a very slick and extensive-looking warfare simulator game with two sides (Russia and US). 200+ military units and really detailed combat simulation.
So there you have it – another 10 games to check out. As if it wasn’t hard enough! Be sure to give those you like a try and wishlist them. That always helps out the creators of the demos.
Modern game marketing as an indie studio is like having your eyes poked out with sharp sticks every day :-). So getting some love at an event like NextFest really does warm the heart!
Any other games we should be shouting out? Ping us on social media, and we’ll try to include them in the next round! We’ll also be streaming some demo play on Twitch – so follow us there!
#SteamNextFest is now just around the corner, and we’ve been watching new demos being announced every day – so much good stuff! We can’t mention them all, but as we did in Part I of the series, we’ve picked out 10 of our favorites this week.
Check them out, wishlist those you like, and play those that already have demos out! Let us know in the comments what you think! We’ll do at least one more of these posts as more games out themselves.
Today was also a big day for us – announcing our free live play tournament running concurrently with NextFest. No more of that here, though: check out the post. On with the demos!
Here they are (in no particular order). Those games that have a demo that is already live called out as such. Enjoy!
Spiritfall: a rougelite, 2D platformer with hectic combat. A seemingly expansive combat system with upgrades and some nice-looking flow to the gameplay.
Deceive Inc.: Yes! Another believer in Heists as the next wave of great games! Deceive is an online multiplayer heist FPS with great-looking visuals, characters, and action. It could definitely be a spiritual sibling to our own Mafia Pigs (despite the different approaches!). We love you already and can’t wait to play!
King of the Castle: a social storytelling game with you as the beleaguered king who needs votes from his/her council (presumably, you can be a Queen as well?). This looks like it has devious humor and a very party-board game feel. AmongUs look out!
DE-EXIT Eternal Matters: from Sandbloom studios in Barcelona, this game is a deep, rich puzzle platformer. Cool dialogue and story are woven into a complex and colorful world.
Ghostland Yard: a very fluid and cool-looking 2D platformer with a squishy hero. The music also has that Pachinko parlor feel that will probably keep you up well past bedtime. The demo is already available!
Bzzzt: Pixelart junkies can get their fix with this platformer. It looks fantastic with a neon retro look. Straight out of 90s Tokyo. The demo is already available.
Erra Exordium: a 2D action adventure with a dieselpunk asthetic. Pretty dark, but very pretty in the art and atmosphere department. The Demo is already available!
Return: following on from Erra’s dark aesthetic, this goes even darker and zooms you many hundreds of years into the future. A dystopian side-scrolling RPG with some very cool (and dark) visuals!
Project Electric Sheep: this could either be a meme game or thought-provoking. The game is generated via a backend integration with ChatGPT for story generation and will create mini-worlds for you to explore. We think there’s a lot of potential for AI in games. Not sure if this is “it” though!
Gripper: to finish up, Gripper is a very slick-looking high-octane racer-combat game with a distinct anime feel. There’s also a storyline woven in for good measure. The demo is already available!
Any other games we should be shouting out? Ping us on social media, and we’ll try to include them in the next round! We’ll also be streaming some demo play on Twitch – so follow us there!
We’re celebrating the awesome fact that Mafia Pigs will have a demo at this February’s Steam NextFest in the most special way: in parallel with the event, we’re organizing the first-ever Mafia Pigs live play tournament with prizes of up to $100 in Steam Gift Cards! Woot!
In the meantime read the summary below to time out how the tournament works!
Download the demo, get familiar with the game, and then you’ll be able to join the free tournament with finals during NextFest. There are prizes and glory up for grabs. Signup is via our DISCORD, so get yourself over there and into the #tournament channel for details.
Yes, you read right. Your stealth skills, sneakiness, and the occasional well-timed bit of cartoon violence can win you prizes to take away!
What you need enter:
Head to the discord to get participation instructions and notifications
When Steam next Fest starts on the 6th of February, download a free copy of the Mafia Pigs demo (available for PC and Mac) and check out the game.
Enter the competition via the form in the discord.
Be online for the Grand Final of your choice (European servers or United States servers) on Saturday 11th of February.
There will also be practice events and advice throughout the week. The precise timing of all sessions and full rules will be posted shortly.
How to win
The Mafia boss of the game’s biggest city is offering a reward to the most successful mafia operatives … Beat the city’s biggest criminal challenge: looting the city’s underground treasure vaults!
All you need to do is break in steal what you can carry, and especially the famous Golden Acorn, which is worth almost as much as all of the rest of the treasure combined!
Each server final will proceed as follows:
A series of elimination heats each with up to 4 players, if required, to reduce the number of players to 8. The top two players in a heat progress to the next round.
Semi-finals: the top 8 players from the heats will compete in two elimination matches. The top two players in a semi-final progress to the grand final.
Grand final: a best-of-three series of matches between up to 4 players. 4 points are scored for a win, 2 for second place, and 1 for third place. 4th place receives zero points in this that round. The winner is the player with the highest number of victory points. In the case of a tie, the cumulative game score will be used to break the tie.
Please note that these arrangements are indicative only and may be changed by the organizing committee right up to the start of the finals event if need be.
Use stealth, cunning and a bit of judicious violence to get to the end goal!
Prizes!
The Mafia Pigs tournament is a bit of fun but … who wouldn’t want real prizes? So, of course, there are real prizes:
Overall winner: Two $50 Steam Gift Cards (total $100), a custom in game avatar for the release version of mafia pigs.
Second place overall: One $50 Steam Gift Cards, a custom in game avatar for the release version of mafia pigs.
All qualifiers of the final best of three match in each region (up to 4 players in each server final, 8 in total): One $20 Steam gift card.
Prizes in each server final will be announced after the completion of the server final. The overall winner will be announced after the completion of both server finals.
Competition Timing
The competition will be held as a set of elimination matches held on the 11th of February, 2023.
European & USA servers: 4-7pm CET (Brussels time), 10am-1pm Eastern Standard Time (EST / New York Time)
Friendly competition
The tournament is based on skill at the Mafia Pigs game. Each round of the contest will be held in competition with other players connected to the same server. The winner is the player with the highest score at the end of the game. Judges’ rulings are final in the case of game outages, issues or irregularities.
The judges also reserve the right to award no prizes if insufficient good-faith players participate in a match.
Participants must be over 18 at the time & date of the tournament to compete.
To receive a prize, winners must live in a country in which a United States based company can legally issue such a prize.
You may enter the competition even if you are not physically located in the United States or in Europe. However the negative effects of latency may be increased if this is the case.
Start Practicing!
To get involved in the event, join the #tournament channel on the game DISCORD. Information about the event will be shared there.
On February 6th grab yourself a copy of Mafia Pigs and learn the ropes!
Updates
Tue 7th Feb: Updated this page to reflect the fact that matches will not be up to 6 players, but only up to 4 players.
Wed 8th Feb: Added offical rules and signup information.
Thur 9th Feb: Adjust to simplify the tournament to one block of time rather than two.
The time is almost upon us when we can dive into the amazing expanse of new games to try – thank you #SteamNextFest! The event starts on February 6th and the social media wires are already glowing with game developers revealing their new demos they’ll be there!
We’ve picked 10 of the demos that have caught our eye so far that have been announced. Take a look, wishlist those you like, and let us know in the comments what you think! We’ll do a couple more of these posts as more games out themselves.
Of course, we’re looking forward to our own game Mafia Pigs as well (wishlist here!), but that doesn’t mean we won’t be playing a lot of other stuff! Enjoy: This first set already looks super awesome!
Turbo Cat Fight: nice job on being one of the first demos to announce itself and be … intriguing :-). Cat pixels jumping around in frenetic combat, what’s not to love?!
Teslagrad 2: one of the heavy hitters at the festival we think! This is a follow-up to the popular 2013 Teslagrad game and again uses magnetism as a core element in gameplay. The graphics and gameplay look like they have lept forward and the nordic charm looks amazing.
Xenonauts 2: turn-based tactics in another sequel that comes with some expectations. The gameplay looks very similar but with expanded options and a significant additional level of detail in graphics and presentation.
Shadows of Doubt: we absolutely love the neon-noir graphic style in this detailed pixel-art detective game/sandbox RPG.
Oblivion Override: to scratch the hack ‘n slash itch – a slick-looking side scroller with cool apocalyptic graphics and rhythmic combat.
A Sister’s Journey: an eye-catching hand-crafted pixel Metroidvania. The imagescapes look amazing and well worth checking out.
Howl: a turn-based tactical game with a really artistic graphical style. Build your towns/camps and engage in combat with what looks to be a nice storyline aspect.
Death Corp: point and click adventure with some slick graphics and a fun-looking storyline.
Bionic Bay: one of the most interesting trailers that has been shared on Twitter – a platformer with some deep-looking physics incorporated into the world design and motion. Might be more concept than game but definitely looks worth trying.
Infection Free Zone: Defend against a mad virus in any city in the world (pulling data from OpenStreet map). This looks like a blast, we’ll all be looking for our hometowns!
Have other games caught your eye? Ping us on social media and we’ll try to include them in the next round!
We’ll also be streaming some demo play on Twitch – so follow us there!
Next Fest is one of the world’s greatest showcases for Indie games (thank you, Steam!), and it’s a daunting challenge for us to participate in. We’re signed up. All the app approval processes are next!
What is Mafia Pigs? Imagine a Battle Royale that switched out killing each other to pulling off a Heist instead. Add in cartoon fun, kooky powerups, and the ability to inflict all sorts of mischief on your fellow players as you all try to take the big prize. That. 🙂
There is a ton to learn, and we hope we’ll be able to create a unique experience for players. There’s no doubt that MafiaPigs is quite early in its life to be going to such a BIG PARTY, but the feedback will be something that help the game grow no matter what happens! Here are the places to follow:
NextFest runs from February 6th – February 13th. Wishlist us to get notified when the demo goes live or, even better, come to the game discord and get an early key. Your comments can still help make the game better before the event. Plus, you’ll get the jump on your friends!
We hope you join us for the journey, which we’re planning to document as much as we can! We’ll be posting here, on social media, and on our new Twitch channel. We’ll use #road2nextfest for all those posts.
If 2022 taught us anything, it was to be ready for change. World events have been topsy-turvey, and there have been many more awesome games launched in the world (Hello Elden Ring and many others!).
It was also the year when we kicked developing Mafia Pigs into high gear and made a ton of progress.
We’ve gone from characters running around like headless chickens to some really entertaining stealth play, and now: competitive multiplayer mode.
Above all, thanks to our dedicated Alpha testers, who have been rock stars! We got tons of valuable feedback in person and online to make things better. As the year comes to a close, we’re wrapping all that up for a major update early in the new year.
We’ll still be in Alpha Mode (you can get a key via the discord right here!), but improving all the time. We’re aiming for a launch in the summer of 2023. In the meantime, a lot has been added to the game. A quick peek at some of the things include:
Powerups like “protection”
Dynamic maps to see yourself and other players in real time
Better inventory management
Refined scoring in Heist Royale mode
Continual tweaks to mechanics and controls
If you’d like a preview of something, here are three variations for the current “speed boost” powerup. Hot sauce for the win!
Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year’s celebration and happy, healthy, game playing 2022! Get ready for fireworks! 🙂
My, how time flies! It seems just like yesterday that we launched the first Mafia Pigs Alpha test in November! Thank you to everyone for the truly awesome feedback :-).
100s of people tried the game and gave a ton of valuable feedback. Thank you SO MUCH! Our Mafia snowman wishes you many gifts!
The public Alpha program first phase is now closed. However you can join the ongoing private Alpha still by joining our discord:
There’ll be exclusive info and perks over time for private Alpha testers! There’ll be plenty of updates in January and some exciting news on our release schedule.
Based on all the feedback so far, the team is busy updating the game and we’re launching an update at least every week now. A number of key changes from the feedback are in the updates we already pushed out:
Easier level 1 so you can learn the ropes early on.
Removal of a lot of annoying bugs from mission end screens not showing properly to working wine & beer dispensers.
Big updates to the multiplayer networking for a much smoother experience.
We’ve also added some major new updates including new lighting which makes everything much more atmospheric:
… and a new game mode called “Heist Royale” in which you can can play competitively against your friends. This mode is still highly experimental but you can try it by selecting “multiplayer” from the main menu and then the “Heist Royale” map:
Wishing everyone a great holiday break and Mafia Pigs will be back with avengeance in January!
It’s an animal world out there they say. A world of intrigue, mystery and opportunity! Can’t a pig enjoy the simple pleasures of a back-rub and a tall refreshing glass of juice on the beach?
Those pesky weasels are always muscling in on our business and messing things up. Not to mention the irritating mayor with his glamorous wife, always whispering in Betty’s ear about the latest gossip and places to go!”
Don’t make me angry unless you want to come face to face with the “Baconating” equipment in the basement. After years of making it out of the slums through hard work and the occasional quiet murder, I’ve finally built what I dreamed of: an organization of pigs for pigs!
Boris the Baconator
Some of our sources of money might not be the most “legit” out there but, hey, who minds a few notes going missing here or there. Sometimes you have to get tough to get on you know?
It’s hard work running the organization and sometimes… things get messy. Still, there are plenty of small pleasures in life. One day hopefully we can finally avenge the terrible treatment of us pigs by the other animals, damn that will be a good day!
Through it all Betty has been my constant companion. Smart as a tack and fine looking in a slinky dress, that lady has what it takes. The Bonnie to my Clyde as it were, or the the Alabama to my Clarence!
Betty
Borisinho: the Little Terror
Little Boris came into the world after one of those happy accidents after a heist we pulled off. The little fella has a lot to learn but takes after me in all the right ways. His temper might get the better or him sometimes but he’s trying to be the best little mafioso there is.
Of course Betty spoils the bejeezus out of him so he has the willpower of a wet pretzel. But there is time to fix that. Maybe I need to send him to the military or something!
Borisinho
Percy: the Dogsbody
Not family, but always around. This little chap showed up when I put his Grandma in the dungeon for mismanaging one of the production plants. Debts to pay my friend. Turns out a lot of his family and friends owe me – we’ll Percy can help make good on those debts. Time to get to work little fella!
Percy
Peggy: the Driver
Every self-respecting boss needs a kick-ass driver. Peggy seems to like Percy a bit too much but apart from that she’s a top member of the team. She can fix any of the wagons we have in the garage and get us out of sticky situations whenever needed.
Peggy
Punky: the Fixer
Time was when I used to enjoy knocking heads together myself, but … getting the blood out of your shirt always takes such a lot of scrubbing. Punky is a solid chap. A little clumsy at times, but he gets the message across so to speak. Not a lot of people refuse to pay up when Punky and some of the others on the “customer service” team pay them a visit.
Punky
More soon …
That’s enough of a history lesson for now. Off to enjoy some Chateau la Cerdo with dinner!
