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Showing results for tags 'Indie'.
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Anodyne is an homage to Link's Awakening that was released earlier this year. It has some of the most beautiful pixel art I've ever seen and a lovely soundtrack as well. Don't mind steam spazzing out in the corner... Anyway, homage or not, Anodyne is every bit as good as the games that inspired it, if not better. It reminds me of Earthbound as well with its sense of humour. So far I have come across nods to a few games as well as a hidden dungeon dedicated to a certain indie game that you will immediately recognise. I can't praise it highly enough. I've played it for a couple of hours and I could have posted fifty different screens. Another incredible indie game in 2013.
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Another indie game that is a bit old now, if nearly a year is a bit old. I don't know what to think of this game, really. Those clever kids in cool jeans seem to like it so of course I felt I had to buy it (after I saw it on sale for just over £3). I think I was initially put off by it because looking at it shows it to be ones of those psychedelic tube games like Tempest and Space Giraffe or whatever else Jeff Minter makes, and I don't really like those games, especially Space Giraffe. I tried and tried with that game and it just remained a foreign entity the entire time. It's a game that made me feel dumb and was a complete jerk about it, too. But thankfully, Dyad isn't like that. It does teach... in a way. No, it does, but don't be surprised to still be staring blankly at the screen after you've been taught. So, you're an abstract thing like in Rez and you fly down a Minter Tube. You have to 'hook' onto 'glowy things' that makes you 'boost' when you hook a pair and you have to dodge stuff or 'lance' them after building up power from 'grazing' the 'glowy things'. I think that's the game, basically. But it's a lot harder than that paragraph makes it sound. The kind of dexterity it requires from you is beyond what a lot of people will be willing to offer (mainly me), and since the game is so abstract it's not always easy to see how you're meant to improve. You think it's going well then colour swirl, bbbvvvff vvffbbb, you lose. But it is an interesting game if you want to remember what it's like when you first played video games again it's good for that. If you really want to go through that confusion again before you knew how to play all the video games then buy it. Go on.
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The first game tagged for a next gen system! Anyway, this is a first person survival horror, much like Amnesia, but in my opinion, not as slow-moving or hard to get into. It has a light mechanic like Amnesia, but it involves using your camcorder as a torch. You use battery power on your camcorder but I've always had at least 3 batteries on the go so far so that doesn't seem to much of a problem. The art style and setting is far more like Condemned and it is grim as fuck. A fair few jump scares so far. I'm playing with a pad in my bedroom with the curtains closed and headphones on and I've literally jumped a few times. I guess I'm coming to the end of the second part and other than one section that I was nearly stuck on and seemingly only got past it by the AI being too stupid to try opening more than one locker to find me, I've been enjoying it massively. There's no combat whatsoever though there is sneaking and some fairly simple puzzles. If you struggle to play scary games, you will poo yourself, because I rarely get affected by them and I've found it the most intense game in a long while. Also the game opens with a warning about gore and sexual content but so far all I've seen is a couple of digital wangs.
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That's a very old trailer but I don't think the game has really changed much. It's basically a turn-based strategy like XCom, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics - except it's faster-paced and does away with a grid to move on. You have a circle showing where your character can move to in that move and that's it. There's a few different mechanics going on so far where I'm up to. Unfortunately, I've got to the point in the story where they introduce a medic class but my opponent has one and I don't so I'm getting my ass handed to me. Along with the campaign and usual online matches, it also does asynchronous matches like Frozen Synapse which is a great idea. Art style is great, some funny lines in there too (a quote straight out of Anchorman comes pretty quick into it) and I'm enjoying it when I'm not dying a lot.
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Might as well make a thread for this so I can talk about it. It's a first-person point and click horror-adventure game that was released in 2010. Basically you open drawers and light candles (and throw books around). The game is set in an old castle and is very atmospheric, as you would expect. Your character has a sanity meter which will affect your vision if you hang around in the darkness too long, so light plays an important part in the game. I haven't encountered any monsters yet but still I've been closing all the doors when I'm exploring a room, just to be safe... So far the story has been delivered through diaries and letters which I've found scattered around the place. First-person works really well for adventure games. It's a shame this type of thing is a genre that's pretty much confined to the indies. But at least we're seeing more of them.
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I've been playing this little game that someone might care about. It's from the people who are making that Owlboy game. They made this during a break as a kind of holiday. The Savant guy is some dub-step dude (well, apparently he goes under a few aliases, but when he makes dub-step it's Savant, from what I've stumbled across). It's a simple game but with some fun things in it. It's sort of shooter but you're stuck to the ground, you can move but only between two points, and you can switch between them or jump between them giving some variety in the way you dodge enemies, you know, sometimes a bit of air might help you dodge an attack or visa versa. It does mean you really have to keep an eye on the screen for things coming at you as well as what you're firing at. Shooting is done with the mouse in a way you'd expect, but your magic does need a sec to wind up, though your first shot is a burst that does more damage before turning into a rapid fire shot. That's the game, basically and you can tell from the video, I guess. I think it's a pretty cool game. The little subtleties in the movement and firing do make for some exciting moments as you somersault around and the game looks and sounds great. It's got some real nice pixelart, though judging from what they've shown of Owlboy that's no surprise, and the dub-step fits the fast pace of the game and the sort of mechanical Gothic look. It definitely suits being a phone/tablet game. You do get access to an Android version, too, when you buy it but it won't run on my phone so I don't know how it handles on a touch device. It slipped under the radar a bit but I thought I'd show yous as I think it's worth knowing about. You buy it here.
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I've tried explaining this to a couple of gamers and they don't seem to get why it's such a good idea for a game. You are passport control for an 80s Soviet country that has only just opened its borders after years of being closed. You have to check their passports, and eventually work permits, ID cards, travel passes for any discrepancies before letting them through or turning them away. Letting someone through who should fail gives you a penalty, too many of these and your wages get docks, but not letting someone through who should be allowed also results in a penalty. At the end of the day your wages are totalled against rent, food, heat, and medicine, your family will suffer if you don't pay for the heat, food and medicine, but if you don't pay the rent, as I've found out, you are an enemy of the state and are imprisoned. Then there's all the sub stuff. I won't go in to too much detail because I don't know if any of it changes, but there's stories from the people you see or in the papers where you can play some part. So for example, if someone warns you that there's a terrorist in line you could believe them and reject that person when it comes to their turn, but if they have the right credentials then you'll be punished. Time is the real killer. The problem I ran in to within 3 days was not earning enough, I wasn't making many mistakes but once my rent went up I also wasn't letting enough people through Glory to Arstoska
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This is made by the people who did Shank and Mark of the Ninja but isn't anything like those games. It's a permadeath survival game which can be summed up simply as collect items to create other items in order to collect and make other items. For example, need rocks to make something? You'll need to make a pickaxe. To make that you'll need to collect some smaller items like flint first. It has a day/night cycle and at night without fire or some other form of light, the monsters will kill you so that's your first real motivation - start making some progress to build a fire. Also, as the name suggests, you have a rapidly emptying belly so you'll need food to survive. You can find berries on the ground but there are also creatures running around like rabbits that you'll need to build traps and put down suitable bait down to get them. I've made it at most about 4 days in which I was quite proud of! This Giant Bomb quick look video gives a good indication of what you do, some UI has changed since then, but it's largely the same. http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-dont-starve/2300-6864/
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I've been waiting for this to drop in price for a while. Normal price on Steam is 20 quid which is quite a lot but there does seem to be a lot to it. Also this is "early access" so it's not meant to be finished yet but seems largely there for me, unless they plan on changing a lot about their art style or menus, which mostly seem fine to me. So, it's a Sim City style game but you make a prison. You have to build it from scratch, from the outer walls to the yard, canteen, holding cells, etc. You employ staff from the Warden down to building crew. The game starts out with a tutorial that has a prison all built bar an execution cell which it teaches you how to build that and you get the grim story of the inmate that you're blasting with electricity. It also uses this time to tell you that you're not here to judge on the inmates, just to do your job in holding them and keeping them from wrecking the joint. Pretty much anything you can think of you have to build. If you have toilets they need to be connected to the water system, if you have buildings they must have doors, electrical items like lights need power cables running from the building to a power capacitor that needs to be maintained and not over-loaded. I got an interest in it from the Giant Bomb quick look and it's also proven a useful tool for me to get myself started too.
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I'm sure a few of you have played this real life/retail simulator? You can choose from three stories, I picked Vinny's. Vinny runs a bagel stand and his main goal from what I can see is to pay $130 in rent every Friday. The game is incredibly detailed, I just noticed from google that it's possible to brush your teeth in the game, I didn't realise you could interact with anything in the bathroom! Time passes quickly in the game and you have to manage work, shopping, food - I just played the first 3 days and have done a terrible job of it so far! In fact I haven't even figured out how to set up his stand. Where the fuck does the stand go? The game has a really really nice monochrome Gameboy visual style, complete with scratchy sound effects. The most impressive thing is the detail in the game world - each location has various businesses and places of interest. You can get to know the local business people - introduce yourself to them, make small talk, ask questions. You're basically living a life. Like I said, I've made a mess of it so far but it's a good game, a bit different from the usual!
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Well games come in all shapes in sizes, and Starseed Pilgrim is weird. "Advice for playing Starseed Pilgrim: As long as you still have questions, continue." - Jonathan Blow Ok Jon! From what I understand so far, your character starts off with 10 "moves". And by "moves" I mean the coloured dots above his head (seeds?) which you press space to use/plant. You always plant the bottom of the three dots. These seeds then grow into coloured block formations which vary in behaviour according to their colour. Your character can move and jump around, as well as break blocks below or to the side of him, but you can't break blocks above you. In terms of the purpose of the game, the only thing I've discovered so far is that if you reach one of those black squares with a star in it - then you are transported to a kind of black and white version of the same world where you can explore and pick up things like keys and hearts, which I have found no use for so far. However in the black or white or monochrome version, you can only explore squares which you filled with blocks in the coloured world. So for example if you jump into one of those stars - you will find yourself trapped in a one square room which you cannot escape, because none of the blocks around it were filled in. So basically the coloured blocks create the explorable space of the second world. Anyway that's my interpretation of it so far!
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If you don't know what Cube World is, this excellent features page will tell you: https://picroma.com/cubeworld Also, check out their "Explorers" video: http://youtu.be/SMZ3U8OJIWk "Shut up and take my gil" etc. Anyhoo, like Minecraft, the game is now available to buy in alpha for €15. However due to server overload and (and I think constant DDOS attacks, for some reason) Picroma have been disabling their servers for most of the last 48 hours, only allowing random time windows for people to get in. Just now I managed to successfully register to the site for the first time, but the shop is still disabled. https://picroma.com/buycubeworld Anyone manage to get their hands on this elusive game? I'm going to keep trying. Looks brilliant to me.
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Anyone else pick this up when it was cheap last week? I want to love it but I can't control the damn thing for shit. Which I guess is the point but it's really fucking ridiculously hard. This makes it look easy: This is what you'll actually do:
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Played this for an hour tonight. It's from the creators of Machinarium (and also the Samorost series, which I haven't played). Anyone who played Machinarium will remember the beautiful art and how they well they told the story visually. The overall story wasn't all that important compared to the detail and character of each individual scene. Well I'm glad to say the same qualities are present in Botanicula. Except instead of being set in a dystopian world of machines the game is set in the (slightly more colourful) enviornment of plants and small critters. What do you mean jukeboxes don't grow on trees? Gameplay is very simple but full of detail. Sweeping the mouse causes leaves and branches to shake. You interact with objects by clicking on them which will often result in some creature emerging from hiding or random event of some kind. The audio is just as central to the game (and impressive) as the visuals. The game actually gives you cards which you can view as a little souvenir of each encounter.
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It's a bit surprising in that I thought it would be an extremely short (like, one hour long) lesson in how far adventure/RPG games have come but there is actually a story in there (as hokey as old game stories usually are) and there is a real game in there too. You start out in black and white and only able to move right, then you can move left, then up and down, then colour, then 256 colours, etc. It gets to the point where you have pre-rendered backgrounds, 3D turn-based random battles, a levelling up system, a map to roam. It really is like watching the evolution of RPG's right as you play. I'm enjoying it and it is currently still cheap on Steam so if you fancy it, give it a bash. The original sketch of the idea is free, this has apparently come a long way since then. If you have controller support problems like I did, find the Evoland folder, right-click the pad.exe file and tell it to run as admin. http://youtu.be/gxBjDGc4YCg
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Can someone else play this please? I don't get it. You walk about. Some weird stuff happens. It reminds me of those type of dreams you have when you are unwell and wake up with the night sweats. I'm sure there's some hidden meaning in it all and I got some connotation of what was going on, but wtf? WTF?
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Started playing this last night. Kairo is an adventure/puzzle game that was developed by Richard Perrin. Kairo does have a narrative, but the game leaves it up to the gamer to figure out what that might be by exploing the world and solving the puzzles. It's leaves you confused and I kind of like it that way. I'm starting to get the sense of what I think narrative might be, but I'm still not 100% sure. The world is that Kairo is based in is a kind of heavenly, sterile, peaceful and slighty creepy world. Kairo is not a horror game, but the fact that you are the only living thing in the game along with musical score and sound effects gives it a creepy vibe. Kairo's world reminds me a lot of the world that El Shaddai was set in and Hueco Mundo from the anime Bleach. On a technical level Kairo is far from flawless. While I love the world and the confusion the game leaves me in the game does have issues. While I can't speak for the Windows, iOS, android or Mac version of the game. The Linux version suffers from massive screen tearing. The first person controls are also on the losey-goosey side of things. There is a slider in the option menu that lets you adjust the camera, but it does not seem to make a difference, unless the slider is all the way to the left - then the camera does not move. I have not finished the game yet, but from what I've played so far I would recommend this to adventure and puzzle fans. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IBkoyCeKwIU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Is this an indie? I think it could be so it gets an 'indie' sticker. But the game! It's pretty good! I say pretty good but what I mean is it's text book good. It doesn't do anything wrong and it uses the 'Metroidvania' template pretty well and has some interesting uses of its mechanics (I'm getting sick of using that word but I don't want to get specific as they get kinda surprising). What I will say is that there is a flip dimensions ability that mixes things up, but only in the same way as Outland does. Remember that game? Guacamelee! is a lot like Outland in some ways so if you liked that you'll like this. But I suppose the combat is better in this. You're a Mexican Wrestler so flinging folks about is important and you do have a big repertoire of combos and moves to do that are fun to pull off and hurt things a lot. You also have a bunch of fun internet jokes to laugh at about cats and stuff in the game, you know, all that referential stuff we enjoy. Like you climb a big mountain and near the top you find the the dead body of the thing from Journey and you go 'hahaha! I know that reference! Choozo Staues! hahaha!' It's so funny, it's like those guys who make the Scary Movie films and stuff made it. In summery: a pretty well made game that is fun but with with shite, incestuous nerd comedy. Play Outland instead.
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Started playing this last night. It hasn't come up as a game to play in the monthly thread yet (though has been suggested) but it's a good time to bring it up as is about to be released on PS3 and Vita. It's a platform puzzle game so I'm playing with a pad as I hate playing games like this with keys. There is a story running through it, it's very Valve/Portal-like and has Danny Wallace doing the narration which is quite funny. I'm sure people dislike him but I like him in this and found him ok in Assassin's Creed (2? Brotherhood?). I'm a few chapters in so won't spoil too much but the generic square or rectangle shapes have lots of character (in the narration at least) and it's a lovely looking game with nice shadow effects and a brilliant soundtrack. It was made largely by one guy on his free time while he worked in a big studio. Well worth picking up and giving it a go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpsZaExywRk
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I was checking out Greenlight, which I haven't done in a while, thanks to Floyd's thread, and one of the more recent games is a game called Depression Quest, which is also free to play at www.depressionquest.com It's an awful name so I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it's a text adventure type thing set very much in the real world. You have depression, a girlfriend you rarely see, you have a job you hate. you get a chunk of text telling you about the days events and then you get to make a decision, depending on how depressed you are some of the options will be unavailable, the music will change, they'll be more static on the page. It's really well done, it's not overly dramatic, which I think makes it more effective. It's uncomfortable though, there were a few gut punches in there, a few things that were very close to home. It's hard to say whether anyone who's suffered from depression should play it or not, it's probably a good way of seeing that you aren't alone, but it's sniper accurate
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Made by the team that did World of Goo and the guy who was behind Henry Hatsworth. You can tell the World of Goo thing by the art style and sense of humour, a mile off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04GSCt2Wiqo It's a little bizarre. It's a sandbox game with no fail state but there is a running narrative and story. You order objects which you place in your fireplace and then set them on fire. Build combos by combing certain objects together and you'll start unlocking more lists of stuff to buy. All in-game money, no IAP's as far as I'm aware. It's oddly compelling but there isn't much point to it. From Wired:
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I would just put this in the mobile thread but there's a PC version and I think a few of us might end up playing it. on paper it sounds like Puzzle Quest, it's an rpg based around match-3, where what you match dictates your actions. So if you want to attack you need to match 3 swords or 3 wands, if you need to unlock something you need to match 3 keys (or more). Unlike Puzzle Quest you don't have health, instead you're progressing along the top of the screen, the quicker you beat an enemy or unlock a door the longer you get to play. If you take too long or take damage you get knocked back to the edge of the screen which means ending your run. You need to collect wood and stone to repair rooms back in your home screen, these rooms are where the stat increases are kept, which means you get better, which means you last longer. You need gold to buy stuff, sometimes experience, and eventually you can upgrade the rooms (worth it for the first skills room you open because you'll max that stuff out pretty quick. I've probably explained it pretty badly, but it's Game Dev Story addictive. I think it's about £2 on phones, but there's no in-app purchase bullshit, it's just about doing repeated runs, and harder runs once you've met the bonus requirements
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I had a quick look to see if there was a thread on this already and couldn't see one. I can understand why, as there's very little to the game itself, but t really deserves on, because that premise is fantastically simple but fiendishly difficult. You rotate an arrow while walls come into the centre and try to carve a path between the gaps for as long as you can, in the meantime the screen pulses and rotates trying to throw you off your stroke. It really is one of those zen games where you start watching yourself play and wonder how the fuck you just did it. Here's my best time in the short time I've spent with it. Those squares really fuck my shit up!
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I've spent a few hours playing this now so thought I'd put something up here, because I think it'd appeal to some of you. Miasmata is a first-person adventure/survial game for Windows, available from Steam and GOG.com. When you start a new game, the intro text identifies you as a man called Robert Hughes. You are infected with a plague and are looking for a cure. At the start you wash up on the shore of a lush, green (and rocky) island and head off to search for your cure. As you head inland you find huts, a map and compass and a few notes to get you started. as you go along you find scraps of notes an journals from the scientists who were here trying to find a cure, and build up an idea that something has gone wrong. There's no HUD, and your map is pretty much empty apart from what you find on scraps of paper, and what you fill in yourself. Pretty early on you find a lab, and get instructions on analysing plants and using them to create medicines. This is pretty much essential to keep the fever at bay. The cartography and orienteering is really interesting and satisfying. You find where you currently are by getting out the map and clicking on a known landmark. This will draw a line on the map through the landmark in the direction you're looking. Do the same with another known landmark and where the lines intersect is where you are. You can also triangulate unknown/undiscovered landmarks from 2 different locations to triangulate them and add them to the map. The game is incredibly tense and atmospheric. The mapping is challenging but rewarding. Getting lost in the woods as the sun starts to set, without a visible landmark and just a branch as a makeshift torch is actually quite scary. I did just that the other night, when suddenly something growled. It was a pretty low, menacing growl. I panicked a little bit and span around to see where it came from, and that's when I fell off a cliff into the water and drowned.
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A proper sequel to Anomaly is coming to Windows, Linux (w00t!!! More Linux support!!) and Mac this summer from 11bit studios. http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/02/28/anomaly-2-bringing-more-tower-offense-this-summer.aspx