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April
2006 Indie Game Monthly Round-Up
(by
The Illustrious Panel - TIP) |
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Mighty Rodent
(February 28)
($19.95)
by Jagged Blade Software
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Mike Hommel: 8
 Very much a clone of Heavy Weapon, but better in just about every way. I
really enjoyed this game, while I didn't like Heavy Weapon. It is really
really mindless. Most of the time you just sweep your gun back and forth,
but that's not such a bad thing. The biggest downside are the bosses -
rather than thinking "Ooh, what new strange creation will I face next?", you
think "Gee, wonder which regular enemy is going to be recycled with extra
life as a boss?" Those fights are very boring, and the worst part of the
game. A bit of tedium before getting back to the mindless sky-sweeping fun.
Seth Robinson: 6
 This game stars a cute rodent that rips apart flying saucers, aliens
bouncing on giant springs, and Japanese kamikaze fighters. Wait, whaaat?
The campaign mode feels a bit drawn out, there isn’t quite enough variety to
drive things, much of the game could be played blindfolded, most bosses can
be beaten by hiding in a corner. The secondary laser weapon is useless -
there is no time to charge it! I dig the two-player action and arcade mode
but have to question the decision to clone Heavy Weapon which didn’t have a
particularly great control scheme to begin with.
Mike Kasprzak: 6
 Heavy Weapon with a militaristic rodent. The game plays more or less
the same. You collect cash so you can upgrade your arsenal, but there's
also dropped power-ups throughout the level. It might actually play
better than Heavy Weapon, but both games are a tad clunky in movement.
Not bad, but not great.
Russ Carroll: 7
 I REALLY enjoyed Heavy Weapon last year. In fact I was pushing hard for it to be in the top 10 games of the year at year's end, but this panel so thoroughly hated the game that I couldn't consider including it. So we move on to Mighty Rodent, which is really just a complete clone of Heavy Weapon (clone a
PopCap game? Never!). Unfortunately, from my perspective, the game is far too difficult to be enjoyable. While I played Heavy Weapon over and over to get through it all, enjoying the graphics and power-ups, I found myself wanting to be done with this one. The graphics are above average, the game play is fast and furious, but I just couldn't get into it...instead I found myself wishing I was playing the game that "inspired it." |
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Balloon Express
(March 25)
($19.95)
by Menara Games
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Mike Hommel: 6
We need a new category of casual - there's match-3's of course, then there
are these games: frenzied clickers (see Garden Dreams this month, as well,
and Pizza Frenzy, and so on). There are two modes in this game. I really
hate the story mode. It's so frantic and awkward (I couldn't stop searching
for nonexistent keyboard shortcuts!), and half the time I end up flying my
balloon off somewhere pointless rather than delivering a package. But the
puzzle mode I enjoyed. Because you don't have to dip into a package list,
it has a much nicer flow.
Seth Robinson: 5
This is a very point and clicky arcade game that reminds me of Pizza Frenzy
except without the combos and mini-games. It looks and sounds great; but
the core mechanic left me bored and perturbed - the biggest challenge is how
fast you can whip your mouse down to change what your balloon drops.
Needing to constantly move your mouse down to the bottom of the screen to
change items instead of allowing hotkeys is an artificial (and RSI inducing)
limitation that the game depends on, I don’t like that.
Mike Kasprzak: 6
A twitch click game in the same vein as Pizza Frenzy, but it's about
delivering mail. It's a bit of a pain to have to fly the mouse to the
bottom of the screen to change your delivery package types. I'm not
sure I have a better solution to this, 'cause after all, Pizza Frenzy
works similarly. The balloon also gets in the way of seeing what sort
of mail people want, but maybe that's a strategy thing. I like it
better this months "Garden Dreams", but it's still just an alright game.
Russ Carroll: 8
I'm absolutely amazed at how much can be done with these click-management styled games. This one is one that I really enjoyed as I carefully timed each action to ensure the highest score as I went along. The theme was nice and the graphics colorful as you move through the cities, the only complaint would be that I would like to move through cities faster. This game reminds me of the great arcade games of old that were all about skill. You might not think that of Balloon Express to look at it, but that is where the heart of the game lies and I loved it! |
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Sky Puppy
(March 14)
($9.95)
by Star Quail
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Mike Hommel: 5
This game looks very nice, and has a very console style which I approve of.
But, while I am a fan of 1-button gaming, this just doesn't do it for me.
It's too simple, for one. But a bigger issue is the way your dog has
air friction that stops him after a short sideways trip. That means that
you will very often find yourself face to face with a bone but having no way
to reach out and grab it. I don't know, I just didn't feel in control
enough to have fun with it.
Seth Robinson: 5
This entire game is controlled by tapping one button to make a dog flap his
ears. I want to like it more but every time I get on a roll the amusement
is brought to an abrupt stop as I hang helplessly in the air with my only
choice being to take damage. Maybe the frustration could have been
minimized with less air drag or being able to charge up power to send you in
a random direction?
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Groovy, a 1 button game. With the space-bar you flap your ears, giving
you upward lift. It's very much an Icy Tower like game, where you're
constantly climbing. Unlike Icy though, you can fall down a bit. You
rely on left and right arrows/tracks for your movement, so you need to
balance touching them and bouncing off walls to move around
effectively. The game seems to have a very SNES vibe to it. I like it.
Russ Carroll: 7
I can't figure out if Sky Puppy is absolutely brilliant or completely flawed. Certainly it is innovative and different, but the use of only one button seems to put the player at the complete mercy of the level and made me feel like I just wasn't in control of my character a lot of the time. When I was hitting all the accelerators and moving around like I knew where I was going it was pretty enjoyable (except for my aching shoulder...needs less button mashing!). When I was trying over and over to get past the same spot or getting punished by the same enemies 3 times in a row for making one silly mistake I was pretty frustrated. I loved the style and the graphics and the innovation, but the execution felt a little off. The game needs a little more fine-tuning to be
truly great, but it is certainly original and entertaining at a great price! |
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Titan Attacks
(March 13)
($9.95)
by Puppy Games
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Mike Hommel: 8
The only real black mark is a collection of bugs including such hits as
particles sticking around in the sky, and the ability to reconfigure the
keys, only you still have to use the old keys in the shop. Well, that and
the unrequested and unexplained internet access. Is it worth the trouble?
Yes. It's just plain retro arcade fun, with a shop. Some of the coolest
backgrounds in any game ever, and lovely graphics all around, and basic
shooter gameplay that is a lot of fun.
Seth Robinson: 7
If you liked Puppy Games’
Ultratron, you’ll dig this too. It takes a
classic arcade game and gussies it up with more variety, strategic upgrades,
combos, and a smoothly integrated global high score system. The competition
element make things extraordinarily compelling, I found myself restarting
the game after ten minutes of play because I made a single mistake. Nicely
done.
Mike Kasprzak: 9
What can I say? Puppygames titles and I tend to get along quite well.
If you've played the fun little applet on their website, you should have
an idea what you're getting yourself in to. Take that, and spruce it up
to the same degree as Ultratron. Do I really need to say more? I dig it.
Russ Carroll: 9
At
it's best Titan Attacks pure retro goodness heaped on so high that
you'll wonder how anyone could have put together everything in such a
cool package. The game is honestly just shy of perfect and at such a
low price is something that every gamer should immediately put into
their home library. The graphical style builds on the fantastic Ultratron, but this one is better than even Ultratron, making that rare combination that will keep you playing for hours. My only issue was those moments when you watch your shields drop from 7 to 1 in a matter of 2 seconds. Just a moment of invulnerability after getting hit would have saved my computer from my verbal barrage of frustration! However, in the end I find myself going back to play again and again. This is one of those rare games that I started playing even before the last round-up was done because I was so excited about it, and that excitement was well placed! |
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Garden Dreams
(February 28)
($19.99)
by Toybox Games
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Mike Hommel: 9
Taking the formula of Insaniquarium (which I loved), this is stylish,
mindless, arcade fun. I feel compelled to mention again how much I love
upgrading in games. Hooray for upgrades! I'm hooked, and I love it. It's
hard on the mouse, and gets repetitive, but it keeps me coming back because
of those upgrades. I'm a sucker. And as a nice bonus, every time you think
the repetition and mad clicking is going to get to be too tiresome, the next
level brings you something new to ease your workload and change the game up.
The only real downside here is that the pest portion (just like the aliens
in Insaniquarium) is not fun, it's just annoying and bad for your mouse.
Seth Robinson: 8
The gameplay in this one reminds me of Insane Aquarium – Grow things by
feeding them, collect what they drop to purchase more, earn friends, and
fight off baddies in the attack phase. Well, what can I say; it all comes
together as a powerful motivator that keeps you playing to see the next
special item. I played this time-waster far too long, strangely
mesmerizing.
Mike Kasprzak: 5
A twitch click game in the same vein as Pizza Frenzy, but about managing
a garden. Your normal process goes something like this: Water plants;
Catch fruits/vegetable; Repeat. It's varied by having insect attacks
throughout, but they seem more like an annoying useful. The art is
nice, but it's really not all that interesting of a game.
Russ Carroll: 7
For a game that didn't look anything like it, I was amazed at how similar this felt to playing Diner Dash. Click to water, click to collect vegetables and other fun clicking tasks await you in this game (can you say squashing bugs with a fly-swatter?). This is a good game that is well-themed, but didn't engage me quite as much as some of the other Diner Dash like games have, though in my book it was certainly one of the better ones. |
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Beezzle
(March 15)
($19.95)
by Alawar
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Mike Hommel: 6
Hello, match-3! I was missing you so. The rules in this one are confusing
and took me a little while to latch onto, but once I did, it was okay.
Nothing special, my mind was unblown, but I was fairly content to move pupas
and match colors. The biggest plus is that there are 3 game modes which are
all significantly different.
Seth Robinson: 6
Bee themed color swapper. It’s done well, bit more difficult on normal than
similar titles. Nothing especially new or particularly interesting, you’ll
find locks, filling, rockets, and a neat rain visual effect. More of the
same, not sure if there is enough new here to warrant existing really.
Mike Kasprzak: 5
A hex match 3, with bees. It's "edge" over other hex match 3's, is you
can actually move pieces up and down. Maybe that isn't all that big of
an edge. The time limit in the game seems unforgiving. It could easily
do without. Art and music suit the game. It's alright.
Russ Carroll: 5
A real disappointment. Beezzle feels a little bit like Beesly's
Buzzwords, but isn't nearly as entertaining. The graphics are really
bland, but that isn't what stalls this match 3 clone. No, what is
wrong here is poorly balanced levels and a feeling of complete
randomness. It's not horrible to be random, but making me feel like
winning or losing is an act of luck takes this beehive directly to the dumpster. |
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Steam Brigade
(February 28)
($19.95)
by Pedestrian Entertainment
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Mike Hommel: 8
This is tough to rate. I started out really loving it. Very unique (but
heavily based on the old games Rescue Raiders and Armor Alley), and I always
enjoy mixing simple strategy and action. And the style is very nice. But
the gameplay can get very tiresome - it's extremely hard, even on easy. And
the way it's hard is what's so tiresome. You keep making gains, but
those gains keep getting taken away from you, over and over. But it is still
rather fun. it just seems like it needs a tweak so that the force that is
winning has some kind of advantage, instead of a huge disadvantage. As it
is, the battles go on for years, even though an actual comeback is virtually
impossible, so it just drags out the inevitable.
Seth Robinson: 8
This is a neat 2D side view game that plays like a simplified RTS mixed with arcade elements and fun physics. The unique art style and great sound had me playing this quite a while. The only downer is towards the end I gave up on a level because my guys refused to enter a bunker without help - I was told this will be fixed by the time you read this. Excellent game, check it out.
Mike Kasprzak: 8
I was originally convinced this game was too hard, but the developer hit
us with a new version including difficulty levels just before I sent my
reviews. Excellent, now I can be a suck and power my way through the
game on easy. Thanks developer man! So let's try this again.
Character art and game art look great. It's sometimes tricky to move
things around, since your airship moves ... like an airship. I suspect
though, that might be the point. The rest of my complaints seem moot
now, as they were rooted in my annoyance of the difficulty. So that
aside, it's a rather cool game.
Russ Carroll: 8
Steam Brigade is one of the best looking and most
charismatic Indies games I've ever played. It is just cusping on greatness and I believe the developers won't stop until they have it all ironed out. We had improved and different versions while playing it this month, which really showed a lot of promise. Unfortunately, I'm still struggling with a single key issue. Controlling your
balloon with the clunky keyboard controls is difficult at best making the game more frustrating and difficult than it should be. The control issues and quick death of your
balloon due to them overshadow everything else here and take away from the game. In fact on many levels I stopped bothering to build a new
balloon as I'd only watch it get blown to smithereens in a matter of seconds and instead focused on what order I sent out my troops until I came up with the 'perfect' combination. I expect that if the control issues are corrected (do I hear joystick? mouse? less sluggish?) this is a game that we'll all remember with great
fondness many years from now. As it is, right now it is still a great game...but oh there is so much more potential here than is being used! |
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Phoenicas
(March 7)
($19.95)
by Mytaras
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Mike Hommel: n/a
Eventually got it running, but it was so horrendously broken, I can't review
it. Beta testing is the key, guys! Many different PCs.
Seth Robinson: 7
This game is a combination of many types of shooters distilled into one
adrenaline pumping experience. The sharp graphics, ethereal sounds, combo
systems, online scoring, and great ship angle feature make this hard to stop
playing. However, I also need to mention the slow loading, failure to
handle alt-tab, and refusal to remember my custom game pad settings. These
things don’t really affect the actual gameplay but sure are annoying.
Mike Kasprzak: n/a
I don't know what's going on, but the game was un-playably slow. Last I
checked, a GeForce 6800 was still a good video card. On the plus side,
the game *doesn't* restrict the mouse cursor to a single monitor, so I
was able to quickly crash and exit the game by clicking off screen.
Russ Carroll: 7
Wow, did this game pick the absolute worst month possible to come out or what? Phoenicas is similar to Titan Attacks, but what it really does is make you realize just how much better Titan Attacks is than all the other Galaga clones out there. Phoenicas for its part has a wonderful classical score that would make
Beethoven proud, and an interesting Phoenix/Galaga mix that made me realize how much I'd missed Phoenix over the years (but why do the enemies sound like crows?). An expert mode adds a WHOLE lot to the game in terms of replayability with the ability to tilt or angle the ship different directions, but I still found myself feeling like I wasn't as in-control of what was happening on-screen as I would have liked to have been. Honestly any other month this game would have gotten an 8 easy...but the bar officially went up this month. |
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Magnant
(March 21)
($20.00)
by Mohydine Entertainment Inc
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Mike Hommel: 5
On the one hand, we have really standard RTS stuff - most of the hotkeys are
as expected, usual upgrades and buildings, and so on. On the other hand,
how you get into the game is totally screwy with a monstrous jump between
the "tutorial" and the "advanced campaign" (no, there's nothing in
between!). I was unable to get anywhere in the first level of the advanced
campaign, after acing the tutorial, and looking at skirmish mode indicates
that I had not been introduced to about 2/3 of the units in the game. There
are definitely a lot! If you're a hardcore RTS player, this game could work
well for you. It looks like it's especially geared towards online competition. It does however appear to be quite unfinished and unpolished.
Seth Robinson: 5
Magnant is an RTS built around the open source Stratagus engine. The idea
is ambitious – allow players to earn new unit cards and trade/win them in
online play. The reason I can’t rate this higher is it feels like it’s
still in beta. I couldn’t get online play to work, sound stops working
after every scenario, experienced a game crash, some general polish problems
such as unreadable text in places.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Oh my, *VERY* Warcraft 2, but with insects. It's actually not a bad
game at all, because of how close to game-play and interface it is to
Warcraft 2. Unfortunately, with the insect theme, it makes quite
difficult to distinguish the different Ant's from each other. Still,
I'm glad to see this sort of game was made, as a friend and I were doing
something similar back in our youth, that we (of course) never
completed. Neat game.
Russ Carroll: 7
Magnant is an interesting idea of combining Trading cards into an RTS. The game works well enough with some minor issues in path finding, but overall it feels just like any other RTS game with average graphics. The sound is annoying and the voice recording shows where the biggest issue in the game is, the lack of professional polish. The game feels like it is missing ALL of the finishing touches. Still it's a fine RTS, joining the ranks of many other fine RTS games available. Not enough to convince me to play it over StarCraft, Trash or other similarly priced games, but certainly worth a try. |
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Mosaic: Tomb of Mystery
(March 9)
by Reflexive Entertainment
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Mike Hommel: 7
Okay, so this game is too hard for me. Only, I recognize that it isn't
actually very hard at all, but that I just happen to completely lack the
skills it requires. I am totally incapable of looking at the tiles and
seeing where they can fit. I've never played one of these inlay games
before, and now I see that that was a wise choice. Getting past my skill
problem, I think there are too many things to think about between the
falcons, obelisk, crusher, and rotating and placing pieces. Not great, but
the overall package is very good - not just polish, but the progression
system as well is interesting.
Seth Robinson: 9
Reflexive applies its famous ÃÅ“ber polish to the Inlay genre. The Egyptian
theme is trotted out once again but made fresh with rock-solid integration.
The glint of pieces as you turn them, cool crushing device, burning map,
rotating board, and excellent audio make the experience quite visceral
indeed. The additions to the core mechanics are well thought out and work
very well. The flexibility of being able to change from timed to ‘relaxed’
mode without losing progress is a nice touch. My verdict: Wow.
Mike Kasprzak: 8
I never cared much for Puzzle Inlay, but Reflexive did a great job
making it interesting. The game has a fantastically produced Egyptian
theme, from graphics to audio. I think it's worth playing this game
just to see how good a theming can get. The game itself is quite
interesting. For basic variety, there are many "power of the Egyptian
gods" themed magic game-play elements. From pairs of electrified pieces
that path-find to each other filling in the gaps between them, to my
personal favorite, this holding down the button growth spell, that fills
in adjacent tiles. Very cool.
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The
Illustrious Panel:
Mike Hommel -
Hamumu
Mike Hommel is known for his hilarious and bizarre games.
Though his site claims that all his games are just 'dumb fun' you'll
find that they are some of the more interesting games around, and will
eat hours away from your life without you realizing where they all
went.
Seth Robinson -
Robinson Technologies
Seth has spent the last fourteen years making odd games, including
designing and programming many independent titles such as the BBS hit
Legend Of The Red Dragon, the multiplayer Flash based web game Funeral
Quest, IGF finalists Teenage Lawnmower and Dungeon Scroll and the cult
classic RPG Dink Smallwood.
Mike Kasprzak - Sykhronics
Coming from a game console background, Mike's responsible for bringing
to the market such oddities as Secret Agent Barbie for Gameboy
Advance, The Emperor's New Groove for Gameboy Color, and several other
top girl branded games (not that he's bragging). In indie land, he
seeks redemption. Mike's best known for his "cute but not girly"
hamster blasting game, PuffBOMB.
Russ Carroll - Game Tunnel
Russell's first taste of action in the Independent Games industry came
doing visuals and some audio work on several independent games for
BCSoft games. While so doing he became aware of the need for a Game
News and Review website dedicated to Indie games and launched Game
Tunnel in 2002 to fill the void. |
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By: The Illustrious Panel Posted: Saturday April 22, 2006
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