September 2005
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September
2005 Indie Game Monthly Round-Up
(by
The Illustrious Panel - TIP) |
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Quick Scores: |
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Trash
(September 20)
Download Now!
by Inhuman Games
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Mike Hommel: 6
 This seems like a pretty solid RTS game (clunky and hard to manage, though).
Not my style by ANY means as it's far more in the C&C "ants on parade" camp
than the Warcraft "big n' beefy" camp, but lots of complex options are
available. Unfortunately that's also the problem. It is yet another
example in the disturbing trend of games with no campaign, no tutorial, no
explanation of any kind. Jump right in, my friend, and click at random,
because that's all you'll know how to do. Most impressive of all, in a game
that has not a single word of tutorial? There is NO MANUAL WHATSOEVER.
Seth Robinson: 8
 Trash is a well done RTS that continues to blur the lines betweens indie and ‘the big boys’ in terms of
graphics and gameplay. I was able to play a smooth and lag free ten player game with tons of units my first
time out. Team communication is easy with things like flares and resource sharing. The only things missing
are a nice in-game tutorial and a single player campaign.
Mike Kasprzak: 8
 Ahh, the long awaited Trash. It's a solid RTS at it's core, played in a
control scheme like Starcraft (right click action). Just to be clear,
this game is all about the multiplayer. The single player mode is just
a plain skirmish, and doesn't offer any depth or means to learn or get
in to the back story. No, it's up to you to just *know* that humans and
mutants are battling for what's left of the world... which is mostly
populated trash. It's an intriguing concept that the primary resource
is junk, meaning dead things can be recycled. Neato.
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Gem Shop
(September 15)
Download Now!
by HipSoft
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Mike Hommel: 6
Well, Hipsoft never fails with the polish. however, this is a Chuzzle clone.
It's official: game cloning has now gone through so many generations, the
DNA is actually starting to unravel. Anyway, Chuzzle is distinctly more
appealing than Gem Shop on a style level. Gem Shop offers more interesting
gameplay in the main mode, but Chuzzle offers far more variety in ways to
play (Gem Shop offers nothing BUT the main mode). Which is better? I'm
gonna lean Chuzzle on this one (mainly due to the 'awards' it includes), but
with a firm "meh" to both. A solid game, but calling it "uninspired" would
be a compliment.
Seth Robinson: 7
This is a “drag the row to match three” type game eerily similar to a previous Round-up game called Chuzzle. All the requisites are here, internet scoring, upgrades between rounds, and two difficulty modes. Solid and playable but I can’t shake the “I’ve already played this” feeling. Something about how the jewelry upgrades, customer happiness meter and level goals are tied together seem a bit tedious. I’d consider it above average in the sea of highly polished match three games.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Yet another high quality match 3, this one is played with row shifting
like in Chuzzle. What's really nice about this one is the theme.
Playing the game, you're "apparently" running a jewelry store, and I
guess talking up customers to buy stuff via the match 3 game. Playing
puzzle games to accomplish tasks works great for Puzzle Pirates, so hey,
why not running a store? Funky. Now, where's the match 3 RPG?
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The Goat in
the Grey Fedora
(August 31)
by Pinhead Games
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Mike Hommel: 8
Never thought I'd say this, but that adventure was actually too easy! It's
good - it's funny, sorta well-voiced, skippable chat, and short enough that
it's just a fun little diversion instead of pain. One thing though: the
hand drawn features on the 3D faces were just plain creepy weird.
Seth Robinson: 7
If you’ve got an hour to kill and a hankerin’ for some old school click and move talky-adventure goodness
you’re in luck. The voice acting and humor is hit and miss but the puzzles are logical and there is an
amusing scene with a Kraken. This is the best of the ‘freebie adventure games’ I’ve seen yet.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Heeey, it's Nick Bounty! Case of the crabs was an entertaining little
adventure game. So hooray, more Nick. A shame though, that the
characters are 3D models this time. The art in the first game was maybe
a little dirty, but I imagined a game or two later they would have it
perfect. Anyways, the dialog is nice and cheesy. It's certainly an
entertaining game. The music is quite fitting, and better produced.
All in all, a fine production.
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The Strategist
(August 25)
by Oxeye Game Studio
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Mike Hommel: 6
This is a fun variation on Risk. The most enormous problem here is
something we see quite a bit - it throws you in completely clueless to a sea
of intense strategy. Actually, it does offer you some explanations on your
first few turns of the game, but frankly I was somewhat lost before I got
there, in the menus. No single-player campaign or anything of the sort,
just endless 'skirmish' mode, disappointing.
Seth Robinson: 8
This game reminds me of Lords Of Conquest for the C64. The random map generator is excellent, the rules
understandable, and online play with team support is fully supported. Until the community around it gets
larger you might have trouble finding enough people in the lobby for a large game. Luckily the skirmishes
against CPU are very configurable and pretty darned fun.
Mike Kasprzak: 8
Risk like strategy game, and a good time. I easily spent the most time
this month with this game. There's a clever system of reinforcements,
combat via sea, turns per player, and so on. Not too complex, but a
very cool game.
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B.I.R.D.
(August 9)
Download Now!
by Rainbow Creatures
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Mike Hommel: 6
This game is absolutely insanely hard! Yikes! I can accept that though.
What IS wrong with this game is that it's nearly impossible to tell things
you are supposed to touch from things you aren't, it's often completely
unclear why you won or lost a level, it uses PASSWORD SAVE (didn't we
discuss this last month!?), and the control feel is kinda icky. Not
terrible, but it could definitely feel a lot nicer. The "coolness" stuff is
a nice feature, though.
Seth Robinson: 4
Rocks, cannon balls, eggs, and bird droppings come together in a mish-mash of arcade action. I like the art
but things are a bit rough around the edges. For instance, it’s an unspoken law that if you have an
invincibility power-up, you will give a cue when it’s going to wear off. It blinks. You hear a tone.
Something. It seems like a small thing but if you multiply that by a hundred other small things and add
horrific audio, well, it ain’t good.
Mike Kasprzak: 6
This game reminds me of an old Commodore 64 classic, Potty Pigeon. In
Potty Pigeon, you... erm... dropped "your business" on cars. In this,
you do it to people, or at least children. In Potty Pigeon, your
droppings were lethal. If they hit a car, the car would spin out of
control and disappear! That's some dangerous stuff! Here, it's not
quite that extreme, but as far as extreme goes, you as a bird do extreme
stunts, such a dodging flying obstacles and kids on trampolines. Not
quite as effective, but still entertaining in it's own way. Neat game.
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Dr Germ
(September 3)
Download Now!
by Game Savant
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Mike Hommel: 7
As color matching games go, this is quite good! Of course, it's still color
matching, which places it as an odd mix of addictive and mind-numbingly
dull. It does offer 4 quite different game modes which is very nice, and a
set of awards of sorts to collect. All in all, rather well done. Instead
of cloning Bejeweled like so many others, this game clones 4 different
color-matching games!
Seth Robinson: 7
This color matcher includes four game types and for a change they all are actually pretty different from each
other. I dug “research mode” which plays similar to Super Collapse or Pumpkin Pop. As usual for the genre
these days, it sports a basic combo system and online high-scores. I found “Stranded DNA” mode to be a major
snorefest but “Petri Dish” to be very interesting.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Well, again, another well produced match 3. I dig the art, which is
always a good thing. And it offers some actual different and intriguing
play modes, versus the usual Bejeweled or Sega Swirl gameplay. So, here
we have, dragging games. Given gravity, and some space between the
pieces and the top, you can drag any open piece to any open space in the
playfield to cause new matches. Really, it's a great variation. I
think the doctor is on to something.
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Hyperspace Invaders
(September 15)
by URSE Games
Published by Alawar
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Mike Hommel: 7
For a bog-standard vertical shooter, this game is pretty good! The upgrade
systems are pretty blah, and the perspective (though adjustable) is a little
wonky. But the biggest problem is the mouse control. I'm not sure what it
is, but it's very molassesy. There's also a "simulator" control mode, which
makes it go from molassesy to wet-cementy. Playing with keyboard is better.
So what's good? It was fun - fast-paced, intense, and sorta challenging.
But it's perpetuating that stupid "life meters in space" trend. Shooters
don't need life meters! Stop making the enemies take so many hits that they
do!
Seth Robinson: 7
This game uses well done 3D to present basic 2D shooter mechanics. In fact, if you change your camera mode
enough times you can get a flat side view to play with! Man, these are some seriously flamboyant space ships.
With a host of upgrades and sweet action I think if you like blowing stuff up you’ll appreciate this.
Mike Kasprzak: 4
Err... no. The game has this *incredibly* annoying re-centering thing
going on with the mouse. You move it to the left or right, and the ship
flies back to where it came from. Oh, and *sometimes* it sticks. Past
that, it's your standard shmup. Shoot stuff, stuff blows up. Good
times? No thanks to the mouse control.
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Wibble
(September 1)
by Red Games
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Mike Hommel: 3
Behold, originality is not dead! But you may soon wish it was. There is
definitely no game like Wibble (well, there's curling. sort of). Wibble
asks us for 5 letter words, so I have this one to offer it: BORED (lucky it
doesn't take 4 letter words). The gameplay is extremely dull, and has no
variation - there's just one thing to do (in 2 slightly different ways),
over and over. No levels. Even the menus are unbelievably confusing in
this game ("Play"? Why would I have a button for that? People should just
click each option in turn until the game starts by itself!) Three points
for trying something new, no points for anything else.
Seth Robinson: 4
If you imagine shuffleboard but without the best parts such as aiming and knocking off enemy players you’d
have a pretty good idea of how this game plays. I can’t find Tetris-like zen playing this due to the simple
one dimensional gameplay and scoring. Twenty bucks seems steep for what feels more like a well done but not
particularly addictive mini-game that might be a non essential side-quest in a bigger game.
Mike Kasprzak: 4
Alright, I have an odd way of describing this game. Let's call it, a 1
dimensional artillery game, *without* guns. By that, the game is played
about 1 axis, and you select a power level, and a set of letters are
blown upward into a wall. The letters bounce off the wall, and need to
land in a fixed space. So, in odd terms, you're aiming in 1D. It is an
interesting concept for a game, and I think it would have made a fine
flash game. Ahh, it can be yours for the *low low* price of $19.95!
But wait, there's more! Order now and we'll throw in a blah GUI to
confuse you, absolutely free! Act now, supplies are limited!
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Tennis
Elbow
(September 9)
by Mana Games
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Mike Hommel: 7
It's nice to have a fast-moving character in a tennis game! Despite being
2D with fairly silly graphics (especially when it lets me pick the hair
color), this game feels very realistic. It seems tough to put control onto
the ball, but it can be done, and it's very playable (provided you read the
manual.). So playable in fact that your guy will hit the ball all by
himself! This game looks and feels like the product of a bygone era - Fun,
fast and simple to play, with the looks of a Genesis game.
Seth Robinson: 8
Despite the gaudy character sprites this game does a really good job of emulating tennis. Unlike most tennis
games you don’t have to work to strike the ball; if you’re anywhere near, you’ll swing automatically. Buttons
are just for extra control. Lots of options including four-player doubles action and tournaments make this
game a deeper tennis simulation than I’ve seen before.
Mike Kasprzak: 5
For a moment there, I thought this was good. Training mode, the dude
automatically swings for you. Nice. On that note, I was happy to have
found a possible casual friendly tennis game. Then, when I got in to
the real game, I realized, hey... it's not... swinging... no more!
There are dozens of tennis games out there, all seemingly targeted to
hard core players. Why make another mediocre one? At least if it was
casual friendly, via an incredibly basic mouse interface that does all
the work, and maybe a mouse button to influence variation. Tennis for
the people.
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Virus
(September 1)
Download
Now!
by Tamestorm
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Mike Hommel: 7
A really unique RTS type of game. Fun and interesting, but rather confusing
(is it Energy or Life?!). The way you collect upgrades along the path of
the campaign (wow, a game with a single player campaign, can it be?) is a
nice feature too. Since there are no obstacles of any kind, and only one
type of unit, it's a really simplistic game, but it's enough to keep me
interested a while.
Seth Robinson: 3
In this game you send out clouds of viruses to fight enemy clouds. Unfortunately, not unlike real virus
scanning, it involves a lot of waiting and watching the screen as your tiny hosts build up power. Underneath
this plays like a real-time strategy game but there seems to be logic errors dealing with commandeering new
computers making the game quite dull. Didn’t change my screen resolution back when quitting.
Mike Kasprzak: 8
Cool, a hacking game! Alright, it's not so much hacking as it is virus
spreading. This game's really easy to play. You move markers which
attract the clouds of virus, and simply place them where you would like
them to go. In a way it's a really simple interface for a high unit
density RTS. Moving these things that influence where the army goes,
instead of moving all the units. Ok, I'm sold, I love the interface
here... and it's a hacking game. Now the down side, is the game makes
you wait a while for your units to regenerate and upgrade themselves.
In a way, I dig the immersive part of having to wait actual time for it
to evolve, but I equally disliked it. It's a shame the game doesn't
have a uniquer name, as I'd certainly tell a few guys doing RTS's to
check this out for the macro interface. I like it.
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Kisses
(March)
by DigiPen
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Mike Hommel: N/A
My video card doesn't meet the minimum requirements. No go.
Seth Robinson: 5
This month’s college project looks and sounds great. There is a neat igloo village and you can run around
meeting your basic ‘needs’ and flirting with chicks. It’s amazing how such a fun premise can be so boring!
The daily resource gathering is monotonous and the “Sims” like love system is cryptic and frustrating. A girl
loved me 100% but when I tried to kiss her she called me gross and left my igloo in a huff! A great
foundation but it just isn’t compelling yet.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
A quirky little game about the pseudo life of an Eskimo. It's a bit of
a social game, having you communicate and build relationships with other
Eskimos. In many ways I'm reminded of Animal Crossing, and if I had
played the Sims, I'm sure I'd find connections there too. Interesting.
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Heavy Weapon
(March 24)
Download Now!
by PopCap
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Mike Hommel: 5
At first, this game seems a simple wacky mindless fun time. That's before
you encounter THE GLARING FLAW. THE GLARING FLAW is so heinous, it turns
the wacky fun time into a brain-smashing, mouse-throwing orgy of hate and
pain - and it is, incidentally, compounded by blatantly unfair nastiness
(example: an enemy that drops bombs that kill you instantly no matter where
you are or how shielded you are, and said bombs take a fairly large number
of direct hits to destroy EACH. and he drops 3! While you're trying to
fight everything else!). What is THE GLARING FLAW? Simple: your tank moves
towards the mouse cursor. It sounds so benign. And yet you face enemies
like Kommie Kong, who jumps over you, forcing you to dodge by moving your
tank, which of course means you can't actually shoot at him, because you're
moving the cursor away from him to move. Trucks come at you on the ground -
wanna aim at them? Great, you're also going to be driving right into them
(luckily, and uncharacteristically, this is not lethal). Wanna dodge those
bombs dropping on you? Go for it! But it means you won't be shooting at
the planes dropping them! Pardon the lengthiness, friends. this game isn't
terrible, it's even fun at first - but I'm just utterly aghast that
something so broken is coming from Popcap Games, the masters of polish
(incidentally, the art in this game is also unpolished and all over the
place stylistically - so weird!).
Seth Robinson: 7
Grab your beer, trim your mullet, and get ready to blast the hell out of third-world countries in this
testosterone packed shooter. The action is good and the game methodically introduces new enemies, weapon
upgrades, and giant bosses to nuke. I don’t recommend this for anyone pregnant or not in need of additional
chest hair.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
Grahhh!!! Heavy WeaponZOR!! Yes, that announcer guy is menacing. I'd
been looking forward to checking Heavy Weapon out, as I've heard it
compared to such classics as Moon Patrol. Well, it's not so much Moon
Patrol as it is a shmup from the ground with a free aiming laser. A
cool game none the less. The control scheme works well, combining
movement and shooting controls in to the mouse. Oh, and a nice cheesy
big hair rock song on the title screen to top it all off. Nifty.
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Zombie Smashers X2
(May 11)
by Totally Screwed
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Mike Hommel: 8
What more need you know than that you can rip out a zombie pirate's spine
and beat a vampire nazi to death with it? This is almost two separate
games: once you purchase the Kung Fu tattoo, it magically transforms from a
tiresome, clumsy, repetitive finger-breaker to a whirling blender of death
simulation (a repetitive, and somewhat clumsy, one). I was lucky I happened
to buy that one early. Even before that, though, it's hard to complain too
much - this is another visit to a bygone era, and it definitely brought more
of the good back than the bad! Mindless zombie smashing, lots of humor, RPG
upgrades (hello River City Ransom), cool fighting moves, and even magic.
that's just entertainment.
Seth Robinson: 7
River City Ransom meets survival horror. Don’t let the shaky visuals throw you, there is a ton of gameplay
packed into this offbeat cartoonishly ultra gory romp. Solid double-dragon style play mechanics with many
special move and stat upgrades to purchase make killing ninjas, pirates, Nazis, and of course, zombies, fun.
If you’d like a game where you can pull off someone’s arm and throw it at him, this is for you.
Mike Kasprzak: 7
I don't think I've ever asked "where are all the River City Ransom"
clones, or plan to ask that, but here's one. Like RCR, it's a beat 'em
up. You pick up stuff and whack enemies with it, or go hand to hand. I
found this really great garbage can that I kept with me. I swear, I
dished out hundreds of zombies deaths with my steel cylinder of
justice. Then there was this one time, when I whacked a pedestrian with
it, and the cops hunted me down and killed me. That was awesome. The
game has a goofy story involving punks, ravers, and zombies. Good stuff.
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The
Illustrious Panel:
MH- 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.
SR - 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.
MK - 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. |
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