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June
2005 Indie Game Monthly Round-Up
(by
The Illustrious Panel - TIP) |
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Ultratron
(June 11)
Download Now!
by Puppy Games
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Nice style, good gameplay, bad controls. There's not much to this game, but
that is pretty appropriate for an arcade game (and it is only $10). Why
can't I aim with the mouse? I understand I am limited to 8 directions. Let
me aim those 8 directions with my mouse, please. Or at least support a gamepad, or dual stick. After some getting used to the controls, it's a fun
and addictive mindless arcade blast. - MH |
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This is a further evolved Puppytron – A lot of improvements have been made including new enemies, new sounds, a full screen mode, and a clear and more interesting level progression. Overall, the game has been made easier; I reached the last level on my first game. But with a game like this it’s not about the levels; it’s about the final score! - SR |
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| Puppytron revisited, now Ultra. Visually, it's great. A unique arcade sprite graphics style blended together with glows, particle effects, and spot lights. For a game with a lot of bright neon colors, it really feels dark. From the low ambient rumblings to sharp digital blips, beeps, honks, and an evil computer voice spewing death threats; Aurally, it's bang on. Heck yeah, I think it's a great game. No, it's not the huge 200,000 hour monster 3D shooter that redefines the genre, blah blah. It's how to redo an arcade classic. - MK |
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Outer-Rim Pod Digger
(June 4)
Download Now!
by Photonik Games
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I have to say, this game would definitely earn a 7/10 if not for one
overwhelming mind-boggling flaw. It uses password save. Yes folks, in
2005, on a PC, you have to WRITE DOWN A PASSWORD to continue your game from
where you left off. Did you know that even Gameboy games don't do this
anymore? There's a very good reason. Anyway, despite that, the game itself
is good. The comparisons to Lemmings are obvious, just without the
real-time and pixel-level precision, and thus the associated fiddliness.
But boy, are those bubblemen creepy with their red eyes. - MH |
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| Lemmings meets Dig Dug. This is a neat logic game where you dig and place objects before letting out marshmallow men who need to get to a rocket ship. The difficulty level doesn’t seem too high so the absence of level solutions or a way to skip a level might not be a deal-breaker. Gripes: Write down my password? That’s so NES era. Needs an undo button and a way to speed up slow sequences. - SR |
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| Cool! It's like Chu Chu Rocket, but with gravity and an alien race of Michelin Men. What I really like is how you buy parts from a list, versus Lemmings or The Incredible Machine that give you fixed number of parts or skills to solve a puzzle. You still have a fixed list of what can be purchased each level, and a fixed income, but it's an opportunity to let players be a little more creative in later levels. And what can I say; you get a big launch button to push when you finish. It's a gimmick for sure, but suits the game perfectly. Compared to Chu Chu, it feels easier, and I think that's a good thing. I like it. - MK |
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Radia
(June 10)
by Surrealix |
| I first want to give a big thanks to this game for the helpful tip:
"Increase your points for a high score". That completely opened my eyes to
a whole new way of looking at the world! Secondly, I want to say it is
insanely difficult to control your paddle in this game. I don't know what
system would be easier for a radial breakout game, but what they had was
impossible. I got better after playing some, but it never felt comfortable
or natural, and I could never pass more than 2 levels in one set of lives
(on easy). -
MH |
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| Don’t try to replace my system32vorbis.dll! Keep it in your own dir please! I can’t really review this because my framerate drops to an unplayable rate once the ball starts breaking things. I suspect a hardware incompatibility. Add an uninstall icon in the program folder please. - SR |
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| A neat idea. Breakout/Arkanoid in a circle. Controlling it is unique, as you spin the mouse in a circle. Cool. However, again we're greeted with instant death pickups... 'cmon people! That's not fun! The first 3 items I picked up in the game were them. Bleah. - MK |
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Minute
Match
(May 12)
Download Now!
by Oliver Pearl
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On the plus side, the graphics and sound are fabulous! This game has a
great style that is very strong and gears you up to have fun. Too bad it
doesn't follow through with the gameplay. There are 5 mini-games here, and
they're all essentially the same: pretty boring. The games are highly
random and excruciatingly repetitive, so they're not the back-and-forth fun
slugfest you expect from this kind of 'party game'. They are entertaining
for a bit, but they go on for much too long (especially if you select the
100-P play mode). I'm reminded of the great fun of Wario Ware's two-player
games - most importantly, how they end very quickly. - MH |
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| I enlisted my wife to help me test this 2-4 player one-button control party game. The five games are illustrated great and provide a solid light-weight arcade experience. Some games change with more players, for instance, with four players in the Spider game there is strategy in getting “switch places” power-ups to get to the edge, where points are easier to pickup. - SR |
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| Here's a collection of 1 button mini games. The art is nicely done, with equally as good audio. The games scale nicely from 2-4 players, which is my only beef that there was no AI player to play against (or they were just that bad). Nice. - MK |
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Scorch an Island
(June 12)
by Avalanche Team
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| This is not really a bad game in any way, but I can't help but compare it to
its kin, Worms and the granddaddy himself, Scorched Earth. In that
comparison, it falls far short. It's one of those classic examples of "Why
3D?", to which most developers cry out, "Why not!?" These guys did, and the
game suffers for it. It's far easier to aim your shots if you put the
camera as close to exact side view as possible, and the terrain destruction
is so much less intense and fun than Worms or Scorched Earth. Interesting
note: pressing the tilde key drops the game into a tray icon. Hey, why not? - MH |
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| This is a nicely done Scorched Earth type game where the playfield is 3D but the gameplay remains 2D. Despite a slightly wonky camera it works very well. Multiplayer LAN support is great, but I’m disappointed there is no internet play in yet. - SR |
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| Yep, a 3D Scorched Earth. Like the classic, it has several weapons. Despite the game being 3D, it's played as a 2D side view with the camera overlooking the action. I don't actually like the camera controls at all. It's not very intuitive, and doesn't let me see what's going on too easily. The aiming/shooting is alright, but the giant arrow it uses to describe the path and power is quite deceiving, especially for short and long shots. It's an alright game, but Scorched Earth wasn't just about the tanks, angles, explosions, and a variety of weapons, it's also the technology that let you abuse the landscape. Such fun as: rollers that'd roll down the mountain until they find a pit, napalm that'd fill pits with hot burning goo, diggers that'd collapse the landscape, dirt weapons to cover your enemies, and so many more. That and all the great environmental effects: bouncy walls, wrapping walls, lightning, etc. Really, to do one better, you'll have to pull a BreakQuest on it. - MK |
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Miner Madness
(June 15)
by Mercury Effects
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| This is a really hard one to review. I kept playing a bunch, because the
extreme randomness compelled me, but. was it fun? Not really. I'm not sure.
The pace is too slow, the success too random, and the controls, well, they're
too horrendous (and also seemingly random, for that matter) to contemplate.
But it is very unique and does seem to compel me to play on much like a
gambling addiction. - MH |
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| I’m reminded a bit of Oasis when examining the core mechanics of this game – searching a grid and uncovering random things in a race against time. But what’s with this balance problem : Around level 40 I’d collected 27 or 180 ‘artifacts’ but the time to complete levels had gotten so tiny it was basically impossible. -
SR |
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| It's a neat game, but I have a number of beefs. The gameplay is rather random, but that might be the allure of a mining game, finding stuff randomly. Limited lives sucks, as it's really easy in levels past level 1 to get shot in to a pit by a geyser. It's possible to avoid them, but that sort of strategizing seems like too much for a game about digging for treasure. The story sequence at the beginning is really slow to watch. Sure, it's timed to the music, but 'cmon. I do appreciate the skip button, but a story sequence is meant to be watched at least once. - MK |
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Summer Schoolgirls
(June 16)
Download Now!
by Hanako Games |
"Is there a choice to kick Anna in the teeth?" - a female player of Summer
Schoolgirls who helped me review. Unfortunately, the answer was no. As it
was for many potential choices. See, this game just doesn't offer a lot of
choices. About 90% of the time you are just clicking on through. Even when
the dialogue openly presents a choice (which ice cream do you want?), your
character usually picks one for you. It also wastes a lot of time with
things that just can't be interesting to anyone - for example, when the
students are told about safety and diversity, the actual speech is given to
you as opposed to "You are given a lecture on safety." Lastly, the game is
virtually silent - except for a horrific alarm noise each morning! AUGH! - MH |
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| This game is about relationships, coming of age, and making choices. Not unlike the movie Groundhog Day, you repeat the same week slowly learning the traits that will endear yourself to your roommates. The action is presented in nicely illustrated still frames with lots of dialog. I’d like to see more indie games in this interesting category. - SR |
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| Well, this is something completely different. I'm aware of a dating simulation games, but ones about making friends? The idea of a game about making friends strikes me as so absurd, that I can't think of a clever way to end this sentence. You could say it's a psychological or manipulative game, as you as a female student need to say and do things to befriend your female roommate; and given that I'm a guy playing this game, and they're high school students, I can't help but think I'm doing something either sociologically or morally wrong. Alas, my forays into the realm of psychology and social engineering must come to an end. I totally have no idea how I should be reviewing this sort of game, but I'm required to score highly any game that both freaks me out and doesn't appear to have any interface issues. - MK |
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Funky Farm
(May 1)
Download Now!
by Sortasoft
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| A really unique game that's pretty fun to play too. It suffers the same
problem I see in many of the games reviewed - not enough metagame. There's
just "play" and that's it. No other modes, not even a high score table on
this one (that I saw anyway). Because of that simple progression, I rapidly
lost interest. If there had been reasons for me to play beyond getting to
the next (very similar) level, it would've been much more compelling. The
basic gameplay is fun though - I just got tired of doing it over and over! - MH |
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| I like the graphics and sounds but, well, the farming just isn’t funky enough. A good strategy clicker will get more complicated as time goes by and let you reap the rewards of smart thinking. That’s missing here. The gameplay is very simplistic and doesn’t change enough to keep it interesting. - SR |
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| Ah, a good 'ol fashion farming simulation, with the big bad wolf and everything. It's as twitchy and clicky of a game as Pizza Frenzy and the Betty and Wendy bar games. In true clicky game fashion, my hand severely ached after playing. I'm starting to think of these intensive clicky games a bit of a health risk, at least for myself. When you unlocked the pig and play a few more maps, there isn't much variety, other than different initial placements of things. The wolf was surprisingly easy to beat back, with my sophisticated wall placement tactics (i.e. click a lot, add 2 or 3 layers along top and bottom). If you dig the other twitchy's, you might like this one. - MK |
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RollyBall
(June 16)
by LittleBigWam
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| This falls into that nebulous category of games that feel like college
projects. I think we get one each month! Presentation-wise, this is an
absolute flop. The gameplay is much better than absolute flop, but it is
unbelievably difficult, and demands vast oceans of patience and untwitchy
fingers. It's very interesting how it includes levels you have to actually
flip upside down and sideways, but with a tilted camera, and no easy
reference point for when it's level, it's painfully frustrating. - MH |
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| In this game you tilt the world with your mouse to get a ball to follow a track. The concept is sound and the levels look inventive but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It’s just hard to control. Atrocious GUI art, Z tearing problems and lack of translucent triangle sorting doesn’t help. I thought it was strange that RollyBall’s ball doesn’t roll, it slides. - SR |
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| The game is this. Take Monkey or Hamster Ball, zoom out a whole bunch, and play by moving a ball to the end by tilting the whole map. It's really not a fun thing to do if you ask me. I don't exactly blame the game or developer, I actually think it's just a boring concept at this macro level. I was getting frustrated by the game, to the point where I tried to get the ball to the end by whipping the map around, such that I could scoop it up by the exit pipe. Eventually I did it. The problem, you were supposed to go through some gates (pyramids) earlier in the level before exiting. Aww. - MK |
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Dream Match Tennis
(June 13)
Download Now!
by Goblinz
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This looks and feels like real tennis, with just a few things that really
grate on me. Foremost is the lack of mobility. I play tennis, and I'm a
fat slob of a computer geek, but I could cover the court three times over
before these guys could saunter across it once. Secondly, like several
other sports games we've reviewed, it lacks any explanation of the rules of
the sport. If I wasn't already familiar with it, I would've been confused
many times over by things like "Let" and the crazy scoring. And lastly, it's
just bare bones - you can't even quit in mid-tournament and return to it
later, and it only includes two modes: a simple 4-opponent tournament, and a
single exhibition match. - MH |
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| The first indie offering from Japan based “Bimboosoft” is a strong tennis simulation. It looks good, it sounds great and it plays well. I like how when you play the computer on “Insane” difficulty he does this great grunt on nearly every shot he pounds. Not much in the way of options but gamepad and player vs. player is supported. At $4.95 the price is right. - SR |
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| It's a really good looking and great sounding tennis game. The audio sounds like it's right out of a tennis match on TV, and you can distinctly tell the difference between a hard hit and a soft one. The controls are a tad complicated, giving you WASD and all it's friends to do different swings. Given how nice the graphics are, it's a shame there's no adapting of the animations to actually swing where the racket is hitting the ball (as much as I love to see myself make a return using my elbow). I'm not sure why, but I didn't really have much fun playing. I kept thinking, Pong. I'm likely tainted by Pong, which makes it hard for me to appreciate Tennis as a sport. - MK |
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The Cursed Wheel
(April 22)
Download Now!
by FunMan Games
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The most uncannily accurate rotary phone simulator I've ever played. Right
down to the sound effects. The only thing missing is actually getting to
talk to someone after you dial! This is a competent color matching game
that is easy to the point of total boredom when played on Easy (even when a
level labeled "Extreme" comes up in the maze mode), but playing Arcade mode
on Extreme definitely shows the other side of the coin. The included game
modes offer pretty good variety - I'm always a fan of layering an
exploration-type mode over your game.
- MH |
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This game has you rotating three rings to match colored gems. Eventually I realized just using the center wheel and going for 4 and 5 gem combos makes everything very easy, if a little monotonous. The graphics and sound are excellent and there is a certain “easy but relaxing” factor to the maze mode but Cursed Wheel lacks the depth of play required to be the top of its genre. - SR |
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| It's a neat mechanic, spinning the wheels to make matches. Unfortunately, while I do like the mechanic, it's really not challenging and gets boring quick. Maybe hardcore Gem Drop players will dig it, but it's exactly that. Drop and match. Other than that 'minor' detail, the game looks good and audio is well done. - MK |
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Mexican Motor Mafia
(June 15)
by Science of Tomorrow
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| Hooray! I think I like games set in Mexico. I always wanted to make a
trilogy of my own, in fact. The music in this game is fabulous, but that
doesn't make it stand out - it's just a solid part of a total package of
intense style. What could be better in this game? More variety in gameplay
might be nice (stuff to pick up, hidden things to find), and maybe if the
cars weren't so easy to steer - oversteering is my problem. That's all I
can think of. Truly, a great game. - MH |
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| In this top view game you battle other cars to earn money and goods to trade at town to upgrade your vehicle. Many things come together to make this game work: The moody comic style art that drives the plot, excellent music and great car controls. Instead of shooting out the front, you wield your weapons out the side making combat more interesting. The game is balanced well, very fun. - SR |
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| I had mixed feelings about the control scheme at first, but it grew on me as I played. It's like a sort of Death Rally adventure game. You drive your car around and fight bandits, smugglers, and other not so nice people. Vaguely, I'm reminded of the movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico, just due to all the killing and the whole Mexico thang. The music is great and really sets the tone, as few indie games have soundtracks with actual vocals in it. Sure, you could nitpick; but it's quite a unique game, and I really enjoyed playing it.
- MK |
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Alien Outbreak 2: Invasion
(May 1)
by Bee Games
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| Not much to complain about here really. Another top-down shooter where the
enemies have life meters (are shooter life meters the new black?). I had
fun playing it, it's real simple and mindless, easy to control, works fine,
but there are dozens (hundreds?) of games exactly like it. I can't really
think of anything to highlight as a problem with it, other than "meh". -
MH |
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| This game follows the “casual space shooter” recipe, 10 waves, a boss, repeat and rinse. A couple things stand out though: No movement speed restrictions (you can move as fast as your mouse does) and the primary weapon powers up as you raise your life. I think what moves this game to slightly above average for its genre is the action – the enemy patterns are varied and the bullet dodging gets pretty intense. - SR |
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| I don't know what to call these. Single screen SHMUP's, Space Invaders clones, whatever. This one, has a few unique things to it. It has some neat attack patterns, with enemies doing quick jumps across the screen. I also like how it does the accumulation of power energy thang. Essentially what that means is your life is how powered up your attack is. A few friends and I have talked about similar systems in game designs, but the problem with it is it significantly makes things easier for better players, instead of perhaps making things easier for a not so good player. Either way, the controls are responsive. The graphics are flashy with particle effects. Pretty much what you'd expect from this sort of game. - MK |
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Heli Attack 3
(June 18)
by Squarecircleco
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| This is a very
strange game. The tutorial demonstrates all these great platforming abilities to you - you can climb walls, crawl under things, etc.
Then the actual gameplay throws it all out the window completely and all you
do is run left and right on a relatively flat plane, shooting up at
helicopters overhead. If the gameplay had followed on from the tutorial,
this game would be GREAT. As it is, it's average at best. The different
weapons are fun, but there are way too many controls to manage, and the
gameplay becomes tedious quickly, since it's all the same. -
MH |
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| This is a flash based freebie arcade game. Think Metal Slug but with more weapon types and every stage is about killing ten or so choppers that are shooting at you from above to advance. It’s worth checking out if you don’t mind playing a game in a tiny window in your browser. Awesome art. - SR |
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| A quality 2D platformer shooter. The game audio is great, and is visually on par with Metal Slug. Animation wise, few games short of Alien Hominid (console version, not flash) challenge the mighty slug, but the game still looks really good. The game is rather simple in concept, kill X enemy vehicles in an arena per level. There appears to be 'many' weapons in the game. Unless I missed it, I was getting a new one each level. Really, no complaints about the game. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and looks great doing it. Only complaint was the MiniClip site itself, which I'd often click outside the game window and hit a banner (Ack!). -
MK |
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Magic Blackboard
(May 5)
by Alpha 72 Games
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| Crash on startup. -
MH |
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| Alpha72 makes some damn unique games. There are tons of great ideas in this epic brick breaker such as ‘mouse drawing’ your name and drawing your own levels. However, it’s got the most severe case of Programmer Art-itus I’ve seen in many moons. Don’t adjust your set, it really is that blurry, even after disabling “gooyness”. If looking at the screen doesn’t make you queasy, I think you’ll find this game a work of art. - SR |
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| This one was a surprise. We almost skipped it, deceived by the screenshots. It's another Breakout/Arkanoid, but it's style is so... bizarre. First off, the game's crazy blurry. Everything smears and ghosts as it moves. It's so odd to see a game like this, but I love it. The graphics are simple, but look nice in the blurry madness. Audio is great, as a nice soft ambiance mix with musical tones played by smashed bricks. And now for the really clever stuff. They use very few bricks, and their huge. Now that doesn't sound all that impressive, but a few maps (including the first) have only 1 brick. One! I could go on, and I will; SHMUP stages where you fight bricks with your ball gun, Pang/Buster Bros bubble popping, a creepy gator with silly phrases and comments between stages, and name entry screens that use a pencil/pen/chalk interface to write them. My only beef, Comic Sans Ms. While not as spring and physics heavy as BreakQuest, it's still something special. -
MK |
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The
Illustrious Panel for this month:
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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See a game that was missed? Though we do
our best, we are unable to cover all games. In addition, some games slip
through the cracks because we just don't know they exist. If you are a
developer, ensure this doesn't happen by
submitting your game or a
news item. |
