Indie Games Galore!

April 6, 2009 12:26 am Sir Haxington Game Development, Games for Fun, Gaming

Going to GDC always inspires me to go on an indie game bender. A few of us are sitting at this big award show hosted by the Independent Games Festival (IGF) waiting for the Game Developer’s Choice Awards and feeling guilty that we’ve played 0% of the games they’re calling out. Between the bunch of us we only heard of like three games they talked about…

So, within the next week I start getting games from Steam, downloading them for the PC or getting them for my iPhone. The one thing I found about a lot of these indie games I’m interested in is that most of the nominees (and some of the winners) haven’t even released their game yet. How does that work exactly? Does this happen in the movie industry too? “Well, no one has seen this movie yet, but here’s your award, I’m sure it’ll turn out great.”

Anyway, after getting back from San Fransisco, I went on my yearly indie game binge. Here’s a quick run down of the games I played:

The Graveyard: This game is billed more as “interactive art” than a game. But, it’s being counted as a game on most accounts (hence, being nominated by the IGF for an award). The Graveyard is pretty straight forward as it gets in terms of “gameplay.” You play in the third person as an old woman, who moves very slowly. You have a bit of free movement as you move through a graveyard, but ultimately, you can only go forward, and eventually sit on a bench. Once you sit on the bench, the camera pulls away and shows a sort of picture-in-picture with a close up of the old woman’s face and a depressing song about dying and old age plays. Did I mention the game is in all black and white? Once the song is over, you can choose to leave and walk out of the graveyard. If you’ve purchased the full version of the game (for $5), then optionally, you avatar can die at random. That’s it. Seriously!

So, there really isn’t a game here to speak of, which is fine with me. I think the developer’s intent here is to make you think and feel something, which I think they did a pretty good job of. Here I was, walking through the graveyard, hit with all these conflicting, weird thoughts (like “Argh… I hate moving this slow… wow, I don’t want to get old and move this slow… is playing games when I’m that old going to be possible?”, but the ambient sound of birds in the graveyard and cars in the distance reminded me that life is everywhere and life goes on. I’m doing my depressing virtual walk through death alley and in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “Well, there’s people still outside going about their business, getting groceries, picking up their kids from school” and so on. So, congratulations developers, you made me feel something!

So, without going into to much more detail, I think The Graveyard is worth downloading for the quick, five minute experience. The trial is free, and if you think dying will add another dimension, toss five bones the developer’s way.

You can try out The Graveyard here, or grab it on steam.

You Have to Burn the Rope: Okay, this is a game I don’t get. When I played it, I assumed it was a joke, and maybe it is and that’s all part of it’s nomination in the innovation category. Anyway, you play a little man (for lack of a better term) in what looks like a traditional platformer style game. As you move through the level, you learn that you have no special powers, that that “You Have to Burn the Rope”. So, you end up in the big room with torches everywhere, and a giant boss that that can only be killed by, you guessed it, burning a rope that drops a chandelier on his head. Then you win the game. You can’t die either.

And, that’s it. I’m sure the developers are making some kind of statement (possibly a joke), probably either about the linear nature of some games (many gamers like linear games, believe it or not, since they’re typically easier to digest), or how games are too easy these days (go play Ninja Gaiden if you think that’s the case).

 If you’re interested in playing You Have to Burn the Rope, click here.

Dyson: Take one part RTS, one part Asteroids and two parts funky Flash-like interface and you’ve got yourself a game! Really though, I’m not sure how to describe Dyson since the game feels so abstracted. The game is all 2-D, and there are circles (the asteroids) places throughout the world. You send little flower-like ships out to colonize other asteroids. You can sacrifice 15 ships to create a new “ship colony” which looks like a tree and “grows” new ships. One type of colony allows you to create more attack ships, while the other is purely defensive and allows you to protect an asteroid. Without going into to much detail about the mechanics, that’s about the gist of the game.

Of all the indie games I played, Dyson was the game I kept coming back to the most. The music is very chill and soothing, the graphics are simple and pretty, and taking over and defending your asteroids is rewarding. Best of all, it’s free-99 and extremely replayable. It’s available for the PC, so definitely check this one out if you’re into strategy games at all and have a pair of headphones. To me, this felt like a “relaxing” strategy game.

 You can grab Dyson here.

Incredibots: I love awesome games I can run in a browser. Incredibots feels like the offspring of The Incredible Machine and Battle Bots (the TV show). Incredibots is another 2-D side scroller in which you get to build machines to perform various tasks to complete a level. So for example, you might have to build a car with a scoop that allows you to pick up some junk then carry it into a pit. However, the game play loop is much like The Incredible Machine, where you build your machine, try your solution out, fix the problems, try your new solution out, and so on, until you succeed.

The real cool part though is that you get to build your car basically however you want and you get to control all aspects of the car when you’re driving it. You want a tiny light-weight car with one wheel? Go for it. You want a huge heavy car with eight wheels and mechanical scoop that you also get to control? Be my guest. You want a triangle car with a piston that springs your contraption into the air? Do it! I can see this game being great for kids and it schools, since there’s a lot of fun-physics and problem solving involved. There’s also so much tinkering and building, it’s sorta like virtual Legos with a cool game attached. Definitely check out Incredibots, especially if you have more than a half-hour to dedicate to it.

 Play Incredibots here!

Coil: Woah. This game freaked me out at first. Thinking back on it, I’m still a little freaked out by it, but I imagine the authors are probably happy about that. Coil is another 2-D game that reminds me of Spore in a way. Each stage involves you playing a cell (or cellular structure) which gets bigger the further into the game you get. Between each stage is the story (just text displayed on screen) of the woman who you’re living in at the moment. I won’t ruin it for you (I’m not sure I get the ending anyway), but it sure was a wild ride. The authors took some liberty with Human anatomy, so I’ll assume that in Coil you’re actually involved with the reproductive system of some sort of alien life form.

As you play, you have to discover what your controls are, though luckily the controls only ever involve mouse movements.  Most of the levels in Coil were fairly easy to play, except for one particular level where you need to continuously draw circles with your mouse (it took me minutes to complete, your millage may vary). This particular level is the only frustrating portion of Coil I ran into and is the prime example of why “discovering” your controls can be a dangerous thing. I was constantly asking myself “Am I doing this right? It feels like I’m doing the right thing but I’m not doing that well…” I ended up going online and finding out that sure enough, I had the controls right but this particular level was just hard.

Anyway, the experience was definitely interesting although I thought the woman’s story could have been more clear for a higher emotional impact. Maybe the developers wanted to leave the ending more ambiguous so the player can interpret the ending how they want to? The music and story conjures up a jarring, depressing imagery (as does the white text on a black background). What is it with indie games always talking about death and depressing things?

 Play Coil at Armor Games, here.

World of Goo: I grabbed the demo of World of Goo from Steam, which actually gives players quite a bit of game play for a demo. I played 11 of the demo levels, and I’m pretty sure there’s even more I didn’t try. Anyway, the game is easy to jump into and understand, which is what I love about indie games in general. The developers (2D Boy) do a good job of teaching you how to play the game, which is really all about manipulating sticky balls of goo (physics game play!) to create structures that allow the remaining goo balls to escape via vacuum pipe. Sounds a little wacky, but the game play reminds me of a cross between those bridge building simulations and Lemmings. World of Goo gets more interesting through it’s level design and tools to complete those levels. For example, one level offers the player balloons, which when attached to a goo structure, make it float (or at least lifts it up in the air). This particular level has a giant frog who has a tongue made of goo balls. You must elongate his tongue out of more goo balls across a long pit, but you need to be careful about your balloon usage or else they’ll pop from spikes on the ceiling. So, as you build, you have to manage your balloons against the added weight of new goo balls you add to your structure. You’ll probably fail it more than once, but the push and pull of the bobbing bridge end up creating is fun to deal with.

There’s a bunch of other great levels in the demo worth checking out. The whole experience in World of Goo, from the interface and UI to the sounds and music feel really well polished. If you’re looking for a fun physics toy wrapped in a simple and well crafted package, then World of Goo is the game for you. You’ll get a good idea if you like the game or not from the demo.

You can get World of Goo from here, or from Steam.

iPhone:

Fieldrunners: Hey, there were quite a few indie games that were up for or won awards on the iPhone this year. Nominee for “Best Mobile Game” is Fieldrunners, one of three iPhone games nominated in this category. At first, Fieldrunners seems like a fairly standard tower defense game, but the twist here is that you get to use towers to corral your enemies. In most tower defense games, the level is laid out in a predetermined path and you can only place things along side of the path. With Fieldrunners you have to manage the path and your towers. This opens up all kinds of game play possibilities. Some enemies fly over your structures while some will follow the path you make. Some levels have enemies come in from one side of the level and only try to get to the other, while some levels have enemies coming in from multiple entrances. All of the tower defense stand-bys are there, including towers that slow down enemies, huge damage but low fire rate towers (bomb throwers), low damage but high fire rate (machine guns) towers and pretty much everything in between. All towers can be upgraded by tapping the tower and placing towers is done by dragging them onto the field and letting go.

Fieldrunners is probably the most solid tower defense game on the iPhone currently. It’s also currently on sale for $2.99 (it’s worth more than this), which is totally worth it for what you get. The art is really well done, the animations have a lot of character, the sound is good as far as iPhone games go… what not to like? A well polished tower defense game with lots of unlockables you can play anywhere.

Check out Subatmoic Studio’s site, which has a link to Fieldrunners on iTunes.

Radio Flare: I only played the demo of Radio Flare, but if you’ve played Rez, then you’ll be familiar with the gameplay in Radio Flare. You fly a ship through space with your left thumb and your your right thumb to drag over enemies. Once you let go with your right thumb, your ship will fire, so the goal is to try to drag over multiple ships at once before letting go. Destroyed objects drop red pellets which you can fly over to pick up as well. However, Radio Flare isn’t up a nominee in the gameplay category, its up for”Audio Achievement.” I don’t think the demo does Radio Flare much justice as far as audio goes. The main track is pretty low key and the snare drum like deaths of the enemies don’t add that much to the song like it dies in Rez. However, this is probably a hugely unfair comparison since I was just playing Rez this afternoon and it’s still fresh in my mind.

I actually liked the gameplay in Radio Flare a lot and thought the two thumb approach worked really well. The problem with audio games on the iPhone is that I tend to play with the sound off and I don’t keep the headphones on me. I’m probably in the minority here though. I thought the game was pretty easy to get into and fairly enjoyable even without the music. I think the sound just enhances the experience (it’s not required for game play). The only thing I would have liked to more of is a little feedback for about everything in the game. When you pick up objects you get a sound, the the red pellet just sort of disappears. The developers also tout that “nothing explodes” in this game. I kinda wish it would the game felt a little flat, but there are other ways to provide feedback to the player without stuff exploding all the time. Shrinking and growing sprites? Spinning sprites? There’s a lot that can be done with just the graphics… but I guess this is an audio game (wait, but Rez was an amazing visual experience as well!).

Check out Studio Radiolaris’ site for a link to Radio Flare on iTunes.

Galcon: Again, I only played the demo here. Maybe because I didn’t play enough of the game I didn’t get it, but Galcon kinda stressed me out and was a little difficult to play. It’s not that the game was hard, but the game play involves a lot of quick drag gestures. I found Galcon hard to play anywhere that I would normally play mobile games because it looked like I was freaking out on my phone. Basically, I didn’t like Galcon for the same reason I don’t like playing DS games that involve talking to the DS or breathing on it. I just kinda felt weird playing it. Outside of my own feeling of awkwardness while playing Galcon, the gameplay seemed a little to simple for all the work involved. Galcon reminds me a lot of Dyson, but more hectic. There are a bunch of circles with numbers on them. You must drag from one planet to the next which makes some of your ships fly out and attack. The enemy has their own planets with their own ships who are trying to do the same as you. So, as you can imagine, it’s a flick and drag fest as you send ships around trying to take over planets while also trying to defend your planets from enemy attacks. Once you’ve wiped out the enemy you get to go to the next level.

I think Galcon is a good game if you’re looking for a fast paced action game on the iPhone, because it doesn’t get more action-y than this. Galcon is also dead simple so you know exactly what to do (drag drag drag drag!) each time you play. There is a bit more strategy at higher levels of play but I played quite a few levels where all I had to do to win was fly all my ships to the enemy home planet.

Check out the Galcon site for a link to Galcon on iTunes.

So, that’s it. There’s my indie fix for the season. Now, time to ease back into some old fashioned XBLA games to get me reacquainted with a console controller…