January 2005
|
January
2005 Indie Game Monthly Round-Up
(by
The Illustrious Panel - TIP) |
|
|
|
d |
|
Xeno Assault 2
(December 17)
Download Now!
by Jagged Blade Software
|
A
significant improvement over Xeno Assault (and truly just an
improved version OF Xeno Assault), this is a competent and fun game.
It’s nothing new or amazing, but it is fun to play, challenging, and
exciting. So I guess there’s nothing to complain about! - MH |
 |
| So let me get this straight: Xeno
Assault was released November 9th and its sequel was released December
17th? Astonishing! Basically I can cut and paste from my Xeno Assault
review because they are very similar. It’s a high powered fast paced
rip-through the aliens’ kind of game that has a neat beam weapon. You’ve
seen (most of it) it before, but it’s still fun. - SR |
 |
| Is this a world record? Sequel
released in only 2 months? Either way, I have no clue when the original
Xeno Assault was released, only that we reviewed it in last November's
roundup. Again, we're greeted with a fine guitar driven theme song
(same one perhaps?), which is cool. This time around, the game feels
more polished and refined. I can't put my finger on the specific
differences, but I can tell it plays better. Killing has a nice subtle
shake, which is always a nice touch in any shmup. Weapons are nice and
colorful, and while they require a few shots to kill some baddies, they
feel effective. The asteroid scenes are back as the games 'variety'.
It also does circling aiming enemies well. All in all, it's a nice
game. First Impression 7 (Nice), Lasting Impression 6. - MK |
|
|
d |
Add'Em Up
(January 10)
by Blue Bug Games
|
I fully believe the
claim that this game actually can make you smarter. It’s frickin’ tough!
Finishing a single round requires a lot of foresight to get that last
tile off the board. Puzzle mode has 56 handcrafted puzzles that will
drive you batty. The interface of this number-related puzzler is
beautifully designed - if only it would go full screen because it’s the
size of a postage stamp on my monitor. This has gotta be the first game
I’ve seen where the “User Options” menu is a registered only feature. - SR |
|
| Hooray, a math game. This
one's a clever little puzzle game where the sum of the adjacent blocks
must equal the number you're placing to match. The graphics and cleanly
done, and scale nicely. Unfortunately I got bored quickly, but I suspect
this may be a useful learning game for kids. First Impression 7 (Nice
and cleanly done), Lasting Impression 5 (reminds me of math homework). - MK |
 |
This game is well
polished and nicely playable, it doesn’t fall down in the usual ways.
The problem with this game is instead that it’s just not a fun concept!
It might be for someone who was really into addition, but I’m not, so I
found it to just be a lot of mental work and no rush of reward. You give
me letters, I’m happy to find words, but give me numbers and I’m happy
to find the exit button.
- MH |
|
|
d |
Hightailed
(January 5)
by Indiepath |
| This one comes from the
talented and slightly wacky team “Indiepath”. It’s a simple concept,
like some kind of peg moving game, but decadently rendered in 3D. The
game pieces are these strange alien things (Morphlings? I dunno) that
have decidedly veined bellybuttons. There are 18 boards but the
‘puzzles’ don’t seem to really be solvable by logic as much as by really
hoping the computer player ‘moves’ where you want him to. The
incomprehensible fonts, lack of documentation and disturbing atmosphere
make this game feel arty, but underneath it’s still just pegs moving
around. - SR |
 |
| This ones a cool
strategy puzzle game. The art style is Oddworld'ish (or at least that's
closest thing I can think of), which is neato. Each level you play both
sides to clear it, lets call them big guys (3 of them), and the little
guy. The big guys need to trap the little guy, and the little guy needs
avoid being trapped. It took me a while to get the hang of how to solve
the puzzles, but after the first level it was easy to beat the remaining
puzzles in the demo. The music's pretty cool as well. No complaints,
all good. First Impression 8 (Interesting Puzzle), Lasting Impression 7
(I'd happily play more levels, but I'm not sure what other value a full
version would offer). - MK |
|
| The menus are hard to
read with tiny text, and even harder to click on. The game itself is an
absolutely dull conflict that usually ends up in an endless back and
forth. And I don’t even want to tell you how many restarts and curses it
took me to realize what it meant to “surround the green player” (note:
it means have him surrounded when it is his turn to move, not at any
other time – I thought it was a bug for a long time). I definitely don’t
recommend this game at all. - MH |
 |
|
d |
King of the Ball
(January 16)
by White Blobs
|
| Really the same old
Breakout. The main difference with this game is insane difficulty! It’s
very unforgiving about just what counts as hitting the ball, and
unfortunately has some kind of speed glitchiness where the ball will get
faster or slower occasionally for no discernible reason, making it even
harder to catch. Nothing else remarkable about the game beyond the
difficulty, but it is not a bad game, just average. - MH |
|
| What's a monthly roundup
without a Breakout/Arkanoid clone? Well, this ones rather generic. It
sports a sort of toon shaded looking graphics. The perspective is
fixed, so I really can't tell if the graphics are rendered in real time,
or not, not that it really matters. One of the songs in game seem oddly
familiar, and I can't seem to pick out where it's from. Control's are
fine. No real beefs at all in the game. Just there's really nothing
there to make it stand out. First Impression 5, Lasting Impression 3
(it's not bad... but it's not special either). - MK |
|
| Unable to score, crashed
to desktop -
SR |
|
|
d |
Turtle Odyssey
(December 13)
by Realore Studios
|
| Not bad! This is a well
made, but very basic, side-scroller. It would be a great choice for
young kids, but there’s just not a lot to it for the more advanced
gamer. Here’s a list of the special moves you can perform in the game:
Jump. All you do is proceed from left to right snatching up coins by the
hundreds, which creates a satisfying ching but leaves a hollow pit in
your very soul, knowing that you have earned nothing more than the right
to collect more coins (and jewels). There are secret areas to find, but
they don’t add much either. So in essence, a good, but very limited
experience. - MH |
|
| This is a cutesy side
scroller that lets you play Ozzy the turtle and collect thousands of
shiny coins. I like the under water theme but the game play is lacking.
It’s just too vanilla, nothing to surprise you, nothing unique. Collect
the gems, find the exit. Yawn. Excellent music and graphics (except for
the game background which has a bad case of “jpg artifactitis”. It’s not
a good sign that I finished the demo in four minutes. - SR |
|
| Here's a nice little
platformer targeted towards kids. It's well polished overall, with very
nice sound, music, easy and responsive controls, and some excellent
graphics. Given that it is done so well, I feel compelled to point out
the animation's themselves are a little plain, not that it's affected my
score, but given the cartoony nature of the character, weight and
exaggerations in the animations would help. In the demo, many of the
backgrounds appeared very JPEG artifacted, which is a shame, as they
look great (but would obviously look better without). To be a jerk, I
have to suggest JPEG2000, which tends to look smoother at high
compression rates. Anyways, technical junk aside. The game and goals are
very plain. It could use some more in game variety, perhaps mini games.
Not bad. First Impression 7, Lasting Impression 7. - MK |
|
|
d |
Autofrag: SUMO
(January 20)
by Melted Games
|
| One of the more
incomplete works I’ve encountered in my stint as an Illustrious Panelite.
A good concept – drive cars around shooting other cars. Terrible
execution. If you right click, it pops up an error message. Most of the
pop-up menus in the game are standard windows dialogs. There’s no
feedback whatsoever when you shoot things. Many other issues. I can see
where they were going, and it could’ve been something. Maybe someday it
will be, but not today. - MH |
|
| Oh no! Uhmm... lets
start with the pluses. Now, the negatives. Seriously, the music isn't
terrible, just generic drum and bass, as it does set the mood for a
brutal car cage match. The controls and gameplay need work. The engine
clearly sports some decent physics (noting the buckets rolling over),
but holding accelerate on the keyboard gains me tons of speed really
fast, making the game not very playable. The fixed lives system sucks,
as it's extremely easy to die. If the game was time based or scored
based on kills (like a shooter), it may not be so bad. Speaking of
shooting, it doesn't really make any sense. Holding down the mouse
button, a muzzle flash (or quite possibly a marshmallow) appears on the
end of the gun barrel. Moving the mouse around lets you aim it, but I
really can't tell in any way that I'm actually making a difference, or
doing anything at all. There's no flying bullets, and no debris or
sparks or anything on the enemy cars showing me that I am in fact
hitting them. The only fun I had with the game was in the
street/highway level, where I could position myself and hold my
accelerate button then hit a ramp, and watch myself fall off the map.
First Impression 1 (Ok, I just backed up and died), Lasting Impression 3
(Ok, the game needs work, but it at least has physics). - MK |
 |
| The idea of this game is
to create a Quake-like 3d shooter with cars. But… The levels are
astoundingly simple but inexplicably the game still suffers from
performance problems. (Blame Shockwave? I dunno) The AI is not able to
navigate ramps or cliffs which is distressing considering the game is
based on deathmatch vs CPU game play only. The camera goes through
walls. Just too many problems to recommend this game.
- SR |
|
|
d |
Sea Wolves
(Jan 25)
by Ghost Software
|
This game is
great! It’s unique, fairly easy to control, very difficult to
survive, very nice looking, and really fun to sink a lot of misguided
sailors in. It reminds me a lot of a game from several years ago that I
don’t recall the name of. I’m sure you needed to know that. Nonetheless,
it’s a very fun game, and I have no significant complaints. - MH |
 |
| Alright, here's a different
combination. A pirate ship top down shooter. The game controls alright,
nice and drifty like a boat, and allowing you to shoot forward and to
the sides. You sail along, collecting treasure conveniently floating in
paths on the water, and fighting fleets of ships. It's unfortunate, but
the music sounded extremely downsampled in the demo, but from what I
could heard it sounded good. Killing ships gives you experience, and you
eventually gain levels in a very Diablo'ish fashion (5 points to
distribute to your stats when you have a free moment). Unfortunately for
me, I appeared to complete my goal (took over some island, or at least
killed all the boats and stole their treasure), but I couldn't figure
out what to do next in the game (red dot in the center of the minimap,
but no idea how or what to do to it). I must have either neglected a pop
up note or just missed some apparently obvious continuation. Ah well.
First Impression 7 (Pirate ship shooter!), Lasting Impression 5 (Got
lost, though I suspect if I had a chance to play it again I'd figure out
what was up).- MK |
|
| Adventure on the high seas, matey!
The mechanics of ‘water physics’ and being able to fire cannons fore,
starboard and port (not to mention anti-air missiles) is refreshing. The
game play comes down to shooting everything that moves, but being able
to ‘level up’ and improve your ship (numerically only) helps add an
adventure element. But shiver me timbers, it decompresses to 360 MB?!
Aaarg!! -
SR |
|
|
d |
Cellblock
Squadrons
(January 24)
by Super Furious Software
|
| A cool
space combat sim. The game has a nice atmosphere with it music and
art styles. I found it amusing how they worded the registration messages
to say the way to freedom is to register, and such. The story itself is
common blunt sci-fi one (i.e. you're a prisoner, fly a ship, win
freedom), which is fine, just nothing special. No complaints. First
Impression 7, Lasting Impression 6. - MK |
|
| This is a well done 3d space combat
simulator with very cool ship lighting effects and epic battles. The
theme of being a prisoner forced to fight wars for your freedom is
nicely folded into the game in various forms, such as getting emails
from the warden. The sense of speed and distance is somewhat lacking -
it’s hard to know when you’re actually hitting far off things. An
incentive to get closer is needed, such as letting damage be
proportional to distance. Once you get close and start executing
insanely fancy maneuvers the game gets much more interesting. - SR |
|
| I probably should give this a 9, but
the thing holding it back is that there doesn’t appear to be any
strategy to playing it! There was no real dodging or aiming, just “point
at the big thing, and turn on shields if something is about to hit you”.
It felt more like luck than skill. This may be a flaw in the demo (maybe
there are some small enemies too in the full game?), and I hope so,
because this game is very close to being really awesome. It’s got the
same huge sprays of bullets that vertical shooters do, and really cool
giant lasers and other effects to really feel like you’re in an episode
of Babylon V. Everything outside the spaceflight is also well done, from
story to menus to emails you can ‘reply’ to, much like an RPG
conversation. - MH |
|
|
d |
SuperNova: Galactic Wars
(January 12)
Download Now!
by Winter Wolves
|
| This game has some really good: Star
Control type of gameplay where you strategize and then head into action
battle, with some really bad: spaceships that control like cars (very
strange cars), a lack of explanation and tutorial (had to guess that
CTRL was fire), and “Click Mouse To Start” playing a portion of the game
controlled entirely without the mouse! It’s a decent game with some real
notable flaws that bring it down. - MH |
|
| The idea here is combine the
strategic movement of a chess like game with arcade battles to declare a
winner of a tile. I was keyed up because an ancient game called Archon
on my C64 did this very well. But alas, the problem with SGW is the
strategy element falls completely flat. The arcade part fares better, so
it ends up being like a reverse battle-chess. (Phony strategy, lots of
fighting) I dug the break-dancing music while space battling. - SR |
|
| CHESS ... IN ... SPACE! ... Err,
yeah... bad muppets joke there. Alright, it's not really that much like
chess, but it does sport a board/playfield not too far different in
size/layout. It's instead more like Archon. You move you're pieces with
the mouse, then when you land on an opposing ship, they enter a battle
sequence. The battle sequence is played with they keyboard, and as I
found out with a game I did a couple years ago (Sheep Strike), switching
between mouse and keyboard controls is annoying. Zzed has a nice control
scheme for a rotating ship with a mouse that might make the combat
sequences a little more fun. The big problem with digital rotate and
shoot controls, is getting a feeling for where to drop a shot. It is
doable, but it's quicker to pick up with a mouse. The game has a nice
atmosphere to the audio and graphics. As a strategy game, it's rather
weak. The board itself is just there to pick whom you're gonna fight
next. No real strategic placement, nothing hinders, no advantage to be
facing any direction, etc. First Impression 7 (Cool! Space Archon!),
Lasting Impression 4 (For a strategy game, there really isn't a lot of
it). - MK |
|
|
d |
World of
Pirates
(January 2)
by WOP-DevTeam
|
The interface for this game is very poor,
involving a lot of memorized keystrokes (but of COURSE ‘3’ is Ready
Cannons, what did you think it would be?), compounded by a serious lack
of information. You have to read the little hints that randomly flash at
the top of the screen to learn most commands. But if it weren’t for the
interface, it would be really cool! You plunder the high seas and shoot
cannons and such, all the while watching your experience grow. Two
pirate games in one month, weird.- MH |
|
| This is what I would
call a “focused multiplayer online game”, it takes one subject (sailing
with pirates) and creates a unique game experience. In short order I
shot my cannons, sword fought pirates and was soon stuck on a raft
paddling to civilization. The constant in-game tips and fairly easy to
use interface will have you plundering booty in no time. Beware though,
there isn’t a huge list of trade skills to learn or classes to be, you
WILL be a sailor - SR |
|
|
d |
Bombstrike
(January 3)
Download Now!
by Tomcat Interactive
|
Despite a very unpolished feel, this
is a really fun and simple game (well, simple for a helicopter sim). It
reminds me A LOT of the old game Comanche from way back when, but it’s
been simplified for real arcadey action, and of course fancied up
graphically. It’s very good fun, but the lack of polish does harm the
experience. - MH |
|
| This game was almost cool. The game
opens with a cool distortion graphics effect as it flies around the
landscape. The music is building towards something, cool computery
noises with some 303'ish bass line, drums start in and... wimpy Bass and
Tambourine repetitive drumbeat. Nooo!! Am I wrong to expect heavy drums,
or drum and bass break beats, or shots of distorted electric guitar? Meh...
Probably. As for the game itself, you fly around the same terrain shown
in the opening. Aiming is tough, or rather you just fly around and shoot
in front of you until you kill your target on the ground. Targets on
the ground are really tough to see, fortunately the game gives you a
little rectangle around them. Once you kill an enemy, you're greeted with
an enemy sighted sound that gets annoying fast. And you just sort of
repeat this, flying around, finding enemies you can barely see and
shooting them until they're all dead, you die, or get bored. I wanted to
like the game, as evident by my "getting in to" the introduction. Alas,
it didn't happen. First Impression 7 (Ooh ooh! Cool! This could be good!
Erk... Ok, moving on.), Lasting Impression 4 (uhh... uhh again... uhh...
no). - MK |
|
| Game crashes with “Draw Triangles:
Unknown error code” - SR |
|
|
d |
Zzed
(January 29)
by NevoSoft
 |
| This takes Bust-A-Move
(Puzzle Bobble), a favorite of mine, and arcades it up very nicely. The
way your hits knock the asteroids away, and can squeeze in between them,
really simplifies the thinking aspect and almost turns it into a
shooter. Very nicely done all around, a little wonky in the english
department, but hey, they’re aliens. If you want to match 3 objects of
the same color, why not do it in a fun, arcade-style way? - MH |
|
| Hey hey, alrighty! Welcome to a
universe where everything named starts with a Z. No kidding. You play
the hero, Zzed, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle without the ninja (I know,
that's the best part!). You pilot some sort of garbage collection space
ship. Well, "collection" is probably not the right word, as you
actually shoot garbage. And just like in the real world, if the color
matches, it disappears. Ninja aside, this is actually a really great
game. Played with the mouse, garbage floats inward from the edges of
the screen (all grouped and different colored). Using that mouse, you
aim a laser sight at the garbage bits, and fire your colored garbage at
it. If it matches in 3 or more, then they clear, and everybody is
happy. Though, what actually makes this game great is the physics.
When a pile is getting too close to you, you can simply shoot some wrong
colored pieces at it to push it back. Very nice. Also, all the pieces
seem to gravitate towards each other, which results in nicely organized
clusters of garbage. Sweet. And if I don't like where I'm sitting, I
can move my ship with the right mouse button. Excellent. And while our
hero lacks Ninja, you can ricochet shots off the walls and sheilds of
neighboring ships to get those hard to reach spots. Awesome. Similar
games would include Zuma or Puzzle Bobble (Bust A Move), but this game
is something else, and if you liked those you should dig this. First
Impression 10 (!!!), Lasting Impression 9 (It's good. Damn good.). - MK |
|
| This is an addictive puzzler-shooter
that is a mixture of Snood and Zuma set in space. Despite a spotty
English translation the story cut scenes are cutely amusing. (They show
up after each completed area) While the game play may be a bit deja-vu
the neat graphic effects and snappy game play make this a very polished
offering that will deliver on the fun. - SR |
|
|
d |
PuppyTron
(January 12)
by Puppy Games
|
| Cool style, fast
paced action, bad controls, accessing the internet without asking
(hmm… familiar?)! This is a fun quickie arcade game, which is worth the
$5 price tag. Unless you are a lefty like me, which makes WASD simply
too cramped to use (how about mouse aim? Or any kind of control
adjustability beyond swapping? WADX I could use!). Note: this discomfort
may not apply to all lefties. - MH |
|
| Another fine game from PuppyGames
(Super Dudester!). Sure, it's a clone of RoboTron/LlamaTron, but the
PuppyGames team consistently does a fantastic job of making well
polished little games. The game controls with the arrow keys and WASD
(3D shooter players should know what that's about). I really like the
sound effects, and the graphics are very cool and stylish. The online
high score table compliments the game perfectly, and makes the
reasonably replayabile, at least until the high scores become silly to
meet. Only real beef with the game is I can't zoom in (running at
1920x1200 on my laptop's native resolution makes it tough to play).
First Impression 8 (Sweet), Lasting Impression 5 (You don't play for the
variety, you play for the nostalgia, then you have it, and you move on). - MK |
|
| Get back to your retro roots with
this loving homage to an ancient classic called
Robotron 2084. Being able to choose the power-up you want by
shooting it adds a surprising amount of strategy. Priced at $5 you’ll
definitely get your twitch-action monies worth. Tip: There was an
undocumented feature at the time of this writing; you can hit F1 to
enlarge the tiny playing screen to something easier to see. Insanely
addictive. - SR |
|
|
d |
Arydox
(December 19)
by Pixel 5 Studio
|
Classic vertical shooter with fairly
nice graphics and several minuses: your ship is HUGE and its collision
area is possibly even bigger than it is, very unexciting explosions and
sounds and weenie bullets, very claustrophobic game area with large HUDs
taking up big chunks of the screen (all the worse due to your big ship),
very repetitive levels, and extremely unimpressive bosses (so much so
that they appear as non-bosses after you beat them in boss form). - MH |
|
| Another shmup for the month. First
thing I did after starting the game was to shut off stereo sound. The
music jumps back and forth far too much to be pleasant on headphones.
Moving on. The in game graphics aren't bad. Enemies look remarkably
insect like, which is kind of neat. The controls are lacking. On the
keyboard, the ship jumps discreet units and looks and fells very
choppy. On the mouse, it's not responsive enough, and you have to lift
the mouse a couple times to get across the screen. To make matters
worse, everything is too big. In other words, it's far too easy to
crash in to an enemy, making the game unnecessarily tough. Enemies
shoot, and by the time you notice, you're hit. To make matters worse,
power up icons are really tiny, and there just happens to be one that
kills you. Nice. Also the HUD is too massive. On the right side of
the screen is a HUD element you, enemies and bullets can go under, but
it's really visually annoying 'cause it's so big, and covers a valuable
tactical on screen position. Meh. First Impression 6 (Neat, insects),
Lasting Impression 3 (not having fun here, frustrated). - MK |
|
| This game has a lot of potential but
makes a lot of “new developer” mistakes: Comes as a zip, default mode is
low res in a window, bad keyboard layout (can’t shoot and move diagonal
on many keyboards) and not configurable, no game pad support, weak
sound, levels are a bit long and feel slapped together, many graphical
tiling errors. The good: Fantastic artwork, nice stacking extra weapon
system and overall game play is fairly good. I think with some tweaks
and balancing this could be killer. - SR |
|
|
d |
|
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. |
|
|
See a game that was missed? Though we do
our best, some things slip through the cracks, make sure it doesn't
happen again, if you are a developer, by
submitting your game or a
news item. |
|
|
|
