IndieGames.com - The Weblog

Freeware Game Pick: Shining Blood (Teasoft)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:12:29 +0000

Shining Blood is a mech combat game with five stages to play in the main campaign and a versus mode that is limited to duels with the computer AI only. There are up to six robots and tanks that you can choose from, either as your main vehicle or as support to help you out in the heat of a battle. The objective of the game is basically to clear the entire area of enemies before proceeding to the exit area that will appear somewhere on the map. New weapons can also be unlocked by trading in the red ores you've collected during your skirmish.

You will need to have the XNA Framework and .NET Framework 2.0 installed to play Shining Blood. A trial version is also available from the Xbox LIVE marketplace. The game shouldn't be too hard to beat if you choose your frames and weapons wisely for the challenges ahead. (Windows, 82.2MB)

Trailer: Pixel Boarder (PixelFriends)

editors@indiegames.com (Michael Rose) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:02:27 +0000

A very promising stunt snowboarder is coming to the Xbox Live Indie Games service soon in the form of Pixel Boarder. It's a dual-stick affair, with the left analog stick controlling the boarder's right hand side and the right stick extending and contracting his left.

Features you can expect include a full replay system with the ability to speed up and slow down every pixelated, bone-crunching wipeout; Graphics which can be set to 32, 16, 8 or 4 bit mode; And a 'huge selection of heads and bodies' for creating your very own snowboarding maniac. Throw in a selection of chiptune tracks from a variety of musicians at 8-Bit Collective and you're onto a winner!

Browser Game Pick: Fairune (Skipmore)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:17:21 +0000

In Fairune you play as a warrior princess who is on a quest to rescue the four elemental fairies and defeat the Dark Lord that threatens her peaceful kingdom. To recover health, just stand still for a couple of seconds and your life gauge will refill automatically. Pressing the space key displays your inventory.

Expect to finish the quest in roughly half an hour or so, although the time taken to search for false walls might bump that figure up a bit.

Links: Break Out, Indie Games

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:47:07 +0000

Today's pic is the poster for Locomalito's upcoming horizontal shooter, Hydorah. Here's hoping it lives up to all expectations.

On with the links:

Top 10 Break Out Indie Games of 2010
"Indie Games don't get a lot of media attention." Yep. Great site too.

2Bee Games Second Indie Game Competition Finalists
Here are your finalists from the 2Bee Games' latest indie game competition. Unfortunately to download any of the games you will have to sign up. (GamerBytes write-up)

And the winner is...
JayisGames' Casual Gameplay Design Competition winner announced. No prize for guessing which entry was selected as the big winner.

The Making of the Dance of the Seven Veils
A look at the production process for the dance scene in Tale of Tales' Fatale. (Emily Short's analysis)

It’s a fact, the next theme is: ART GAME
The much-maligned subject was chosen as the theme for this month's experimental gameplay friendly competition. Made anything noteworthy yet?

Indiecade 2009
Daniel Benmergui's write-up of the Indiecade event in LA. And photos.

Eurogamer Expo: A brief summary
I'm still envious of Michael for being the only editor able to attend this shindig.

Walker & Silhouette
Pacian's new IF game is headed your way soon.

Armalyte PC - Later levels revealed
A couple of new Giger-ish screenshots from the officially-sanctioned remake of Armalyte.

Screwball
Connotations aside, X-0ut (Prototype, Gravitron series) has indicated that his new marble game will be out sometime next month.

Flipt: coming soon
Dev.Mag with a preview video of a new iPhone game from InstantAction, out in two weeks.

Muse Games: Guns Of Icarus
An amazing airship battle game set around a steampunk theme. Made with Unity, and playable in any browser of your choice. You really should give this a try.

Freeware Game Pick: Fetus (Ted Lauterbach)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:15:26 +0000

Fetus is a puzzle platformer in which you play as a blue character lost in a strange world, seeking to exact revenge on the party responsible for trapping him there in the first place. There is no screen scrolling and your character cannot jump, but Ted still manages to construct one or two surprises to catch the player off-guard.

The game is rather short in length and can be completed in under half an hour or less, assuming that none of the puzzles are giving you any trouble. Made for GameJolt's Minimal Competition. (GMC forum thread)

Browser Game Pick: 20 Heroes (H. Inada)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:31:44 +0000

20 Heroes is a puzzle platformer with a unique twist, where players are assigned twenty characters to control separately, in a group, or all at the same time. Puzzles in every area are designed around this theme, and the creativity of the designer really shows after the fifth stage or so.

You can press the down arrow key to activate a character, who will then follow your orders until they succumb to a trap or a fatal injury caused by an enemy. The space key is used to select a menu option, and you can move heroes around the map or make them jump by using the cursor keys. Pressing G allows players to restart the game. Some enemies can be stomped on, while others can only be defeated in numbers or by using a certain strategy.

Note that the game isn't really designed to be played by audiences outside of Japan, as the quiz section in stage twelve is delivered in Japanese and near impossible to beat unless you are fluent in the language. (quiz cheat sheet)

GDC 2010 Reminds On Summit Submissions, IGF Student, Mobile Deadline

editors@indiegames.com (Simon Carless) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:24:34 +0000

[Just a quick reminder from our GDC colleagues about the call for submissions for the 2010 Summits, including indie, social/online, iPhone Summits - with a bonus Independent Games Festival heads-up in there also for students/mobile developers.]

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers are reminding potential Summit speakers that they have until Friday, Nov. 13th to submit lectures, with IGF Student and Mobile deadlines also impending.

Held on the first two days of GDC 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco -- next March 9th and 10th -- this year’s GDC Summit line-up includes two new events in the form of the Social & Online Games Summit and iPhone Games Summit.

These summits, alongside the GDC Mobile/Handheld, Independent Games, and Serious Games Summits, which are all accepting submissions through the end of Friday, November 13th.

(Other summits also held at GDC 2010 but not currently calling for submissions include one or two-day events on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the IGDA Education Summit, although the Game Localization Summit has an informal call for lectures ending on November 15th.)

In addition, Independent Games Festival 2010 organizers are reminding that, following record IGF Main Competition entries, games are due for submission in the free to enter Student Showcase category by Sunday November 15th, 2009. Separately of this, entries to the IGF Mobile competition -- encompassing iPhone, mobile phone, PSP, DS, Android and other handheld games -- are due by Tuesday, December 1st, 2009.

More information and registration specifics on the 2010 Game Developers Conference can be found at the official GDC 2010 website.

Browser Game Pick: Merubiiusu (H. Inada)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:05:52 +0000

Merubyiusu is a 2D horizontal shooter that features four different weapons to use, three distinct stages and an obligatory boss encounter waiting at the end of each area. The game isn't too difficult to beat, and players can also resume playing from the last level attempted by using the continue option.

You might need to turn the volume down a bit though, as the sound effects and music are rather loud and still needs tweaking in this prototype build.

Direct2Drive Sale: The Best of Indie Bundle Volume 2

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:04:05 +0000

Here's a new indie games bundle from Direct2Drive, featuring seven games in total (two previous IGF Grand Prize winners) being offered for just $25. The pack contains Aquaria, Crayon Physics Deluxe, And Yet It Moves, Aaaaa!, I-Fluid, Project Aftermath and Acceleration of Suguri, which will normally cost $95 before the discount.

The offer ends in one week, so if there's an indie game in the bundle that's missing from your collection then this is a good time to get them cheap (even Aquaria costs $20 at the usual price).

Links: Making Games Accessible

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:43:40 +0000

Pic on the left is taken from a new poster by Gary J Lucken (Army of Trolls), depicting Salford University and its surroundings. Here's another one with animation.

On with the links:

Why can't they play? Barrie Ellis
Developers really should consider making their games a lot more accessible. Simple things like an option to remap controls, subtitles, and a difficulty setting can only benefit more gamers.

Aztez Project - Call To Arms
Ben Ruiz of Flashbang Studios is seeking for a programmer familiar with Unity to help him develop a beat-em-up project.

3 Ways to Minimize Commercial Indie Game Piracy
Some suggestions on how to reduce the piracy rate of indie games.

Free Indie of the Week Master List
Links to every single game featured on Bytejacker's Free Indie of the Week. I love this show.

Is Modding Useful?
Rodain Joubert and co. do a great job of updating the South African development community about indie games on the Dev.Mag front page.

The origins of Minecraft
An interesting behind-the-scenes look at the events that lead to the birth of Minecraft.

36 of the best iPhone Games
I don't own an iPhone, but if I did I would probably get half the games on this list for my library.

In Defense of Price
An article about iPhone App pricing.

EG Expo 2009: Indie Games Arcade
Another write-up about the recent Indie Games Arcade showcase on the Eurogamer site.

Big Fish - Little Pond
Russell Carroll probably knows about the casual game market better than anyone else, being the Game Director of Reflexive Entertainment.

Transdimensional Hellspider
I'm a big fan of Linley's works, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm eagerly anticipating his latest.

Official Zero Gear Trailer and Beta Signups
Nimblebit's offering beta keys for their upcoming 3D multiplayer racing game, so do grab one for yourself before they're all gone.

Freeware Game Pick: The Marionette (Team Effigy)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:07:24 +0000

The Marionette is a full-length 2D adventure game viewed from a first-person perspective, where you play as a sculptor named Martin who is in the middle of completing his latest work when a mysterious package arrives in his mailbox. He loses consciousness just moments after opening the plain-looking envelope, and wakes up much later only to find himself standing outside an unfamiliar house.

Unperturbed by the strange turn of events, he heads into the house to seek for answers that will explain how and why he was brought to the spooky estate in the first place. (download page)

Trailer: Proun (Joost van Dongen)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:24:34 +0000

Proun is a 3D racing game from Joost, one of the co-founders of Ronimo Games (The Blob, Swords & Soldiers). Currently in production and scheduled to be released as freeware sometime before early 2010.

Freeware Game Pick: In a Dungeon (Alexitrón)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:22:02 +0000

Created by the developer of The Power, In a Dungeon is a short overhead platformer where every room contains a challenge that you have to beat in order to escape from the maze. The map on the floor of your starting location indicates areas with uncollected yellow crystals, and the only way out of your current predicament is to collect all twenty-one crystals from the individual rooms in the labyrinth. (GMC forum thread)

Trailer: Bezier (Philip Bak)

editors@indiegames.com (Michael Rose) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:34:01 +0000

Philip Bak is looking to take the 2D blaster and inject some story and 'a lot of heart' into it - enter Bezier. Set in a giant super computer, Philip's been working hard to give the game that special something. States his website:

"Powered by the BezierSynth, a bespoke 2D graphics engine which utilizes genetic algorithms to create a look based on evolving curves. This allows the visual look to change based on the character's actions, story parameters and spectral analysis of the 45 minute score."

The trailer looks rather ace! Bezier is coming soon to a PC near you.

Freeware Game Pick: Umbrella Adventure - The Castle of Cake (HiVE)

editors@indiegames.com (timw) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:08:05 +0000

Umbrella Adventure - The Castle of Cake is a monotone-coloured platformer created by the developer of the popular Game Maker RPG, Ark 22. The story is about a gopher who was rudely awakened by the smell of sulphur to find his stash of a hundred cakes stolen in the middle of a rainy night. Curious about the disappearance, he sets out on a quest to find his cakes, even if it means travelling all over the land to retrieve every single one of them.

There's an umbrella outside the house that you can use for a number of purposes, although you're restricted to utilizing it mainly for whacking enemies and blocking their attacks until new tricks are discovered. The game does take a while to beat, but a helpful save system is included so that players can keep track of their progress and resume the adventure later on.