XNPlay

Week 51 Round Up

2009-11-08T14:01:18Z

…single sentence…Indie Games…last week…

Antigrav Racing Championship

I’m fairly sure this is a heavily modified starter kit, but I’ve played worse rated better. 400 Points.

Download Antigrav Racing Championship To Your Xbox 360

Experiment 12

Minimal platformer is still fun! 80 Points.

Download Experiment 12 To Your Xbox 360

Head Shot 2

Headshot improved in every way, but has target profiles now rather than pouncing gunmen, which I found less exciting. 80 Points.

Download Head Shot 2 To Your Xbox 360

Lodestar 1000

Cutesy 8-bitified Simon Says with sixteen inputs. 80 Points.

Download Lodestar 1000 To Your Xbox 360

Mirror

Edge your cursor into the right spot and score based on your accuracy. 80 Points.

Download Mirror To Your Xbox 360

Scare Me

Watch or create your own scare scripts, controlled shocks, or play shock games. 80 Points.

Download Scare Me To Your Xbox 360

Snaker Ace

Mildly interesting Snake variant. 400 Points.

Download Snaker Ace To Your Xbox 360

SPACE MILKMAN

Nice platformer with navigation puzzle elements, but your moves need some tweaking. 240 Points.

Download SPACE MILKMAN To Your Xbox 360

Squid Yes! Not So Octopus!

Eye-searing arena survive-’em-up. 80 Points.

Download Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! To Your Xbox 360

Tank-tastic!

My fun tanked by level three. 240 Points.

Download Tank-tastic! To Your Xbox 360

The Flashlight

Step one: “Hello world!”; step two: fill screen with white; step three: profit? 80 Points.

Download The Flashlight To Your Xbox 360

a medical game from SmileBoom

Not available in my area – may be Japan only, looks like a heart attack victim resuscitation simulator. 80 Points.

Download a medical game from SmileBoom To Your Xbox 360 (if you can)

Week 42 Round Up The times have changed. Community Games is now Indie Games,...
Week 43 Round Up More one-sentence looks at the past week’s releases. Bailout! Vague...
Week 44 Round Up Your mother wants you to get more one-sentence looks at...
Week 45 Round Up Delayed for my brother’s wedding, from the darkness fly these...
Week 46 Round Up Spewing single-sentence summations of seven suns’ selections. Alien Encounters Sluggish,...
Week 47 Round Up Rum wench! Another round of one-sentence looks at last week’s...
Week 48 Round Up Video games? Let me tell you about the video games...
Week 49 Round Up I feel haunted by single-sentence impressions of last week’s releases…...

Week 50 Round Up

2009-11-01T11:44:16Z

Your Recommended Weekly Allowance of one-sentence looks at IG releases:

Beat Hazard

Short demo of a very flashy twin stick shooty, not sure how music affects the game, but has a good interface. 400 Points.

Download Beat Hazard To Your Xbox 360

Drinkards

“Drinks” had best be “sips” or you’ll get alcohol poisoning playing a short game. 400 Points.

Download Drinkards To Your Xbox 360

Equitunes

Sum logic action puzzle. 80 Points.

Download Equitunes To Your Xbox 360

Freqµency

Ammo-management combat platformer. 240 Points.

Download Freqµency To Your Xbox 360

GANBARE NATSUKI SAN

Grappling device platform maze collect-em-up. 80 Points.

Download GANBARE NATSUKI SAN To Your Xbox 360

Guns Loaded

Aurally painful mediocre shooter. 240 Points.

Download Guns Loaded To Your Xbox 360

Link Attack

Puzzle DeFusion reworked or ripped-off? 240 Points.

Download Link Attack To Your Xbox 360

Mr BeatLoop

Single bar step-sequencer with several simultaneous sets of sounds. 240 Points.

Download Mr BeatLoop To Your Xbox 360

omg cats game@#$

OMG SpiderEvader beat you to the punch a month ago! 240 Points.

Download omg cats game@#$ To Your Xbox 360

Pass The Pad!

More of a specific party game facilitation application. 80 Points.

Download Pass The Pad! To Your Xbox 360

Primary Attack

Color blending strategy game, reminiscent of Hexxagon. 80 Points.

Download Primary Attack To Your Xbox 360

SFG Soccer

Robotic arcadey footy. 400 Points.

Download SFG Soccer To Your Xbox 360

They Came From the Ground

Another Slime Volleyball variant. 80 Points.

Download They Came From the Ground To Your Xbox 360

Tiger Storm

I used to think cheap hits in games were an artefact of the 90’s. 240 Points.

Download Tiger Storm To Your Xbox 360

T-KARA

Slow-starting puzzler gets more interesting, feels like 2D Rubik’s Cube. 80 Points.

Download T-KARA To Your Xbox 360

Week 42 Round Up The times have changed. Community Games is now Indie Games,...
Week 43 Round Up More one-sentence looks at the past week’s releases. Bailout! Vague...
Week 44 Round Up Your mother wants you to get more one-sentence looks at...
Week 45 Round Up Delayed for my brother’s wedding, from the darkness fly these...
Week 46 Round Up Spewing single-sentence summations of seven suns’ selections. Alien Encounters Sluggish,...
Week 47 Round Up Rum wench! Another round of one-sentence looks at last week’s...
Week 48 Round Up Video games? Let me tell you about the video games...
Week 49 Round Up I feel haunted by single-sentence impressions of last week’s releases…...

Random game love

2009-10-31T15:47:16Z

Horn Swaggle Islands is still at the top of the list of my personal favorite Indie Games. It recently had an update giving it a zoom feature. My brother enjoys playing zoomed up, I really don’t see the appeal – except for its intended audience: players using SDTVs. Then again, it doesn’t affect the menus, so if you were put off because you couldn’t read the text on SDTV you’re still out of luck. Horn Swaggle Islands has also just dropped from 400 Points to 240 Points!

Revenge of the Evil Aliens never got the attention I feel it deserves. It’s also among the ranks of my favorite Indies. Not only is the main game a blast, with one of the best power-up systems ever, it also has so many bonus play modes that it was an insane bargain at 200 Points. Drop Zone was in the top ten for a couple weeks, for crying out loud, and RotEA has a paratroopers mode included but gets no notice. Shameful. Well, now RotEA has dropped to 80 Points, so anyone who buys that other game instead deserves a kick in the pants.

That sales thing… It’s been an interesting couple of days for the community...
Horn Swaggle Islands Avast! A horde o’ buccanneer dogs be comin’ t’...

Week 49 Round Up

2009-10-25T15:06:31Z

I feel haunted by single-sentence impressions of last week’s releases…

Amniotic

I feel like I could PowerUp Forever. 80 Points.

Download Amniotic To Your Xbox 360

Arkedo Series – 02 SWAP!

Slick presentation, but such simple color matching I’m not sure you should call it a puzzle game. 240 Points.

Download Arkedo Series – 02 SWAP! To Your Xbox 360

Astro Match3

A match-3 game with fully original gameplay, like all the others. 240 Points.

Download Astro Match3 To Your Xbox 360

Banana Split

Nice over-all, but why pair a double jump and a useless normal jump? 240 Points.

Download Banana Split To Your Xbox 360

Boring Space Shooter

Not as bad as it makes out, but nothing outstanding, either. 80 Points.

Download Boring Space Shooter To Your Xbox 360

Carcophony

Seems like more busywork than brain work, but I may be doing it wrong. 400 Points.

Download Carcophony To Your Xbox 360

Crate Expectations

Competitive crate sliding maze navigation. 240 Points.

Download Crate Expectations To Your Xbox 360

Crosstown

Classic 8-bit Arcade-style game with modern screen-usage problem – it is so small! 400 Points.

Download Crosstown To Your Xbox 360

Epiphany in Spaaace!

A Choose Your Own Adventure style adventure story – in spaaaace! 80 Points.

Download Epiphany in Spaaace! To Your Xbox 360

Echoes+

Asteroids + steroids = …ow, my kneecaps! 240 Points.

Download Echoes+ To Your Xbox 360

Halloween 360

50 themed piczzzzzzzzz…. 80 Points.

This title has since been pulled from the service.

Halloween HD

Fireplace – fire + Halloween. 80 Points.

Download Halloween HD To Your Xbox 360

HuntersLunch

Another push blocks, fill holes, block enemies, grid-based puzzle action game from Alpha Secret Base (not a bad thing). 80 Points.

Download HuntersLunch To Your Xbox 360

Krisotron

Silly Smash TV-like which informed me I am 3080% Awesome. 80 Points.

Download Krisotron To Your Xbox 360

LOL Runner

Crudely assembled meme themed button-mashing button matching. 80 Points.

Download LOL Runner To Your Xbox 360

Night Of Doom

Animation-free arena FPS with zombies in it. 80 Points.

Download Night Of Doom To Your Xbox 360

Poker Blinds

This space intentionally left blank because I don’t even know what this app is for, aside from being Poker related. 240 Points.

Download Poker Blinds To Your Xbox 360

Pumpkin Chop

This is actually a cool little app – once you figure out to draw anticlockwise! 80 Points.

Download Pumpkin Chop To Your Xbox 360

Run Away!

Fun and funny obstacle course. 80 Points.

Download Run Away! To Your Xbox 360

Speed Factory

I really like the tug-o-war rhythm game idea, but if it can’t stay on beat on the Trial’s slow song… 80 Points.

Download Speed Factory To Your Xbox 360

Very Hungry Pumpkin

Kiddie Trick-or-Treat dodge and collect action game. 80 Points.

Download Very Hungry Pumpkin To Your Xbox 360

yOm

I can’t figure it out – it has a stick and EIGHT buttons and seems like a ridiculously complex Pac-Man. 400 Points.

Download yOm To Your Xbox 360

Poker Ball Have you ever wanted to play Draw Poker with...
Week 42 Round Up The times have changed. Community Games is now Indie Games,...
Week 43 Round Up More one-sentence looks at the past week’s releases. Bailout! Vague...
Week 44 Round Up Your mother wants you to get more one-sentence looks at...
Week 45 Round Up Delayed for my brother’s wedding, from the darkness fly these...
Week 46 Round Up Spewing single-sentence summations of seven suns’ selections. Alien Encounters Sluggish,...
Week 47 Round Up Rum wench! Another round of one-sentence looks at last week’s...
Week 48 Round Up Video games? Let me tell you about the video games...

Dark

2009-10-24T15:00:48Z

Have you ever had an epiphany after reading a fortune cookie? An advertising slogan? Any tiny fluff of throwaway media processed and homogenized for the masses? Not likely? No.

Then, imagine my surprise when I felt I needed to re-think Dark.

Dark is a run and jump platform collect-em-up with the spectacular gimmicks of real-time lighting and physics. Welcome to 1995.

I was prepared to give the game a good slating. The player controls a bug-eyed quadrilateral with no animation to speak of. The jumping is floaty. When you are and aren’t allowed to jump feels a bit haphazard. There are no enemies and you can’t die. There’s no timer. The collecting is utterly useless – there is no score and it doesn’t unlock anything. Essentially you just drag a polygon from point A to point B.

So why did I find it enjoyable? I hate that sort of thing. I rail on and ramble on and on about the tendency of modern games to offer nothing more than dragging the protagonist from one scripted set-piece to the next scripted set-piece where you bang the buttons that flash on the screen like a laboratory chimp so you can watch a story written by a computer nerd play out with polygons and atrocious voice acting. Dark doesn’t even have that much reward. It should plain suck.

Subtly, almost behind the scenes, through the use of directed exploration and mild physics puzzles, and likely accidentally, Dark manages to achieve one of the most important characteristics of a good game: making the player feel in control of his destiny. It’s that odd case in gaming where the journey is more fun than the goal.

I think Dark is a gaming experience worth sampling for yourself. Just be aware before you decide to purchase that it’s about a 12 minute experience from end to end, and you’ve seen the most complex part of it in the Trial.

Download Dark To Your Xbox 360

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XBLIG Sessions

2009-10-22T19:15:04Z

Ah, I love a great idea when one comes up. XBLIG Sessions is the brainchild of the lovely Mr XboxHornet – a chance for the public to pit their wits, skills and abilities against the people who make the XBLIG games and some errant reviewing folks also. I love things like this, I really do having hosted and joined in a few similar nights for other more PC-centric titles. The ability to be able to do something like this from your couch though? Marvelous.

As you may have guessed from the screenshot, the first game up for an XBLIG Session is Little Racers. Want to know more? Nip on over to Xbox Hornet.

Welcome To xnPlay Hello dear readers. Glad to meet you all. I...

The Galactic Aquarium

2009-10-20T11:43:37Z

The premise of the game is pretty simple, each day you buy some fish at the store, and then click ‘next day’ where you’ll get a summary of what fishes mated, died or were eaten by other fishes. The aim is to start off with some cheap, basic guppies and gradually move up the food chain to get electric eels and other exotic aquatics in your fish tank.

While the concept is executed well enough, it’s pretty dull to play. You don’t even get to see your fish swin around, they just appear as a list at the beginning of each day, and most of your time is spent cycling through menus deciding what fish you should condemn to be eaten buy next. Graphics are pretty simple, but not terrible, and there aren’t many sounds apart from the not-too-hot musical backing track.

Although not a particularly interesting game, the cheap price means it could be a little distraction for any kids you might have, but don’t blame me if they get bored quite quickly.

The Galactic Aquarium was developed by GoGo Robot and is 80 Points.

Download The Galactic Aquarium To Your Xbox 360

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Extreme RPS Online

2009-10-20T11:20:26Z

Ever felt yourself wanting to play Rock Paper Scissors? What about playing it without having to see the other player’s face? What about playing a computer at it? What about playing a computer at it whilst looking at poorly drawn graphics which don’t even clearly show what choice your opponent has made? If you answered yes to most of the previous questions, then Extreme RPS Online might just be your game.

Taking a simple concept and polishing it into something great is a perfectly good design philosophy, and can lead to some great games. However, the key to this working is taking a fun concept, and crucially remembering to polish it. This game attempts to make the classic playground game more interesting by adding different playable characters and dressing it up like a beat ‘em up.

Where it falls down is that in making playable characters for the game, they make a rock, paper, scissors sign with their hands to show what you’ve picked, the problem is that you can barely see this as their hands are so small. This makes it almost impossible to play properly, even on a HD monitor I’m sitting 10 inches away from, let alone playing it on an old CRT from across the room. In the first level, you play against an arcade machine, in which it’s choice briefly flashes up on it’s screen in dot-matrix style, which makes it even harder to see.

Only to make matters worse is the dull and repetitive soundtrack, which quickly becomes annoying, and loading screens so blurred that they’re practically painful to look at. Suffice it to say, there’s little to recommend here.

Extreme RPS Online was created by MonkeyWare Studios and is 200 points.

Download Extreme RPS Online To Your Xbox 360

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Gumdrop Celestial Frontier 2.0

2009-10-20T07:52:42Z

Now, there’s a mouthful in a million. Elbert Perez has dropped us a nod to say that lo, there is an update to Gumdrop Celestial Frontier now live on XBLIG. What lurks within? Over to the man himself:

1. Shooter mode – Shoot kinetic balls of energy and make your enemies smash to each other, the walls, or even your ship for extra damage
2. Simpler and more refined gameplay – Alot of the concepts in the game were confusing to people especially mining, connecting to the power up, etc … Now these have all been streamlined and the only button you have to think about is the “Swing you smash” button as well as the left thumbstick.
3. Faster and better performance – Enjoy more enemies on the screen as well as smoother framerate due to optimiazations done to the game engine.
4. Redesigned Enemies – Enemies have been reprogrammed to be deadlier and more fun, featuring new artwork to change up the look a bit
5. Combo Bonuses – Chaining together attacks and kills have greater reward and is now duly recognized in the game.

Stop, video time!

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Chris Unarmed Trailer

2009-10-20T03:30:38Z

Is it me or is there a draft in here?

The eponymous Mr Chris, who I gather does actually have arms unlike his namesake that rides the wind in this trailer dropped us a line to let us know he’s got a video of his upcoming game for your enjoymentification. Estimating about 6 weeks to release or thereabouts, so you’ve got plenty of time to save up your Microsoft points in a little jar. As much as I detest the mop-ridden four (and oh, I really detest them with an unhinged passion) I like the Yellow Submarine-ish vibe going on with the graphics. Plus, anything that pits red man vs blue man makes me think the end of The Blue Man Group may come sooner for us all. Which is good.

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