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"Indie Games [May] Now Voting - Post 573!"

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Is it ok to do some self promotion here?

I've been working on a game since I'm unemployed and I could use some help testing it. I'm using my own engine since I'm too lazy to go back to compiled languages and would love some feedback on how well/bad it runs on other computers. It's using ruby so I know it won't run very well but for the kind of game I'm aiming it should not be a problem.

I think I'll have a standalone mac version this week and possibly a Windows version on the future. A little teaser for Screenshot Saturday:

Feel free to throw the build in here if you have something you want others to try :)
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Made a quick 2 minute video that shows a few of the starting rooms and some english translations for story texts and item texts of the game translation I work on. Really curious how players these days will like this game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzcSxaYVXf4&feature=youtu.be

Just talked to someone who played a similar game like that years ago, called Chips Challenge (which had single levels instead of one world). Still trying to figure out how to describe this game to other people. A "Top down, tile-based puzzle game in one consistent world instead of single levels that requires you to explore the items and use of items to reach your final goal", maybe?

Like a more puzzle focussed Zelda 1 maybe.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
On another note, just played La-Mulana for a while. Hot damn. Didnt expect it to have such a neat upgrade system. The start of the dungeon was good puzzle wise as well but I guess it gets trickier later on. I just wish I could play it on a handheld.. Guess I'll need to at least plug in a controller before continuing.
 
Has anyone tried Bad Bots (steam)?

I've got it and wouldn't recommend it. It controls a little oddly and most of the early game enemies at least are really unenjoyable to deal with. Slap that money down on Reus instead, or wait for Bleed if you want a far far superior shooter to appeal on steam.
 
Kind of, you travel this overworld and experience a lot of events and the battles are resolved in that manner. Different enemies and party members have different physical properties which adds a lot to the variety.

The whole idea is to make the game highly modable, for example the events are defined in simple text files like this:



So it's very easy to make custom events, custom maps, etc.

Looks awesome, BomberMouse. Look forward to giving it a try.

Unrelated: Thanks to a generous steam gift, I'm not playing Don't Starve in between my Eador shards. It's reaaaaaalllly good.
 
Ever wondered what it would be like to be a Canvasser?
C_b4.png


Well wonder no more and start canvassing and save our forest!
C_b1.png


http://jacksonlango.com/games/canvasser
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Alright! More impressions.

Kairo - Very cool artsy 3D puzzle game. Now I get what people were referring to in regards to puzzles. Has a pretty mysterious feeling to it, though I definitely needed to turn off the grain filter and smooth mouse control for that one.

Out there somewhere - NNghghgh. I just finished the demo and its really tempting. The teleport mechanic feels REALLY good and they implemented some smart uses for it. Do you get more upgrades for your abilities later? If its getting more complex after the stuff from the demo (after reaching the first aliens you can talk to), I might seriously bite this one as well.

Trying Pioneers now.
 

Wok

Member
Out there somewhere - NNghghgh. I just finished the demo and its really tempting. The teleport mechanic feels REALLY good and they implemented some smart uses for it. Do you get more upgrades for your abilities later? If its getting more complex after the stuff from the demo (after reaching the first aliens you can talk to), I might seriously bite this one as well.

There are some tricks about the mechanics which you cannot grasp in the first levels. However, I don't remember the mechanics becoming more complex. The game level design is great, the game is short but well-paced.
 

Gbraga

Member
I've got it and wouldn't recommend it. It controls a little oddly and most of the early game enemies at least are really unenjoyable to deal with. Slap that money down on Reus instead, or wait for Bleed if you want a far far superior shooter to appeal on steam.

That's a shame, the video and shots made it look so cool.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Pioneers seems to be realllllly good, but the interface is really problematic when learning the game. I'll need to try this more later.
 
I preordered Rogue Legacy ($10), which has a demo as part of the preorder. Overall, I was pretty impressed.

The mechanics are very similar to Symphony of the Night, and they were pretty solid on a 360 controller, which the game supports natively (pretty sure it's an XNA game). Controls are simple, although you can expand them later with upgrades to your character. The difficulty is hard-ish, although you get upgrades that make it easier. I still died a lot. The game definitely has some shmup type elements to it.

The music and art are pretty good, but nothing stands out in particular. In those respects, it's in line with some of the better flash games. Although it has a lot more depth than a typical flash game.

You can upgrade your character's stats, unlock new classes, and find equipment and other blueprints.

There is a bit of humor, some subtle, such as displaying the word "balding" instead of "building" if your character is bald when the castle is generated, and some not so subtle, such as failed jumps/fart noises if your character has IBS.

The trait system is neat, but I died so many times that I cycled through all of the beginning traits rather quickly. I imagine there are probably more, but I don't know for sure.

Overall, if you like Metroidvanias, challenging platformers, and games with progression systems, I highly recommend it. I definitely feel that I will get $10 worth of gaming.
 

Ledsen

Member
Out there somewhere - NNghghgh. I just finished the demo and its really tempting. The teleport mechanic feels REALLY good and they implemented some smart uses for it. Do you get more upgrades for your abilities later? If its getting more complex after the stuff from the demo (after reaching the first aliens you can talk to), I might seriously bite this one as well.

No, it's very straightforward. About 1-2 hours long I'd say. A fun little romp with great music.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
That's a super cool concept. I especially liked how very near the end it orders you to make a smiley face and I was like 'no way' and the pointers totally managed to do it.

I liked the "Do not touch" part, where some people still managed to obscure the important parts :p
 

Hofmann

Member
That's a super cool concept. I especially liked how very near the end it orders you to make a smiley face and I was like 'no way' and the pointers totally managed to do it.

And the face even winked left eye, lol. It would be really amazing if we could animate the fighting avatar/s.

I liked the "Do not touch" part, where some people still managed to obscure the important parts :p

Through the whole video I obeyed given instructions and this part was of course no exception;D I wonder what I would do, if the order was to do the opposite, because the result of this action would be in contrary to my expectations.

There is a game with similar concept, where people gathered in a room use laser pointers as a controlers, but I can find right now.
 
And the face even winked left eye, lol. It would be really amazing if we could animate the fighting avatar/s.

Yeah, that would have been pretty cool. In its current state it just looks like the boxer woman is just fighting a wasp swarm, a terrifying wasp swam of mouse pointers.
 
I preordered Rogue Legacy ($10), which has a demo as part of the preorder. Overall, I was pretty impressed.

I've also splashed out on Rogue Leg, and had a similar experience with it. Seems a real solid and enjoyable game, love the fact it is fairly ruthless although I don't remember ever dying when I didn't believe it was totally my fault.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Was reminded by this thread in the Indie Dev thread. One of our games was featured on GameJolt last week, it's a free to play Unity game. Love to hear what GAF thinks :)

http://gamejolt.com/games/shooter/it-came-from-space-and-ate-our-brains/14616/

From_Space_screenshot9.jpg
Obvious stuff:
Explain what the upgrades do / how long they last
Apparently the Attack / Movement things are boosters, not upgrades
Some kind of combo timer feedback would be nice
You made a game!

Other stuff:
Not sure why sprint is in the game. Seemed infinite with no drawbacks.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Thanks to Rybrad for sponsoring a copy of Alan Wake American Nightmare for the gift pile!
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Some more Pioneers impressions. Surprisingly deep survival game with control issues. The game seems to be really worth a try. You basically start in a village where you can buy equipment and get quests to explore more of the world and find valuable plants etc. There are tons of possibilities for how to add to this kind of game. Really promising. Pioneers seems really good with 2 semi-big flaws. Quick gif of the preparation screen:

1. The UI is horribly inconsistent. Actions sometimes are done with left click, sometimes with right click. Closing windows is X sometimes, sometimes Escape.

2. Probably also due to the UI, the gameplay seems a bit slow. It takes very long to navigate around the actual islands and do the actions. Here is some Island landing and fight preparations + bear fight:
 
After a crazy stressfull weekend/ early week (Trying to buy a used car, dealers can goooooooooooo fuck themselves) Getting back to my PC and my indie games has been just great.

Starseed pilgrim. Just, wow. What an incedible experience. After about 2 hours, I finally
got to the second? island. Up and to the left, should I try to find islands in other directions? Man, what a game. I saw a 3 key door, but i haven't tried to get to it.

It balances choice, strategy, and randomness so well. Really great.
 

Hofmann

Member
Jazzpunk - This game could be even funnier than yesterday's big reveal.

http://indiestatik.com/2013/05/22/jazz-punk/


Comedy has been a genre largely overlooked by gaming. There are games that are funny, of course, from Monkey Island to Portal, from Saints Row to Conker’s Bad Fur Day, depending on your tastes. Even games of the mostly serious variety will crack a joke here and there, or sometimes the humor is owed to the game taking itself too seriously in the first place. But a lot of these are puzzle games, adventure games, shooters or platformers first and foremost, with a dash of humor for flavor. I can’t say I’d ever played a game where comedy was the major, defining dynamic, where triggering jokes was a mechanic in itself, and where you actually had a significant interaction with, a role, in the telling. That was before I’d played Jazzpunk.


Chris: Well, that aside. There’s so many jokes and because they’re left for you to discover, I kind of just want to be like “did you see this?” to every single one. Kind of makes it worth it and gives the game a life outside of playing it.

Chloi: It’s like a scavenger hunt for humor. I remember Luis of Necrophone Games mentioning that it didn’t start out that way, either. They started working on the game and I’m not sure how it looked before (we’ll have to ask!) but they’d add in a gag here and a joke there and it just ended up being their favorite part.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
After a crazy stressfull weekend/ early week (Trying to buy a used car, dealers can goooooooooooo fuck themselves) Getting back to my PC and my indie games has been just great.

Starseed pilgrim. Just, wow. What an incedible experience. After about 2 hours, I finally
got to the second? island. Up and to the left, should I try to find islands in other directions? Man, what a game. I saw a 3 key door, but i haven't tried to get to it.

It balances choice, strategy, and randomness so well. Really great.

And exploration. Most of all exploration of the game mechanics. Such a rewarding mechanic.
 

n8

Unconfirmed Member
I haven't gotten much play this month. Money and jobs ruled within. But things are settling in now, I can feel privileged enough to play games instead of read there and there.

One game out there I've been waiting to play is Niddhogg.
Thankfully due to the latest ToJam, a team made a parody of it released as Eggnogg.


If you got someone local to play with, it's a pretty solid game. It has enough difference (from what I've calculated. If only I've had the pleasure to play the real one.) to stand on it's own. Analog sword movement and throwing, ricocheting swords. Still has that one shot kill, constant respawn until you reach the end action of the real one. Sometimes I feel the controls get in the way but both sides get the same outcome.

Just constant high-octane fighting.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Btw, voting for the current thread starts tomorrow. And when you are rating games, you might as well enter the scores into this small little program that needs to be fed with more data:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57495778&postcount=364

:p

I want to play this game so bad: Crypt of the NecroDancer!

If the devs are about, I'd gladly beta test the shit out of it.
For free!


C'mon y'all.

Oh god, that looks indeed awesome. Definitely something I am looking forward to try.
 
Tool impresssions seem okay now ( Or I misread how it was supposed to work :p)

<Imp>2x0ng; 3; A strangely creepy game. The subtle use of music and the "Rejects of Atari" world works. The visuals are abstract enough that my imagination puts in the blanks. The controls are relatively tight, and the goals well done. Joystick support is a big plus!

Slight knocks for technical issues. While the developer has worked to fix many performance issues, there are still problems.

Also the entire game is written in lisp, mad props. µµµBoredom; 2; While the "Air Jump" mechanic is interesting, in that it can reduce complexity in a compelling way, it needs work. Platforms seem to move before you touch them, and the controls can feel oddly frustrating. µµµBurn & Turn; 4; Damn sold mechanics. It quickly switches between powerfantasy, and crazy game where everything falls apart. The pacing, and inversions of strenght are delightful. µµµFez; 5; Fantastic, smart, intelligent, emotional, mind bending, awesome. Stuffed ful of content, which is amazing. µµµMemory of a Broken Dimension; 2; While the intro wsa striking, the headache inducing visuals drove me away from exploring it's dark world. µµµMonaco; 4; Brilliant in co-op, but can drag in single player. Less of stealth game, but more of a crazy arcade action game with stealth elements. The use of vision, special powers, and mechanics to drive people together are fantastic. </Imp>
.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Tool impresssions seem okay now ( Or I misread how it was supposed to work :p)

.

When you start up the program the next time, it will tell there is a new DB to download. Once downloaded, you can see your own impressions as well and your scores are counted towards the average.

Edit: Btw, thanks for posting. I told you we need more impressions. You just helped me to find and squash another bug.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Sometimes I get the impression that I catch up with all those Indies, turn around and see a dozen more.. A few more games that I havent (or only barely) checked out incoming.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Anyone checked out Cry of Fear? Free horror game in the HL1 engine that seems to be pretty good. Here is a trailer:
http://www.moddb.com/games/cry-of-fear/videos

A short adventure game called Patchwork that is supposedly pretty good:
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/patchwork/12724/

Fragment - A sci-fi, first person stealth action game developed by four students using the Unity Engine.
https://projects.myvfs.com/games/GD27_fragment/
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Crawl - 3D Dungeon crawling, havent tried it myself
http://www.indiedb.com/games/crawl/downloads/crawl,

Mr. Rescue - Super arcadey, cute and fun to play 2D sidescrolling rescuing mission.
http://tangramgames.dk/games/mrrescue/

Potato Dungeon - Totally caught me off guard, but this game is surprisingly fun. The combat mechanics were rather unique and they used it in some rather smart ways.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5573960/potatodungeon/index.html
 
I've played Part of Sin, got it on an indie bundle a while ago. It's okay, not really a scratch on Trine. I think its problem is that with 7 characters they just run out of ideas for powers and sins like Envy and Wraths only job is that they can hit switches that are specifically designed for them. It means the puzzle design ended up being a little obvious and allowed less room for experimentation. Although perhaps it got better later, Sloth and Gluttony both had abilities that had potential to open up some devious puzzles later on. Also the bland bland bland landscapes did themselves no favours.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
I've played Part of Sin, got it on an indie bundle a while ago. It's okay, not really a scratch on Trine. I think its problem is that with 7 characters they just run out of ideas for powers and sins like Envy and Wraths only job is that they can hit switches that are specifically designed for them. It means the puzzle design ended up being a little obvious and allowed less room for experimentation. Although perhaps it got better later, Sloth and Gluttony both had abilities that had potential to open up some devious puzzles later on. Also the bland bland bland landscapes did themselves no favours.

Aww, too bad. But thanks for the impressions, probably wont land in the next thread then.
 

Gloam

Member
Delver is pretty cool. The music is very good, and does that DQ1 thing of changing as you get deeper into the dungeon which is neat and underused in these kinds of games. Combat is fun as well, more Doom than Dungeon Master, a lot of the enemies have projectile attacks and they work in much the same way as an imp's fireball, your wand works in the same manner which is nice. In fact, I'd say that the game has more than a bit of the ID influence to it, definitely worth a look if you like the maze-y levels of IDTech and Build Engine games.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Anyone tried Skyward Collapse (new Arcen game)?

Woah. I know someone who will try it soon.

Some more information:
A turn-based strategic god-game where you control neither faction, but instead strive to maintain the balance of power.
Make towns and war as the boardgame-like floating continent continues to construct itself around you.
Persuade your minions into doing what you want by controlling the circumstances of their (brief) lives.
16 gods, each with unique passive abilities and three active powers, help you further your goals as you pass into the Age of Monsters.
Level up your player profile by winning games. Twelve unlockable buildings in all!
Straightforward controls paired with an intuitive and helpful interface make this an easy title to pick up... but the strategy runs deep.
Multiple difficulty levels let you play a very relaxed game up to a nail-bitingly difficult one. There's no one best way to win!
Co-op multiplayer for up to 8 players.

That its also an iOS game hopefully wont mean it misses too much depth.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Anyone tried Skyward Collapse (new Arcen game)?

Just played it for about 1 hour. I think its biggest problem currently to me was that.. it didnt seem much... fun? It has depth, all right, but even though the basics are there, I dont really feel like actually diving into the mechanics.

A short description of the game:
You are god, and your task is to make sure to balance the world of man. You have several warring factions and you need to build buildings each turn for each civilization (which have different strengths and weaknesses) and YOUR task is to make sure that the balance between all the nations is upheld so they wont destroy each other.

One problem in this game is the non-existing progress. Reus, while being rather highscore focussed (instead of level focussed) too, accomplished that by giving the player different goals to strive for, which then unlock new modes and ingame abilities. Skyward Collapse has just one mode with different difficulty settings that are purely focussed on the highscore you'll achieve. Another issue is also that the game always starts with the same map (an issue that Reus has too but there you can at least decide how many villages you want to play with), which makes you always start with the same start setup.

However, I am not saying that this game isnt deep. The actual workings and how to achieve the balance is plenty deep. You need to balance ressource creation, ressource usage, military power, random enemy spawns, mythical creatures, powerful items etc, which makes it rather tasking. The problem is that there is no reason for me to play and the game itself feels pretty slow. The game would probably have benefitted a LOT from a campaign that would pit you against certain circumstances which you need to overcome. It is also really hard to judge what effect your actions will have in the end. Adding that ontop of an unfriendly interface that doesnt make it easy to keep an overview over the state of your cities leads to the game feeling a bit cumbersome.

The endgame could be amazing with tons of other added stuff like the mythical creatures, other random spawns, more created towns etc. but the beginning of the game doesnt make me curious about it or make me want to get there (as opposed to Reus btw), so I am not feeling too good about it. If they ever add a one button press feature to show the names of all the buildings you built so far, I might give it another chance.
 

flowsnake

Member
Interesting, thanks! I'll probably play some more Reus soon, now that the technical issues have been resolved. Skyward Collapse does seem rather cheap, so maybe I'll pick it up at some point.
 
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