April is here, and I didn't get this posted on the first. Good thing, I suppose, since I would have been inclined to make a joke for Game of the Month. And we can't have that. There was a surprisingly large amount of quality titles this month, but it didn't feel like it as the weeks went by. Only by going back and looking again did I see how many gems there were scattered throughout the crap (of which there is way more).
You can buy any of these games via xbox.com by clicking the link associated with each game, or on the Games Marketplace on your Xbox 360. Simply enter the marketplace and scroll up to Indie Games, where you can check the top rated titles, the games that have just come out, or “browse” to find the games mentioned in this thread. Indie Game trials last eight minutes, which is often enough to establish what you think about it. Even if you don’t buy any of these games, at least trial them, tell people what you think, get more people trying them.
Go. Play. Enjoy. Tell us what you think! Tell all your friends! Get them to tell all their friends…
HELP! Xbox LIVE Indie Games aren’t available in my country!
Yes they are! Xbox LIVE Indie Games are available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. If you’re outside those countries you can still play these games by setting up a Gamertag for free for one of those countries. It’s incredibly simple, and absolutely worth doing.
The Gold award, for the absolute best game that came out last month.
I may be making something of a controversial pick here, but I felt that I had the most fun with Super Ninja Warrior Extreme. It's easily one of the best platformers on the service to date, joining the ranks of Apple Jack and Volchaos.
This game has seen many comparisons to Super Meat Boy, and it's easy to see why at first. There's a large amount of wall-jumping and spinning saw blades in this 30-level platformer. Ninja Warrior is definitely a different game, though. There's a deliberate and smooth difficulty curve and it never gets nearly as hard as Team Meat's opus.
There's also combat, which helps spice things up a bit. The controls are always spot on, the music is great and it's only a dollar. Give this one a shot.
The Silver award, for games that are great, but hey, only one game can be the Gold award winner.
Tower Defense fans may cry foul at my choice for Gold, since Spoids is so expertly crafted. Sorry to disappoint, but the game is still very, very good.
I'll admit that I'm not a very big fan of the genre, so I don't have a ton of specifics to offer about the game other than it kept my attention longer than most TD-style games. There seemed to be a pretty massive amount of enemies to contend with, and the building aspect was both intuitive and sensical.
The presentation is great as well, with high quality voice acting and stylish graphics. Fans of TD really need to look into this one.
=================
Astral is pretty much Eufloria. But that's OK because Eufloria isn't available on the Xbox and I actually liked this game's simplicity a lot better.
The premise is simple. You're in control of a planet's satellites, and your job is to overtake the other planets. So you send those satellites to the other planets in order to conquer them. But wait -- there's a computer controlled enemy (or more, in later levels) doing the same thing with their planets, attempting to take over yours. Turn all of the planets red and you win -- if they all turn blue you've been usurped.
My only real complaint was the controls. The free moving cursor made it difficult to work quickly, despite having developed a proper strategy. Being able to quick select through the planets would have made things a little smoother.
=================
There should have been no way a game called My Cat Vs Zombies Ep 1 could make this list, much less as a Silver award winner, but here we are. It's a strange world we live in, but this game is surprisingly decent.
Aside from the title and the premise, the game itself has a strike against it being a twin-stick shooter. None of it matters, as the game itself plays relatively well. The real star, however, is the great writing. It has an amazing sense of humor and constantly makes the player laugh. I'm as surprised as you are.
Bronze Award winners don’t represent the best games out this month, but every one of these has some really unique aspect to it that more than makes it worth trying, or is more than good enough to warrant a trial. It’s for games that are worth talking about.
Retro Arcade Adventure is a pretty basic arena combat game where you swing a sword at all the enemies on the screen until they stop respawning. It has a fantastic set of retro aesthetics and, while short, is pretty fun.
RedShift is a procedurally generated bullet-hell shooter. It plays well, has a striking aesthetic, and is generally boring if you aren't into bullet-hell shooters.
Ogre's Phantasm Sword Quest is one of the most ambitous 3D titles on the system. There's definitely something here in terms of effort, it just would be nice if the gameplay matched the visual output. Still, it's not absolutely awful and should show people what XBLIG is capable of in motivated hands.
Racing Wings is a strange little game that has you time-trialing a plane around a track. You have to go through some of the gates certain ways, like, vertically or horizontally. It's not bad, but it felt like it was missing that certain something to make it fun enough to go past the trial. There's no real urgency to the gameplay and it failed to hook me.
Wanderer is a game where you have to go from planet to planet, collecting keys and opening doors to progress. Jumping from the planetoids uses gravity, so you'll have to plan your route carefully or you'll be cast out into the empty reaches of space. The controls aren't great, but the game is pretty fun.
We Are Cubes is a shooter, but it's set at an interesting angle and uses vector-style graphics. Enemies scroll toward you and you have to blast them to bits to progress to the next level. If they get past your ship they shoot back up, where you'll be forced to contend with them again. A nifty little game.
Red Invasion: Tower Defense is a basic, but enjoyable tower defense game. It took me a few rounds to realize that there were towers creating money and that I could build more forces, and I almost didn't like it because it was impossible to complete the first level. This is something a fan of the genre would have probably looked for right away. That said, it made more sense once I figured that out.
Dunjax felt like an old-school PC shareware title from the early-to-mid 90s. It's a side-scrolling game that's quite difficult. One interesting aspect that your field of vision is realistic, so if your character can't see beyond a wall, YOU can't see beyond that wall either.
woOOPuP! is an Arkanoid-style brick-breaker. Lots of powerups. Nice graphics. Plays well, if a little loose. Nothing you haven't seen before, but a lot went into this one it seems.
Some games are bad. Really bad. So bad that they don’t even deserve a functioning link to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Seriously. No links. There are a lot of bad games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, but this section is reserved only for games so atrocious or fundamentally flawed that they actually anger me.
Some games are insultingly bad. Jigsaw Jumble is among them. It's a puzzle game. Litterally. And it sucks. Figuratively. If it were a tangible item, its suckage would probably be literal as well.
Bit Digger is an isometric 2D Minecraft clone. Where pigs can explode with dynomite. And the controls suck. And there's nothing to do.
You might be hoping Paper RPG was the XBLIG answer to Paper Mario. Sorry. Adding "Toilet" to the beginning of the title would be more fitting.
I've never seen one game get released as many times as Turborocket, but here we are, now on the fourth installment. That link is what I wish would happen to the series.
Dark Forest needs a keyboard and mouse. And a time machine, because it feels like it's from the early-to-mid 90s in the worst ways possible.
There are certainly better plane games than War In A Box. I'd rather not play video games at all then play this awful piece of trash.
A small section for games that have been updated somehow, either with new content or with a brand new price! This section will only bother with games that are worth buying, so if it’s in here, assume that it’s excellent and that you should own it.
I haven't picked up on any, but if anyone wants me to add stuff in here, please PM me or post it below so I can edit it in.
No XBLIG game has received more play in a group at my house than Hidden In Plain Sight. It may be multiplayer only, but it is a phenomenal game.
Here's what I said about HIPS back in December, when it won a Silver award:
===========================
Have fun, and if you’re playing an Indie Game you love, don’t forget to tell people about it, because it’s only through you that the service thrives.
