toythatkills
Member
Is that it for Xbox LIVE Indie Games? Are we done? Aside from Apple Jack 2 Im not sure theres a great deal left to be excited about, is there? Are we doomed to more months like this? Months which are so, so unbelievably bad that I cant really recommend a single game?
Snakester and Chompy Chomp Chomp have their moments but thats really the best thing I can say about this month. It really is the worst month in the entire services history and when people argue that Xbox LIVE Indie games are pointless and shit, its really hard to disagree when youre faced with a month of dross like this.
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 dont 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 arent 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 youre outside those countries you can still play these games by setting up a Gamertag for free for one of those countries. Its incredibly simple, and absolutely worth doing.
The Gold award, for the absolute best game that came out last month.
Haha.
HAHA.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Silver award, for games that are great, but hey, only one game can be the Gold award winner.
Sod all to see here, either.
Bronze Award winners dont 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. Its for games that are worth talking about.
Chompy Chomp Chomp is alright. Its a multiplayer game where you run around trying to eat other players, you have to eat the one which is the colour under your feet, and make sure you keep away from the one thats chasing you. Yeah, its alright, but it has some really annoying problems such as spawning in random places and by the time youve worked out where youve spawned youve been eaten again. Not so fun. Developer is looking into it though, so maybe one to keep your eye on for the future.
Snakester is about the 300th version of Snake on XBLIG, and finally bothers to do something contrary. Instead of four-way movement, you can weave around at will, and its all rather pretty and rainbowy. Nice scoring mechanic too, with more points the quicker you collect. Still pretty basic, of course, I mean, its Snake.
Some games are bad. Really bad. So bad that they dont 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. Nearly EVERYTHING angered me this month.
Avatar Fart is the absolute worst kind of rubbish. Press buttons to fart. Amazing. When did they start letting people with a mental age of three make games? Because they should stop.
Beep Brrp Bing Bang Bosh is a music game that doesnt have you play along to the beat. Genius. Then, at random, it changes what buttons you have to press. Only it doesnt tell you what its changing them to. Also genius.
Chains is a colour matching game with the least intuitive controls of any colour matching game Ive ever played, and the amazing quirk whereby it changes the colour of the block youve got highlighted so that youre not actually sure what it is. Well done.
Cuddle Bear. Remember how HILARIOUS Naughty Bear was? Yeah, me either. A 2D platformer, though referring to it as such is somewhat generous on my part, and it does nothing to warrant such kind words.
The demo for Droppin Ballz lasts literally ten seconds. That is still enough time to realise how shit it is. You have to roll a ball of the edge of platformzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bureau: Shattered Slipper follows a woman with massive tits as she solves crimes which are generally related to other women with massive fucking tits. This all takes place in the small US region of Uncanny Valley, which is a place where for some reason nobody talks with contractions and so the whole thing sounds unnatural and utterly, utterly absurd.
evil shapes and spaceships is a twin-stick so slow that if it were to have begun the London Marathon this month, it would not finish until August. 2017. Press A to continue. No thanks.
Ideally the developer of Memory Freak would die in a fire for creating a game which it was impossible to exit because everything just takes you to the confirm purchase screen. Selecting quit on a menu does not mean I want to confirm my purchase of your shitty little game, you shit. Its also stolen basically all of its sound effects from films and TV shows, classy.
Brain Jump 3 has the dullest trivia questions about videogames that I have ever, ever seen. Literally every single one is what year was xx released? Lazy, lazy game.
Compromised. OH. YOU HAVE MADE A TWIN-STICK GAME. I AM SO PROUD OF YOU. Its like a really slow, boring Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet or something. Instant tedium. Its really, really not pretty either. The animation is missing about 100 frames for every 101 frames, and the whole thing is just ugly. Aint even got no alibi. An incredibly good review from Dave Voyles suggests that the game might actually be good, but I really didnt see it. Whatsoever.
Heroes of Hat is a mess of platforming in which, most of the time, you cant see any platforms to jump to. Enemies are bullet sponges and hitting them doesnt knock them back so theyre almost impossible to kill without being killed first.
ZOMBIES Stole My Liquor! I know what youre thinking. How could a game with zombies in the title POSSIBLY be bad?! Believe it. Its not even as good as Compromised.
Bibz is for charity but that doesnt excuse you making a shit game with zero redeeming features. It has almost no collision detection to speak of at all, so when you have to jump on another characters head to make them lose a life, its anyones guess as to which one of you will actually lose a life.
Ghosts of Tarr-Minos isnt as good as LCD Dungeon System, a game with no graphics at all.
Spitfire. Oh, a shmup with invisible bullets? BECAUSE EVERYONE LOVES THESE.
Rocket Narwhal is a side scrolling shmup with no auto-fire. I hope you like pressing A a real fucking lot.
1on1 Soccer is one of those games that are nice enough in theory but when you actually make them you realise that theyre absolutely shit and basically just dont work at all as games. Then you just release them anyway.
Im sure Avatar Falls Down Stairs breaks rules on avatar use, I thought you werent allowed to give them voices but this game does. Could be wrong on that, though, which just leaves a pointless game rather than a rule-breaking pointless game.
College Lacrosse 2012. Its just a bad sports game. Theres no feeling of weight to the players, its difficult to follow, the controls are unresponsive and the AI leaves a hell of a lot to be desired with shots going straight through keepers, for example. Awful.
Monster Katz steals everything from Plants vs. Zombies, takes away the sense of humour, and then makes it so ugly that its difficult to actually work out whats happening. I could only play it because I already knew how to play it because of PvZ. PvZ is on sale this week, please get that instead.
Revenge of the Sammich. Twin stick? Check. Ugly? Check. Boring? Check. Shit? Check. Four second trial? Check. Buy it?
UniXNA : Cube is a tech demo and it really feels like it. Press colours as they appear on screen REEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAALLLLLLLYYYYYYY SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWLY.
A small section for games that have been updated somehow, either with new content or with a brand new price! Since all the new stuff is shit, you might as well buy this instead.
The service itself updated this month. Developers can now change the price of their games every 7 days rather than every 90. Expect plenty of sales that you never actually ever hear about because nobody knows how the hell to promote an XBLIG.
All of the radiangames were cut in price from 400pts to 80pts. Thats JoyJoy, Inferno, Fluid, Ballistic, Fireball, and the two Crossfires. You really need all of them.
Blocks that Matter reduced its price from 240pts to 80pts. Its a side-scrolling 2D puzzle platformer with Minecrafty influences.
Labyrinth is now 80pts. Its an ambitious 3D adventure/puzzle game. Its rough around the edges, but really, really worth a go.
Leave Home is a shmup that evolves as you play. Now 80pts from 240pts.
TriLinea ReAct is a competitive gem matching game, and is now just 80pts. TONS of awardments and stuff to earn.
Hidden in Plain Sight, XBLIGs best multiplayer game, received an update with cumulative scoring so now theres even more to be competitive over!
Globe Clicker, a really nice city-finding game, is now 80pts. I have a thing for games with rotating globes, they just look pretty.
And now we look at the most important game to ever happen to Xbox LIVE Indie Games.
Minecraft isnt an Xbox LIVE Indie Game, obviously, but so many people have totally ripped off the idea that its probably the best game the service never had. And, thankfully, it means people can finally stop buying those shit clones made by people so devoid of their own ideas that this is all they could come up with.
But it was my own idea! Yeah, course it was, love.
You know what Minecraft is at this point. You move blocks from one place to another, convert them into different kinds of blocks and generally do whatever the hell you want as long as you can do it with blocks and its awesome. Want to build a castle out of cacti? Sure, go ahead. Want to build a giant tower out of gold which has lava spewing out of it and has stolen by FortressCraft written on the side in mud? Sure, go ahead. Want to build a giant penis and sacrifice a lamb on top of it? Sure, go ahead. Want to give money to the people that perfected this first instead of some guys that just ripped it off? Sure, go ahead.
Amongst all that theres survival to survive, things to craft, and achievements to earn. Ah, achievements. Sweet, beautiful achievements.
It also has zombies. Just try telling me its not the poster child for Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It's basically kept XBLIG afloat single-handed for the last year.
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Have fun, and if youre playing an Indie Game you love, dont forget to tell people about it, because its only through you that the service thrives. To be honest, though, no amount of telling people to play games last month would have stopped the service dying on its arse.
... looks like i'll be staying away from the indies until something catches my eye then 
