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Indie Games 2014 [March] Now Voting - Post 651!

Moobabe

Member
Hey indie fans, friends, and devs.

Today is the day that my team and I have completed a games criticism project.

www.starseedobservatory.com

u10673.png


The site deep dives into Starseed Pilgrim in a next-generation style of games criticism. Get hands on with the game right there in browser. Explore how the game could be expanded with new gameplay mechanics and ideas. Read essays on the game's design, strategy, and more.

Droqen will be releasing an expansion of Starseed Pilgrim soon, so I'm also promoting his game.

This is way too cool and makes me feel super stupid. I should have focused my attentions more down this route.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
This is way too cool and makes me feel super stupid. I should have focused my attentions more down this route.

Go post that in the gaf thread for it (post above yours), it needs some bumping. :p

I'll reply to you over there.
 
Wow, we can't thank everyone enough for the votes/support on Olympia Rising!

So many awesome looking titles, it's a bit overwhelming - in the best way possible, lol.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Wow, we can't thank everyone enough for the votes/support on Olympia Rising!

So many awesome looking titles, it's a bit overwhelming - in the best way possible, lol.

Yeah it is. Really glad we got a few people here that actually try these games to recommend the "special" games to the ones that dont have quite the time to play everything.

And yeah, OR will stay a thread darling ;)
 

Toma

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

I dont know why, but for some reason, all games this month were rather enjoyable so far. Good quota. Anyway, its a free demo for a puzzle platformer based around gravity. Those huge gears are the center of gravity and if you walk past an edge (left on the screenshot), you'll change direction of your own gravity. Works well and the style is a bit reminiscent of FEZ and very nice to look at. There are a few issues, as the puzzle design needs some work to avoid tedium (mainly fucking up a whole level by moving a block too fast), but if they manage to come up with several interesting puzzle ideas based on this concept, this game should turn out VERY good. Considering its v0.1, this is already very impressive, but it obviously still needs some improvements.

1. Card City Nights
2. Black Ice
3. Banished
4. Blue Saga
5. Action Painting Pro
6. Clockefeller
7. Bosses Forever
8. Astrovoid
 

daydream

Banned
OP impressions, Bosses Forever:

I don't get this game. I mean I can appreciate the old school gameplay and highscore focus, which makes it pretty similar to Astrovoid in that regard if you have someone to measure yourself against and its also nice that the weapon/strategies of the boss changes to offer new challenges, but I dont get the premise behind the whole "adjusts to your playstyle"-line. Let me finish the main thing first: The game is good if you want some bite sized, semi-bullet-helly boss rush.

Now back to the other thing: What is this game adjusting to? I mean it could literally just up the difficulty in every new level by adding more projectiles/difficult to avoid projectiles and still say "adjusting to your skills" because, obviously, if you manage to survive more levels than in the last run, you are improving. Add some random attacks that get chosen each run and voila, it seems like its "changing". The "adjusts to your playstyle thing" doesnt make much sense either because even though you need some precise jumping to survive some attack patterns, the actual strategic decisions for the player are VERY limited and straightforward. Either shoot from the bottom or hang on the wall shooting from the side. These are the only options every single player has and if you dont manage to pull these off, you wont get far anyway.

Again, I am not saying the game isnt challenging, but the main bullet point its being sold on seems incredibly weird to me.

Bosses Forever: I just played it and I'm not feeling too hot on it, either. Honestly, I wouldn't even have known about the "adapt to your playstyle"-component if I hadn't read your impressions prior to playing. Like you said, it's not really reflected in the game at all. The bosses get more health and different attack patterns, that's about it.

Putting that insignificance aside, though, the game didn't really grab me. It controls fine, but the visuals and gameplay are really uninspired. It's like a Mega Man boss rush with all the life and character sucked out of it. One element I thought was at least interesting was the Nuclear Throne-style leveling between bosses, but after the fifth boss or so you probably need to choose the 'heal' option to survive the next fight, thus missing out on the health or weapon upgrade.

It's a different genre, but the indie classic 'Warning Forever' (which came out in 2003 if you fancy feeling old for a second) did a way better job with the same idea.
 
Has foiled made the list at any point? It's a really good platformer/fighting game along the lines of towerfall or samurai gunn.

http://www.foiledgame.com/

Impressions: So, it's really simple. If your foil touches the other guy and it's not blocked by their foil you kill them. When they die, they release a soul, grab the soul and take it back to your base to score a point. There's no stab button, just a jump, a slam and and a defensive up swing. It builds a great sense of Yomi as you try to figure out if the other guy will jump over you, or try to slam you. It also nails some basic gamefeel stuff. Wall jumping feels great, as does jumping and running. It's just a really tight little 1 vs 1 platformer/fighter that's free.
 

Alts

Member
Hey, welcome to the Indie Threads. I always get a kick out of learning that a game I'm enjoying was made by a Gaffer. Yeah, saw Umbragram on Reddit, definitely knew it was my kind of game. Love the core mechanic, very inventive

Do you have any plans to port the game to IOS? The gameplay seems perfect for touch controls.

Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it. I didn't have any plans for an iOS port, but that may change. Some of the indies at this meetup I go to were suggesting the same, so I'll keep an open mind about it. I worked at an iOS games company for a while and became really disenchanted with the whole ecosystem.
 
Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it. I didn't have any plans for an iOS port, but that may change. Some of the indies at this meetup I go to were suggesting the same, so I'll keep an open mind about it. I worked at an iOS games company for a while and became really disenchanted with the whole ecosystem.
By ecosystem, you mean the freemium, IAP-heavy focus?
 

Alts

Member
By ecosystem, you mean the freemium, IAP-heavy focus?

No, I mean the entire iOS app store ecosystem. They all exist together in it. Freemium games are a (very) large presence in it, and they've colored the expectations and behaviors of the average ios gamer. I think that many of the freemium games are manipulative and addictive (in the more common negative meaning of the term) and Apple has huge monetary incentives to promote those games rather than better or more unique experiences on the platform.
 
No, I mean the entire iOS app store ecosystem. They all exist together in it. Freemium games are a (very) large presence in it, and they've colored the expectations and behaviors of the average ios gamer. I think that many of the freemium games are manipulative and addictive (in the more common negative meaning of the term) and Apple has huge monetary incentives to promote those games rather than better or more unique experiences on the platform.
Yeah, I totally understand. I try to support and advocate for the developers that do release premium and paid games, as well as ones that release fair balanced free games. Which while there may be more than you might expect, are still unfortunately far outnumbered by developers that abuse certain practices

The way Apple supported King in their Candy trademark dispute was a travesty
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Yeah, I totally understand. I try to support and advocate for the developers that do release premium and paid games, as well as ones that release fair balanced free games. Which while there may be more than you might expect, are still unfortunately far outnumbered by developers that abuse certain practices

The way Apple supported King in their Candy trademark dispute was a travesty
How did apple support King? Didn't notice that apple was involved in that.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Well, thats not really apples fault though. I mean, King won the trademark dispute and apple probably was legally obligated to act on King's request to inform app store games. I dont see much leeway there.

"All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land" sounds like a bunch of keywords put together to appear in mostly of searchs.
 

Zeth

Member
I just picked up One Finger Death Punch on a whim and I'm loving it. Super fun little action/rhythm game. It does have somewhat low resolution assets left over from the XBLIG release, but the core gameplay is still great - and it feels right at home using left and right mouse.

It's like the game-ification of those crazy stick figure gifs from around the dawn of the animated .gif many years ago. edit: I found an old OT from the XBLIG release, poor thing never reached page two. Glad we have threads like this though :)

One Finger Death Punch is on Steam!!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/264200/
iboTAjxLwGjvTT.gif
 
Gunscape (PC/Mac/Linux)


A game a friend of mine is working on with his company. There's an early alpha you can play here: http://playgunscape.com/downloads

It's an FPS construction kit where you can make your own levels and game types using various themes. Not sure how many are in game right now but there's a Quake styled theme, a Halo one, a TF2ish one, just to give you an idea. Eventually you'll be able to make more than deathmatch maps, but right now I think that's the only mode. Here's a gif of a PVE boss fight type mode: http://i.minus.com/iWOLt6BIoOmjD.gif

RPS wrote about it.
 
Ey guys, Path of Shadows dev here.

We are going to delay the Kickstarter campaign until further notice. This is mostly because of personal reasons we can't do nothing about (think about Phil Fish in IG:TM). We are possibly changing the name of the game too.

We hope that we can launch the campaign in the few next months and also show some new content!

Cheers and sorry.
 

daydream

Banned
Ey guys, Path of Shadows dev here.

We are going to delay the Kickstarter campaign until further notice. This is mostly because of personal reasons we can't do nothing about (think about Phil Fish in IG:TM). We are possibly changing the name of the game too.

We hope that we can launch the campaign in the few next months and also show some new content!

Cheers and sorry.

All the best to you guys. The launch of a KS has to be well considered, and I'm sure the delay is for the best in light of your personal responsibilities.

Looking forward to hearing from you again!
 
Teleglitch is $3.25 on Gamefly, less with the 20% discount
http://digital.gamefly.com/#!/download-teleglitch-die-more-edition/5006319

Ey guys, Path of Shadows dev here.

We are going to delay the Kickstarter campaign until further notice. This is mostly because of personal reasons we can't do nothing about (think about Phil Fish in IG:TM). We are possibly changing the name of the game too.

We hope that we can launch the campaign in the few next months and also show some new content!

Cheers and sorry.
Good luck! I've always considered game development a fluid process; a delay can only be a good thing for your campaign. More to show, more polish, when you do launch.

But I do like that name...
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
Gang Beasts! Magicians & Looters! Disrupt! Nowhere! ReVen! Volt!

And...Crawl
Check the amazing trailer

But I'm suspicious. Has Steam changed how Greenlight works? Do votes matter? Crawl was added yesterday. It hasn't even been 12 hours yet. I doubt a game could get enough votes to reach the top 50 in that amount of time

Fleish & Cherry in Crazy Hotel! Congrats guys!
 
Gang Beasts! Magicians & Looters! Disrupt! Nowhere! ReVen! Volt!

And...Crawl
Check the amazing trailer

But I'm suspicious. Has Steam changed how Greenlight works? Do votes matter? Crawl was added yesterday. It hasn't even been 12 hours yet. I doubt a game could get enough votes to reach the top 50 in that amount of time

Trailer is so great. I've been in awe of Crawl's animation work since I first saw it a while ago.
 

Moobabe

Member
So I got a key for The Red Solstice. Getting my head around it at the moment - it's a top down, 8 player co-op, wave based/objective based... survival game? I haven't won a game yet so I'm not 100% sure
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
So I got a key for The Red Solstice. Getting my head around it at the moment - it's a top down, 8 player co-op, wave based/objective based... survival game? I haven't won a game yet so I'm not 100% sure

Any progress incentive? Loot? Upgrades? New skills upon level ups?

Or more a highscore thing? I am a bit wary of MP only games.
 
Copod - $5 alpha (PC, Mac, Linux)
tumblr_n04j5dQtu81rz9erdo1_500.gif

http://herebeben.com/copod

Copod is a roguelite where you have to survive as a small creature in a strange world. All you want is to find a flower to impress your mate so you can continue to the next generation, but there are many other creatures that are in your way. Find eggs to hatch fellow Copods to help you out or sacrifice them for more health. Kill and scavenge for varied powers that you give you a temporary abilities.

So I had learned of this game in a recent r/gamedev Screenshot Saturday, and then seeing the game on Greenlight and the trailer interested me enough to drop $5 on the alpha. So far, I'm enjoying Copod. I think the closest comparison would be a top-down Fancy Skulls. The two games share some similarities: an abstract art style, weird enemies that you can't figure out at a glance and need to learn how they function and attack, varied power with names that hint at their effects but don't outright tell you what they do, a more relaxing vibe. There's an aura of mystery and discovery as you explore this strange underwater world and the unusual creatures that lurk here. The leveling mechanic is cool too; in one room, there's a female copod and by finding the flower somewhere in the level, you mate with her. Then you play as your offspring.

The movement is fluid, the art style is interesting and stylish, and the gameplay is leaning more towards bullet hell and shooter, but with a focus on evasion and maneuvering as your main attack is a melee ram, as well as strategically using your limited power-ups. I'm eager to see how Copod progresses and evolves in future builds

Greenlight page here
Trailer here
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
OP impressions, Cloudbase Prime:

The core gameplay revoles around you being able to lift and sink every pillar in the world, out of which the ground is consisting. You have some interesting options due to that since it allows you to fling yourself or enemies through the air, gives you some air gliding time or lowers a pillar that you need to land on. Your experience might vary, but mine wasnt very positive, mostly because the mouse didnt move up down in the tutorial/story mode, which had me stuck rather quickly. There is another mode, which is called survival and is basically just a small arena shooter without too many bells, but the game isnt fast, snappy enough and doesnt give enough "back" to make that mode enjoyable. I can see a story/puzzle/exploration mode working with this setup but the highscore one just isnt fun at all. To be fair, the game is in VERY early alpha, and I am sure that I'll like the game more further down the road with some more polish and more content, but right now it isnt really enjoyable.

1. Card City Nights
2. Black Ice
3. Banished
4. Blue Saga
5. Action Painting Pro
6. Clockefeller
7. Bosses Forever
8. Astrovoid
9. Cloudbase Prime
 

Toma

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

This game is even in PRE alpha and already among the best games this month. Incredibly charming plant growing, through-the-universe-zipping tower defense game. The game already works perfectly fine and you can already spent quite a while in this world, even though its clear that they still need to add more content to allow for more different plants/uses/building structures/planet layouts/dangers. The game even has some progress elements, where you can earn resources for which you can upgrade your skills that you can carry over between different runs.

Already very cool and a very good, smaller Indie game at v0.064, cant wait to see in which direction this is heading.

1. Card City Nights
2. Black Ice
3. Cosmochoria
4. Banished
5. Blue Saga
6. Action Painting Pro
7. Clockefeller
8. Bosses Forever
9. Astrovoid
10. Cloudbase Prime
 
OP impressions, Cosmochoria:


This game is even in PRE alpha and already among the best games this month. Incredibly charming plant growing, through-the-universe-zipping tower defense game. The game already works perfectly fine and you can already spent quite a while in this world, even though its clear that they still need to add more content to allow for more different plants/uses/building structures. The game even has some progress elements, where you can earn ressources for which you can upgrade your skills that you can carry over between different runs.

Already very cool and a very good, smaller Indie game at v0.064, cant wait to see in which direction this is heading.

1. Card City Nights
2. Black Ice
3. Cosmochoria
4. Banished
5. Blue Saga
6. Action Painting Pro
7. Clockefeller
8. Bosses Forever
9. Astrovoid
10. Cloudbase Prime

This game is one that mostly caught my attention in the OP. I'm looking forward to play it later.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
This game is one that mostly caught my attention in the OP. I'm looking forward to play it later.

Yeah, this game is already a good game, but has sooo much potential. If I have the time (someone else feel free to do some research instead), I need to check whether the dev talked about progress/planned features/content somewhere. Really curious about this. I subscribed to the mailing list, and will let you know if something interesting is announced.
 
Yeah, this game is already a good game, but has sooo much potential. If I have the time (someone else feel free to do some research instead), I need to check whether the dev talked about progress/planned features/content somewhere. Really curious about this. I subscribed to the mailing list, and will let you know if something interesting is announced.
Well the developer is on GAF, just waiting to be able to post. He actually emailed me yesterday, was very grateful to see his game mentioned and featured in these threads. He follows the threads too, so he's aware of the impressions here.

Dev's GAF name is "mantrakid". I had PM'd Stump, not sure if he gave the dev posting privileges or not
 
ACE Team, developers of the Zeno Clash games and Rock of Ages just announced their new game.

Abyss Odyssey -???
MB1ODYn.jpg

http://ht.ly/2EqL9s

Abyss Odyssey is an action/adventure platformer that borrows several elements from the Roguelike sub-genre. The developers are saying the game will have a deep fighting engine and the ability play as an enemy.

It definitely looks like an ACE Team game, there is a trailer and more information at the link.
 
ACE Team, developers of the Zeno Clash games and Rock of Ages just announced their new game.

Abyss Odyssey -???


It definitely looks like an ACE Team game, there is a trailer and more information at the link.
I got Zeno Clash 2 recently and it's really good, awesome art style, so I'm anticipating this
 

Burt

Member
ACE Team, developers of the Zeno Clash games and Rock of Ages just announced their new game.

Abyss Odyssey -???


It definitely looks like an ACE Team game, there is a trailer and more information at the link.

Looks good, albeit pretty early. Looking forward to hearing more.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
It's also coming to PC. Should I make a properly formatted post for it? I figured there would already be one.

For some reason, the games that get normal GAF threads usually dont get posts in here. I am trying to tell people on GAF that create these threads to also throw a post in here, but it doesnt seem to catch on.
Yeah, a post would be appreciated.
 
SOMA - PC, PS4
vSKO9j6.jpg

http://www.somagame.com/index.html

The radio has gone silent on PATHOS-2. As isolation bears down on the staff of the remote research facility, strange things are happening. Machines are taking on human traits and alien constructions have started to interfere with routine. The world around them is turning into a nightmare. The only way out is to do something unimaginable.

New game from the developers of Penumbra and Amnesia The Dark Descent.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Started playing Cubesis from the OP and I am intrigued after I built my first mini settlement with city and a few grain fields/granaries.
woyF7A6.gif


More impressions after I played some more.
 

daydream

Banned
So, M_B's continuous endorsement of Tower of Guns as well as GB's (kinda negative) Quick Look convinced me to finally get the game. Only played one round so far, and it seems alright.

Fortunately, it ran fine on my laptop as far as I could tell. Still need to wrap my head around some things, e.g. the spawn pattern of enemies, and how to best manage your health. I didn't even notice that I was close to dying, so maybe the game isn't communicating that stuff super well.

Edit: Also, I had to do a second take after reading this sentence in the Steam thread:

The Impulse gaming thread is the most popular on gaf.

Sounds like a nightmare. :p
 
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