The Community Indie GOTY Voting is open (Yes, lazy reuse of last years awesome banner):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=955174
If possible, please try to quote this post on top of every new thread page here.
.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Indie Games 2014 [December] Now Voting - Post 285!
- Thread starter Toma
- Start date
.
Hey now, no need to feel bad. I really, really appreciate someone talking about this. Just for comparison, these monthly threads same time last year, had 3 times the amount of posts, so something is clearly not going well.
The less people there are, the likelier it is that these threads might end at one point if we dont get enough input/game posts and whatnot, so its in everybody's interest to figure out whats going wrong.
Nobody says we wouldnt be able to post any gifs at all anymore, if a screenshot truly does not do service to the fluidity/feeling of the game, then by all means post a screenshot somewhere in the thread, but we could probably cut down the traffic quite a bit if we restrain from using gifs everywhere we see them.
I'm going to plug my own game here because I'm a soulless "content creator" in a capitalistic society...
POP: Methodology Experiment One - $3.99 Steam (PC / MAC / Linux)
POP: Methodology Experiment One - $3.99 Steam (PC / MAC / Linux)
Game Website
Steam Page
POP: Methodology Experiment One is an experimental game by Rob Lach which was designed music first, with the gameplay and aesthetic derived from the creative flow of the music production process. What emerged is an emotional psychedelic roller-coaster of interactive vignettes.
Crypt of the Necrodancer is pretty sweet. Its more or less an action roguelike and rhythm game with roguelike skin/upgrades/items. Highly unique genre mashup with quite a bit of unlockable content. I was worried that the game might not have enough content, but I was wrong about that. Also, the music is pretty sweet.
Top 20 Candidate.
Keep an eye on that during the Steam sale.
Top 20 Candidate.
Keep an eye on that during the Steam sale.
Ultimate Space Commando, a squad strategy game which I praised for its mechanics, now has a campaign mode. Going to check that out now:
http://www.desura.com/games/ultimate-space-commando-usc
http://www.desura.com/games/ultimate-space-commando-usc
PandaPedinte
Member
I did not played too many games from the OP but I can recommend the following:
- 0h h1 - A puzzle game that is kinda of similar to sudoku but instead of the numbers you have only two colors to fill the spaces. It's very simple but addicting.
- A Bird Story - From the same creator of To the Moon, this time he tells the story without any word being spoken by the characters, I still haven't played much of this one but I did enjoy what I played so far.
- Elliot Quest - It's kinda of a homage to Zelda 2 even though it goes too far sometimes because some stuff are identical to Zelda games, besides it the game is pretty solid with tight controls and no hand holding, unless you have a great memory I recommend you to make notes of places that you can't reach because the lack of an ability/item
- Pitiri 1977 - Simple platformer where you control the old brother trying to save your sibling, as you advance through the game you get more abilities. It's simple and I like the art mostly of the time even though sometimes it's inconsistent.
I remember seeing this game on my queue discovery list, it sounds and looks interesting so you got a sale.
I am sometimes reluctant to open these threads because of this issue. Personally, I dislike the Screenshot Saturday-type posts because usually they lack context -- no description, no website, no release date, sometimes not even the name of the game -- what is the point, except to hype-up a game that may or may not ever be released? I think it would be better to post about games that you have concrete information about, or even better, that you have played. Just my two cents.
More_Badass
Member
?
99% of the time, the Screenshot Saturday posts have the name, site, description, and often the release date and platforms of the games. Occasionally there are untitled games, and rarer, games that don't have a description
Oh no, I wasn't calling you out or anything, but I've definitely seen it happen. It's probably just confirmation bias on my part.
I remember seeing this game on my queue discovery list, it sounds and looks interesting so you got a sale.
Oh wow. Thanks!
I don't think its necessarily just games without titles, it might just be too much unfocussed information? Instead of people ignoring these posts if they don't care, they feel overwhelmed apparently and feel it might distract discussion? The only solution I can come up with is using an extra thread just for dumping the SS and mega posts (including my Desura posts) and see how the community reacts.
I mean the work that went into those posts wouldn't be lost after all, since the info pops up in the next OP anyway.
eot
Banned
I bought this the other day, didn't know you were a gaffer! I liked all the vignettes except the grid one. The first and last ones were the standouts though. Took me a few tries to get the thing into orbit, it seemed like the controls were inverted.
Just curious, how is this different from my first suggestion?
It isnt, I took you up on your suggestion and ask what the others think about it
It isnt, I took you up on your suggestion and ask what the others think about it
I guess I was more confused that Moobabe said my first suggestion would potentially splinter the userbase, then a few posts later agreed that your (identical) suggestion "could work". I thought maybe I had worded it poorly.
Carry on.I played the beginning of the Ultimate Space Commando campaign. Let me just prephase this by saying that its really, damn good, the game just turned out to be a top 5 contender, and I will interrupt my Indie Game playing time to make a thread on it immediately.
These were my initial impressions from the Indie thread:
Ignore that "no good content"-part now. More info in the upcoming thread. If you like Squad based strategy, pick it up for 10€. If you bought the game during the IGS deal, then play it.
Edit: On second thought, probably going to wait until february for the full release to make a thread. Too many people scared by the "Beta" label, but the game is really, really good.
These were my initial impressions from the Indie thread:
Ultimate Space Commando 10€ for the Beta
The game is apparently actively in development since 2011 with previous unreleased prototypes going back as far as 2004. And it shows. In contrast to games like Steam Marines, the gameplay of this squad turn-based tactics games is very well thought out with plenty of interesting possibilities and dangers to account for. Just based on pure gameplay, its probably among the best indie efforts I have played in that genre, which is rather high praise. However, I should also mention here that the game is in Beta and currently missing any sort of progress content, meaning there are no interesting scenarios or campaign missions yet. So lets get into the specifics of what this game offers, what its missing and why you should or shouldnt get it.
The game currently has 2 modes and a focus on highscore gaming over progression. I havent played Defend your Base much, but it basically allows you to build a base setup which you need to defend against countless hordes of enemies. This struck me as way less interesting than the normal mode, because the exploration aspect is one of the biggest strengths of the single missions. However I only tried it shortly, so I wont go into much detail about that. If you start single missions, you get this screen:
You probably wont appreciate this if you want a quick and dirty play session, because it does require some preparation time. This is also the reason why the game doesnt have a decent mass appeal yet. The game actually does a magnificent job at making the game very intuitive. You dont have a lot of inventory management, even though you might have plenty of options/weapons at your disposal (more to that later) and most of the game elements are self-explanatory if you played similar games. But throwing someone into a screen that basically tasks you to fully equip an endgame squad is not very newcomer friendly. If you dont like this kind of full control over a single mission and tinkering around with equipment setups, you should probably ignore this game until it at least offers some proper scenarios or the actual campaign. Even a stacked single Mission structure could help here (3 random levels with increasing difficulty and more money to buy equipment), but as it stands, you have full control over the unit setup. The game basically asks you to distribute skill points and buy equipment for your 4 squad members. This took me ~20 minutes on my first try because there are quite a few options to consider here, starting from deciding between several heavy and small guns or melee weapons and going as far as deciding between different ammunition types that differentiate with acid, explosive or armor piercing characteristics.
Once you finally started the single mission, the player sees the actual game. And if you dont know what you are doing, the game can incredibly deadly. Getting trapped between enemies, getting radiated, standing on explosive fluids, friendly fire and elite Monsters that you shouldnt meet unprepared. The normal difficulty is certainly doable if you know you way around the genre, but there are 4 more difficulties above that, so you shouldnt have issues finding a challenge here. The levels are randomly created and have several options to make the map creation or goals more varied and interesting, such as different main objectives (survive, kill all, find xyz, reach exit), secondary objectives, thicker or thinner walls, special monsters and more. The random creation itself is also rather well made because it creates rooms of special interest (secured rooms with equipment or wide open rooms with many monsters) and actually makes the level layout seem diverse.
I also really like the enemy types, which have normal, strong and boss variants and are exponentially more dangerous. I think the full game eventually needs probably way more different enemy types to not feel repetitive, but for the single missions its enough for now. The actual gameplay also deserves another shoutout because even despite quite deep possibilities, the game is still rather easily playable because of the icons on the upper part of the screen which always shows the actions your currently selected unit can do, based on its equipment and inventory. This may sound like a small thing, but its an amazing idea because it gets rid of tedious inventory management/clicking/sorting. Really weird I havent seen this in other games yet.
These single missions offer replayability by being rated with a highscore. Apparently there are also online ladders/leaderboards but they might not be active atm or I didnt figure out how to activate them. By offering different setups/difficulties and goals, USC currently offers a lot to tinker around with if you are fine with challenging yourself to single missions, because the gameplay itself is VERY well thought out. Not having any actual content like the campaign and scenario does probably hurt it for quite a few people, though, which means the current version is only for a very specific group of gamers, and those gamers probably love it. I do. I really, really like it, but I will probably stop playing around with the single missions once I tried higher difficulties and the other objectives, because I'd also like something to actually play for. Progress in the campaign, ala Jagged Alliance or Fallout Tactics? Crafted Scenario challenges that you can 5 star? I'll be back with this game day 1 once these are in.
In any case:
Definitely a good purchase for me and recommended because of the refined gameplay, but the current content of the game (only random, single missions) is not for everyone.
Ignore that "no good content"-part now. More info in the upcoming thread. If you like Squad based strategy, pick it up for 10€. If you bought the game during the IGS deal, then play it.
Edit: On second thought, probably going to wait until february for the full release to make a thread. Too many people scared by the "Beta" label, but the game is really, really good.
I will get to it eventually, but still running through my GOTY backlog, then DEC games, then voting.
More_Badass
Member
It's alive!!
http://outerwilds.com/incoming-transmission/
http://outerwilds.com/incoming-transmission/
Its been a great few months for Outer Wilds. In addition to a lot of tech enhancements, weve spent a lot of time finalizing the high-level narrative design and making sure that all of the pieces fit together. Questions like what exactly is the Quantum Moon or what fell into Giants Deep now have answers that feed into the games central mystery. Weve also been hard at work developing the culture of the Ancients (who are now called the Nomai) and developing the tone of their writing. Next up, evolving our planetary level designs!
Ranking the 100+ games on my preliminary voting list is a bloodbath. I thought this would be easier this year.
At least I finished my first looks/returning looks at my 2014 backlog. Doing a list of the current games on the list, then on to the December games.
At least I finished my first looks/returning looks at my 2014 backlog. Doing a list of the current games on the list, then on to the December games.
I posted the first draft of my top 50 80 Indie GOTY list, in case anyone cares =p
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=144322096&postcount=32
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=144322096&postcount=32
More_Badass
Member
Picked up NecroDancer and Lisa based on GAF impressions so maybe I'll have some late additions to my list
Dog Problems
Banned
I played this a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Congratulations on finally making it to Steam!
"Late"? You still got plenty of time ;p
Banner Saga and Grimrock 2 should be high priority late entries too
PandaPedinte
Member
Anyone here has been playing or keeping up with Starbound development? I've been wanting to buy it for quite some time but for some reason I keep postponing the purchase.
More_Badass
Member
I put almost 10 hours into the game early this year, but put it aside due to the long break between updates and save wipes. Terraria never really did much for me, but I loved what I played of Starbound. Mainly because I prefer sci fi over fantasy. Can't wait to try the new update.
You hadn't played either Escape Goat?
Nope, a mix of the art style and puzzles I saw not resonating with me. It doesnt seem to be quite Full Bore Levels of Brilliance, but pretty damn good puzzles.
Posted my (tentative) list in the voting thread. Let me know if you think I'm missing something huge, although if it's not in my list or in my to-play list, I probably didn't care for it (The Novelist, Drunken Robot Pornography, Castle Doctrine) or didn't want to find out (War of Mine, Door Kickers).
I noticed some titles that I'm pretty sure aren't eligible, e.g. Tetrobot & Co. and Shadowrun (Dragonfall is "just" an expansion, right?). IMO, Here And There Along The Echo is a weird case (like I wrote in my voting post).
Also, remembering a game that will rank highly on one's list is the worst after having already typed out the ranking numbers.
I noticed some titles that I'm pretty sure aren't eligible, e.g. Tetrobot & Co. and Shadowrun (Dragonfall is "just" an expansion, right?). IMO, Here And There Along The Echo is a weird case (like I wrote in my voting post).
Also, remembering a game that will rank highly on one's list is the worst after having already typed out the ranking numbers.
More_Badass
Member
Bu..but...This War of Mine...Door Kickers
Updated my list with some impressions and sorted my top 20. My top 10 are almost the same as my general GOTY list, expect I had to cut out Valiant Hearts, South Park, 80 Days, and Monument Valley for obvious reasons
I talked about This War of Mine a few pages earlier so I won't go into it again. Door Kickers is not for me even though I can see the quality in the gameplay. I think I'd end up finding it uninteresting, clumsy to control an visually dull.
Thanks for reminding me about NaissanceE, though. Will miss top 20 by a longshot but it's still worth mentioning.
PandaPedinte
Member
Cool that there is a new update coming out, I went to check the beta OT and seems a lot of folks are excited about the update.
Which obvious reasons for Valiant Hearts? It has a PC release.
Definitely give Transistor a whirl from your list.
There is also a VERY strong case to be made for Eidolon, but you need to be able to... let go time if you want to enjoy it.
Echo of the WIlds would be another good suggestion.
More_Badass
Member
Published & developed by Ubisoft, so I didn't consider it an indie game
More_Badass
Member
Ah, Ubi. Right.
Fancy. Must be the only good thing coming out of Ubi in the past few months.
PandaPedinte
Member
Oh that's huge, I hope they deliver it on the promised date. xD
Echo of the Wilds is on my list. Pretty low, though, since I didn't spend too much time with it (which has partially to do with the game but mostly with my schedule).
I don't have a PS4 so I can't play Transistor, yet. Even if I didn't have my personal policy to play games on consoles/handhelds if they're available on those platforms, it wouldn't run smoothly enough on my laptop, anyway.
Frankly, I probably won't have the time to check out much more of my to-play-list. I'll play Super Time Force and Octodad next year on Vita, 1001 Spikes once it hits Europe (so 2020 or something), Ethan Carter once I get a PS4, Divinity when it hits consoles, and the rest of the games including Eidolon when I get to them.
What a year.
Have yet to play Valiant Hearts (waiting for a Vita release) but yeah, it's Ubisoft. Otherwise I'd have included Child of Light and it'd have ranked highly.
More_Badass
Member
The unstable build is already out
PandaPedinte
Member
Great! I'm going to download it tomorrow and I'll try to find a little free time to mess with it.
Toma's hard-hitting questions in the voting thread have made me realise the connection between Jazzpunk and Gone Home in their efforts to expand the fictional repertoire of games, and, by extension, the storytelling techniques required to realise those narratives.
Always worthwhile to talk with my IndieGAF bros.
Always worthwhile to talk with my IndieGAF bros.
Grah, I give up. Going to try it too, if only to see how it approaches narrative in a way that seems so unique to you.
More_Badass
Member
That's why I enjoy the medium so much. Through interactivity and having the player drive the story rather than simply passively enjoying what's happening, games can create experiences and invoke emotions that other forms of entertainment can't achieve.
Haha, just to make sure you understand what I meant, though - I think the primary accomplishment is the introduction of certain (types of) narratives into the medium. The achievement in storytelling is secondary and out of necessity, since they obviously needed to find (not necessarily invent) an adequate form for.. everything that is not just writing but 'game', so to speak.
So, in simpler terms: The narrative methods aren't revolutionary on their own terms but become interesting by virtue of being used in the context of novel sujets. And in the case of Jazzpunk - like I mentioned in the voting thread - the story goes some interesting places that I think a lot of people took (too) lightly because it was presented in this utterly comical context.
Also, if you don't like the humour you will obviously not get much out of it. Goes without saying.
Speaking of stirring up discussions, anybody who read my Hack n Slash impressions who vehemently disagrees with me? I saw baddy has it on his goth list, but I honestly couldn't even bring myself to include it there. Might have squeezed it in on rank 40-50, for some redeeming aspects, by it annoyed me enough to completely leave it out. Spacebase, hack n slash... Oh double fine.
Edit: oh, yeah, the infamous baddy goth list (stupid autocorrect)
Edit: oh, yeah, the infamous baddy goth list (stupid autocorrect)
More_Badass
Member
Actually I removed it, since honestly I haven't played enough to include it. But I did enjoy what I had played. idk, I just really liked being about to solve puzzles and defeat enemies by altering the game variables themselves. Definitely felt more unique and interesting than Glitchspace IMO.
Thanks. It's a rough journey for something that avant-garde heh.