state_vector_collapse
Member
Does anyone know what is happening with Trinity Wars? It was down for a March release, but never appeared and the website hasn't been updated in ages. Thanks
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The XNA Indie Games Official Thread
- Thread starter Gowans
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toythatkills
Member
Trials mainly, unless something's good - then I can buy it and know what the full version's like.Shurs said:
There's not a hope that I could afford to buy all the indie games that come out, unfortunately! I will take into account what the full game offers above the trial, though, if it's clear about it.
SmallCaveGames
Neo Member
Nice roundup ttk. There's been an absolute storm of really underwhelming games lately. I have nothing against puzzle games honestly (and a select few are really nicely polished, granted/cool) but people simply don't but them. I don't understand why developers continue to bang them out.
toythatkills
Member
Yeah, July has been rubbish. When I made the thread last month there was almost too much awesome stuff to fit in. This month I'm lucky if there's been five good games so far. (Yours is one!)
Couple more that just showed up
Overkill is a single-screen shooter with enemies coming from all angles. You can shoot straight ahead or use LB/RB to rotate your fire 90 degrees. No matter how good it might be (hypothetically speaking, because it's not that good) a shmup is useless if the hitbox appears to be about twice the size of the ship.
CoreDase is Artoon but less graphically awesome. The music is pretty lovely though, and since Artoon still hasn't made a comeback it might have to do. You're a bouncy ball and have to bounce on every square in a level to turn them red, being careful not to fall through said red squares. It plays nice, but I'm certainly not sure it should have "unique" right at the forefront of its description.
Couple more that just showed up
Overkill is a single-screen shooter with enemies coming from all angles. You can shoot straight ahead or use LB/RB to rotate your fire 90 degrees. No matter how good it might be (hypothetically speaking, because it's not that good) a shmup is useless if the hitbox appears to be about twice the size of the ship.
CoreDase is Artoon but less graphically awesome. The music is pretty lovely though, and since Artoon still hasn't made a comeback it might have to do. You're a bouncy ball and have to bounce on every square in a level to turn them red, being careful not to fall through said red squares. It plays nice, but I'm certainly not sure it should have "unique" right at the forefront of its description.
Trumpets
Member
toythatkills said:
I completely agree, it's a genius idea and I'm not sure why it isn't more enjoyable. The fact that it plays on it's side probably doesn't help, added to general Tetris fatigue familiar to anyone who owned a Gameboy. 240 points is a bit steep for a minimalist 1MB download too.
Still, whoever owns Tetris now would do well to nick the idea for their next game.
HadesGigas
Member
Kafel said:
Marketplace link:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585505cd
HadesGigas
Member
Kafel said:
Except when I clicked it, it went to "Content not found" because Xbox.com is retarded. Had to change the /en-US/ to random other country.
toythatkills
Member
Awesome news. I had a play of Artoon yesterday and it's still among the best Indie Games.qupe1975 said:
Platformance is nice too, bought it as soon as it asked. Played easy first of all and did it in 13m40s with 47 deaths. Rubbish! Might try to improve that before attempting normal, I was awarded a bronze medal and told to try again in less than 30 deaths, so I assume that'd net me silver! I didn't have much trouble with the controls but it's definitely harsh, the only issue I found was how the knight occasionally slides around when he lands so its quite easy to slip off the edge of platforms. Also, is there any trick to the wind bits? Had loads of trouble getting up them (and accidentally walked inside the frame!)
Massively replayable, but I wish it had a leaderboard for number of deaths and then time, or at least logged the medals or something. I had to take a photo of the screen to remember my score!
Recommended though.
I have just played Platformance for the first time since Playtest and for me they have made the game worse with some of the changes. I am going to play it again in a minute but the water bit is worse, trying to get out of it is a pain in the arse, the clouds instead of the ladders are worse. Not good moves in my opinion.
SmallCaveGames
Neo Member
The shortness and the controls are negs for me, but there is still alot to like. Just not sure if I am hardcore enough to voluntarily inflict this kind of "Castle Pain" on myself.
toythatkills
Member
I've done easy in five deaths in 4m55 now. For me, the shortness is a plus, though I don't expect to go through hard at anything like that speed. It's just leaderboards it's missing, being such a speed runny game.
Brilliant for a dollar though, I'll easily get a few hours play out of this, going through again and again.
Brilliant for a dollar though, I'll easily get a few hours play out of this, going through again and again.
toythatkills
Member
The war of the end of the days is a pretty rubbish FPS. Weirdly, the direction you're facing has an effect on whether your bullets come out of your gun or just randomly off at the side somewhere. Sound is horrendous. Walls are paper thin. Furniture can be walked through. There's an exit in the level that takes you to the main menu for no reason. Enemies take 1500 shots to kill. There's not much about this that I liked.
Seaside Racing wasn't great either. It's average enough as a kart racer but as soon as you try to jump or something, the physics go crazy and it's nearly impossible to land without flipping over. Some of the respawn points are rubbish, placing you at points you can't actually continue from, like at the very top of a jump where it's impossible to get your speed up. Looks like it has shortcuts, but if you try to use them you just can't finish the lap. Worst of all, it doesn't even time your laps so it's a completely pointless single-player experience.
SketchBox 360 is Etch-A-Sketch, but simpler to control since you can just do it all on the left stick. You might have fun with this if you're an arty type of person. There's some minigames in there too but they're variable. There's a pong like game which is alright, ish, but another game where you have to collect gems is awful.
Seaside Racing wasn't great either. It's average enough as a kart racer but as soon as you try to jump or something, the physics go crazy and it's nearly impossible to land without flipping over. Some of the respawn points are rubbish, placing you at points you can't actually continue from, like at the very top of a jump where it's impossible to get your speed up. Looks like it has shortcuts, but if you try to use them you just can't finish the lap. Worst of all, it doesn't even time your laps so it's a completely pointless single-player experience.
SketchBox 360 is Etch-A-Sketch, but simpler to control since you can just do it all on the left stick. You might have fun with this if you're an arty type of person. There's some minigames in there too but they're variable. There's a pong like game which is alright, ish, but another game where you have to collect gems is awful.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
His horizontal movement has no acceleration and he jumps like he has an invicible jet pack on. But most of the levels seem to be made with these idiosyncrasies in mind. I bought it and beat it in one sitting and it's on par with the upper crust of the flash platformers. It made the wait for Super Meat Boy a little less painful.toythatkills said:
Liquid Helium
Member
Just bought creators club membership and am hoping to release my first game sometime soon 
As for platmormance, I suck really badly at it, my best time is something around 7 minutes but I enjoyed it quite a bit
As for platmormance, I suck really badly at it, my best time is something around 7 minutes but I enjoyed it quite a bit
toythatkills
Member
The way he moves wouldn't be a problem at all if you could see more of the level. The problem is that the camera's zoomed in too far so every single jump is just a leap of faith and the whole game is just trial and error. That doesn't make it hard, hard would be seeing what you have to do and having trouble executing it. It's just annoying.SapientWolf said:
Can you give us any exclusive info?Liquid Helium said:Just bought creators club membership and am hoping to release my first game sometime soon
Avatar Pinball. I clicked the "play game" button, filled to the brim with dread. Turns out though, it's not that bad. It's massively creepy, seeing your avatar with their neck totally snapped, but the game itself is much better than I was expecting. Unfortunately all the sensible modes are locked in the trial so all you can play is the one where you use your avatar as the ball and left/right to move the avatar around which makes the game pretty easy, you'll never fall down the middle, for example. The physics seem OK to me, though there's an option to play with a ball which would make it easier to judge, not available in the trial. The big problem, I guess, is that there's only one table and it's fairly basic and you'll tire of it pretty quickly. It's not a bad pinball game though.
Platformance looks VERY awesome. Reading about it didn't do it justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DMembtjfjI&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DMembtjfjI&feature=player_embedded
Spring Up Harmony is out now for 240 msp.
It looks like a more physics orientated version of Peggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05QWJwhs_4
It looks like a more physics orientated version of Peggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05QWJwhs_4
toythatkills
Member
It's kind of a more pointless version of Peggle, and the physics felt entirely wrong to me. It was really unpredictable when you shot at a block which way the ball would shoot off. Peggle is random but you can still plan two or three bounces, here, nope, you can aim for the first block then you're down to luck. The aim is to shoot at seven sparkling blocks with balls of the right colour within a certain time limit, you get bonus points/time for catching blocks in a Peggle-style bucket at the bottom which you control yourself. The problem is, there's not a set number of balls, just a time limit, which means you can shoot and shoot at random with no penalty at all and still finish a level, there's not really much of a challenge at all. It's a nice idea, but the balance is all wrong.N.A said:
I don't think much this month has been as bad as Killa Hurtz though. It's a kart racer but the tracks (or at least the track in the trial) are near impossible to navigate because you just can't see where the track goes. There's an arrow to point you in the right direction but it's so slow to react, it doesn't actually tell you where to go until you've already gone the wrong way and got lost. Even with the arrow pointing the right way it's not that obvious where to go half the time. Weapons are shit. Cars handle like shit, and there appears to be an area where controls are randomly inverted which makes them handle even shittier. I can't find a single good word to say about this game. A ridiculously frustrating experience.
SmallCaveGames
Neo Member
I playtested that game and assumed it was still 'alpha.' When I saw it pop up for sale I knew it was trouble. Visually it had potential - but the controls and gameplay need another 2 months of polish.
I flat out suggested "get rid of item that inverts controls - it's a negative play experience, period." Oh well.
For an item like that to not be 100% frustrating would take a ton of work. It basically hits you instantly with no warning, and then goes away instantly too. No way to adjust or react before you're smack into a wall.
I playtested a game by a long lost XBLIG dev who still has one of the top rated games. He probably has a little ways to go, but I can almost guarantee you will love it. He's working on what I would call an action/RPG. I don't think he announced it officially beyond a tweet - so I have to play coy for now - but it's coming and it's good.
I flat out suggested "get rid of item that inverts controls - it's a negative play experience, period." Oh well.
For an item like that to not be 100% frustrating would take a ton of work. It basically hits you instantly with no warning, and then goes away instantly too. No way to adjust or react before you're smack into a wall.
I playtested a game by a long lost XBLIG dev who still has one of the top rated games. He probably has a little ways to go, but I can almost guarantee you will love it. He's working on what I would call an action/RPG. I don't think he announced it officially beyond a tweet - so I have to play coy for now - but it's coming and it's good.
RadarScope1
Member
Whatever happened to the XBLIG by the poster called Sonic Retard? He detailed it once in this thread but with thread search disabled now I can't find it. It looked pretty cool. Seems like the guy isn't in this thread any more, either...
It's out and awesome.OnPoint said:
My very nitpicky complaint is that I don't like the font in the menus :lol . Looks almost TimesNew Roman and sticks out like a sore thumb. Why not just use the same retro font you use in help ticker.
This is Neogaf, we bitch about fonts. ^_^
toythatkills
Member
When their game sells like shit, I guess they've only themselves to blame then. Sounds like excellent, essential feedback.SmallCaveGames said:
That's simply not true.besiktas1 said:
Gumzoobo! - COMIC SANS WARNING. Okay, stop me if you've heard this one before. You're in a single-screen 2D level and you have to shoot bubbles at enemies at which point they float up and you jump at them to make them die. Then they turn into fruit which you collect for pointages. Defeat all the enemies to progress. Familiar? There's a few annoyances with the controls and the collision detection but for only 80 points it's not bad and it comes loaded with power-ups and stuff. The trial time-limit ran out which is always a good sign 'cause it held my attention for at least that long!
Rock Blocks tries to do far too much and just leaves me baffled. There are four coloured lines, each corresponding to a face button on the controller. When a block falls down from the top and crosses a line you press the face button and up or down to strum and the block vanishes and you get a point. It is slow. Like, hideously slow. But you don't even need to do that. If they fall beyond that line 'cause you missed, they fall into some match-two game at the bottom where you can actually score more points, so basically, it's almost pointless playing the first bit, you can just randomly watch them drop and score better, occasionally deleting blocks you don't need. But it's already slow, and now it's slow but you only have to play it every four minutes. There are 97 gauges on the screen representing different things. It's stupid.
Cyber Lander: Mission Space is, as implied by the name, a Lander game. You have to land on panels to refuel and you get points for each one you land on. There's no missions, just score, and the level is very small with only five pads, it seems and none are particularly difficult to get to. It's reeeeally strict with how good you need to land though. There's just not enough going on to warrant a purchase, it needs to feel like you're doing stuff beyond land take off land take off. Some story, or tough terrain to traverse, anything.
Basketball Machine I did not understand. Is this a real thing? A ball settles on a hole, you press A and either score a basket or don't, then it settles on another hole until the time runs out. There's no skill or game that I can make out.
Liquid Helium
Member
Yeah, how the did you know that?Kafel said:
Not really much to it, it's just something I have been working on this summer. I'm a broke student and decided I might as well try to make money from XBIG. The game is called KALM, the aim of it was to create a metroid-vania style game that consisted of multiple, 5 minute campaigns. It controls like I wanna be the guy (double jump with a pistol). I just submitted it for it's first play-test, I think it still needs some work though, I want to add some more campaigns, and like I said before I'm a broke student and am no artist/audio dude so the graphics and sound is nothing more than the royalty free rubbish that I am using nowtoythatkills said:Can you give us any exclusive info?
if anyone has a creators account they can 'play-test' it here: http://catalog.xna.com/en-GB/GameDe...d=332b0349-9a57-41fa-be65-43ddcf7b1b52&type=1
HadesGigas
Member
toythatkills
Member
To note, it's "every single avatar game" that's called "Avatar something" rather than actually being every single avatar game. Also, he compares Avatar Golf to Wii Sports Golf, amazingly.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
HadesGigas said:
yikes, dude should stick to reviewing the avatar games. his intro is pretty gibberish. he's clearly a native english speaker, he just has terrible diction.
edit: the reviews have really unusual diction too.
"the controls and shooting are linear" "only with bumping eurotrance playing in the background to surely pump some adrenaline into your veins" "this whole process facilitates dominating the opposing team's [base]" "so a bit of strategical planning and heartfilled(?) war cry are recommended to tasty victory" "despite its lack of detail, the core gameplay nullifies it" "catch some gnarly still water and surf around the designated directions provided by the floating bu yos" "below average level design which honestly could have made this game float, not sink" "do you have a sense of social phobia" "another rag-doll featured game" "setting up a game is a redundant task itself" "the golfing itself is not as half as bad" "tune out to your own personal library of music" "i get a sense that the author only thought of the graphics as a second thought" "try not to flip over and crash because that's what you will be doing a lot" "the controls itself seems stiff"
it's like he's reading off a script, but the script isn't written in readable english
SmallCaveGames
Neo Member
Indienerds is doing a big XBLIG giveaway if anyone is intrested.
Noogy, I wait patiently for your game. Frothing, actually. Did you try out Opac's Journey?
Noogy, I wait patiently for your game. Frothing, actually. Did you try out Opac's Journey?
toythatkills
Member
Some excellent prizes there.SmallCaveGames said:
Avatar Hurdle is another 80 point UFO Games title as they continue their quest to completely remake Track and Field but making each event somehow unplayable. On this occasion, we have the 110m/400m hurdles event which they've zoomed in and made move so quickly that you can't possibly react to the hurdles, you have to guess/know where they are long before they appear. At this point, you could afford to buy the actual Track and Field rather than their games, and it's much more fun.
Junior Street Ninja has no fucking analog stick deadzone, so I was just frustrated as my ninja constantly ran left and off the side of every platform when I tried to stop. This made the game 100x harder than was necessary. Might try again with the drum d-pad because it looked quite good aside from that, not the best platformer in the world but could be fun if it wasn't so irritating.
Relative Space is a twin-stick which is really, really slow and cumbersome.
Diablohead
Member
I am still amazed that you are making this game and only started to code a few years back, you are a monster :lolNoogy said:Yeah, and I really enjoyed it
SmallCaveGames
Neo Member
Noogy said:Yeah, and I really enjoyed it
Nice! Sounds like I'll be enjoying some real estate in your credits!
:lolnumber1jagsfan
Member
toythatkills said:
Have you seen the screenshots with the marketplace description of Junior Street Ninja? Looks like off-screen photos from the guys mobile phone lol
HadesGigas
Member
toythatkills said:
No d-pad support. Game is awful anyway. Just jumping on random platforms bouncing on those weird robot things.
The lack of delay after death is terrible too. You just respawn on that first platform right away, probably still holding down right so you die again..
And you're a ninja holding a sword who can't swing it. What the hell kind of character design is that?
HadesGigas
Member
The Impossible Avatar Getaway 2 is out.
You may remember the first one as a shameless rip-off of The Impossible Game.
Well the sequel actually has some effort put into the graphics, more of a Canabalt/Mirror's Edge look to it. And it did away with that awful "hold A and you jump as soon as you land" shit that the frist borrowed from TIG. Also the camera is zoomed out a bit more (but still a bit close). All in all a lot better showing. Still not sure I'm a fan of the "place your own checkpoints" concept that it carries over from TIG and TIAG1.
This is what the first one looked like:
You may remember the first one as a shameless rip-off of The Impossible Game.
Well the sequel actually has some effort put into the graphics, more of a Canabalt/Mirror's Edge look to it. And it did away with that awful "hold A and you jump as soon as you land" shit that the frist borrowed from TIG. Also the camera is zoomed out a bit more (but still a bit close). All in all a lot better showing. Still not sure I'm a fan of the "place your own checkpoints" concept that it carries over from TIG and TIAG1.
This is what the first one looked like:
Two games that might be worth it :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VKI06xhybw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEx_p2N_eww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VKI06xhybw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEx_p2N_eww
Kafel said:
There are a couple of titles I am hoping turn out to be good at the minute. Jump and Bounce is not a bad little platform game with some decent challenges.
Gravitron360 looks good - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uz-eELPG6w altho I am a bit concerned there is also a game called graviton in review at the same time.
plus there is this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJbnWjilmyk
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
C.L.E.S. Party is pretty neat. It reminds me of a cross between Marshmellow Duel and Rocket Riot.Kafel said:
toythatkills
Member
That's coming to XBLIGs?qupe1975 said:
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