DMac, the patron saint of the indie games community, let me know that his current project, Samurai Soul Hunters, can now be shown to the public! Hurrah! Created for the XNA competition, SSH is a 1-4 player beat ‘em up (slash ‘em up?) set in feudal Japan.
It’s been great to be able to hear firsthand the love and hard work DMac’s put into this game. And it shows! The game looks like great fun, especially with four players, and I totally dig the Space Harrier-esque perspective. Can’t wait to see this on XBLA.
Plus, more games need metal soundtracks! All hail the DMac!
I continue on my quest to play all of Ikiki’s games and chronicle them. With Bokusin (“Boxing”), I discover that not all of Ikki’s games are created equal. This two-player boxing game must be one of his earlier efforts. I give this one 1 Ikiki out of five, which is about 20 on William Usher’s rating scale.
I can’t remember how I first got a hold of Executioners, but I do remember sitting in front of my dad’s old computer, being completely mesmerized by this gritty, gory game. Nevermind how rough the presentation was or how basic the gameplay was… even as a youngling I could tell this game had a lot of heart.
In just the first level of this game you’d fight off a menagerie of strange mutants, everything from Rastafarian zombies to werewolf hookers. In the background, signs for “Ed’s Wiener Shop” and “Julio’s Stuffed Pets” passed you by. At the end of the level, a bloody guy gets tossed off the hood of a moving car, only to begin puking on you and beating you with his own limbs. Violence and bad taste have always been a mainstay of commercial video games, but even Mortal Kombat had nothing on Executioners. While Commander Keen, released a year before, was setting the bar high for PC games and putting the shareware business model in motion, games like Executioners and, later on, Timeslaughter, pulled the bar back down and then kicked it into a shallow grave. Bloodlust Software games were the indie of the indie.
Ethan “Hellbent” Petty (Bloodlust’s lead designer and the artist for the games) and Icer Addis (the programmer) would eventually part ways and land jobs in the commercial game industry. But not before releasing NESticle and Genecyst, two of the earliest and most legendary emulators.
Bloodlust Software still (kind of) exists today, maintained by Ethan alone. Ethan’s even released a few games on his own, using game creation software like Multimedia Fusion to bring his twisted designs to life. I’ve had the opportunity to chat with him on more than one occasion and he is a downright friendly guy! Last I heard, he was a new dad! Congrats, Ethan!
Plans for sequels to Executioners and Timeslaughter have been in the works for a long time, but may never see the light of day. But you can still obtain full, free versions of the originals from the games page on the Bloodlust Software website. DosBox is almost certainly necessary to get the games to run.
That doujin fighting game article sure sounds like something up my alley. Anyway, here’s another item of interest to fans of import titles from Japan. A demo is available, but with only two playable characters there’s not much to experiment with (yet).
Ah, right. Here are some hints on how to do a proper combo.
(Some of the members in the development team were responsible for Melty Blood.)
Previously mentioned on TIGSource, Akatsuki Blitzkampf is a fighting game that takes place in a world where sauerkraut sushi is a delicacy, the world of Philip K. Dick’s famous novel The Man in the High Castle... the world where the Axis powers won World War II.
I’m a fan of fighting games, but no expert, so I’ll let Hunty tell you about it. All I’ll say is that it’s got a nice, clean, fascist look to it.
Toribash, the amazing 3D, turn-based ragdoll fighting game just keeps getting bigger and better! We covered this game almost a year ago, and its great to see it thriving.
GameSetWatch reports that the game has introduced virtual credits into their online community, creating a virtual economy based on buying and selling everything from custom body parts to forum sig graphics to stories written about the various clans that have arisen around the game. Man, I love this kind of stuff… the idea of clans, histories, and economies emerging from these little game worlds drives me nuts.
I met Hampa, one of the creators, at GDC this year, and he’s also a really nice guy. Good game, good people. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should.
I don’t think I’ve laughed so much playing any other game, to be quite honest. Well, maybe Pillar Killer.
Sumotori Dreams is a sumo wrestling simulation that incorporates some sort of self-balancing algorithm. What that really means is that the wrestlers stumble around like a couple of drunken clowns. Add to that an easy jazz soundtrack and you basically have the funniest 88kb of fun you’ve ever had.
Whether it’s cosplay, or Les Miserables, or just really, really low resolutions, Japanese doujin game developers like to spice up their fighting games with some ridiculous ideas. You gotta applaud them for that.
By the way, is anyone out there some kind of expert, or at least a really gung ho enthusiast, who maybe wants to write up a Doujin Fighting Games feature for TIGSource with me? You provide the info, and I’ll provide the editing and formatting, just like our Doujin Shmups feature was handled.
When a game’s loading screen consists of a hypodermic needle going into an arm, you know it’s going to be good. When the opening cutscene has a giant, floating Gorbachev head, you know it’s going to be great. When the title screen appears and Ivan Drago, the “Siberian Bull,” is standing there in all his Soviet glory, you know the game is going to be awesome.
Ivan Drago! (Newgrounds) is a flash beat-em-up by I-Mockery that puts you at the helm of the pride of the USSR, Ivan “Death From Above” Drago. Punch your way through a street full of jocks, leather daddies, mafiosos, and babies to face your greatest opponent in the ring. The controls are very simplistic but there’s actually some depth to the gameplay. Instead of letting you cheese a single move over and over again like in many beat ‘em ups, you’re forced to concentrate on the timing of your punches (especially your 2000 psi charge punch).
It’s short, but pretty sweet! Despite my earlier reservations, the “flash”-style art is really growing on me now… those little characters are really endearing. Have the lines gotten more crisp since the last time I saw it? I love the part where they’re fighting in the middle of a big war!
I hope there are less cheap hits in this game than there were in Alien Hominid.
