Hammerfight came out unexpectedly on Steam this week. Formerly known as Hammerfall, the game is set in a unique fantasy world and puts you in control of a flying machine that can be equipped with various knives, swords, flails, hammers, axes, and guns. Use the mouse to fly and to fight – Hammerfight employs a physics engine to let you swing weapons using the motion of your machine.
This game is strong and very manly in an ancient sort of way, kind of like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Because of the direct control you have over swinging your weapons, getting a solid hit in Hammerfall feels REALLY good, and you’ll be doing a lot of it during a variety of manly activities like hunting giant cave worms with a ball and chain or fighting for your life as a slave in the arena. After each battle, a victory screen will pronounce your glory and say things like “You are now known as Derek the Barbarian,” or “You are the Worm Slayer,” or something like that. Also, as you progress, you’ll get decked out with all manner of sweet flying machine armor, and have banners hanging off of you that flap around as you kick ass. It’s awesome.
When the game was still called Hammerfall there was a playable demo available. Hammerfight is still the same great experience, but with all the polish it needed to be a full commercial release. (For one thing, the English text has been cleaned up considerably, making the storyline much more easy to follow.) It’s just as gorgeous, detailed, fun, and challenging as it was before, just better.
Hammerfight is a masterpiece, and $9.99 is a bargain. Go grab it!
Small Worlds is an exploration game in which, as you explore, the world gradually zooms out and is revealed. It is quite short and charming, even though there’s no enemies, upgrades, collectibles, or actions besides moving and jumping.
For those too tired to play through it, here’s Ortoslon’s playthrough (warning, spoilers).
Sorry for that. Anyway as you should be aware Eufloria, previously ‘Dyson’, has been released on Steam, D2D and through the official site. If you didn’t know this then I’m afraid you’re simply not cool. However in reading this post you now DO know this, and have automatically been saved from an awkward moment of self-doubt and an accusing glare. It’s fine, no need to thank us, we’re just doing our job. If you really do want to show your gratitude then why not pick your favourite digital distributor and play one of the most elegant strategy titles of recent memory.
If you’re still on the edge, you can also play the demo to find out if nothing else just why we needed to tell you that you could.
Amanita Design’s Machinarium was released last Friday. The game is superb. It’s a beautiful adventure game set in a unique world populated with all kinds of lovable, crazy robots (the protagonist is especially endearing). In my opinion, the visuals are peerless – every room is gorgeous, and filled with little details and surprises that ignite the imagination. The puzzles can get pretty difficult, but by and large I found them to be relatively intuitive and well-done. They’re quite varied, too, and include a mix of hotspot-hunting, inventory-management, timing, and mini-games.
Machinarium marks a very high point in the adventure-gaming and I highly recommend it. Even people who are put off by the slow pacing of most adventure games should try it, as there’s no dialogue in Machinarium and you are sucked into the game itself very quickly (even the title screen is fun!). You can play the demo right in your browser on the game’s website. The full game is $20.
Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson’s RunMan: Race Around the World elicits a kind of primal joy in me that I was worried had left long ago. It’s just a fun game, through and through, super-injected with whimsy, full of surprising moments and fun characters who feel like old friends. You can’t ever really die, but the game is challenging enough. Still, I imagine one could get through RunMan pretty quickly by playing straight through… but it’s so enjoyable to run, bounce, swing, and fly through some of the levels that I’m more than happy to play them over and over to improve my time or collect medals.
The game’s music warrants its own paragraph. Tom Sennett is fond of using public domain jazz and bluegrass songs in his games (most notably, the original RunMan’s Monster Fracas), and they really add to the charm. I’m pretty accustomed to hearing either chiptunes or orchestral music (or occasionally metal) in games these days, and it’s refreshing to listen to something that deviates from those genres. I like sitting around on the map screen just to listen to the music.
But yeah, this is by far my favorite of Tom and Matt’s games, and possibly one of my favorite indie games of the year. I’d love to see more collaborations between them in the future, ‘cause this one worked out really well. Great work!
It’s time to get fcuked! Time Fcuk, the puzzle-platformer from Edmund McMillen, William Good, and Justin Karpel (previously teased here), is out now on Newgrounds. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll just say this: It’s very good! It’s got a slightly unsettling vibe to it, and a surprising amount of atmosphere, but the real treat is the gameplay. Throughout the game more and more ways to manipulate each screen are introduced, and by the end your brain will be tied in a knot. There’s quite a nice balance between logic and action here. Do give it a try!
In case anyone’s wondering what to get me for Christmas, Adam Robezzoli’s Attract Mode videogame culture shop has at long last opened its doors. (You may know Adam from the equally excellent ARTXGAME/Giant Robot shows.)
Currently featured are some excellent shirts, a number of chiptune records, Tetris ice cube trays (!), some super cool pins from the likes of Auntie Pixelante and Cactus, as well as gigantic prints from Mr. Craig D. “superbrothers” Adams. (Who you should check out if you haven’t—he’s great!) Tell your moms friends!
If you missed the link: You can find the Attract Mode shop here.
Captain Forever is the latest project of Farbs (ROM CHECK FAIL), and his first commercial project since he quit his job and became a full-time indie developer. In the game you pilot the Nemesis, a spaceship which can be modified with scrap parts taken from enemy ships. Despite the relatively few types of ship parts in this version and the limited scope of the game’s world, I found Captain Forever to be quite enjoyable – the pacing feels brisk and there’s always another ship design to try (or admire) on the horizon. This makes deciding whether to fight or flee and how to do it a blast.
Although there’s no demo for the pre-launch, Farbs himself gives a few good reasons for why you should or shouldn’t buy it now ($15 for pre-launch, discounted from $20). Personally, I’m glad I got it early, because 1. the game is already great fun, 2. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s coming in the supporter-only updates and 3. it’s easy to want to support Farbs, creative and lovable bastard that he is. You might also check out the TIGSource thread for more opinions about the game.
A while back we previewed a great indie co-op RPG, Wanderlust: Rebirth, shown here in a great tongue-in-cheek trailer (hooray for TIGSource citing!)
Recently, development for this project has picked back up, and an official demo has been released. The demo is a big update from the version we previewed, and now includes several new features.
3 Chapters
4 Bosses
Items to craft & collect
Dedicated Hosting options
New “Crawl” Game Mode: Where you can fight unlimited waves of enemies who increase in difficulty each level. After each level you get treasure and/or tokens for you and your team.
The team continues to work hard on the project, and I look forward to seeing the game reach completion.
First of all, Derek Yu’s super popular platformer-roguelike Spelunky has finally reached version 1.0! I’m assuming everyone here has played the game. If not, give it a try already—it’s one of the best freeware titles ever, absolutely.
You can find the latest version here, at Spelunky World.
The other, almost bigger news is: Spelunky will be coming to XBLA in 2010. Derek says, “it’s going to be much more than a straight port of the PC game – I’m planning on stuffing it with new graphics, audio, and other features for XBLA users.” The game will be developed under his new label, Mossmouth. (Support of the original will continue, of course!)
All in all, pretty exciting. Check Spelunky World for more information as it’s released.
