REDDER is a game by Anna Anthropy / Auntie Pixelante, with music by Amon26. It’s an exploration platformer focused around an alternating green/red block switch mechanic, similar to the mechanic used in the third pendent dungeon in the SNES classic A Link to the Past.
I found the colors very nice (even though the backgrounds are often just gradients, there’s a lot that can be done with just gradients of color), and the exploration of a fairly large world excellent. In a few ways the game resembles VVVVVV, but only in basic structure: a world of screen-sized rooms, numerous checkpoints, things to collect, but is more non-linear, slower-paced, and not as focused on challenge (you won’t die very often if you’re decent at platformers).
I’ve played through many of her other games (When Pig’s Fly, Calamity Annie, Calamity Annie, Invader), and so far this one’s by far my favorite; maybe you guys will agree.
Sleep Is Death is the next game from Jason Rohrer, who’s best known for creating Passage. You can pre-order SID now for $9 or purchase it for $14 when it comes out on April 16th. It’s described as “a storytelling game for two players”. You can find out more about the game by clicking through this fun slideshow.
Planet M.U.L.E. is a remake of the classic economic multiplayer game M.U.L.E., and done with permission of the Bunten family. If you didn’t play the original the video above explains some of the basics. I’ve really been having a lot of fun with this game; it’s most fun if you play with people you know (I’ve been playing with #tigirc folk Mr. Podunkian, Eva-Jolli, Ortoslon, BlademasterBobo, Dragonmaw, etc. —thanks for helping me learn the game). It’s a beautiful design, it’s one of the few games that feels like it takes intelligence to do well in.
There’s quite a lot of complexity and that comes out of the game’s rules, with a large number of possible strategies. There are a few optimum strategies that you’ll gravitate towards after you’ve seen how the experts play the game, but even those tend to be undermined by the actions of new players who don’t really get the game (or parts of it), so sometimes the player who winds up winning is the person who can figure out the psychology of the worst player and take advantage of that player. Alternatively, sometimes a bad player can ruin the game for everyone else by having the entire colony fail (although that’s rare).
Telepath Psy Arena 2 is a basic strategy RPG by Craig Stern / Sinister Design. The genre is kind of underrepresented among indie games (although perhaps it appears more than we’d expect), and as it’s one of my favorite genres I’m just happy to play a new one, even if it doesn’t do anything particularly special and felt a bit unpolished for its price to me.
The way it works is you buy a party from the slave market (there’s a variety of classes), and fight a series of coliseum battles. You gain more money, which you can use to train your characters to make them stronger, or buy orbs to make your hero stronger, or buy new characters. If you lose a character in battle, they’re usually gone for good (like Fire Emblem). There isn’t very much story (although there’s a little), most of the game is just battle after battle. There’s no equipment or class changing or other bells and whistles, it’s just a bare essentials strategy RPG, although occasionally there are alternate win conditions to add some variety (such as capture a square, or protect one). I’d guess the game will probably last about 6-8 hours for a single playthrough.
GunFu Deadlands is a fun and challenging action game that does a good job of capturing the spirit of the Old West showdowns we’ve all admired on the silver screen. The player aims with the mouse and can do a John Woo-style bullet-time dive by pressing the right mouse button. This is an essential move for getting the jump on bad guys, who fire on sight and from long distances.
It’s extremely gratifying to kill enemy cowboys in both bullet-time and real-time when the bullets are flying so fast and deadly. Somehow creator Christiaan Janssen figured out all the necessary ingredients for a Western shoot-out and distilled them into a tight little package. GunFu Deadlands even comes with a level editor to make your own OK Corral to share with friends.
Posted by Guest Reviewer
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:53:00 GMT
[This is a guest review by William Broom. If you’re interested in writing an article for TIGSource, please go here.]
Walker & Silhouette is an interactive fiction by Pacian, creator of Dead Like Ants and Gun Mute, among others. His latest game is set in a fantastical steampunk world and follows the two titular characters on a brief but enjoyable adventure.
In Gun Mute, Pacian made his game more accessible to those unfamiliar with Interactive Fiction by removing most of the directional keywords: Instead of east, west, north and south, the player only had to deal with forward and back. In Walker & Silhouette, he has taken this one step further by highlighting all the keywords within the text. Although you can still type them in if you want to, it’s easier to simply click on the highlighted word. This system (which Pacian acknowledges as being derived from Blue Lacuna) makes the game very accessible and fluid. Moreover, when you’re stuck on a puzzle, it’s nice to know that you have all the pieces in front of you, not hidden away somewhere.
Ultimately, though, this kind of neat gimmick would mean nothing if the story itself were not up to scratch, and fortunately Pacian delivers on this front. His writing is frequently witty and amusing, with the banter between the two characters being his greatest strength. On the other hand, telling the story from both characters’ perspectives gives them a little more depth than your standard comedy duo. The puzzles, though few in number, are enjoyable and intuitive. You’re unlikely to feel frustrated at any point in the game, but IF veterans may find it a little too easy.
The only criticism that I could level against the game is that it’s too short – about 20-30 minutes playtime at the most. This isn’t really a problem in itself, especially as Pacian has said that he is considering extending the story with a series of episodic sequels. However, the story in this first ‘episode’ is a bit too big to fit into the small space provided, resulting in a slightly rushed feeling toward the end. But this is only a small blot on an otherwise charming and memorable little game.
So you find yourself between two sets of pylons which effortlessly inverse the laws of gravity and no less than five sets of absolutely fatal spike traps. Somehow, this is actually close to the safest you’ve felt since you left the ship.
Welcome to VVVVVV, the eagerly anticipated platform adventure from the brainly fantastocity of Terry Cavanagh whose work last year with Judith and Don’t Look Back sowed the seeds of anticipation for this his biggest title to date.
To surmise, your ship has befallen some sort of disasterous event and your crew have become separated across a strange dimension. It’s your job to reunite them and possibly pick up some secret trinkets along the way. Aside from your ability to walk either left and/or right, you also have the power to flip gravity at your will. The rest of the adventure then builds on this power again and again, adding new and interesting ways to solve puzzles with no small quantity of intelligence or dexterity.
There’s a demo available online which contains two levels for you to sink your teeth into, and the full version is available through the main site at the generously quaint sum of $15/£8.99 (For both Mac and PC, with the Linux version coming VERY SOON), and the game does seem rather packed full of extras for those of you brave enough to seek out all those trinkets. You’ll probably struggle, you will definitely die and you will absolutely do it all with an unrelenting grin on your face.
Congratulations to Terry, and happy V-Day everyone!
Fatale is the latest mystical experiment from Tale of Tales. It’s inspired by Oscar Wilde’s interpretation of the biblical character Salome, although, in my opinion, knowledge of the story is not required to enjoy the game. I wasn’t familiar with it before I played.
I think the game captures the spirit of the story very well. I don’t think it’s meant to retell the story, per se, but to give it a certain added richness by letting you explore a few of the critical scenes in interesting ways. It’s worth mentioning that Takayoshi Sato (of Silent Hill fame) did the character design, which is perfect considering the sensual and macabre nature of Salome’s tale. Overall, the graphics and audio are quite good.
I enjoyed Fatale and came out of it thinking about its implications and intrigued by its source material. However, I still feel that it’s a good game that’s shy of great. For it to be great would require more detail in the simulation, which sometimes feels clunky and uninspired. Whereas these flaws might go unnoticed in the games of “seasoned gamers” (a phrase playfully cribbed from the website), in Fatale they really stand out for the simple fact that looking around and taking in the environment is the game’s primary focus.
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.
World of Goo has turned one year old and is having a big sale this week to celebrate. Until October 19th, you can pay whatever you feel the game is worth! Yowza!
