Though they’re better known for Pekka Kana 2, Q-Lat2 is my favourite thing by Piste Gamez. Again, simple enough objective (hit balls together in an attempt to make them all the same colour), but addictive gameplay with great presentation. Though the gameplay does rely on a fair bit of luck with what bonuses appear, it’s one of those games that makes me want to keep trying to do a little bit better, whether it’s completing a certain number of levels, getting a better score, or surviving a bit longer. I think it’s a real sign of fun that I’m setting myself targets, which is something that’s been lost with the focus on rather artificial ‘achievements’ in more recent games.
Unfortunately, most of the games from Piste (which I’m pronouncing “pissed”), including Q-Lat 2, do not seem to fair well on Windows XP/Vista and modern graphics cards and suffer from slowdown and graphical glitches. But those of you with old computers are in luck! For everyone else, the developers are thankfully still active and are purportedly working on Pekka Kana 3. The game, which can be seen in the background of the group’s blog (last updated December 2008), looks like it maintains the high quality of graphics from all of their releases.
Reality-On-The-Norm is a long-running episodic series of adventure games started by members of the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) community. Conceptualized in 2000, the first official game, Lunchtime of the Damned, was released in early 2001 by none other than Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the creator of the Chzo Mythos and Zero Punctuation. The latest game, Edge of Reality, was released in January 2009. In total, there are an impressive 82 games and over 100 characters listed on the website!
The best part is that anyone and everyone may contribute a game to RON, so long as you don’t violate the community’s rules, such as killing off other people’s characters or revealing the bum’s true identity. The RON website has various resources, including an extensive character line-up, to help you get started. Playing the games is probably the best way to start, however.
Tower of the Sorcerer is an old (first released in 1998) game created by two indie developers in Japan, Oz and Kenichi. Although its site is still up (linked to above, charming 90s design and all, complete with an auto-playing midi), the download link doesn’t seem to work on it, but the one here does.
It may look like an RPG, but it’s actually more of a puzzle game. The video Let’s Play by Malefact will give you a feel for how it works. The game bears some resemblance to another game series, Deadly Rooms of Death, in particular DROD RPG (which Tower of the Sorcerer served as inspiration for), but is otherwise unique in its play experience.
It’s very addictive, it had me playing it most of today, and it’s extremely difficult—do save often because it’s very easy to get yourself into a situation where you can’t advance. The video Let’s Play does go through the entire game for those who may have trouble solving the game.
Hey, guys! Welcome to Classics Week at TIGSource. All week long, from today’til Sunday we’re going to be covering classic indie oldies that haven’t gotten their due respect on the site and adding them to the TIGdb.
To start us off, I’m going to link some of the classic games we’ve already covered:
What is considered a “classic?” Anything that you enjoy that is more than a few years old. If you have suggestions, shout ‘em out in the comments, or hit up this thread on the forums. And please write your own “review,” if you’re so inclined. Happy Classics Week!
Messhof’s first shareware title, The Thrill of Combat, is a cooperative helicopter surgery simulator, where the goal is to incapacitate unwilling donors and harvest their organs to meet your quotas. I know, it sounds almost too good to be true.
The game is disorienting as hell, even more than Party Boat, which I now realize was the warm-up version for babies and little girly people. In TTOC there are more flashing lights, the controls are even more drunk, and the screen zooms in and out in a way that would make it hard to navigate even if you could fly straight in the first place. Meanwhile, you have to zap people and dodge missiles… and eventually drop the helicopter’s gunner so that he can harvest the organs in splitscreen. If you have a friend around, one person can control the helicopter while the other controls the gunner. (But I can’t imagine this makes it much easier.) Once the gunner has collected enough organs, the helicopter needs to pick him up and take him to the boat to offload them. Then land. And repeat.
Many of messhof’s games are a good fit for the gallery setting, and this one’s no different. It’s stylish, provocative, and made for two people to play while others watch. And everyone will be puking at the end of the night. $5 is a fair admission for this game, provided you are prepared for a physically demanding experience.
Posted by Lorne Whiting
Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:10:00 GMT
I don’t do enough around the site, so here’s an interview with Casey Flynn (AKA Lumin) of Faery Tale Online, a unique browser-based MMO that involves a lot more incest, fratricide, and thievery than its name implies. Some of the main hooks of the game are its unique birth system, coupled with a perma-death system, so player deaths have a lot more weigh than in a normal game, and its lack of premade history, so players create the whole world.
It’s got a lot of focus on role-playing, something I’m not too keen on, but the game’s approach to, well, being a game is too cool for me to not like it, even with the sizable wait just to be born.
I know we’ve been going crazy with the trailers lately, but what the hey. It’s been a busy week and I haven’t had much time to play. Playable games coming soon!
Let’s start it off with a little cactus. Trailer music by The Death Set.
Dean Dodrill’s Elysian Tail: Dust is an XNA fighting game with some really gorgeous animation. And furries. Currently in alpha state.
Here’s a preview of the next Blurst game, which is coming out next month. Music by Alec Holowka.
Mobigame’s award-winning iPhone game Edge has been removed from the App Store, pending a legal battle with Tim Langdell (pictured at right) over the trademark “Edge.” What’s troubling is that, according to a GameSetWatch article by Simon Carless, Langdell, who founded and owns the company Edge Games, has had a history of using his trademark to cause creators grief and to link himself with various high-profile media projects, including, but not limited to, games.
“We have legal issues with a man named Tim Langdell,” says Mobigame’s David Papazian. “If you already asked why Soul Edge (the Namco game) was called Soul Blade and later Soulcalibur in the US, you have your answer.” (via Fingergaming)
If you look on Tim’s Wikipedia page, you’ll notice that he is associated with Edge Magazine, a Malibu Comics character named Edge, and also the movie The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. What Tim actually did on any of these projects is questionable, but my guess would be that it’s about as much work as he will do for Edge, the iPhone game, once all the dust settles. Namely, he threatened to sue the living fuck out of anyone in his path (mind you, this is conjecture).
You may also notice that the Wikipedia entry is oddly detailed and poorly cited for a man who no one has really given a shit about until now… it’s also under a neutrality dispute. And no wonder – the entire page is almost single-handedly the creation of user Cheridavis, who, very coincidentally, shares the name of Tim’s wife, Cheri Davis Langdell. When pressed on the issue of neutrality, Cheridavis wrote: “You are mistaken. I am writing a book on founding members of the game industry and noticed that Tim Langdell was one of the only people missing from Wikipedia. The article I created is based on my research, not on being Tim Langdell or knowing him personally.” That would be Tim Langdell, the husband of Cheri Davis Langdell, the founder of the game industry, the producer of such notable titles as Fairlight and Snoopy: The Case of the Missing Blanket, and the man who participated in these three roundtables at GDC this year:
- Who Controls a Game’s IP and Who Reaps the Financial Benefit?
- How to Design Your Game So That its IP is More Valuable to Hollywood
- How to Sell Your IP to Hollywood (Without Selling Your Soul)
If you’re wondering where Simon’s article for GSW went, it is, for whatever reason (heh), not available anymore. Unless you go to NeoGAF or any of the other places the article has been reposted. And if, after reading this, you’re wondering, like I was, about Mirror’s Edge, you’ll be happy to note that Mr. Langdell’s EDGE Games is currently working on a new game called “Mirrors a game from Edge,” which I’m sure will not conflict in any way with the popular parkour-inspired FPS.
Jokes aside, the most frightening thing about this entire debacle is not how greedy and disingenuous human beings can be (you should be used to it by now), but that Mr. Greedyguts himself is a board member on the IGDA, a non-profit organization created to empower game developers and advocate on their behalf. Which is, in this author’s distinct opinion and should in no way be construed as a fact, somewhat like having Joseph Mengele on the board of the Red Cross. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous and brings the credibility of the organization to serious question. How does this happen and what are they going to do about it?
Thanks to mklee for pointing this out, via TIGForums. Thanks to John Nesky for pointing out the GDC roundtables.
Peter Sjostrand’s Mega Man 2.5D sadly doesn’t have a playable public build yet, but this video uploaded just recently was enough to get me excited enough to post it. It seems to reimagine Mega Man 2 as a Paper Mario style platforming adventure, with a number of interesting play twists on the original’s classic layout. A few of the pictured sequences involve a seamless transition between stages of the Mecha Dragon fight, and a usage of the conveyor belts in order to move Mega Man around between the foreground and background. It seems the Blue Bomber is only capable of movement in his regular dimensions so the only way to explore requires using the changing environment to his advantage.
(Update: According to commentors and some googling, this appears to not actually be a gameplay video but rather a concept video. Well… shit…)
The final deadline for this year’s Swedish Game Awards (i.e. Ragnarök) has just passed, and the winners will be announced soon. Tim W. picked out a few cool trailers for IndieGames.com and here are my three favorites of those:
Bloodline Champions is a really nice-looking team-based multiplayer game that’s made for professional competition. It’s inspired in part by DoTA and League of Legends. No release date.
Paperworld is a “friendly and cozy” simulation game that has a fantastic papery look. That’s about all there is to know about it at this point.
Unlike a lot of the other entries, Haven and Hearth is playable, although in an alpha state. It’s an MMORPG based on Slavic and Germanic folklore where the player’s actions can have a permanent effect on the game world. Read the about page on the site, it sounds very interesting.
