Glum Buster

By: Paul Eres

On: April 27th, 2009

From almost out of nowhere, Glum Buster is released. CosMind spent about four years working on this game, with little hype — no trailers, not many previews. Only a few people even really knew about its existence, such as the IGF judges (it had been an entry) and the members of the small Game Maker community Eo (since he posted a small demo of it back in 2005 for other members there to be amazed at). But those people have been quietly looking forward to this game’s release for a long time. Accompanying its IGF entry description was a small rhyme and nothing else: “Cheer up, dear friend, or they may come. And take you where the glum is from.”

The game itself is a platformer with interesting environments, mechanics, and ideas — CosMind describes it as something from his daydreams, for ours. From the conversations I’ve had with him on the Eo forums, he has very strong and unique ideas about game design, so it’s not surprising that the game is fairly different from other platformers in its atmosphere and level designs.

I don’t want to say too much about the game because discovering it is part of the pleasure, but at the same time I want to express my enthusiasm for the game because so much care and work went into it and because it offers a unique play experience (the closest comparison is Seiklus, but comparing a game as unique as this to any other game feels wrong almost). The best moment for me was when, after the first few screen-size small stages, a large world opened up, and a grasshopper appeared that I could ride on, and I lost the ability to fly, and the sky went from its menacing red with many moons to a bright blue and a grassy castle, and I realized Glum Buster’s world was much bigger than I had ever imagined.

When the Bomb Goes Off

By: Derek Yu

On: April 27th, 2009

Tom Sennett Appreciation Week continues: It’s amazing what Tom Sennett can do with stick figures and some old timey music! In WarioWare the humor revolved around figuring out how to win in each microgame – When the Bomb Goes Off adds a very humanist touch to the basic concept.

Somehow I imagine that when the bomb does go off, I’ll be trying to finish a post for TIGSource!

Scarygirl

By: Xander

On: April 14th, 2009

Scarygirl finally went live today, and any of you who were once swooned by Eternity’s Child originally and were cruelly mistreated by the final product have nothing to fear here. It’s very good. But how good?

I could start with the way the platforming and adventure game elements work fantastically well together. I could tell you that Toy Cat is simply the coolest animal partner ever. I could explain how the game from the very onset with the lovingly crafted opening video is a visual feast which should turn the heads of any man or woman in this entire industry. I could describe the wonderfully minimalist dialogue trees, where the speech is played out through sketches which animatedly convey your next task. I could simply state how the jump button works more than 33% of the time. I could exclaim that by same manner of miracle this is free to play in any flash enabled browers. I could mention there are a number of sweet retromazing console games to play on the fly as collectibles. I could suggest that signing up in-game with your email address is a good idea as it’ll allow you to save and continue your game wherever you reached last.

I suppose, I could say that it should be annoying that the game has to load each section of the game individually as you reach them. But it isn’t. I could posit that the game would run smoother if there was a downloadable version available, which it might, but human eyes probably wouldn’t be able to perceive any more beauty in each and every frame without detonating. Instead, I know what I will say, which I never expected to come out of my rational mind.

I enjoyed playing an obligatory water level.

(Viva Indiegames.com!)

Braid Coming to Windows Today

By: Derek Yu

On: April 10th, 2009

The long-awaited PC version of Braid is now available on Greenhouse (including a demo), and will be unlocked on Steam around noon PST. The game will also be available through Impulse and through Gamersgate today. The price is $14.95 USD.

TIGdb: Entry for Braid

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

By: Derek Yu

On: April 1st, 2009

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, James Silva’s bloody, combo-centric slash ’em up platformer, is coming out today (April 1st) for XBLA… for 800 points ($10). The game, in which you play an undead dishwasher/samurai, features a unique co-op mode where players can use a guitar peripheral to rain electric death upon their enemies.

James has also released a book on XNA titled Building XNA 2.0 Games: A Practical Guide for Independent Game Development, which details how he created The Dishwasher alone in a year and a half.

TIGdb: The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

TAG

By: Xander

On: March 26th, 2009

Tag is this year’s Digipen entry into the IGF Student Showcase. Whether it wins or not will be decided later tonight (Update: They did!), but at the very least you can form your own opinions at home!

In the interest of keeping the front-page compact for GDC goodness: Continued in the extended!

So ‘Tag’ is roughly a first-person platforming puzzle game. Your character is capable of very few actions himself, only the ability to walk and look around. So, in a socially irresponsible fashion he must rely on the power of substance abuse to escape this monochromatic misadventure.

What this means without my poetic license, is that your character has a paint-gun which you can collect three kinds of paint for. Each kind when sprayed upon an area will imbue it with certain qualities. Green paint will cause you to jump, red to speed up and blue to stick to anything it’s attached to. It’s a simple play of powers, but it’s one that works quite well.

The problem with the game is that it holds your hand an awful lot. I’d understand this if the developers were trying to show their tech off to as many people as possible, but even the technique of ‘wall-jumping’ is spoiled for you by a massive sign next to the puzzle its required for, completely pre-empting your own identification that there was even an obstacle there to begin with. It does loosen up later, throwing in satisfying leaps of faith and a rather inspired set-piece around a train, but the refined simplicity of the gameplay makes the earlier tutorials seem entirely redundant, and only serves to shorten the length of an already bite-sized game.

This isn’t to say it is bad by any means, its a suprisingly well formed game where I never once found myself having to restart and progression was always smooth and entertaining. The paint system is a clever tool which makes first-person platforming far more fun than the perspective should allow, and the stylish visuals are only made more impressive by the fact that I never once saw my paint fade from the walls. Even after creating a hell of a mess in an attempt to create post-credits fan art.

It’s easily worth your time and hard-drive space (though the Pixel Shader 2.0 requirement does alienate some gamers), and I’m glad to see the students of DigiPen are as reliable as ever. You’ll be snapped up by Valve in no time! Probably.

(Thanks go to Destructoid and especially to Anthony Burch who has been covering basically every indie-related GDC moment this year.)

Good luck at the awards everyone!

GDC ’09: Fez Trailer II

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: March 24th, 2009

Oh, Curly~!

By: Derek Yu

On: March 20th, 2009

An article in The Escapist reveals that the Cave Story Wii team is aiming for an April release of the game. Nicalis is interested in adding DLC to the game in the months following the release, possibly including a Boss Rush Mode and other fan-requested modes.

But this post was mostly an excuse to post the epic Cave Story Anthem video that Annabelle Kennedy made, as well as the Curly Brace fan art by Niklas “Arne” Jansson.

Behemoth’s New Game – Trailer!

By: Xander

On: March 17th, 2009

Gameplay footage of The Behemoth’s new game has finally been made available, and continuing my current trend of news posts I have absolutely no other details what so ever!

No concrete gameplay details! No announced platforms! No confirmed release date! Fun times…

Seriously though, from the trailer it appears to be a multi-player platformer, but there seems to be a multitude of gameplay types such as a two-player cooperative level and a competitive block colouring mode. Alongside that seem to be plenty of characters and power-ups, but again it seems like something we’ll have to wait a while for more footage or even to get our hands on before we really know what it’s really going to be about. All we have is a trailer, but damn if it’s not the most exciting 1’30" I’ve had in a while. Roll on 2010!

(News thanks to Destructoid, who just yesterday celebrated their 3rd Birthday, so congratulations!)

Don’t Look Back

By: Derek Yu

On: March 13th, 2009

Terry Cavanagh’s Don’t Look Back is a moody platformer that’s somewhat reminiscent of games like Seiklus and Kaipuu, but is decidedly more focused and challenging. It’s a rewarding game to play for fans of the genre – I’ll leave it at that!

TIGdb: Entry for Don’t Look Back