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indie game week

game |

2011-Mar-05 by Seth |

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the week at my parents i had a lot to do, and i filled the small free time i had with playing a lot of indie games that were still on my gaming cue.
the blog entry about this week is going to happen, and till then here is a list of the indie games i played during last week, with comments and thoughts and stuff:

Machinarium

finally finished it. Still kinda surprised how short it is, but it is so well crafted that i can’t really complain about it. Totally worth a play. The style is so great and the storytelling very unique.

http://machinarium.net/
http://amanita-design.net/

rating: awesome
5 out of 5 points

VVVVVV

very challenging oldskool platformer. It may be a hard one, but it is challenging enough to motivate you without destroying your will to play. Loved the music and the setting and ‘riddles’.

http://thelettervsixtim.es/

rating: weird, challenging and retro awesomness
5 out of 5 points

Digital: A Love Story

A computer mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988.

so far very promising, but i i think i overlook something important. It plays like an emulated old operation system (i am talking pre Win3.11 era here). So far i managed to figure out it is about communicating with people online, but only a few minutes in – right when i got into the mood – i am kinda stuck, which may be hard to explain now, but i’ll try anyway: i only know about one webpage to visit and all the message contacts just stopped at some point. No replies, no new messages, no new pages. I am very positive that there is something big and obvious i simply do not see.

http://scoutshonour.com/digital/

rating: unique
3 out of 5 points

Knytt

extremely atmospheric retro platformer. I love the fast and intuitive gameplay. On its own way the game gives you a nice feeling for exploring this world of Knytt. Play different and is just neat to play. Also the style is quite unique. Very recomendable

http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt

rating: so atmospheric *_*
5 out of 5 points

Knytt Stories: The Machine

kinda like a sequel, but not really. Knytt Stories is meant to be a user content driven game kit, and it comes with one default story to play, The Machine. It is really short and plays kinda like the first game. Thumbs up for a few new items to get, but thumbs down for the lack of a guiding system, like the first one had. Overall kinda the same with the first Knytt, but i have to check out other Knytt Stories games before i can judge it more.

http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt+Stories

rating: so neat
5 out of 5 points

Braid

not exactly my kind of visual style, and also not my kind of puzzle game, but both so very unique that i like it anyway. Besides its pretty look and neat animations, the puzzle elements with time manipulation are really creative and fun to play around with. I also like the sounds and how the music plays with the time shifting behavior of the game. But it gets REALLY hard.

And i am not really sure if i finished the game at all. The ending is so trwisted and strange, it’s hard to tell were the game starts and were it ends. It sure was hell of a hard couple of hours to solve the last few riddles, but the feeling of success is worth it. Plus the confusing story is something i digg a lot.

http://www.braid-game.com/

rating: weird melancholic good
5 out of 5 points

Cortex Command

maybe i am not the right demographic for this strategy game, because i generally dislike most of the the strategy games out there, but i am kind of too stupid to play it, i guess. Same with Digital, i have the feeling that i am missing something very obvious there… when i start a game it drops me somewhere on a planet without giving me any direction, goal or enemies to fight, and i end up digging for gold all on my own and nothing ever happens. This game certainly looks very promising, with a lot of small ideas in it, but well, either this game is really really boring, still in its beta phase, or i am too stupid for this kind of game.

http://www.datarealms.com/games.php

rating: unfinished?
3 out of 5 points

Revenge of the Titans

because this is a realtime strategy game, i suck at it. It’s very stylish and very simple, but i personally find it to be very hard.

http://www.puppygames.net/revenge-of-the-titans/

rating: styl0r
4 out of 5 points

Nerf Arena Blast

not exactly an indie game, but i add it on this list as a bonus.

You will probably not know this one. The demo of it was the first ego shooter i ever played, back when i got my first computer in 1998. this was even before Half Life and the bash about Unreal Tournament vs Quake 3 Arena. Nerf Arena Blast was a tie-in promo game for the Nerf franchise of toy guns, it is very colorful and quick. It is based on the Unreal engine and actually plays a lot like UT. Even the weapons remind me a lot of UT. The game modes on the other hand are – even by today’s standards – very unique. Like SpeedBlast, in which the players have to touch flags in a specific order, which are very wide spread around a map.

It’s a nice fun thing for me to remember a small part of my past, which i will never forget. Don’t ask me why, but this game has a personal value to me. And it’s still fun to play, stupid as it is, which counts a lot.

rating: none
elephant out of 5 points