Slashdot Mirror

• Starscape - the undisputed king of indie space shooter adventurey type games.
• Darwina and Uplink - I have to admit, I could never get into either, but you have to be impressed with what they have done, and their fanbase is huge (so I probably didn't put the time in).
• Gish - which you know don't you?
• War World - possibly the best looking indie game out there. Currently thin on gameplay but still loads of fun, plus they are working on lots of improvements for it.
• Fate - a nice diablo clone.

• Girls Inc. Team up. - opinion is divided on this - I like it, and everyone else is wrong :)
• super gerball, and hamsterbal - great marble madness type games.
• Chuzzle - crack like in it's addiction levels, and guaranteed to turn your girlfriend/wife into a furball popping addict (I am thinking of setting up a Chuzzle widows club to support all the neglected men since Chuzzle came out)
• Altitudes - a favourite puzzler of mine, that I keep coming back to and hacking away at.

• Starscape - the undisputed king of indie space shooter adventurey type games.
• Darwina and Uplink - I have to admit, I could never get into either, but you have to be impressed with what they have done, and their fanbase is huge (so I probably didn't put the time in).
• Gish - which you know don't you?
• War World - possibly the best looking indie game out there. Currently thin on gameplay but still loads of fun, plus they are working on lots of improvements for it.
• Fate - a nice diablo clone.

• Girls Inc. Team up. - opinion is divided on this - I like it, and everyone else is wrong :)
• super gerball, and hamsterbal - great marble madness type games.
• Chuzzle - crack like in it's addiction levels, and guaranteed to turn your girlfriend/wife into a furball popping addict (I am thinking of setting up a Chuzzle widows club to support all the neglected men since Chuzzle came out)
• Altitudes - a favourite puzzler of mine, that I keep coming back to and hacking away at.

With indy games like Gish getting rave reviews, proof that the indy scene is more than tetris, breakout, and R-type clones.

The indy scene really is about the people who are ok plunking down $20 for a game that they can just pick up and play for 20 minutes, isn't overly involving, and can be put back down. People ranging from your Mom playing Zuma, to your kids playing Chuzzle, to Dad playing Jets 'n Guns

I like Indy games, especially for my young daughter, that I know are fun and entertaining, innexpensive, and have replay value - and the $20 price tag on most makes them worth while to me.

If there's an Xbox version, is there a PC version, and if not, why not?

In the meantime the indies are filling the gap:
Hamsterball and Super Gerball (yup Gerbils...)
Not particularly original, but then I suppose Monkey Ball wasn't - just loads of fun.

Hmmm, I wonder if SuperRatBall is taken as a url?

Maybe a lot of people don't care and aren't interested in these sort of games - but I always like to support the little guy, and I really hope this opens up the 'cash pot' for all those little indie developers out there. Of course, I suspect there will be an army of middle men in the way, as this article by one of the guys from garage games points the way of the future for indies. I also hope it opens up the market for some of the less casual indie games out there. All the stuff popcap does is pretty banal (but fun in a mindnumbing way). I've heard that hamsterball will be on there, which is a cool game I own and love. Maybe that will leave hope for some of the other good shareware games to end up on XBoxLive, not just the coloured block pushing clones. Crimsonland, SpaceTripper or Gish on Xbox? Yeah, I'd buy...

I wonder what percentage the little developer gets though? Maybe I'll hold off until I know - I can always buy direct from their website - I'd rather support them and their future endeavours than all the sharks in between.

You are getting confused by a review trying to explain a game by making references to familiar genres. If you are looking for someone to go "check out this game it is truley unlike ANYTHING you have ever seen" then you will play one game every 5 years. Just because someone explains a new game to you based on familiar themes and genres doesn't mean the game is identical to others.

Any decent indie developer lives by the rule "make something people cannot buy elsewhere" - it's common sense. If you can buy a big publisher mainstream version of an indie game from a year or two ago it will always be better and probably cheaper. So it makes no sense for indies to just replicate mainstream titles. Hence GOOD INDIES DON'T.

However, very rarely will someone make something so "off the wall" that it has no connection to any previous form of gaming. There is a good reason for this, there is a very good chance people will reject it. They wont understand.

Think about two truely innovative titles like REZ(ps2) and ViewtifulJoe(GameCube) - both of these lost their publishers a lot of money (FACT). These were rare titles that were good and totally new, yet people didn't get it and voted with their wallets.

Starscape - this one is very good, yet again I defy you to find anything remotely similar in a shop. It's like a shootemup crossed with command&conquer (kind of).

GISH - not my cup of tea, but certainly unique, you cannot buy anything like this in a shop.

Hamsterball - I enjoyed this, but it got really hard really quick. Again, you CANNOT buy this in a shop. Ok you could download marble madness for an emulator or a phone, but it isn't the same really, the true 3D environments here lead to much more interesting puzzles.

If you can find the proper top quality indie titles you will always see something you cannot get anywhere else. The serious indies would be out of business if they just copied mainstream titles. What idiot would spend more on something that they could get out of a Walmart bargain bin for half the price? Nobody.