August's Best Indie Games

cyrus_zuo writes "Game Tunnel has just published its August Independent Video Games Round-Up. This month's article looks at ten indie titles and is highlighted by the seemingly Katamari-inspired freeware game The Blob, Kudos, from the same mind as last year's amazing Democracy, and DevastationZone Troopers, a 3rd person shooter that lets you redefine your landscape by blowing holes through the walls to get into and out of tough scrapes. A panel of four game industry veterans reviews and rates every game giving a variety of opinions on each of them."

Comments

Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop running these things. They're all horribly inane.

yo

[ezwip]

+ 3 me I posted second!

Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[EvilPickles]

First of all, why is it we have to classify all indy games as well, INDY GAMES? That phrase turns the games into well, a gimmick. Something not to be taken seriously, unlike the big games out there, Halo to be specific. People make 'Halo theories' all the time (I do as well), yet no one can take an indy game seriously? I plan to be a game developer, and make my own games, however the media opinion towards indy games is unfair and I don't think we even have a need for critics.

Second, of all the games on the list, I know something about one of them. These critics fail to do their research. The game I'm talking about is: the blob, which is an indy game made with Ogre. The game takes place in the year 2010, when the city that this game takes place in needs a new aintjob. This is not "gta meets katamari", these critics fail to even understand the game. These critics remind me of the kind of people you usually meet on forums. They fail to observe the most obvious details, even twisting them to their own agenda.

Lastly, if you are going to complain about my grammar, spelling, etc. go take that stick outta your bum and come back with a relavent comment. It's the idea that counts, if you're to narrow sighted to not see past the words, then don't bother trying to leave a comment, becuase I will ignore you anyway.

Re:Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[Lerc]

I'm not sure how much research the critics should do. They play the games and tell you what they think of them. If a reviewer approaches a review with more preperatiion than the average gameplayer then their review may be less useful to people who want to play the game.

A game May be brilliant if you know ancient chinese dialects. A keen reviewer might go out and learn those especially for the review. Then they say the game is awesome. Then we all download it and find that it sucks because _we_ don't know ancient chinese dialects.

Often, if a player fails to understand the game they are playing it is the fault of the game.

Re:Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair "GTA meets Katamari" tells me about a million times more about the game than saying it is "set in a 2010 city that needs a paintjob".

Re:Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, no one really cares about what you say anyway because you're just some punk kid who can't pass English class and thinks because he played Halo on his bigger brother's console he's going to become a software developer.

You'll grow out of it once you hit puberty.

Re:Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[AmazingRuss]

Maybe you will know the wonder of the comma when you turn 21.

Re:Why do we... these critics need to do more h/w

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not funny. A comma killed my dad.

Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[QuantumFTL]

I'm very much into independent/homebrew games... is there a site that's "the place" for the indie/homebrew scene?

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

indie and homebrew are two separate entities.

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[QuantumFTL]

indie and homebrew are two separate entities.

Precisely. That is why I listed them both.

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[i.of.the.storm]

http://happypenguin.org/ has a lot of open source games, mostly indie and mostly linux, although some have windows ports.

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[Lerc]

Well there is Gametrove which is a fairly good place for the shareware titles.

If you want to see some more radical or experimental ideas, try Ludum Dare which is for the 48 hour game development competition. The site isn't 100% at the moment, but the competitions have turned out some great ideas. The Games are not totally polished and some aren't very finished, but there are some gems to be had.

My own past LudumDare Games: ( Not the best ones out there, I've yet to win a LudumDare)

A lemmings style game only the critters are even smaller, and they are Ninja!
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/TTN.zip

This one was actually a 12 hour game written a week before the LD48 as a warmup
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/LDWarmup. zip

Same as above only for linux.
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/TailV.tar .gz

Urm.. Not sure how to describe this one.
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/darkvslightinst aller.exe

All free. I do shareware games too but I'll plug those another time :-)

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[MiceHead]

I'm very much into independent/homebrew games... is there a site that's "the place" for the indie/homebrew scene?

It's not quite "the place," but Indie Superstar (shameless plug) does video webcasts (iPod video podcasts too) about games that mainstream media doesn't cover.

Re:Best Place to Find Independent Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.tigsource.com - The Independant Gaming source.

"da blob" install error and fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading TFA, I downloaded "da blob".

When I tried to install it, I got some obscure error about a missing DLL. After reading a little about the issue I realized I needed the .net framework. So I went and grabbed that. The .net framework needed "windows installer 3.0", so I followed the link and grabbed that (after doing some "windows genuine advantage" non sense).

After all that was installed, the game works great.

Just thought I would mention it since the project website seems to be slashdoted, leaving no other obvious help form for anyone else that might run into the same issue.

I misread the comment

[CrazyJim1]

I thought someone made Katamari-Democracy.

Virtual Villagers

[Mantees de Tara]

Virtual Villagers is a Palm OS classic game since some time. It is a very well done Tamagotchi style game with goals to archive and a plot line. It is something nice to do when you are bored in a train with your palm, but I can't imagine anybody playing it seriously on their PC.

Re:Virtual Villagers

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing Virtual Villagers on my pc at work for a few weeks now. It's nice because you don't have to keep it open for the game to progress; it runs in real-time. I can open it (in windowed mode for a quick alt-tab if someone comes by) for 5 minutes a few times a day and just kind of check in on my village. It satisfies my desire for a game where I can continually build and advance while also being casual enough so that I don't waste too much time with it.

Submitter links with referals

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the game Democracy direct from the authors and avoid giving the submitter a referal cash.

Greasy greasy greasy...

Re:Submitter links with referals

[KDR_11k]

Or you can go into a store and pick up the box in case you lack a credit card.

What's wrong with that site?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Many of the pages on that site, like the previous month listings, are displaying as raw HTML.

This isn't really news - It's a monthly feature

[Chronus]

And it's already the second time this column has been slashdotted.

Correction - At lest the 4th time

[Chronus]

Zonk, lay off.