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July Independent Game Reviews From Game Tunnel

Posted by timothy on from the pack-of-rabid-underdogs dept.

cyrus_zuo writes "Game Tunnel has published the July Independent Video Game round-up, the latest in their long-running Famitsu-styled panels that review all the latest Indie PC games. The 10 games reviewed this month include the physics-based puzzle game Obulis, the PuzzleQuest made even easier Puzzle Hero and the appropriately titled Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble."

22 comments

  1. Im all for indie but... by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 1, Insightful

    it needs to be more fun. The solitaire effect comes to mind. I have always HATED it when people have the latest and greatest uber gaming PC, then they sit down and play fskin solitaire for two hours! Indie games are good in principal, but Id much rather spend the little time I have to waste time on something like my old whore counter-strike (since it came out baby!), or something new and shiny. Indie MODs are where the real good stuff is at. (see previous whore example). All the games reviewed looked like bland boring versions of something I bet I could find somewhere else for free already...if I wanted to waste all that time looking for something so dull anyway. /end rant

    --
    "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    1. Re:Im all for indie but... by JoshJ · · Score: 2, Funny

      You can find "Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble" elsewhere? High school doesn't count.

      --
      Care about privacy? Read this!
    2. Re:Im all for indie but... by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 1

      I prefer more...ahem...interesting girls------Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

      --
      "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    3. Re:Im all for indie but... by kalirion · · Score: 2, Informative

      The thing about Indie games is that you'll find developers taking risks that no publisher would let them. Often it doesn't pay out, but sometimes it does and you get a truly innovative game.

      And now I'll go back to playing Titan Quest to tide me over till Diablo 3.

    4. Re:Im all for indie but... by tb()ne · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm as much of a graphics whore as the next guy (probably more) and tend to be easily mesmerized by the new, bright, shiny objects. But there is something to be said for good and unique game design, independent of how many polygons/sec there are or whether the game uses PixelShaders 6.9.

      I recently played a game that I had never gotten around to for the original Playstation. As a 3D game from 1998, the graphics were good for its time but look like ass compared to anything coming out today. But after about 10 minutes of playing, the relative quality of the graphics disappeared because I was totally sucked into the game. Of course, I want to have it all but if the game itself is compelling enough, I don't mind sub-bleeding-edge graphics.

    5. Re:Im all for indie but... by strelitsa · · Score: 3, Funny

      When you say "Dangerous", does this mean that the girls are actually ninja assassins from South Secaucus NJ? Or is the statutory rape conviction hanging over your head if you boink one of them the "dangerous" part? Or are they actually from a high school with 50-ton pieces of masonry falling off the top floors due to lack of preventative maintenance?

      --
      No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
    6. Re:Im all for indie but... by cliffski · · Score: 5, Informative

      They aren't the only indie games around, just ones that got released (and submitted) this month.
      Games that don't look like those include:

      Lux (http://sillysoft.net/lux/)
      Mount n Blade (http://www.taleworlds.com/)
      Mr Robot (http://www.moonpod.com)
      Cute Knight (http://www.hanakogames.com/knight.shtml)
      Master of Defense (http://www.master-of-defense.com/)
      Determinance (http://www.mode7games.com/)
      and my own games:
      Democracy (http://www.democracygame.com) and
      Rock Legend (http://www.rocklegendgame.com)

      --
      DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
    7. Re:Im all for indie but... by cthulu_mt · · Score: 1

      Thanks.

      --
      Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
    8. Re:Im all for indie but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Pretty much all of those games have crummy replay value, as far as I know. I've played about half of them, and every one of them had a cool demo, and an ultimately disappointing full version.

      Disappointing to the point where I can literally say "I spent as much time playing the full version, as I did playing the demo". Play the demo five times or so...Then go buy the full version, play twice, discover that there's really nothing more to the game, don't play much more.

      Sorry Cliff.

      (I'm not saying I didn't get my money's worth, though. The demos ARE fun in their own right too. It's just that the full version...doesn't add much to the experience. I guess even Wolfenstein was like that too, with the first episode free, and then five more episodes for money that are really pretty much the same.)

      Posting anon because I feel bad trashing indie games. The world needs more indie games. They just have a less than stellar 'fun game' rate...and the most fun indie games I've played are donation-based (so you don't get a time-limited demo). Dunno if they bring in the same kind of money though!

    9. Re:Im all for indie but... by MiceHead · · Score: 1

      Sure, Cliff; list Hanako's and Moonpod's but not ours. Where's the love?

      --
      We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
    10. Re:Im all for indie but... by jasper · · Score: 1
      Lux is a great Risk clone I've probably put 20+ hours in. Good map community and competitive online atmosphere... at least when I was into it a few years back.

      Still fire it up on occasion to kill bots.

    11. Re:Im all for indie but... by kisrael · · Score: 1

      It seems to me that it's volume of content and story where most indy games don't shine... there are of course some very happy exceptions to that. And not all games have to be about content, but still...

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    12. Re:Im all for indie but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Indie" doesn't mean small stupid casual games, fucktard. Just means the developers are "independant" and selling the game without a Borg-like publisher.

    13. Re:Im all for indie but... by cliffski · · Score: 1

      I assumed you were mega-rich by now and didn't need any additional p1mpage!

      --
      DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
    14. Re:Im all for indie but... by cliffski · · Score: 1

      You don't need to feel bad. If you didn't enjoy a game, then you didn't enjoy it, regardless if its something made by satan or by the dalai llama, or what the budget was. games are meant to be fun.

      I have to say that I feel that way about 99% of AAA games. Very few RTS game grip me like Company of heroes, and 99% of FPS games bore me to tears. I hardly ever even finish the demo, sometimes even the tutorial of AAA games.

      With indie games, I'm not so bothered by this, because the investment is much lower. if I spend $20 on a game and it only entertains me for 1 or 2 evenings, that's not bad. That's the price of an old DVD, or a round of drinks. And of course sometimes you find a game like Lux that you can get hundreds of hours from.

      Indie games don't need any sympathy or any special set of rules to thrive. What they need is publicity. If everyone who played AAA games even *tried* a few indie game demos, the scene would be much bigger.

      --
      DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
    15. Re:Im all for indie but... by montyzooooma · · Score: 1

      I prefer more...ahem...interesting girls------Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude

      After that confession you should hang your head in shame and slope out of the games section.
      I also disagree with you that independent games aren't fun - or at least that the ratio is any worse when compared to big developers. I also miss the time when mods were more prevalent. There are still plenty of mods out there but the barrier for entry to modding modern games is SO much higher than it was back in the HL days.

    16. Re:Im all for indie but... by Reapy · · Score: 1

      I'll just add my kudos to mount and blade. Extremely fun game play, very actively developed, new versions seem to come out quite frequently. I quiet easily opened my wallet after trying the demo and have not been upset.

      The best part of mount and blade is you can ride around on a horse and lance people. I haven't really seen this kind of gameplay anywhere, and its pretty freaken amazing. On top of this there you can train up and maintain an army that will ride with you and you can give orders to. So you really get that "on the ground general" feel from playing. Graphics are very tolerable, and the horse animations are great.

      There are lots of youtube videos up of gameplay, so just search for mount and blade and you can get a pretty good feel of the gameplay from that.

  2. There are good indy games by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's one of the reasons to check out a site like GameTunnel. In particular, the games they award game of the year tend to be real good. Pick a style you like and you'll probably find something fun. Depths of Peril is one I bought and am enjoying a whole lot. Really well done game overall.

  3. different strokes by hanako · · Score: 2, Insightful
    All the games reviewed looked like bland boring versions of something I bet I could find somewhere else for free already...if I wanted to waste all that time looking for something so dull anyway.

    I could say the exact same thing about counterstrike though. Looks really boring, I could probably find something similar for free, but why would I bother?

    This seems so obvious it shouldn't even need saying, but... people like different things. Some people really enjoy playing solitaire or gem-swapper. Some people like FPSes. Some people like RPGs.

    The games listed come in a range of different types. Maybe none of them are what you're interested in. So? Maybe another month there will be something that you are interested in. There's a lot more variety available there than there is in the quite limited PC Releases shelf at your gaming store. No one's strapping you to a chair and forcing you to play solitaire if you hate it. ... That I know of.

    --
    I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
  4. Lack of Interest by Cornflake917 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love how so many people on slashdot complain about the lack of innovation and new things in the video game industry, but when we see an article about indie games (which generally are trying new things), the article barely gets a dozen posts. Can you guys now see why game companies churn out the same shit over and over? They're only catering to what the masses want. If you want new and interesting gameplay, try a game that isn't created by a company you've heard of. FWIW, I'm not trying to say indie games are good, but at least they are more likely to give you a new experience.

    --
    Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
    1. Re:Lack of Interest by William+Baric · · Score: 2

      Although there are a few exceptions (I will probably buy Birth of America 2 if I can get a demo first), the truth is most indie games are either about small and very light casual games, or about being yet another clone of a popular game from the 80s. It seems better to me to look at small publishers (particularly Europeans) rather than Indies. For example, a publisher like Focus Home Interactive is much better for innovation than the true indie world.

      The other solution for people who want "innovation", is to play with games from the 80s or early 90s. Of course everyone knows about Lemmings or Worms, but there is still a lot of people who never played Sentinel or Balance of Power. From time to time, I still discover games I missed in the 80s that are much better than what the indies are offering now.

    2. Re:Lack of Interest by Blueskied · · Score: 1

      Yes, everything was better back in the days. That's called nostalgia.
      It's not easy to find the real good indie games, especially if you don't know the scene.
      Two of my favorites:
      the DROD series: logic puzzles, haven't played a better puzzle game. Not even in the 80ies :-)
      Armadillo Run: Physics puzzles, lots of fun.
      http://www.caravelgames.com/ (DROD)
      http://www.armadillorun.com/ (Armadillo)