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April 2009 Indie Game Round-up
Joseph Lieberman writes with Gametunnel's monthly round-up of quality independent games. Taking the top honors this month is Caster, a fast-paced shooter with weapon upgrades and a partially destructible environment. "The weapons are a nice variety: homing, stun, and charge lasers, along with two lasers that create chasms and mountains in the environment. The last two are personal favorites of mine (screwing with the terrain is great fun). Fighting is sweet, sweet pandemonium, but it can be slightly overwhelming at first. By the second or third level, though, you'll be blasting the baddies like a pro." Also scoring high were Zeno Clash, a fighting game with elements of a shooter, and Geneforge 5: Overthrow (the last in the series of Geneforge games), a point-and-click RPG with turn-based combat.
Does it qualify as indy? Or is a ~10 person company too much?
http://www.mawgame.com/
I'm surprised Caster made it into this review. I first heard about it sometime in 2008.
So an Indie Game is just a game created by a small company? (ok, what is "small"? less than 10 people? less than 15 people?) What is the origin of the term?
Be a King sounds interesting, but confusing. They call it a RTS, but the description makes it sound more like a Sim in the style of Settlers or Caesar or something.
When I hear RTS, I think Dune2 rip-off.
I'm surprised The Path didn't make the list; it's been getting pretty good reviews lately. It may be short, but I found it to be quite a unique, refreshing experience.
Although, I must admit that I hadn't even heard of, let alone played, half of the games in that list. =|
The game was pretty disappointing. It's not helped by the fact that Telltale still insists on using lossy compression cranked up so high, you can barely hear the voices underneath all the compression artifacts. Even a YouTube video sounds better than the crap they charge money for.
I only complain because their Sam & Max games in particular were very good, but even the DVD versions had shit audio.
Tried these two; Caster's play control is atrocious and the art is... ugh. Be a King won't run under Wine on Jaunty (where I ran both games.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm so glad I read this article. Typically I don't read gaming articles because they are windows only. But now I found 2 new mac games to try: Geneforge and Caster.
What do you mean by the play control == poop?
If it's mouse responsiveness for the direction, you might want to set the camera sensitivity higher. Moreover, while it works under WINE well enough, it works nicer under the native client... ;-)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Caster claims Linux support is "Coming Soon", so perhaps there is hope.
Spirited Heart (the "life simulation") claims to offer a Linux version.
The rest don't appear to support Linux, although wine is of course a possibility. 1.5 out of 8 isn't bad I suppose but I was expecting better from independent devs.
Apparently nobody watches Family Guy here.
I am the lawn!
You evil, evil bastard.
(Thanks ;)
Zeno Clash is an interesting take on the fighting genre as it is entirely first person and done in the HL2 engine (it appears). There are some weapons but using them is intentionally clunky as to push the fighting control. While the game oozes with style and has an absolutely outstanding new world filled with things you have never seen before... I can't help but feel the game just doesn't work for two reasons.
First) The control with the keyboard sometimes borders on frustrating. All the keys make sense and the placement seems logical but as they game moves quite fast in sections you really feel limited compared to a traditional fighter. Perhaps with a joypad it works more smoothly?
Second) The difficulty ramp is insane. You'll find yourself getting past the first encounter easily enough as it is there to introduce the game to you. However very early on you encounter a battle that is easily 10 times harder... we are talking like 5 minutes later here. You don't get a chance to get really used to the engine and as it is pretty easy to die when fighting multiple foes because of the first person perspective (you can't easily tell where everyone is or damage is coming from) it can just be... frustrating and one must really want to play to get over this hump.
Fortunately each of these issues is fixable and I'd expect a patch or the next iteration to play much better.
--- I do not moderate.
The Path was not released in April, iirc.