The Humble Indie Bundle

supersloshy writes "Last year, 2D Boy, the developers of the popular independent game World of Goo, had a pay-what-you-want birthday sale with curious results. For the next seven days, Wolfire Games is attempting the same kind of sale, but with some new twists. Wolfire Games' Humble Indie Bundle contains five independent games (World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra) with no DRM and they are all cross-platform. In addition to directly supporting the developers of these five games, part of the money also goes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Child's Play Charity. No matter how much you spend, you also get to choose who your money goes to (charity only, developers only, evenly, or custom)."

Comments

Support these guys!

[khellendros1984]

I went in for $40. I've got World of Goo already, but I thought it would be nice to have Linux versions of these games. I figure that if even the indy devs don't get financial support for publishing Linux versions of software, the market will stay slow and dry forever.

Short review of Aquaria

[twoallbeefpatties]

It's a Metroid-like game set underwater with you playing as a sort of a mermaid. The world is fairly large - maybe a bit too large, even. Good mix of puzzle solving and action. The control style takes some getting used to, but that helps to add to the sense that you're not playing the same old platforming game. Some of the boss fights will make you want to throw a controller. The art design is seriously beautiful - it's 2D sprites for everything, but the overall direction of the graphics is really lovely, as well as the excellent music. I recommend it (though I haven't finished it yet - it really is a bit long.)

Re:Short review of Aquaria

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, a review of Penumbra.

Penumbra is a series with two titles and one expansion back, it's a survival-horror adventure, and takes a lot of cues from the Cthulu mythos and HP Lovecraft's writing (though has a rather unique story). Overture is fantastic - you need to get used to it though, so give it at least 30 minutes or an hour before just saying "pft!" There is very little focus on combat, and a lot more focus on stealth, avoidance, and problem solving. The story is brilliantly written and atmospheric. The only real problem they have is this first chapter (Overture) does permit very rudimentary combat, but the enemies don't have a good AI for combat, so you end up with the enemies you actually can kill (spoiler: some hell-hound type dogs) not being that scary once you figure out the trick to killing them. Outside of that though, it's really one of the only games that has ever been _haunting_ to me. Highly recommend it.

Re:Short review of Aquaria

[mewsenews]

Too bad Bit Blot are no longer together, or so it seems.

Alec Holowka of Bit Blot went on to form Infinite Ammo. He is very talented.

Re:PayPal/Amazon/Google CO

[Killer Orca]

You can pay through paypal without an account there, they just process the order. All you do is select the paypal option then click the radio button that says "pay by credit card".

Re:Ayn Rand, do you hear me?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they get that kind of money month after month...

2010
April Donations: $16,104.49
March Donations: $4,387.99
February Donations: $1,452.57
January Donations: $2,291.50
2009
December Donations: $4,762.98
November Donations: $5,122.29
October Donations: $1,759.27
September Donations: $2,138.21
August Donations: $2,510.86
July Donations: $2,202.37
June Donations: $2,723.83
May Donations: $2,221.92
April Donations: $2,549.15
March Donations: $2,997.46
February Donations: $1,428.62
January Donations: $2,099.48
2008
December Donations: $5,279.49
November Donations: $1,305.10
October Donations: $1,868.30
September Donations: $1,695.48

source

Re:So much for consistency..

[joey]

Also, Gish is x86-64, the rest x86-32 (except World of Goo, which works with either).

Re:Wish they would do more of this for consoles

[kalirion]

If your PC was built during the last 7 years, it shouldn't any trouble running Gish or World of Goo, or even Penumbra for that matter.

Re:Licensing Disconnect

[godrik]

IANAL, but I feel that you can install it on as many machin as you want provided you only use a single one at a time.

Re:Ayn Rand, do you hear me?

[Trepidity]

That's a somewhat different kind of selfishness, though. Rand, being somewhat Nietzschean in orientation (especially early on), isn't a pure hedonist (do what makes you feel good), but feels that some kinds of instincts and desires are "better" than other kinds, and (like Nietzsche) classifies some of the things traditionally thought of as "altruism" as bad ones.

Re:PayPal/Amazon/Google CO

[GumphMaster]

... and keeping hunting for the link on each successive page that will let you continue without creating a PayPal account. PayPal go to great lengths to coerce people into signing up for an account by making it seem compulsory and making these buttons the obvious ones.

Re:So much for consistency..

[PhireN]

I contacted them about this, and he added the 32bit binary into the tar.gz in just 5min.
Excellent customer service.

Pay $100 or more

[supersloshy]

If you pay $100 or more (split any way you like), you get a complimentary EFF Pioneer Level Membership.
Source.