More Indie Bundles!

This morning I came across The Indie Game Christmas Bundle, a set of four games from Intermediaware.

I hadn’t heard of any of the games: shooter Absolute Blue, and puzzle games Captain Backwater, Temple of Tangram and Psychoballs, and aside from the one comment I’d seen on Twitter, I hadn’t heard anything about the bundle either.  This is another on the pay-what-you-want model, with free copies of the games for your friends as well!

I have to admit that I felt this might be too generous to be true, and as the games are delivered on Christmas Eve, any reports of non-delivery won’t appear for a while.  I did feel rather wary of this one, but I have bought it, and I guess I’ll just watch my bank statement.

The second bundle of the day was the Indie Royale’s Xmas Bundle, featuring Wadjet Eye Games‘ point and click supernatural adventure The Blackwell Trilogy: Remastered: The Blackwell Legacy, Blackwell Unbound, and Blackwell Convergence.  Also in the bundle: a Lemmings-like puzzle game called Eets, by Klei Entertainment, 800 North’s Dino D-Day, which features multiplayer action with Hitler’s resurrected dinosaur army, and an action simulator game, The Oil Blue, by chubigans.  This last game was recommended by the boss, but sadly doesn’t have a Steam code.

Just as well it’s coming up on Christmas and some time at home.. so I can actually get some of these games played! 🙂

The VGAs

In the early hours of this morning, I watched the Video Game Awards, on a live stream from GINX.TV.

I’m not really stirred by awards.. if a game is good then somebody will mention it regardless of how many awards it has won.. but I was expecting to hear about some interesting new games, and really hoping to hear something about Half Life 2: Episode 3 after hearing rumours all week.

However, I thought there was too much filler.. presenters playing stupid games, celebrities I don’t have any interest in doing weird sketches and pretending to square up for a fight, and far too much being made of the fact that the VGAs were trending on Twitter.  Look, we’re popular?

I think they were trying to appeal to the masses.. but if the masses aren’t interested in games, then why would they be watching an awards programme about games in the first place?  All that time could have been used to show us something interesting.. more behind the scenes, interviews, and dare I say.. something vaguely technical, even if simplified a bit?  I don’t think I’ll watch next time.. the gaming press can filter all this stuff out for me, leaving me with a short list of new, interesting trailers to watch the following morning instead 🙂

As for the trailers.. the first to get my interest was The Last of Us, a PS3 exclusive, single-player survival horror by Naughty Dog.  Though at first glance I thought the enemies were zombies, they are actually sufferers of a plague, and the survivors have to scavenge for food and weapons, and fight to survive.

Epic Games‘ new title, Fortnite, also looked good..a combination of scavenging, base building and defense, with survival against some kind of alien force which attacks at night.  This game doesn’t yet have a publisher, and hasn’t been announced for any specific platform yet.. I’m hoping PC so I can play it with friends! 🙂

Diablo III‘s trailer was a fiery, showy affair.. this game was always going to be a must-buy for me, but the trailer was good to see anyway.  BioShock Infinite also made an appearance, though this was another game from my to-buy list after loving BioShock and BioShock 2.

Competitions and Presents!

What’s better than games?  Free games!  Having seen a large number of Christmas competitions out at the moment, I decided that I may as well try to win some games and spare my bank balance the pain..

So last weekend, I won a copy of the beautiful Trine from a competition on Splitkick.com!  Since I had a copy, the guys kindly let me give it to a friend.. although this turned into a comedy of errors as he told me the wrong email and only realised after I’d told them.. but one more email later, he got the game 🙂

Oh, and I’ve completed Trine too!  I loved the last level, with the continually rising lava, and the evil ghostly figure trying to stop us.  There was also a bonus level, which was another mad dash to escape rising lava, but with purple vials to collect on the way.

Developers Frozenbyte have also now released Trine 2, and I found a few competitions for the game, and told friends to enter too.  One of these involved writing a short story.. and I was surprised to find it really hard to come up with something, and how self-conscious I felt writing it and sending it in.  I realised that I’m even more fussy about my writing than I am about my drawing!

My friend was lucky enough to win one of the competitions for Trine 2.. so he now has both games.. and through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook, I won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360.. awesome stuff as both Tim and I have wanted this since the teaser trailers came out over a year ago!

Valve have been running a Daily Wishlist Giveaway on Steam over the last week, where a winner each day will get the contents of their Wishlist.  They’ve also had some great offers on, and two friends gifted me games as they came up: Robot Entertainment‘s fortress defence Orcs Must Die and DLC, and Bastion, an RPG by Supergiant Games!

I’ve been playing through Orcs Must Die, and discovered some of the new weapons and traps.. the Fire Bracers allow me to throw fireballs, and are therefore automatically awesome, although I run out of mana rather quickly.. and the Pounder, a ceiling-mounted trap, crushes the orcs with such finality that I can’t not love it! 🙂

I was also pleasantly surprised by the introduction of the Weavers, which add optional talent trees to the game, either strengthening the War Mage or the traps and Guardians.  I love the fact you can choose these at the beginning of each level, so you can change how you play each time 🙂

This was a triumph..

Peer Review, the new DLC for Valve’s Portal 2, came out almost two months back, and somehow, we didn’t get around to playing it till very recently.

The new co-op campaign, Art Therapy, takes place after the events of Portal 2, with a slightly crazier than normal GLaDOS telling us that everything is fine.. the humans are all fine.. 😉

The first level had us separated to start with, with turrets, lasers and refraction cubes.. after the initial worry that I’d forgotten how to do it all, we destroyed the turrets, helped each other fly across acid pits, collecting the new ball along the way and escape!  It’s great to be back in the test chamber 🙂

The second level took a while as we missed the small room high up the wall with the hard light bridge.. otherwise we didn’t really struggle with the levels for long.  I enjoyed our solution to the puzzle in room number 5.. once the white goop was close enough, I made portals underneath the turrets guarding the exit, so I could grab them and throw them down into the depths 😀

I was glad to see more use of the goop, and I found the balls a great new addition, even if they had a tendency to bounce away and into danger.  In the final chamber, it took us a while to figure out how to get hold of the cube.. and once we did get it, it bounced away into the emancipation grid as soon as we’d put it down!

The appearance of the bird, and GLaDOS’ fearful reaction to it was really funny.. and I rather liked the idea of the avian killing machines.. though I can’t imagine a sequel using them 😮

On the official site for Portal 2, there’s a sneak peek of the Puzzle Creator.. which will allow all players to create and upload their own levels.  It could be worth a look! 🙂

Impending Indie Bundle Overload?

Yesterday, I got the latest of the indie bundles, the Indie Gala bundle.. though I felt a little of the excitement for these bundles had gone.

Now, I see that yet another bundle is coming soon.. the LittleBigBunch, which will include five games, with the pay what you want price being split between developers, site and charity.  The LittleBigBunch website isn’t live yet, but the games are reported as: Frozen Synapse, Explodemon, Serious Sam Double D, Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee and New Star Soccer 5.

I already own Mode 7‘s strategy game Frozen Synapse, so right now I’m looking at the other games in the bundle.

Explodemon, by Curve Studios, is an action platform game with puzzles, and could go either way.  I’m curious about the next game on the list: Serious Sam Double D, from Mommy’s Best Games.. this is a 2d platform game with lots of guns and silliness, and is supported by original Serious Sam developers Croteam as part of their Serious Sam Indie series. Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee looks like a fun adventure platform with added alien abduction, from Oddworld Inhabitants.  New Star Soccer 5 is a football career sim, by New Star Games.

As the purchase of these bundles supports indies and charity, I feel that I should carry on and support them too.. but I am starting to feel that it’s becoming a little mechanical now, especially as some of the bundles release every two weeks already.

The Indie Gala

Another indie bundle?  Oh yes.. and at this point I’m starting to wonder how many different bundles the market can sustain..

The Indie Gala is another indie games bundle, where you pay what you want, money being split between developers, charity and websites.. these games arrive via email Steam codes, which I prefer to downloads as I don’t have to worry about backing it up anywhere.

This bundle contains another set of games I hadn’t really heard of: inMomentum, a sci-fi racing platform game by Digital Arrow, hacking sim Hacker Evolution: Duality, by Exosyphen Studios, 2d platformer Saira, by Nifflas Games, creative puzzler Your Doodles Are Bugged! by Spyn Doctor Games, and Zombie Shooter 2, an action RPG with zombies, by Sigma Team.

There are also some bonuses, only available for the first two days of the gala: Bonus DLC doodles for Your Doodles Are Bugged!, Sigma Team’s earlier game, Zombie Shooter 1, as well as the official theme for the series, and one of Exosyphen Studios’ other hacking sim games, Hacker Evolution: Untold.. their website lists a lot of similar games for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Windows Mobile too.

Over the day, IndieGala.com have sold over 18,000 bundles, but the average price paid is on the low side at just $1.30, or about £1.  I suspect they’d have had larger payments if they’d kept the bonuses for those who paid above the average.. though then again, those who didn’t know the games might have been put off that way.

I was a little reluctant to pick up the bundle at first due to not recognising the games.. but meh.. I’ve come across plenty of random games and loved them 🙂

Eufloria

I got Eufloria as part of the Indie Royale Really Big Bundle last week.  It’s a beautiful, ambient game, with soft pastel colours and gentle music.. all rather soothing 🙂

The controls are very simple with everything handled by clicking and dragging.  After learning how to grow trees, produce more seedlings and expand, you come across the first inhabited asteroid..

The grey seedlings fought mine as they arrived, but weren’t able to stop me taking over their asteroid.  The greys turned out to be a spreading disease.. making it all ok to go and destroy them 😉

The next levels introduced asteroids protected with Defence Trees, which were much harder to defeat!

I initially had trouble with this level as the randomly generated asteroids appeared to have blocked me in, and I was unable to attack with the seedlings I had!  I tried leaving the game running for a long time while I did other things, and the game built up hundreds of seedlings.. which still weren’t enough to win.

A friend said he had completed the level with around 500 seedlings.. but getting that many would take a lot of idling, and I realised it couldn’t possibly be the intended strategy!  I restarted the level to see if I’d missed something.. and yes, I had..

It turned out that you were supposed to be able to move between undefended asteroids, while discovering, but not taking over, the defended ones.  On my first attempt, the random generation must have put the next uninhabited asteroid just out of range so that I didn’t spot it.

Later levels start to have slightly more proactive enemies.. not taking care meant they stole an asteroid for me while my seedlings were out fighting!  Sometimes, when there are two rival empires, they attack each other, leaving you time to build up and then pick off the weaker one 🙂

So far, I think the strategy in the game is rather light.. build a few defence trees, make sure you have seedlings at all asteroids on the edge of your empire, and that seems to be enough to hold the enemy back.  There’s also the “cheap” option of leaving the game running in the background to build up an overwhelming force.. but in my view that takes away the satisfaction.

Flowers are the next feature in the game.. I’ve not got far enough in to discover them yet.. but they can enable seedlings with more firepower and range, or add lasermines if placed on the defence trees.  I don’t think this is going to change the peaceful feeling I get from playing the game, though.. a peaceful explore and conquer game?  Whatever next? 🙂

Cthulhu Saves The World

Cthulhu Saves the World, by Zeboyd, was part of the Really Big Bundle which released a couple of days back.  This one is like a return to the old-style 2d games I played in the past.. but with a dose of tongue-in-cheek humour too 🙂

Having lost his powers at the beginning of the game, Cthulhu has to undertake a quest and become a hero.. saving the world so he can regain his powers.. although once he’s done, he’ll get back to destroying the world!

The first enemies met are two ‘Gooez’, who have kidnapped a girl on the beach.  Heroism requires that we fight them off, of course!  The combat is turn-based, with attacks selected from menus rather like in Final Fantasy.. physical attacks and special attacks such as Insane Strike, which use up magic points and sometimes apply a status debuff to the enemy.

After winning this first battle, Cthulhu levelled up and got a choice of level up bonus.. one affecting Strength and the other affecting Magic.  I went with the Strength boost.. so now every time Cthulhu causes an enemy to go insane, he gets an increase to Strength too.  Umi, the formerly kidnapped girl, also joined the party after the battle.. and falls in love with our tentacle-faced anti-hero 😮

More random-encounter enemies were to be found in the caves.. providing XP and another little joke in the enemy description!

Zeboyd have capped the number of random encounters in each area, which gives you a little nudge when you’re powerful enough to move to the next area, and also means you don’t end up taking just a few paces and being attacked again, over and over until you’re sick of it.

The first real opposition came from a group of adventurers called the Three Heroes of Goodly Justice.. a Thief, a Warrior and a Cleric.  These guys brought some great dialogue too, and once defeated, Cthulhu notes that we’ll probably see them again because they’re heroes, they’ll respawn at the nearest church anyway 😀

After each fight, the party members HP is restored, and some Magic Points.  I don’t think you get enough back, though.. what you’re given back doesn’t even cover the cost of a spell.  I’ve only found health potions so far, which means my only other option is just dealing normal attacks and waiting for my Magic to regenerate.

Cthulhu Saves the World was originally released for the 360, and was only brought to the PC this summer, where it has apparently done rather well for the developers 🙂

The Indie Royale Really Big Bundle

The Indie Royale team have now released the latest indie bundle: the Really Big Bundle, containing Really Big Sky, Runespell: Overture, Cthulhu Saves the World, Eufloria and Breath of Death VII!

This bundle was made available to pre-order a short while ago, but sight unseen, and I was reluctant to buy in case I had the games already.  However, of these, I have to admit that I’d only heard of Really Big Sky, Cthulhu and Eufloria, and very little about those too..

Really Big Sky is a twin-stick shooter by Boss Baddie, where you face down waves of alien invaders, from actual enemies to laser planets and black holes! There are seven different game modes, including co-op.. and the game is generated from the way you play.. whether that means more of the enemies you do least well against, or simply that enemies grow stronger, I will have to see!

The rest of the pack seems to include games to suit different moods.. Cthulhu Saves the World is an RPG by Zeboyd, where you help Cthulhu regain his powers on a quest of courage, romance, redemption and insanity.. as it says on the tin.  Breath of Death VII is also from Zeboyd, another RPG, but more of a parody.  Sounds like these two are for when I’m in a particularly silly mood, then! 🙂

Runespell: Overture is another role-playing game, but using collectible cards to form attacks.  I think I’m only really going to know what this one is about once I’ve started playing it.. something different to the usual games is certainly worth taking a look at, and might even make me think a little more.

Eufloria is a beautiful, ambient game with exploration and conquest, with new asteroids providing resources which allow you to grow, but also attract rivals.  Like a few other games I’ve played or bought recently, the levels are procedurally generated so you never see quite the same level twice 🙂

I think Eufloria will be the game to calm me down again after the sillier games.. at least on the earlier levels 😀

Robbing Banks with PAYDAY: The Heist!

When I first spotted PAYDAY: The Heist, a first-person shooter with up to four co-op players, I thought this could be the next big game for our group of friends..

The game puts the players in the role of career criminals with different heists to complete, starting with a bank job.  I thought this game would be rather like Left 4 Dead with bank robbers instead of survivors.. so I was very pleased to find it was so much more than this!

Thanks to being busy with other games, I ended up missing this game at launch, last month.  However, a friend spotted the game in the Steam sale and gave me a reminder.. one four-pack later, our group had some downloading to do 🙂

The first mission is a heist on the First World Bank..

We didn’t get far in our first attempts, as we didn’t realise quite how much preparation was needed.. the next, slightly more successful attempts had us select nice starting positions so we could capture a few hostages and pick off the security guards before they dealt us too much damage.

Like in Left 4 Dead, taking too much damage results in incapacitation, but instead of bleeding out, players are eventually taken into custody.  You can be rescued by a team-mate.. but once in custody, you have to wait until you can be traded for a hostage.. any civilian you’ve previously tied up.  The length of time you have to wait increases for every civilian you’ve killed.. so despite your role of hardened career criminal, you should avoid killing the innocent!

You can also force cops to cuff themselves.. bonus hostages!  We possibly enjoyed this a bit too much 😀

I really liked the changing objectives in the mission which meant we had to stay on our toes.. watching the drill in case it jammed, heading off to wipe security footage, and waiting out waves of cops, before moving on to set thermite to burn through to the vault.  I also liked the fact the UI tells me my location as well as that of the team.. on a new map it can be difficult to explain where you are, especially when time is short!  Communication is essential in this game, and yet again I was glad of playing with friends who do talk 🙂

The game felt a lot harder too.. and with this additional challenge, it was much more satisfying when we did get through the level.  Later missions are more difficult, with no normal mode, never mind easy.. but as you play, the characters level up and gain access to better gear, so by the time you get to the hardest levels you should be ready for them!

The second mission, Heat Street, involved running through the streets chasing after your doublecrossing ex-accomplice.. a definite increase in difficulty from the previous mission as the map was so much more open.  Catching up with the traitor led to a surprisingly horrible section, as you have to smoke the guy out of the back of the van while he screams and curses at you the whole time!

After he eventually gives up and comes out of the van, you have to force him to come along for the rest of the map, as he’s chained himself to your briefcase of money!

We tried a few rounds with just two human players and AI filling in.. while the AI are decent shots and make great bodyguards, that was all they could do.  They also tend to run straight in to rescue any downed player, which means they tend to go down as well.  I’m still glad of them though, because otherwise we’d always have to find four people to play!

The third map was Panic Room, a drug-den where a large safe was our target.  I loved this map, although it was easy to get confused between floors and the number of routes through rooms.. seeing the safe carted away by chopper was great too!

The chopper made another appearance to take away our rescued Chinese prisoner in the first part of Green Bridge.. I couldn’t help but think of Lawnchair Larry here 🙂