The Humble Introversion Bundle

It’s time for another Humble Bundle, and this time it’s Introversion‘s games up gor grabs!

The main games in the bundle are hacking puzzle-game Uplink, strategy Darwinia and Multiwinia, a set of multiplayer game modes based on Darwinia.. and strategic thermonuclear wargame DEFCON!  For beating the current average price of the bundle, you can also grab Bit Blot‘s Aquaria, an underwater action-adventure, and Kloonigames‘ Crayon Physics Deluxe.. a physics-based puzzle game where you draw objects such as slides, weights and so on, to complete the objective on each level!

There are also a pair of bonus prototype tech demos: Subversion City Generator, which demonstrates the use of procedural generation by creating a complete city environment, and Voxel Tech Demo which explores destructible voxel buildings.

I already have Darwinia and Crayon Physics Deluxe, and again I find myself wishing I could gift the ‘spares’!

It’s an Indie Bonanza!

I recently picked up the latest Humble Bundle, and just last night, the Indie Royale‘s Difficult 2nd Bundle.

Today, I saw a note on Twitter about more games being added to the Humble Bundle, and sure enough, there were more games listed on the page!  Lexaloffle, developer of Voxatron, has added three of their older games to the pack as a bonus: Jasper’s Journeys, with exploration, jumping and monster bashing, sliding block puzzle Chocolate Castle, and Zen Puzzle Garden, which I suspect will be anything but Zen after a while 😉

That’s not all, though.. they’ve also added a “developer bonus”, GISH, a side-scrolling platformer featuring a large ball of tar.. who goes underground to rescue his friend.  I actually had this game already, having picked it up as part of a huge bundle on Steam, but haven’t got any further in than the first few levels.  I loved the idea, but found the jumping and sticking mechanic fiddly, especially when trying to collect the little bonus blobs.

Over on the Indie Royale website, I found there was even more win.. DLC for Red Redemption’s Fate of the World: the Extras Pack DLC, Denial DLC and Migration DLC.  All these are set for download on Steam now.. while I go off to play more Gears!

The Indie Royale – Difficult 2nd Bundle

The Indie Royale is another indie bundle scheme along the lines of The Humble Bundle..

This is the second in the series, containing action-puzzle game Night Sky by NICALiS, Red Redemption‘s strategy Fate of the World, space-shooter Scoregasm, by charliesgames, and a pair of games by Size Five Games: point and click comedy Ben There, Dan That! and sequel Time Gentlemen, Please!

The deal is not quite pay-what-you-want, as there is a minimum price, but it’s still a bunch of games for a low price, enough to attract decent numbers.  The price starts low, and goes up as people buy.. but if the minimum price is beaten, the price is knocked down again.  Recent price changes and other stats can be seen on the site too.. it’s rather interesting to see the price change over time.

Currently, the minimum is just over £2, which doesn’t sound much.. but in the six hours it’s been on sale, there have been over 11,500 sales.. 🙂

Voxatron Alpha

Voxatron is a block-based platform shooter by Lexaloffle Games, where you navigate a small robot around a destructible world made of tiny cubes, with a variety of enemies to kill.  The game is still in alpha, but there are a number of levels included in the game, as well as a level editor and browser so you can check out other people’s creations..

I love the graphics.. the cute little block-enemies, the bright colours, the way everything starts to break up as you shoot it.. I even loved being killed the first time, because of the little cube explosion!

However, I really don’t enjoy the controls.  It’s not the movement.. I spent a great deal of my childhood playing Spectrum games which used cursors or “w”, “s”, “o” and “p” to move, with the spacebar or some other random button for jumping or shooting.  The movement is fine..

What I don’t like about Voxatron is the shooting, because of having to stop running and face the enemy before I can shoot.  I just found this frustrating.. especially when new enemies appeared up-close and I’d have to run away first, to make room to turn and fire.  It’s a shame, but it tipped the balance enough that I found myself not enjoying the game.. and well, I have more than enough games that I would rather play!

If I’m honest, I probably wouldn’t have given the game more than a quick look if it hadn’t been part of the recent Humble Bundle.. I wouldn’t have bought it without playing and loving a demo, certainly.  However, I love the idea of the Humble Bundle.. and I enjoyed the other games in this pack, so I don’t regret the purchase 🙂

Blocks That Matter

Blocks That Matter is a platform puzzle game by Swing Swing Submarine, featuring a tiny robot, blocks and puzzles.. another game with blocks?  Minecraft really has set the trend.. 🙂

The adventure mode is called The Underground Rescue, and it starts with the story of Indie Game Devs in Trouble.  A pair of indie developers have been working on a secret project which their fans have been anticipating just a little too much.. they decide they don’t want to wait any more..

The devs are kidnapped and held hostage with instructions to complete their game overnight.. however, their secret project isn’t a game but a little robot, the Tetrobot, which is sitting de-activated in their office.  To help them, you need to get him up and running!

In the first level, you are only able to collect blocks by bashing into them with your head.  Once you have collected four blocks, the first upgrade station unlocks; going into it awards you the first upgrade.. the drill!

The drill allows collection of more blocks.. sand, wood and stone at this point, more types to come in later levels.

Your next upgrade teaches you to combine your blocks into Tetrominos, Tetris-blocks which you use to help you jump up to other parts of the map to gather other blocks, reach more upgrade points, or get to the exit portal.

Each portal moves you a little bit closer to the devs!

There are also a few enemies.. slimes!  The small ones can be jumped easily.. contact with them more than once will result in them triggering your nanoreset, and you start the level again.  You can trigger this yourself if stuck by holding down the W key: the first time you do this you get an achievement: Someone did it wrong!

The big one, though..

She chased me through one level.. a frantic dash for the exit portal, broken up by entering puzzle mode to create tetromino stairs and platforms to jump gaps.  Maybe she was mad with me because I killed some of the smaller slimes by dropping blocks on them 😉

Sand falls if there is nothing supporting it, so if you drill out the block underneath it, or explode a row of eight blocks, and the sand will fall onto whatever is underneath.  This can be used to kill slimes, to provide a step to climb on, or used in the construction of a tetromino where you don’t want all four blocks to stay put.. all depending on the puzzle you’re trying to solve.

I can see the game getting frustrating later, as any mistakes are punished with the need to nanoreset, and return to the start of the level.

In addition to the Adventure Mode, there is a set of chocolate-themed bonus levels, from the Chocolate Update.. starting with Chocolate Rain.  Many blocks have been switched out for chocolate, and the puzzles here involve having the chocolate blob enemies blow up the blocks 🙂

I found myself stuck after only a few levels, though..  I think I’ll come back to this after the main game!

While checking over the game’s website, I saw that Swing Swing Submarine have another game in the works: Seasons After Fall.  I actually noticed this game thanks to the early artwork, featuring a cute little fox sleeping under a tree..

Image by Djaoul..

Seasons After Fall will be more of a discovery-based puzzle game where you explore the countryside taking advantage of the changing seasons.  It looks as though this was meant to be out in 2011, but they now say it will be done when it’s done.. which at least means they’re concentrating on getting a properly working product together, rather than shipping something out full of bugs.. plus points to them!

The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac is an action adventure RPG by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, the developers of Super Meat Boy.  I got this game via the Humble Voxatron Debut..

I was initially repulsed by the graphics for this game.. a crying boy surrounded by mutated tormentors.. and the story isn’t much nicer.  Apparently, it’s based on a Hebrew Bible story in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and he binds him before leaving him on an altar to die..

In the game, Isaac’s mother begins to hear the voice of God.. who initially tells her that Isaac is unclean, causing her to take away his toys and lock him in his room.. but later demands she sacrifice him to prove her devotion!  To escape, Isaac dives into the basement, where he encounters mutated creatures.. lost brothers and sisters..

To fight these monsters, poor Isaac fires his tears at them.. some, like the squishy-headed thing above, don’t fight back.. while others are immediately hostile.

There are a variety of power-ups and items available too, giving stronger ‘arrows’, shielding or bombs.   The loot from one chest included a yellow bomb with a face.. which I just about recognised as trollface.. just as it exploded, taking away a heart 😮

I’ve had a few forays into the game now, and while the dungeons, loot, enemies and bosses are all randomised, so far each basement I’ve seen has had a treasure room, a shop, and a room with a boss..

The first boss I encountered was Monstro.. who slaughtered me when I got a little too close!

Fighting isn’t complex at all.. if anything it feels a bit cheap as you can just kite the enemy around the room while shooting.  Monstro jumps, landing on the place the player had been standing; easy enough to avoid so long as you don’t get yourself trapped in the corner as I did 😉

The second boss I’ve faced was more repulsive still.. Gemini features conjoined twins: the larger one chases Isaac and strangles him if he gets close enough, while the smaller one intermittently vomits a shower of blood at Isaac!

This boss moves quickly, and I was glad of the rocks to hide behind.. though he did catch up with me on this attempt.  When Isaac dies, it’s game over.. there is no save game system.. you just get to see his Last Will. 😉

The music is actually very good too..
It’s not often I really notice the music in games (especially since I spend a lot of my gaming time on Mumble) but it really adds to the feeling of despair and sadness.  Ok.. I’m off to go hug the kitties now!

The Humble Voxatron Debut

I picked up the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle at the end of September, paying a rather small figure for a number of rather cool indie games.

The latest Humble Bundle is now out: the Humble Voxatron Debut!
As usual, it’s “pay what you want”,though if you want more than the headline game you need to beat the average paid to date.. an absolute bargain right now, as it’s still under a fiver 🙂

The headline game is an alpha of Lexaloffle’s Voxatron, a “voxel-based, old-school-gone-new platform shooter”, where you explore a world made of destructible blocks; it also comes with a voxel designer and level mapping tools, and the ability to share them with your friends!  I wonder if this will be as addictive as Minecraft.. one to explore this weekend, I think!

Also included in the Bundle are the creepy-looking dungeon explorer The Binding of Isaac, by the developers of the equally squicky Super Meat Boy, and puzzle-platform Blocks That Matter by Swing Swing Submarine.

Blocks That Matter sees you play a tiny robot called the Tetrobot, drilling blocks and recombining the materials into other blocks.. it sounds intriguing, but having installed it on my PC at work, I was unable to get it running due to some resolution issue.  I’ll be trying this one at home on the Beast instead 🙂

As for The Binding of Isaac.. I saw this advertised on Steam a while ago, and was repelled by the image of a crying boy surrounded by mutants.. however, I’m not going to let that stop me trying the game out.. that would be silly!

SpaceChem

SpaceChem has now been added to the Humble Bundle.. bringing the total to six games, a prototype and a pre-order!  I already picked up the bundle, but like Trauma before it, SpaceChem has also been made available to those who bought the pack 🙂

SpaceChem is a puzzle game by Zachtronics Industries, where the player takes on the role of a Reactor Engineer, converting various elements into useful chemicals, meeting production quotas and fighting monsters..

The first level, “Of Pancakes and Spaceships”, has you build a simple circuit using commands and directional arrows for your waldos to transfer a molecule of oxygen from the input to the output of the reactor.

When your reactor has produced the required number of molecules, you are presented with an overview of your performance compared to others.. and the option to upload your solution as a video on your YouTube account.

I noticed here that I’m also able to compare my results against my friends.. which means I have to do reasonably well for pride’s sake 😉

The commands are very specific, and I think most players would need to pay attention to the tutorial, or end up fumbling around a lot.  Using an output command in an output area  is not enough.. you have to use the right output command in each specific output area..

On my first try with the Crossover task, I hadn’t noticed this, so ended up with unflushed atoms waiting to collide with the next cycle’s atoms!  Once I fixed this problem, I then ran into the fact that the red waldo’s cycle was shorter than the blue, and therefore faster.. I fixed this by adding Sync commands just after the input, to make the waldos run together.

Bonding added more complexity to the controls, with the grab/drop command capable of being set as a sole grab or drop command.  I found it rather satisfying to see my newly created molecule heading for the output 🙂

The next level had me creating Hydrochloric Acid, which I managed first time, without any assistance!  I was still pleased with this even when I got to the performance screen, and saw that one friend managed this using only 14 symbols, while I used 19.. 😮

There must be more tricks to learn then.. but I’m probably not going to learn them tonight, as I have work in the morning 😉