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.. 🙂

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 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!

TRAUMA

TRAUMA came into my possession as part of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle.  TRAUMA is a photographic experience by designer Krystian Majewski, where you explore the mind of a traumatised woman, through point and click scenes with clues to be found..

The first scene, “The Next Hurdle”, is a night-time scene with a teddybear trapped under a large stone weight..

Moving around the environment is rather easy.. point and click on blurry angled pictures, onto items within the frame, or via painting gestures on the screen.. you learn these from some of the Polaroids hidden in the scene.  The photos are rather nice looking, and combined with the easy to operate interface, I find the whole thing more curious and relaxing than a typical puzzle game, which tends towards head-scratching after a while.

The clues are all voiced by the traumatised woman, and while some seem irrelevant to the task of rescuing the teddy, I guessed they would be involved in an alternate ending, or in for one of the other four scenes.  There are a set of Polaroids in each scene too.. either for teaching gestures, giving a clue, or telling us a little bit about the woman’s life.

On my first try through the level, I managed to lift the large stone ball from the teddy, and completed the first ending: “Save the Teddybear”.  There were three more endings, listed under “Discoveries”, but I wasn’t able to get at them straight away..

The second scene is “Following Role Models”, with a task of capturing the ghost.. a man who has been blurred through most of the scene by long exposure photography.  One of the Polaroids had a picture of the storm cloud from the sky in “The Next Hurdle”, linking the centre of the storm to a drain.. and then in “What They Expect”, I was taught a gesture to use on drains.

Using this gesture in “The Next Hurdle” allowed me to find the “Swallow The Skyscraper” ending!

As I’ve achieved an ending for each of the four scenes now, I could consider myself to have completed this game.. however, with so many undiscovered endings, it just doesn’t feel finished yet!

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 😉

Angry Frogs!

A long while ago, I was introduced to Angry Birds, an addictive puzzle game which has you firing a variety of birds at the homes of Pigs.  I played this first on Tim’s phone, and then more recently on the PC, where I made a little more progress as I was able to sit down with it for more than a few minutes.

Today, I spotted a mention of the game on Twitter, shortly followed by a mention of “Angry Frogs”!  It appeared to be a copy of Angry Birds, but still.. I had to try it.. but I soon wished I hadn’t.

The gameplay itself was no more than a copy of Angry Birds’, with frogs instead of birds being fired at their target via slingshot.

Something was missing though.. Angry Birds had a nice little intro, where you saw that the pigs had stolen the birds’ eggs to cook for breakfast.. enough to see them as the bad guys.  No such intro on Angry Frogs.. and even having played the first three levels, I don’t know what the enemies are meant to be.. red frogs? dragons? snakes?

The graphics though, were really poor, lacking the polish and clear effort that Rovio had put into Angry Birds.  Weaker backgrounds could have been forgiven, but the graphics for the frogs, enemies and their bases were also bad, despite being something so simple.

Angry Frogs really is a shameless and charmless rip-off all round.. one to avoid!

Stacking

I just got my hands on Stacking, a puzzle adventure game based around the use of Matryoshka dolls, created by Double Fine.

The game is quite simple to pick up.. there are five sizes of doll, with each able to stack into the next size up, and when stacked, you are able to use the ability of the largest doll.  Every doll has an ability, some which you’ll need to use to solve the puzzle at hand, and others which I think are just there for atmosphere, such as the little lady who sips tea.  There are also plenty of hints in case you get stuck, though so far it looks as though you can find out all you need to know just by talking to everyone you meet.  Each puzzle also has multiple solutions, and there are also some unique dolls to find as well.. reason to explore, which I love.

I absolutely adore the silent film effect used to tell the story too..

You play the role of Charlie, the smallest doll in the family.  Times are hard.. your family have no money, and the evil Baron comes to take all your older brothers and sisters away to work in child labour camps..

Heading out to look for your siblings, you arrive at the Train Station where your brother Albert is being forced to shovel coal.. to free him, you need to stop the strike.. and to stop the strike you need to get the members of the Train Guild out of the Royal Lounge and down onto the platform to talk to the strikers.

There’s a guard blocking the doors to the Lounge, and he tells me that I can’t go in, or the host will throw everyone out.  Well, that’s exactly what I want.. so how to get rid of the guard?

It turns out there’s a pretty doll here, The Widow Chastity, who has a rather effective ‘Seduce’ ability..

What I found funny was the reaction I got while trying this ability out on the nearby dolls..  another female let out a “Hmmph!” sound, and her top half tilted away as if in disgust! 😀

This doll isn’t just for looks though.. she is part of the first solution..

The guard is a sucker for beauty, and I draw him away from the door before unstacking with Chastity and jumping straight into the guard instead.  After having him unlock the door, I go in and march right up to the host, who is suitably unimpressed and boots everyone out.  Success!

The three members of the Train Guild are all quite happy to go and talk to the strikers now, so I stack into them all in turn.  Engineer Ulysses has the ‘Full Steam Ahead’ ability, which lets me race through the platform like a little steam train..

Another doll I found wandering around in the Train Station was the socially unacceptable Meriwether Malodor.

His ability can clear a room.. and in fact, does!  For another solution to the first puzzle, you can place Meriwether by the air vent leading to the Royal Lounge and ‘Flatulate’..

After clearing the Train Station, you can proceed to the Gilded Steam Ship, where your sister awaits rescue.

The Ball

The Ball is an indie action-adventure puzzle game using the Unreal engine, featuring an archaelogist who gets stuck in a cave and finds a mysterious artifact.. The Ball.  This game started off as a mod for Unreal Tournament.. shows what hard work can do!  Two friends have been playing this game, and both have come back with nothing but praise for it, so I thought I should try it out 🙂

The demo allows the first few puzzles to be played out in campaign mode, as well as trying out Survival mode, where you have to stay alive as long as possible against floods of enemies.

I started with the campaign and very quickly became twitchy, expecting bad things to come shooting out of every corner, or for something to come down from the ceiling and crush me.  I only felt a little better once I found the Ball..

The first few rooms are all about teaching you how to play.. pressure plates for you to stand on, how to use the Hammer, and how to handle the Ball.  There are several jokes in here, but I’m not touching them! 😉

As mentioned, I was rather twitchy while playing this, and the rather ugly monkeys in some of the first few rooms gave me the creeps..
I was being mocked by a friend for this, but I think it’s just as well I was twitchy, because when the first zombies appeared I was quick to fire the Ball at them.

I’d be tempted to get the game, as it’s easy to play, looks fantastic and solving the later puzzles in the demo was very satisfying.. but with all puzzle games, there comes a point where I find myself stuck, leaving it for a while, and then not completing it.. I have enough uncompleted games 😉

Limbo, part 1

We had the office pup for a few nights while the boss was away.. and since the pup has taken a liking to chewing live power leads recently, I decided I needed to stay in the lounge, away from my PC and all the lovely wires underneath..

I picked up Limbo for the 360 some time back, but due to moving house, and with the requirement to play alone to avoid accidentally revealing solutions to Tim, the game had stayed untouched.  Limbo is a side-scrolling puzzle platform game, brilliantly atmospheric with a shadowy black and white world and creepy ambient sounds..

This post is rather spoiler-ish, and I’ve not used tags for the simple reason I’d be hiding more of the text than I’d be leaving visible.
There are also spiders in this post.. though there are no pictures of them, as I can’t grab from the 360 at the moment 😉

A post of this length wouldn’t feel right without screenshots, so until I can add my own, I’ve used some from the gallery on their website..

After waking up.. glowing white eyes opening, and the little boy sitting up in the near-silence.. I immediately did the usual check of the space to the left, in the opposite direction to where convention says to go.  There, I picked up my first achievement, “Wrong Way”! 🙂

Going the right way, I eventually came across a massive spider which seemed to be waiting for something..  I had a horrible idea that ‘something’ was me getting closer.. of course, it was.  The closest leg raised, pointed, then pulled back.. and slammed into the ground with a thud.  I tried to run under the legs only to hit something in the shadows, and was flung back and then stabbed through by the first leg before I could even get to my feet.  Awesomely gruesome.. but there was more to come!

The solution to this first spider involves a trap, which is sitting on a branch before you arrive at the spider, but is flung to the ground after the spider stabs the ground twice.   Revolted by the solution in mind, I took the trap to the spider, and caught his leg as he tried to impale me.  There was a recoil, but the spider stayed where he was.

Eww.  One was bad.. but I have to snip off all the legs?

Three turned out to be all I needed to get past, but I then had the thought of an angry five-legged spider pursuing me.. so when I found myself trapped in some webbing on the ground I assumed it was time for another death animation.  Instead, the five-legged spider wrapped me in a cocoon to save for later.  He then wandered off, and I made my escape.. hopping along in a cocoon! 🙂

One of the earliest things I’d seen about Limbo was a video playthrough involving a different spider chase, and I came to this section a little further on.  Easy, after seeing the walkthrough, though.  I wouldn’t have watched the video if I’d known I was going to get the game.. but I’d probably not have bought the game if I’d not seen the video and got some interest in it.

There was another spider to come, though this one was less threat and more revulsion.

Two boys appeared on the far side of a spike trap, fired at me, then ran away.  The ground blew up behind me, and I went to look.. to see a twitching spider carcass, which tried to stab at me with his one remaining leg before he died!

I said revulsion, right?

Just as the solution to the first spider of the game had given me a sick feeling, so did my initial idea of the solution to this one.  The spike trap awaited.. and here was something which could make a nice path over the spikes.

The carcass wouldn’t move when pushed, so I went to pull the thing by the leg.. and the leg came off with a little splash and sticky, wet sound.
The leg then dropped to the floor, and I was unable to pick it up.. leaving me with just the spider’s body..

A spider’s body, and a spike-trap.. and I must have whimpered, because the pup came running over to see what was going on!

I played a little further on before taking the pup for a walk, and have no idea how far through I am.
I’m hoping to get something sorted for screen capture, for the next time I play, though maybe I’ll resist screenshots of the spiders 😉