Indie Game Digest for the First Half of 2011
They were indie. They took over the entire industry.
[cut]
What do normal gamers complain about in the summer? Obviously, the lack of games. It's no secret that the mainstream in summer... well, it doesn't exactly die out, but this season isn't favored. That’s why it is so lovingly cherished by many indie developers — there's a lower chance that on release day you'll be struck by some [Mass Effect](/games?search=Mass Effect).
At the end of last year, we already compiled a top-10 of indie games. This year, there are already more "best of the best" than such a list can generally accommodate. And what does that mean? It means we will be summarizing the mid-year results right now. The most interesting indie games of 2011 are already here. The slightly less interesting ones are here too, but under spoilers.
Let’s get started.
January
Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time — a rather mediocre parody of Braid with a vastly inferior storyline. Physics games, due to awkward controls, do not save this title.
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda — also a rather controversial game. This is a shooter platformer. There’s really not much more to say: the idea is utterly clichéd. A funny point may be that all enemies respawn the moment you exit the screen and come back. There is a certain leveling system, but aside from that, it's a run-of-the-mill game.
[Monday Night Combat](/games?search=Monday Night Combat)
A mix of [Team Fortress 2](/games?search=Team Fortress 2) and any "tower" game. Made quite well, but many annoying little details began to ruin the whole idea like a house of cards. And a direct competitor has just arrived.
Vice Game of the Month: NightSky
I wrote a separate review on this game. It rightfully received its design award: NightSky is very, very beautifully executed. We play as a sphere that really needs to get somewhere. Quite decent game length, varied and, surprisingly, almost perfectly challenging obstacles... what else do you need for happiness?
Game of the Month: SpaceChem
A logical, brain-breaking, mind-bending game. Each level makes the player feel like both a complete idiot and a genius in turn. The seemingly simple task of converting element X into element Y becomes increasingly complicated. The number of tools is strictly limited, but how the goal will be achieved is of no concern to anyone. A game where the “hacky method” is not an indulgence, but often the only solution.
Great music, stunning (for such a genre) graphics, and the presence of a story only bring SpaceChem closer to the honorary title of “indie game of the year.” However, it’s still not over yet...
Others: APOX (multiplayer indie games have been consistently failing so far), Who's That Flying?!\, Zeit²*, Trino**
February
CreaVures
CreaVures has a rather unusual and beautiful graphic style. Unfortunately, that’s where its merits end: otherwise, it’s just a standard level-based platformer, albeit with a few different characters. But it is beautiful, that cannot be denied.
Game of the Month: [BIT.TRIP RUNNER](/games?search=BIT.TRIP RUNNER)
"Run, Forest, run!" This is roughly how the gameplay can be described. We duck and jump. The game is a port from consoles, so this slight primitiveness in control has an objective basis. Generally, in spirit, it resembles the other games in the series and primarily tests reflexes. Personally, for some reason, it reminded me of the early games of the "Domovenok Kuzya" series (Hussars, silent! :)
Basically, that’s how the month comes to an end.
March
[Fate of the World](/games?search=Fate of the World)
Earlier, I already wrote a review on "Fate of the World". An ecological turn-based strategy. It may seem crazy, but... to peacefully fight against the entire world is a unique opportunity. Sadly, the realism stutters and the relatively small number of scenarios don't allow full development. But you can doom the world to a greenhouse effect and save it from an oil crisis right now.
Game of the Month: [Atom Zombie Smasher](/games?search=Atom Zombie Smasher)
The closest analogy to this game would be Tower Defense. With the caveat that destroying all enemies pouring in from all sides isn’t necessary. The main thing is to save “your own” and not let zombies infect others.
For this purpose, the player is given about ten various operational tools — an involuntary rescue helicopter and randomly (or manually, depending on the settings) assigned 3-4 attacking units: from artillery and mines to snipers and bait traps. Thanks to the randomly created maps of the “world” in general and locations in particular, as well as numerous settings, the game has a high replayability.
Others: Dinner Date\, B.U.T.T.O.N.*, Cloning Clyde (another variation of “Lemmings”)*
April
1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)*. By the name of the game, you could already guess that this is from the creators of AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity — only they have such unpronounceable and wild titles. Basically, these two games are the same. Except that in the new creation, the game diligently tries to assemble a track from your own music. Sometimes you end up with completely impassable "masterpieces".
Capsized — a 2D shooter. Decent graphics and good use of physics did not save the game from monstrous monotony. The first half of the game flies by unnoticed, but as soon as all weapons are tried and all enemies seen...
HOARD — a game about dragons. No, not about beautiful knights and princesses (although there is some of that too), but about the harsh everyday life of dragons. We rob caravans, terrorize villagers, fend off our fellow thinkers (in multiplayer, in particular), or, conversely, cooperate for the sake of the Great Golden Mountain. Unfortunately, it also suffers from monotony.
Universe Sandbox — this is not so much a game as it is a "situation constructor". What would happen if Jupiter suddenly disappeared? Is a perfectly stable system possible in the absence of a central star? What if the Sun becomes twice as massive? All these questions can be answered to a certain extent by Universe Sandbox. You can destroy and explode stars and planets, draw in black holes, tweak sliders for mass, speed, volume, density... Several dozen examples can be selected straight from the main menu. You can choose the Solar system, or perhaps the entire galaxy.
The main and crucial downside: the game does not always behave adequately. After certain settings, planets begin undergoing the wildest evolutions, the collision of bodies is almost non-existent (colliding planets with no visual changes is normal), and crashes are frequent occurrences. But it’s incredibly fun to "mess around".
Your Doodles are Bugged!
A mix of Crayon Physics Deluxe and classic “Lemmings.” You have to finish the level so the local cockroaches can reach the collection point. In general, this task is not as trivial as it may seem (also due to the rather mediocre controls, as wild as that may sound for such a game), but it’s not “hardcore” either. That doesn’t stop the game from being extremely charming.
Sanctum*
An ideological competitor to [Monday Night Combat](/games?search=Monday Night Combat). Only without class divisions and with a sharp tilt towards "tower" tactics. Cooperative play is recommended. The main drawback: few maps.
Vice Game of the Month: Anomaly: Warzone Earth
This is already an ideological opponent of [Monday Night Combat](/games?search=Monday Night Combat). And it’s not just because this game has a top-down view. It’s about the role reversal. Yes, indeed: our task is to break through. The player has a squad commander at their disposal. And they have their own squad at their limited disposal. Various abilities are included.
Game of the Month: Eureka!
From the creators of "[Mор. Утопия](/games?search=Мор. Утопия)" and "Тургора"... no, I didn’t mix up the screenshots, the developers really took quite an unexpected turn. A brief plot: the gods disliked humanity, removed gravity on Earth, created a new "superior race" and called them gnomes. Plot block completed.
However, we play as a human. As a girl. As a girl-engineer. Her name is Phlox, by the way. Under the wise guidance of her senior, Phlox gradually magnetizes world-significant buildings back. The thing is, when gnomes experience happiness, they somehow create a normal gravitational pull around them. Interestingly, they experience happiness almost from everything, including kicks.
As the plot progresses, we’ll have to create more than one mechanism, including those involving gnomes. Overall, the game leaves a pleasant impression, despite some flaws and the overall surrealism of what’s happening. But after Turgor, I personally expected something more from the developers.
May
DETOUR*. Competing transportation companies must deliver goods. And not let your "neighbor" do the same. We blow up roads, bribe valiant cops with donuts, we do good and commit evil. The game was doomed by a lack of PR: finding a partner for online play isn’t always possible, even in the official group.
Death and the Fly* — another platformer with gothic themes. Reminds me of Trine, with the only caveat that there are two characters: Death and the Bat. From a gameplay perspective, the game is not a revelation, but if you are attracted to everything dark — this is your choice.
Garshasp: The Monster Slayer*. If you take "Prince of Persia" and remove everything from it except fighting, and make the plot even more ridiculous... yes, we will get this average action game. Only worth noticing for its graphics.
Naval Warfare* — a typical shooter with a top-down view, only on water. Of course, that fact brings its corrections to the gameplay and has a certain charm, but it doesn’t help the game become a revelation. There’s a story.
Inside a Star-filled Sky
"Imagine that you can enter any item in the level and find a new level inside it. Now imagine that on this level you find a new item and can again enter it, ending up on another level." That unique case when the description matches the matter uniquely accurately. At first glance, a primitive "shooter" turns into a very interesting thing through the elegant motion of the engine. You can dive into any enemy, chew it from the inside, crawl out and finish it off. Or dive even deeper. And again. And again. And... yes, did I mention you can dive even deeper?
The game is endless. With one caveat: the developers claim that theoretically, sooner or later the game will still hang due to overflow. Somewhere in about fifty years of continuous play. Plus or minus. Anyone willing to try?
Fortix 2
Simply an excellent game. A remake of Qix (PC gamers know it as Xonix) from the distant eighties. There’s a rectangular field inside which there’s a castle and (as a rule) dragons. The task of our knight is to "cut off" pieces of the rectangle so that the castle is ultimately in our possession. Along the way, you can activate catapults or bonuses and kill (or rather, "capture") enemies using the same method. It’s truly an engaging process. The second part has one minor downside: there are no principled differences from the first part, except for the graphics. And it costs ten times less (one dollar. On Steam. Inexplicable, but a fact). So it’s better to start getting acquainted with the series from the first part.
[Hamilton’s Great Adventure](/games?search=Hamilton’s Great Adventure)
Most likely, we have all encountered the travelling salesman problem in one form or another. This top-down arcade illustrates it pretty well. The hero can pass through many platforms only once, after which they collapse. It’s desirable to collect as many treasures as possible along the way. The hero is helped by his faithful feathered companion Sasha, who can be sent for reconnaissance or asked to hit a switch. Quite a pleasant arcade game.
[The Tiny Bang Story](/games?search=The Tiny Bang Story)
It’s getting increasingly difficult to distinguish indie games from AAA projects based on graphics, and "The Theory of the Tiny Bang" is yet another confirmation of that. A very beautiful and stylish quest with plenty of "find the item" elements and numerous mini-games. Unfortunately, the eternal curse of the genre — “pixel hunting” — did not spare this game. So sometimes you will indeed have to resort to the help button. It’s filled by clicking on flying bugs (such a fiery greeting to [World of Goo](/games?search=World of Goo)), so you won’t be able to abuse it: no amount of patience will suffice.
Vice Game of the Month: [Frozen Synapse](/games?search=Frozen Synapse)
Despite its significantly inflated (5) price tag, there’s plenty to see in this game. It's like "chess by mail" with simultaneous moves. If you played the early games in the [Rainbow Six](/games?search=Rainbow Six) series, you may remember tactical maps before operations. You could even skip the action part: just plot points on the entire map, to be sure and sip tea while watching what's happening...
Here we have something quite similar. Only we give orders not for the whole match, but just a few seconds ahead. The same applies if we’re playing a multiplayer game, as the opponent does the same. You can sketch out expected actions of the opponent, but, as they say, "no plan survives contact with the enemy." You can play several matches simultaneously if your opponents are not as fast as you.
Game of the Month: Terraria
I doubt any comments are necessary here. A kind of 2D-MineCraft. With the only caveat that if in MineCraft they live, then in Terraria — they conquer. If by some stroke of luck you missed this indie masterpiece, you can check out the review on it.
Other: iBomber Defense\, Ancients of Ooga*, Dwarfs?! (somewhat reminiscent of Dwarf Fortress), Steel Storm (a weak shooter with a top-down view), LUME*
June
Almost all indie games in June have a slight taste of surrealism. Or at least truly strange concepts.
Critical Mass — classic "match three blocks together", only in 3D. The result is, to put it mildly, ambiguous. The 2D version is famous for allowing you to easily assess the situation, whereas here — including due to the uncooperative controls — it’s not so easy to do. And hesitation here is deathly. The structure begins to tremble slightly and simply explodes. I couldn’t fully grasp the logic behind the last part, but you really need to play very quickly, preferably with a hefty supply of luck.
Vertex Dispenser
A wild analog of the cult game "Dots." In fact, it resembles it little, but I couldn’t recall anything closer. An abstract game field consists of dots. We have a little ship that can capture them by moving between them. Three dots in proximity create a triangle. There are several special abilities like security towers or minions. The goal is to destroy enemies. It’s generally interesting to play, but somewhat... strange. Success heavily depends on your reaction and micro-control (yes, even despite having a single subject and limited movement).
Vice Game of the Month: Proun
A lite version of [Super Meat Boy](/games?search=Super Meat Boy). The ultimate goal varies depending on the chosen game mode, but the essence remains unchanged: there’s a ball that we control, a kind of, well, rope that it can roll on from all sides, defiantly ignoring the laws of gravity, and a lot of obstacles built around this rope. In all modes, you need to step on the gas and race ahead. If you crash — the ball sharply loses speed.
There are in total four speeds for the game. The slowest one is "Fast," which kind of hints. The game, by the way, is spread on a "pay what you want" basis on the official website. Overall, it’s made quite positively, but the feeling that something is missing remains.
Game of the Month: Jamestown*
There is a genre: shooters. Those very games where the ship moves somewhere into the unknown while being overwhelmed by hundreds of enemies... Back in the day, you could find similar creations on every second mobile phone.
Jamestown is precisely a representative of this genre. The retro style fashionable among indie developers these days, classic gameplay, and a mind-blowing, though not rich, storyline. In short, the game tells of the conquest of the New World, only in Jamestown Mars is involved. With the indigenous Martians. Historical figures who unexpectedly ended up in space are included.
The downsides include the somewhat "bouncing" difficulty of the game. Some may also dislike the graphic execution, it’s rather peculiar. But on the whole, the game is recommended for acquaintance.
Others: The Cat and the Coup\, Solar 2**
July
[Cthulhu Saves the World](/games?search=Cthulhu Saves the World)* & Breath of Death VII*. Two games that can only be bought together on PC. Unfortunately, personally, I’ve yet to carve out time for either, but Western reviewers are weeping with joy and going into hysterics. In theory, these are old-school RPGs. Parody games. Sadly, no localizers in sight, and most of the humor resides in the text. In the rest, it’s a true "greeting from the past".
[Dungeons of Dredmor](/games?search=Dungeons of Dredmor)*
A game in the roguelike genre. Well-made and possesses good graphics. More to add, if you are familiar with the genre, you can imagine everything else. If you aren’t familiar, but want to get acquainted, [Dungeons of Dredmor](/games?search=Dungeons of Dredmor) is an excellent choice for this. If you are completely unfamiliar, you can read a full review on the game.
E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy*
An action game with role-playing elements. Throughout the playthrough, it consistently puts the player in a state of cognitive dissonance. Simply put: it’s clear that nothing is clear. A vast number of skills and a convoluted plot with a hazy ending do not do the game justice. However, if this doesn’t scare you, E.Y.E. itself is really a quality and interesting game.
Game of the Month: Runespell: Overture
If we take [Puzzle Quest](/games?search=Puzzle Quest) and replace the balls with cards... yes, we get something akin to Runespell: Overture. The game consists of a series of battles with brief interludes for dialogue. On the battlefield, there are 10 stacks of cards, half of which belong to us. The task is to gather something deadly from these stacks of five cards according to poker rules.
The game is a mix of [Puzzle Quest](/games?search=Puzzle Quest), poker, and — forgive me, holy Connection, but this is indeed so — solitaire. The result is a bit wild, but quite viable and charming.
Others: Lucid, Defy Gravity Extended\, [Dead Horde](/games?search=Dead Horde)* (most reminiscent of Shadowgrounds), Tobe's Vertical Adventure (not bad, in principle, retro-platformer that suffers greatly from awkward controls), Legend of Fae, Chantelise - A Tale of Two Sisters**
UPD: While creating the digest, the game Cubium was missed. Due to its genius and the author's sluggishness, it will be described in the next half-year's digest.
August
[Space Pirates and Zombies](/games?search=Space Pirates and Zombies) — something incomprehensible. If we take "Space Rangers," throw out everything except space and upgrading the ship, add resources and space stations, and move some controls to the keyboard... we get this monster. Essentially playable but doesn’t invoke much interest.
EDGE. A game from the creators of RUSH and Toki Tori. Overall, it strongly resembles the first (review), only with "manual" control and a single cube subject. In my opinion, this game is still not for PC. Countless nuances of control, peculiarly arranged camera, primitive gameplay... However, there’s an alternative view.
Bastion*
A graphical approach like wakfu, isometric view like Magicka, great gameplay like... hmm. Well, in general, it’s also somewhat similar to Magicka, but with several caveats. Very beautiful and very high-quality game, except that the save system was lacking. There’s a review of the game on the site.
Trauma
A concept game, an experiment game. An unusual graphical execution made up of numerous photographs, a "symbol" principle of passage, which comes straight from "Turgor," and a sad story about one girl...
This game cannot be rated, it has no direct analogs. You need to see it. There’s a review of this game on the site.
Vice Game of the Month: Hacker Evolution Duality
A sequel to Hacker Evolution, which, in turn, was inspired by the unshakeable Uplink. Despite the fact that from a graphical standpoint, "Hollywood" gets more and more pronounced every time, the essence remains unchanged: hack, break, bypass defenses, steal information (which, as we know, rules the world), cover tracks, earn money, upgrade...
If DDoS, Firewall, sudo and other similar scary words aren’t all that terrifying for you, then this game is made for you. There’s multiplayer, by the way. It will be somewhat more complicated for a regular mortal to figure it all out, but it’s also achievable. Just start on an easy difficulty level and a single player...
Game of the Month: Limbo
Once an exclusive for Xbox 360, it has finally ceased to be an exclusive. Also an experiment game that prioritizes style above all else. But that doesn’t mean that other components have suffered: LIMBO is a rare example of a game where everything is in its place.
Of course, it has its downsides too, but it’s impossible not to mention its contribution to the gaming industry and the eternal question, "Can games be considered art?" The game's blog contains reviews and walkthroughs.
Other: Avadon: The Black Fortress\, Blocks That Matter*, Alien Hallway**
This concludes our brief excursion into indie games of this year. Given that we have reached today. But the year is not over yet, so indie developers still have time to surprise and delight us, despite the autumn flood of AAA games.
\* Games marked with an asterisk were not personally launched by the post's author. Their descriptions are based on surveys from other gamers, reviews by Western reviewers, and videos of the gameplay.
If someone has been forgotten — let us know. We’ll add them.