Why Most Indie Games Suck

(Too many) Indie developers: I gave that game the best 15 mins of my life!

Incidentally this is also why most iPhone games suck (well, this and the controls are god-awful):

…due out this May 12th. The game has been in production for a couple of months now, and will feature a level editor to facilitate the sharing of user-created content.

Don’t get me wrong: I like a variety of indie games but spending a “couple of months”¹ on a title seems to be selling both yourself and the player short. (After all, we have plenty of pro developers that do this as their entire biz model–again, see the eleventy-billion ‘games’ on iPhone–though, at least, they don’t usually soar to the ‘heights’ of XBOX Live Indies…*shudder*.)

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1 And before I’m accosted by rabid Nifflas fans: I’m not singling out the game featured here as, by all accounts, Nifflas is a solid creator, but this sort of thinking seems to dominate too much of ‘the scene’, paid and unpaid–just look at the laughable state of XBOX Live Indies or (again, because I like beating this horse) 99% of what’s on the iPhone. (Yes, I know: people have jobs and can’t afford to devote a full half a year to a game, blahblahblah; they’re free (sometimes) blahblahblah; you never made one so who are you to judge, blahblahblah; etc.)

Breathe Some Death Into Your 360

Night of the Living SNES

No, not by turning it on and potentially risking a RROD (except that, well, there is that) but because there’s some small buzz about this latest Xbox Indies title, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning in various, dark, corners of the Internet:

“We’re big fans of classic console RPGs,” said Breath of Death VII designer and programmer, Robert Boyd, “and have been disappointed that this style of games has largely left the home consoles for the portable systems in recent years. Thanks to XBox Live Indie Games, we’ve been able to bring the genre back to the big screen in all its pixelated glory. Not only that, but the game is only 80 MS points ($1 USD). That’s like eighty times cheaper than what these things cost back in the day!”

It’s only a buck¹, so perhaps someone² could could exhale some thoughts in the comments on this pint-sized, pixelly, push into classic console RPG:

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1 If I had a buck for every time someone said that about an Xbox Indie title, I’d own Microsoft.
2 No, not me: I barely have time to play the games on my plate/work/eat/sleep/die live so someone else is going to need to take a bullet give this one a try.

Metroid Dread Not Entirely Dead Making It…Undread?

I’m feeling whatever the opposite of dread is right now, which probably isn’t undread

Because someone decided to keep hope alive by creating their own version of the oft-rumored¹, maybe it will still come out, maybe it won’t, DS game Metroid Dread:

This, along with Project AM2R at least keeps the hope of pure 2D Metroid alive, even if Nintendo (*boo! hiss!*) won’t.

You can grab an engine demo for Project Dread here.

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1 it was real, folks, I can guarantee you that much.

Looks Like I Might Need to Actually Turn My 360 On

Earlier today I posted quick blurb about Ancient’s new game and bemoaned the injustice, the inhumanity the…usual from MS, at how it had been relegated to the Indie game ghetto for its eventual release.

Well, now I’m even twice as annoyed since, as it turns out, it’s freaking awesome:

You can check it out, too, on this PC demo (which has been there all day but, in my haste for the exits this AM, I completely missed).

It’s basically 4-player Robotron (not twin stick, but over-arching gameplay) married to limited tower defense and the only downside (and this is a minor quibble), is that it’s stylized 8 instead of 16-bit.¹

All in all, based on this short demo (only one (of four) characters available, etc.) I’ll actually have to, *sigh*, turn on my 360 at some point in the not-too-distant future, and put myself within range of the clutching, crushing, claws of the Red Ring’s² wrath.

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1 I loved my NES/C64/etc. but I really, really loved my Genesis/TG16/etc.
2 One of the few, the proud, the still on their launch-day 360.

Press ‘A’ To Experience the Miracle of Childbirth

If only it were so easy:

And now you can use avatars! Which is, uh, good?

An Indie Game I Can Get Behind

Not exactly the most inspiring of images, but I’ll take what I can get

Here’s the pre-existing PC rev:

It’s a great game on PC (and is, basically, as close as any game has ever come to being made by Treasure…but not) and, out of all the indie stuff on/headed to WiiWare, this is probably the best¹ as long as it remains faithful to its primogenitor ². (It doesn’t hurt that, unlike most ‘retro’ stuff these days, it’s based on a 16-bit aesthetic instead of the increasingly-tired 8-bit scene.)

(The original developer’s site is here.)

H/T: Indiegames.com

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1 Yes, much, much better than Cave Story.
2 Smart person for “Daddy”.

I’d Buy That for a Dollar!

And I’d Pay at Least $5 for This

Two pretty fun shooters are up for grabs for a minimum, one buck, donation:

Irukandji and Bullet Candy Perfect can both be had for a minimum donation of $1. This should be an easy couple of clicks for you if you haven’t already played these. Charlie knows how to put fun into a shooter.

Even if these were only marginal games (they’re not) they’d be worth checking out if only for their aural and graphical flair–that they’re both a great deal of fun is just icing on the cake, so get on over and snap up Irukandji and Bullet Candy Perfect before the deal is done.

H/T: the2bears.com