Indie games

[Silent Film]

Anyone play small indie/casual games?

Because of limited time (and funds) I've been finding myself playing quite a few of them recently whereas normally I just play regular full commercial games.

It's nice to see Steam delivering these types of games now. I recently bought Bullet Candy, Gumboy and RoboBlitz from there. Simple but fun games.

I also thought the Penumbra (http://www.penumbra-overture.com/) demo was great. A survival-horror/FPS/point-and-click adventure formula that amazingly actually seems to work. Looking forward to the first episode (of three) later this month. :cool:

Any other little gems out there? Share your recommendations.

[Gimli]

Anyone play small indie/casual games?

Because of limited time (and funds) I've been finding myself playing quite a few of them recently whereas normally I just play regular full commercial games.

It's nice to see Steam delivering these types of games now. I recently bought Bullet Candy, Gumboy and RoboBlitz from there. Simple but fun games.

I also thought the Penumbra (http://www.penumbra-overture.com/) demo was great. A survival-horror/FPS/point-and-click adventure formula that amazingly actually seems to work. Looking forward to the first episode (of three) later this month. :cool:

Any other little gems out there? Share your recommendations.

Gish, Crimsonland, Icy Tower (free), Uplink, Darwinia, Astral Tournament, Soldat... that's all I can think of right now.

[LowEnergyCycle]

I've been playing the awesome Cave Story this very week. And it's free! And there's always N to carve away redundant hours of the day/night. In fact, thinking about it, there's sh*tloads of great Indie games out there.

I love Indie games. I've been working on one for a few years on and off now using Gamemaker (http://www.gamemaker.nl) - I kinda wanted to create a homage to System Shock 1, so I envisaged a cross between that and the top-down SNES/GBA Zelda games.

It'll unfortunately probably never see the light of day due to never having enough time on my hands, but the overall vision is there non the less. Maybe I'll pass down the responsibilities to my Grandkids or something... Heck, SHODAN may even be a reality by then...:eek:

[Gimli]

I've been playing the awesome Cave Story this very week. And it's free! And there's always N to carve away redundant hours of the day/night. In fact, thinking about it, there's sh*tloads of great Indie games out there.

I love Indie games. I've been working on one for a few years on and off now using Gamemaker (http://www.gamemaker.nl) - I kinda wanted to create a homage to System Shock 1, so I envisaged a cross between that and the top-down SNES/GBA Zelda games.

It'll unfortunately probably never see the light of day due to never having enough time on my hands, but the overall vision is there non the less. Maybe I'll pass down the responsibilities to my Grandkids or something... Heck, SHODAN may even be a reality by then...:eek:

If by N you are reffering to N - Way of the ninja, that is an awesome game, I never managed to finish all the levels, but once you learn how to play it's extremely fun, although it can also get extremely frustrating at points.
Now that you mention Cave Story, I got the demo of Cave Days recently and was pleasantly surprised. It reminds me of the excellent Prehistorik I used to play when I was a kid. Of course, this has more features (missions for example).
I also got the demo of Mr. Robot, it seems interesting so far. I don't really know how to describe it well, because I didn't get to see too much so far, but it seems like a mix of an adventure and action game with traces of RPG. You are some kind of a robot on a spaceship which is given tasks by the main computer of the ship. One of the tasks I got was to hack into a broken robot and clean it from viruses. That was done as turn-based combat (a bit like Heroes of Might and Magic combat) and you are awarded experience after each battle. That's all I can tell you about it really.

EDIT: Also there is a fun remake of an old Bruce Lee game (as I recall it dates back to C64) which is also free. I also just got a free game called Battle for Wesnoth which is supposed to play like Heroes of Might and Magic which I am about to try out.

[v.dog]

I've been playing Rayhound (http://www18.big.or.jp/%7Ehikoza/Prod/index.html) a lot. It's like a shooter, but you don't have guns- you use gravity to deflect the enemy's fire back at them.

Every Extend (http://nagoya.cool.ne.jp/o_mega/product/e2.html) is also a lot of fun. You're a guided bomb and the goal is to get more bombs by exploding large chains of enemy cubes. (You'll need 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) or WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) to open it.)

The Sentinel (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?name=Sentinel%2C+The), is a game from 1987 (some of you wouldn't have even been born!). It still work in XP, which is a nice surprise.
This game is too weird to describe here, so read the synopsis on Home of the Underdogs (1st link), it's article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentinel_%28computer_game%29), or you can download it (http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~vdog/games/sentinel.zip) off my homepage - I've updated the readme, and included over 400 codes for the game's 10,000 levels- about 4%. :)

[pn18]

I played IcyTower a lot when it was released back then in 2001. And I'm just downloading it now to play it again.:D

[Silent Film]

Here is one I played a while back and was quite impressed: Mount&Blade (http://www.taleworlds.com/). Looks like they has since made even more improvements so I'll have to check it out again soon.

I played a lot of Sentinel Returns about ten years ago, I never knew it was a Geoff Crammond creation though - I'm a big fan of his racing games. :D

[witch]

Haven't tried roboblitz, been wanting to though. Last indie games I've played was Barrow Hill and Evidence.

[PolterChrist]

http://www.freewaregames.net/fwpro/game.asp?game=19

Put on some drum & bass.

[vrap]

>> Spheres of Chaos (http://www.spheresofchaos.com/p/download.php) <<

[LowEnergyCycle]

Haven't tried roboblitz, been wanting to though.
I've just been playing the demo from Xbox Live all afternoon (what a sad way to spend a day off...). It's... well... okay, I guess. It can be a bit frustrating though. The little b*****d has a small semblance of momentum, y'see...

Every Extend (http://nagoya.cool.ne.jp/o_mega/product/e2.html) is also a lot of fun. You're a guided bomb and the goal is to get more bombs by exploding large chains of enemy cubes. (You'll need 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) or WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) to open it.)
That's one of Kenta Cho's infamous 'shmups is it not? One of his other classics, rRootage (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/%7Ecs8k-cyu/windows/rr_e.html), is also utterly awesome. It makes Ikaruga look like a daisy-chain contest in the later stages (if I remember rightly theres, like, ninety-frickin'-nine or something...)

[Hatesink]

The last one I played was Pencil Whipped

http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/january02/igfpencil/

[witch]

Yeah, I just tried it on live as well, don't quite think it's worth the $15. However, I did buy Alien Homnoid, very fun but hard, :D.

[501105]

Simple question do you have any indie games and if so which ones and what do you think of indie games in general.

I am a big fan of indie games because many of them are unique and just plain fun, I have Gish,Electro airhockey,Eets,Switchball and Wik and the fable of souls.

[lilwyvern4]

Yes! Indie Games FTW! I've got Dr. Lunatic: Supreme with Cheese, Loonyland and Kid Mystic, all from the same company: Hamumu! I used to have Gish, but I only played the demo. And most of the music was pretty bad.

[vrap]

Introversion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introversion_Software) is my favourite independent games company.

[lilwyvern4]

Thanks to reading the entire thread, I remember a couple other indie games I've played.

Every Extend (Worst Name Ever Award Winner, also winner of Best Unintentional Freakout Moment)
N - Way of the Ninja (Rediculously frustrating for an autistic kid like myself)
Crimsonland (Better than Phobia, that's for sure)
Phobia II (Although I'm unable to get it to work on XP)
Stepmania (A DDR emulator/knockoff)
Grid Wars (A Geometry Wars Knockoff so good that Microsoft's trying to get it off the net)
Spooky Castle (Also from Hamumu, greatest indie company ever)
Gunz: The Duel (A free third-person shooter by some Korean company)
Flyff (a mediocre RPG also by some Korean company)
Maple Story (Two words? Another MMO by another Korean Company)
Gunbound (Guess what? Another Korean game by yet another Korean Company)
Capman (A Pacman like game with guns that's rotting on my hard drive)
X-evil (A violent, drug-using, not-good-for-the-kids sidescrolling shooter set in Hell that is also rotting on my hard drive)
Meteor and Meteor 2 (Two top-down shooters that I couldn't give you links to even if I wanted to, they're so obscure)
And various Flash games like Newgrounds Rumble (I love these parentheses :D)

And I plan on trying Soldier Front. In fact, I think I'll do it right now!

[v.dog]

>> Spheres of Chaos (http://www.spheresofchaos.com/p/download.php) <<I remember playing an early version of that (or an other game just like it) in high school! *goes off to drown in a pool of nostalgia*

My latest find is a Sentinel remake called Zenith (http://johnvalentine.co.uk/d00014.html). It's much easier to control the game with mouselook and zoom.

[v.dog]

I can't believe I didn't mention Narbacular Drop (http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/narbaculardrop.html) in my first post. For those looking forward to Portal, this is the game that got it all started - Gabe saw the game and hired them on the spot.

There's also a list of fan-made maps (http://jeepbarnett.com/narbaculardrop/community/custommaps/) if you find the first game to short/easy/lacking in colour.

[501105]

Switchball was just released today good puzzle game and it looks really great too.

[godot]

Here is one I played a while back and was quite impressed: Mount&Blade (http://www.taleworlds.com/). Looks like they has since made even more improvements so I'll have to check it out again soon.
This game is great and very addictive. I've played it on and off for more than 2 years. The best $10 I've ever spent on a game, although the price is now around $22 for the 0.808 beta.

http://www.taleworlds.com/mb_ss/13.jpg

The graphics don't deliver much eye-candy, but no game I've ever tried has modelled both horseback riding and archery this well. But that doesn't mean the player is confined to mounted combat, nor bladed for that matter.

In brief, it's a single-player RPG with an FPS/TPS feel and adventure game elements set in a persistent, realistic (no magic), medieval sandbox. And don't miss out on the numerous projects listed in the modding forum. ...So easy to mod that even I could do it. ;)

Punchline: It's a mere 76 MB and can be downloaded for free and played as often as you like up to character level 6.

[gains]

RocketBowl (http://www.garagegames.com/products/58/#company) by Large Animal Games is a favorite of mine. It fulfills that love of 50's kitsch while throwing rocket boosted bowling balls around mini-golf shaped lanes.

I know the devs too, so I have to push it for their sake.