Directional Pad

Indie Games You Should Know

Ah, the often-overlooked indie game scene. Sure, a lot of the stuff it churns out isn't worth downloading, but sometimes you find stuff that's just AMAZING. So here's a short list of some recent (and not so recent) stuff I've come across that I can't stop talking about.

Cave Story [aka Doukutsu Monogatari] - Cave Story is a side-scrolling exploratory-platformer (you know, like Metroid, Castlevania, etc.) for the PC, developed by one-man-army 'Pixel'. It's a really really wonderful game that looks like it just rode a time machine straight out of the 16-bit era. It was initially released in japanese, but has since been translated by awesome guys over at agtp. Both the game and the translation patch languished in my temp directory for several months, and ever since I finally got around to installing it I've felt compelled to show it to anyone who will listen long enough.

Really, though. It's a great game, several weapons, several endings, several pathways to play through the game, all which add together to result in a really fun game with a ton of replayability. So go check it out. The game and the translation patch are both available from agtp's translation page.

Gunroar - Every few months I make a point to stop by ABA Games, hoping that some great new shooter will have been released. Well, last month I was pleased to be greeted by exactly that, a new great shooter. ABA Games is known for churning out free indie shooters like there's no tomorrow (see: rRootage, Noiz2sa, Torus Trooper, etc.), but Gunroar is a bit different in that you have more free movement and the ability to shoot independent of the direction you're moving. It really requires dual-analog to truly appreciate, but you all have PS2 -> USB converters, right?

Definitely Not Lumines - It's . . well . . it's the wonderful PSP game Lumines, but ported to PC by some guy in China. Please don't tell Sony. While it isn't an exact replica, it's the closest we've got right now, and it's still pretty good. wasd for movement, j and k to rotate blocks, o to accept in the menu, i to toggle music and p to pause.

Eetz - I'll admit it, I read Penny Arcade. I enjoy it sometimes, too. Sometimes I even read the news. Luckily, on one of these recent trips to their frontpage I was presented with a shameless plug for Eetz, and was informed that it was "like Lemmings meets the Incredible Machine". How can you really turn that down? Only downside: it isn't a full game yet, just a ~10 level preview. Even then, it's under 50 megs, it's free, it's innovative, and it's really rather fun. . . so what exactly do you want?

So, that's my backlog of stuff I felt I needed to get Out There, more will obviously be coming, but since this is the indie game scene, who knows when.

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