Even More Indie Games You Should Know
Posted by inpheaux on May 8th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Welcome to the first columnar edition of Indie Games You Should Know, our monthly collection of Independent Games we feel you should be made aware of. Indie Game Awareness is important, because while yes, there are zillions of commercial videogames out there begging for you to play them, they aren't generally free or cheap. And the ones that are free or cheap got to be that way by not having millions of dollars allocated for a massive ad campaign, so we get to do their advertising for them. Anyway, we've got four to discuss today, so lets jump right in.
Tremulous (Windows/Linux, Free, Open Source) - Tremulous is the first standalone game I know of to come out of the Quake III Sourcecode Release last fall. It started off as a mod, but once the source was out, they worked towards making it a whole standalone game since they could. After about seven months of work they finally released a stable standalone version at the end of March.
Enough about history, though. Tremulous is a class-based multiplayer FPS/RTS hybrid that pits teams of alien vs humans. Apart from running around and shooting eachother, members of both sides can build an assortment of buildings. Stuff like defensive turrets, power stations, supply generators, healing stations, etc. As you fight, you get cash, which can then be used to buy you new gear on the human side or count towards "evolutions" on the alien side. This kind of game has been done before, but not in a free standalone format. So while you're waiting for Natural Selection: Source to come out, check out Tremulous.
Shadowgrounds (Windows, $25, Demo Available) - Shadowgrounds is a third person shooter from a perspective you don't generally see: Top-Down. It's also the latest game to get a distro deal with Steam, so you may have seen it being pimped out in recent Steam news updates. In Shadowgrounds you play as some guy who runs around and shoots aliens in a rather mindless manner. Sometimes you have to go fix some computer terminal or find some key card, but it's mostly a straightforward arcade-y shooter where you don't have to worry about things like "complex strategy" or "ammunition running out". And there is nothing wrong with that. There's a three level demo available through Steam right now and the full game is being unlocked later today. You can get it through Steam for $25, or wait for physical copies to arrive in stores some time later this month for $30.
Now, it should be noted that even though this is a top-down shooter tied to Steam where you run around and shoot a bunch of alien critter things, this is not Alien Swarm: Infested. Alien Swarm: Infested is a completely different game, which I would be reporting about instead if they had a demo out.
Noitu Love and the Army of Grinning Darns (Windows, Free) - Would you like a side of oldschool beat-em-up with your shooters today? Noitu Love is that. It's a quirky little 2d beat-em-up, sorta like Double Dragon meets Mega Man. You run around as your little pixel-y self punching out Darns and collecting bottles and such. There's six levels, five difficulties, more unlockables than I can really list because I don't know how many there are, and a ton of great (loud) chiptune-y music. It's not a really complex game, and the increasingly difficult Darns get somewhat boring to pummel after awhile, but it's still a great effort worth a couple minutes of your time.
Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 (Mature Audiences only for so much animated gore and nudity, and references you young'uns wouldn't get anyway) - I'm . . not entirely sure how to describe this. First, it is not a game. However, it is close. It's a twelve-minute work of machinima, but instead of being film using a game engine as its base, it's a film that looks, feels and works like a classic arcade beat-em-up would. It's also the most senselessly violent thing I've ever seen in black & white. Which is good.
As I said, it's heavily influenced by beat-em-up's of the late 80's and early 90's. You know, those colossal multi-monitor 8 player beasts like The Simpsons arcade game, or the huge multiplayer X-men game. The silent film follows the two protagonists as they fight their way through hordes of zombies and Metal-Slug-inspired octopi, unleashing special moves, fighting bosses, killing octopi dressed as Chun-Li, standard hero stuff. The 12 minute ordeal eventually culminates in an epic battle vs Pirate Baby, who has apparently stolen some random girl off the street.
I'm really not sure what all else to say about Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006, except that it really deserves to be seen. It's like a speed run video of the best game never made. And on top of all that, it was all animated by hand by one guy - Paul Robertson - and it took him about a year to complete it. Oh, and if for some reason you'd like to see it in better quality than what Google provides, check out his blog posting announcing the online version, it has higher-quality mirrors listed.
So, that's all I've got for now. We may have a special post-E3 edition if we somehow come across some indie developers who scraped together enough cash to have a cardboard box in Kentia Hall. . . but if we don't, then expect our next installment in June: Gamera vs. Indie Games You Should Know.
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