Maddox's Indie Game Addictions of the Week (MIGAW) #2

Procrastination. That's why this is a day late. I apologize for any inconvenience if any of our 2 or 3 devotees are agitated in any way. 

#3: Enviro-Bear 2000

Tig Source hosted a cockpit game competition a few weeks ago and this hilariously fun little game by Cracker

blocks came out the winner. In it, you assume control of a car-driving bear who is vehicully hunting for fish and berries so he can fattern up before hibernation. The game is controlled by using the mouse pointer to control the bear's every move, be it pressing the gas/brake pedal, spinning the steering wheel, or throwing an angry badger out the window to give a few examples. Controlling the car is very difficult but that's what makes the game so fun: feeling as terrible and clueless at                                                                             driving as a real bear. Pick this one up here.

Final Grade: B

#2: Today I Die

This digital toy is a little more on the artsy side but I found myself enjoying it. I can't say too much about this game because the point of playing it is finding your own interpretation and figuring out how the different game elements interact with each other. Play it here. This game is by Ludomancy which has some other wonderful experimental games.

Final Grade: B

Image from here

#1: Spewer

The latest major release from Edmund Mcmillan (of Meat Boy fame), Spewer is a liquid-physics puzzler where you can control a cute, little, pink, ball creature whose MO is eating, spewing and swimming through his own vomit to get to the respective exits of many examination rooms. It's a lot less gross than it sounds. To mix things up, there are different types of vomit at your disposal: the white bile, for example, floats like a cloud which you can then use a liquid platform. There's a lot of challenge and content here but your patience and commitment will be rewarded. Play it here but be warned: as this game is heavily physics based, you will need a fairly decent computer to run it. Expect my full review of Spewer and last week's MIGAW winner, Glumbuster, in the near future.

Final Grade: A-

Image from here

So it goes,

Maddox

Maddox's Indie Game Addictions of the Week (MIGAW) #1

I figured a little weekly, listed feature (everyone loves lists!) would spice things up, so every Sunday I will post my favorite 2 or (hopefully) 3  free indie games of the week. 

OK, enough talkin - It's business time.

#3: Pandaland

Pandaland is very simplistic retro-platformer that puts you in the knee-high socks and headband of some hipster girl as she travels through 4 subrban locales, throwing cherries at enemy-hipsters and collecting iPods, pizzas, ice cream cones, and other random crap to increase your score and "pepp." As their site is in German (i think) I have know idea why the developers named it "Pandaland". If you know why, help a brother out and share this incredibly valuable info with me. The game is fun and has a great nostalgic, NES feel to it. The chiptune soundtrack is killer too. Download it here.

#2: Paper Moon

Great game! 

If you want to know (probably too much) more about it, read my review.

Check this one out at Blurst.

#1: Glumbuster

I don't wanna say too much about Glumbuster other than that it epitomizes what makes indie adventure gaming wonderful: unique gameplay, heavy emphasis on exploration, non-traditional storytelling, beautifully rendered, hand-drawn environments and so much more. You need to play this game, period. 

Even better than making the game completely free, game creator, Cosmind, has made this game charity-ware. That is, all voluntary payment for this game goes directly to charity.                                                                             Bravo, sir.

Download it here and stay tuned because I will be posting a full review of this superb gaming experience sometime this week. Thanks for reading.

So it goes,

Maddox

Game Review: Paper Moon

Released on May 1st, Paper Moon is a new, free-to-play indie platformer from Infinite Ammo, Adam Saltsman & Flashbang Studios and can be played exlusively on the relatively new (and might I add awesome!) gaming site, Blurst. 

Story:

The game puts you in control of a nameless protagonist as he journeys through a unique and beautifully rendered, pop-up-book-esque world to reunite with his lost (dead?) lover...i think. Well, the story is pretty much irrevelant as the meat of the enjoyment in this game comes from its gameplay and presentation. That's not to say that there is no attempt to bring a little lore into the game: between each level there are bite-sized poems that express the hero's sorrow of being without his lover. These are nice but they don't really add to or detract from the overall experience.

Gameplay:

From a gameplay standpoint, Paper Moon is almost a cookie-cutter platformer: You use the arrow keys or WASD to make your character move and/or jump with the general goal of making it from the left side of the level to the right before time runs out. I say "almost" because there is one thing that sets this game apart: the ability to for you, the player, to manipulate the game world itself to aid our hero in his quest. It's very difficult for me to explain in writing but here's how it works: there are several layers of parallax used in the rendering of each level and each layer is only two-dimensional (Up-down and Left-right); there's the main layer in which your character and enemies exist; there are completely cosmetic background layers which serve no purpose other than aesthetics; and, most importantly, there are two layers directly behind and directly in front of the main layer which you, the player, manipulate. A simple press of the spacebar moves or "pops", as the game puts it, certain objects from the immediate background and/or foreground  into the main layer, killing enemies, making new platforms, and opening up new paths. This playful toying with 3-dimensions in what seems like a strictly 2-dimensional game works wonderfully and makes for a very compelling experience.

Like every game hosted on Blurst, Paper Moon is score-based and has limited play-time sessions. You earn points primarily by grabbing coi- I mean fruit and killing enemies. There is a combo system in place so grab those bananas and apples as quickly as you can! Also, you only have five minutes to complete all 3 levels of the journey but there are clocks hidden throughout the game that will turn back the hands of the inexplicable, ominous doomclock if you are so lucky as to find them. And that reminds me of my only minor tift with the game: all this collection combo and time limit stuff makes the game more frantic than it should be. This is a game that should be savored and not scarfed down for the sake of earning trivial digital numbers. It's like trying to blend and market filet mignon as a soft drink.

It is also worth mentioning that there are multiple paths to be taken...sort of; the first level and last level are always the same but, depending on where you finish the first level, there are 3 possible middle levels to find and play. Although I don't dislike this approach, I would have like to have seen a bonus mode where you can play all 5 levels back-to-back with a longer or no time limit (savory mode).

Graphics and Audio:

The audio-visual department is where the game truly excels. The black and white paper-cutout style is spot-on and a joy to witness. The background music is a minamalist almost-piano-only composition that reminds me of silent films, matching the style of the game perfectly. This is one of those cases where the game feels more complete and just makes more sense if you have its music going whilst playing.

Final Thoughts:

Paper Moon is a very fun, beautifully aesthetic and original game that gets bogged down slightly too often by making the player feel too rushed to truly enjoy it. In the future (a sequal perhaps), I would love to see a more fully fleshed-out adventure with more levels and features, using the same wonderful mechanics but without the franticism of the doomclock or the score non-sense. 

Play it, enjoy it, and tell us what YOU think about it.

Final Grade: A-

So it goes,

Maddox

Picture from here

Game Review: Toxic Sonic Zombie Massacre

News to me and to probably most of you, Toxic Sonic is punk rock band from France.  And guess what: the trio now star in their very own zombie game! Exciting, right?!?! right...it killed me a little inside to appear that excited over this. Alright, let's get this party started.

Toxic Sonic Zombie Massacre is a short, 2D, browser-based, action platformer by internet jack of all trades, Manning Leonard Krull. In it, you take control of the self-proclaimed badass trio, Incinerator, Putrida & Necros, as they travel across an 8-bit, post-apocalyptic Paris which is stylishly rendered tri-chromatically in black, white, and of course, red. Using their guitar, drumsticks, and what appears to be perfume, you'll smash, bludgeon and...spray any and every zombie that stands between them and the right side of the screen. The nominal "depth" comes into play when you realize that each chracter has a special ability and that only one of them can be actively controlled at a time. I won't get into the details of said abilities because a chunk of the fun comes from figuring out which character to use and when. The game is score-based and high-scorers get a free mp3 download of one of the band's tracks. SCORE! not

I have only one complaint about the entire experience: The absolutely abysmal background noise that some people call "music." The game only consists of one level and through out this entire level is the same, repetitive, obnoxious, palm-muted-power-chord-ridden punk rock track. I'd honestly rather scrape my teeth across a chalkboard before hearing that song again. 

I would say that, overall, this game provides an enojoyable, albeit short-lived experience that'll keep you distracted for a good 10-15 minutes. Check it out here and feel free to let us know what you think of it in our comments. We would love to hear your opinion!

Final Grade: B -

So it goes,

Maddox

Picture from here