Indie game tips

Got myself Thomas was Alone and Starseed Pilgrim. Haven't gotten that far yet. Pretty good so far, but I'll get back about them later.
 
I bought "Reus" yesterday - and the next time I checked the clock, it was 0400.


The game is a strange genre blend. The easiest way to describe it for me is "Elemental Tower Defence" from Warcraft 3 meets Populus. Some sort of "godgame puzzler".

So what is the game about?
Well, you find yourself on a barren world where 4 primal giants just have awaken from their slumber. The map itself is some sort of half-sliced planet from a sideway view where you can zoom in at will and rotate along the surface. It consists of a certain number of "plots" or "panels" and your goal is to influence those plots to call fourth and sustain life on the planet.

Each giant has a set of special abilities. For example, the ocean giant (a big crab), can lower land to create ocean which causes the barren land left and right from it to become wet. Then you can use your forest giant (a monkey-like being) to create a forest on that wet land or you can use the swamp giant (a big blob-like creature) to create a swamp. Or you use the stone giant to create a mountain somwhere and the land left and right of the mountain will become a desert.

So, now you have terraformed the world a bit and it is time to influence the plots. The giant crab has a "create animals" ability, that will summon animals on a plot, while the forest giant can create plant life and the swamp giant can summon exotic animals and herbs. The stone giant on the other hand has the ability to create different kinds of mines. The trick is that each plot can only contain a single "terrain feature" and the sort of feature depends on the biome. For example, animals in forest are "rabbits", while in ocean they become "mackerels".

Each improvement bestows different benefits on the tile. In general there are 3 ressources (food, wealth, science) and a special value called "natura", which seems to be some sort of ecological balance/power ratio (it can amplify certain tiles and effects). So once you have influenced the first few patches, humans will settle down and create a small city. Now your job is to carefully grow these city and help them complete building projects that will pop-up from time to time and require a certain ressource combination within the city expansion radius. The type of project is tied to the ressources available (e.g. granary with many food ressources + plants in the surrounding) and each project bestows a certain bonus on the city (granary -> more food production from animal or plant tiles).

So your goal is to create many settlements, let them grow and fullfil their projects. On the one hand, you will receive score points (called "prosperity" -> the combined amount of food/wealth/science) that can unlock new stuff for your next game, on the other hand each completed project will create an "ambassador", who can be used to unlock or upgrade your giants abilities.

This is relevant for the second aspect of the game: Each giant has additional abilites. Some are like "enchantments" that boost the output of a tile in a certain way, others allow you to perform new special actions (like moonsoon -> create a fertility boost on several plots at once). But here is the twist: Not only are these "enchantments" used to boost the plot feature, they also allow you to "evolve" it into something else. For example, a plant tile in a forest is a "blue berries". When enhanced with the "leaf" aspect of the forest giant, you can turn them into "strawberries".

The catch? Blue berries get +10 food when next to straw berries. Strawberries get +3 food next to blue berries and +5 awe next to other strawberries. So you have to carefully combine all the plots to use their synergies to maximize plot outputs. You have to puzzle around and figure out which combinations are best suited for your town. And there are 3 different tiers and 2 different sizes (normal/large) for each feature, so there are countless ways to combine stuff. And the game makes a great job to prevent "first order strategies" by assigning each town and each project a random benefit to constantly change the rule what is "best".

And there is more: If you create to many ressources and the towns grow to fast, they become greedy and/or warmongers. As greed rises, the people will start to demand more from your giants (you can see them hopping around in front of them with empty baskets) or they even attack them to subdue them to their will. So what to do? Well, you can destroy the town by using the ocean crab or the stone giant to terraform the plots - or you use mudbombs and earthquakes to show the impertinent bunch their place. Warmongers are a different breed - these guys attack other cities and try to loot and destroy them. But there is yet another twist: Some achievements and projects require you to have cities that won a certain number of wars. For example: Barracks requiere some food, some wealth and at least one victory in war.

This review is already way more detailed than it was supposed to be, so let me wrap it up: After a certain time has passed, your giants will fall asleep again and the game ends. But: This not just a simple countdown and "the end" screen. Instead you have a 1 minute grace period where they start to slumber away randomly, so with some luck you can use your forest giant to create a few more plants that boost your final score. Once the game is over, stuff will unlock for completing certain objectives. With enough objectives unlocked, you can reach a higher level, which will unlock longer playtime (you can play 30, 60 and 120 minutes).

One last thing: The graphics and animations are BEAUTIFUL! Lovely and full of detail, with a fidelity you rarely see in indie games.

In short: This is an amazing game for a 10€ price tag. If you liked Elemental TD from Warcraft 3, godgames and/or puzzle games, you HAVE to check this game out!
 
Kinetic Void looks interesting. Space exploration, procedurally generated universe and planets, KSP'esque spacecraft builder. The first alpha was realeased not long ago. Looks good for 18.99€, definitely on my watch list. Anyone tried it?

PS. I'm up for a DF succession. :D

A whole lot of promises and not much delivered means I'll wait this one out until it has more content. I made that mistake a year ago with Thrust Vector and it's barely developed in that time.

Check out this game I just found

You're a hunter in a land full of dinosaurs and have to survive by hunting, creating tools, forming tribes, etc. This looks very promising!

That is beautiful. Keeping my ears open :)
 
Papers, Please is good fun for such primitive graphics. :)
 
I see Bastion was mentioned a couple times. Currently playing through it. The proving ground challenges are fun and really quite challenging. The main game is a tad easy but the graphical style is great. The music is awesome. The kid seems a like jerky when he moves though. Also published by WB kind of hurts its "indieness" in my eyes.
 
World of Goo was fun for a few hours, then I lost interest. Not really sure why though. I think I hit a level I couldn't beat and just stopped playing.
 
Space Pirates and Zombies is on steam sale this weekend for $2. You can play it for free this weekend too.
 
Played through Thomas was Alone and tried out Starseed Pilgrim for a few hours, a while ago. SP didn't manage to draw me in. TwA is a well done, well narrated, kind of cute game. Not very fun though, gameplaywise. Might be worth a purchase if it's cheap.


I'll probably get Spelunky off steam in a few hours. Looks great. Anyone played it?
 
Regarding the game "Reus" which was mentioned here:

It appears it is some sort of mimetic game of the Black and White games, which also were something like Populus while including giant god-creatures.



Never played them. They seemed quite ludicrous :D
 
Yeah, I think the dev may have pointed it out too when he posted about it here. Its not like its a secret or hidden.

Populous, Black & White, both series had good games. Nothing to do with Byzantium though, so I guess you won't be playing them :p (I kid, I kid!).
 
Reus' gameplay is nothing at all like that of Black and White. Reus is a tile-synergy puzzler, in which you're trying to find combinations of tiles that work together well to complete project challenges and boost the prosperity of villages. The story hook by which each game hangs is using super-powered creatures to boost the prosperity of villages, but when actually playing you'll see basically no similarity.
 
The last indie I played was AaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaA!!!... For the Awesome!, which is an interesting "game" consisting of jumping from futuristic buildings and collecting points before deploying a chute to land on a specific circle. So it's like 1/6 of the original Pilot Wings. Today it stands as more as an ill released novelty tech demo.




When [obnoxious game title] was released I think it was mostly ignored, aside from being featured on Steams Potato Sack Indie Collection. The game becomes repetitive quickly. Whatever challenge it presents is hidden away under a lot of badly placed cleverness. For each level you pass you earn "Teeth". With this unusual currency you can purchase levels from what appears to be some sort of futuristic tv show. It also doesn't help that all levels last about 2 minutes tops, with some levels being even shorter, so a lot of game time is spent on menus, awkwardly unlocking levels and whatnot.



However the game has gained notoriety by being compatible with the Occulus Rift. Many of the games that shine the most with the new virtual reality device seem to be those that put you in a particular brief experience (such as being beheaded). So [this title] has an audience, which is whoever owns one of those things, since apparently is awesome with an Occulus Rift.
 
Yeah, I think the dev may have pointed it out too when he posted about it here. Its not like its a secret or hidden.

Populous, Black & White, both series had good games. Nothing to do with Byzantium though, so I guess you won't be playing them :p (I kid, I kid!).

:)

Well, Populous II had roman-looking buildings iirc. Used to play that in the Amiga, although it seemed boring next to the other somewhat similar games like Utopia or Megalomania. Its interface limited the view of the screen to a tiny part at any moment, which was a negative as well :/ (no zoom in/out if i recall correctly)
 
I tried using my xbox controller for bastion on pc and wow, I think maybe the keyboard controls were holding this game back a little. It's much more enjoyable with a gamepad, it just has a better feel. Some say it's reminiscent of a zelda game but I get more of an arcade hack n slash like gauntlet legends or something. I used to be not that impressed with the game but I think I'm coming around now.
 
Bought The Stanley Parable - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-10-17-the-stanley-parable-review - basically on a whim. Have never heard about it before, but it's gotten great reviews.

It's interesting, very well written and narrated. Really funny at times and I like it. Have put 75 min into it and it's a fun and interesting story that I've got out of it. I think it was under 10€ and Portal is the closest thing to it, if I were to compare it to something. Without the much of the logic puzzles. Not sure if I'll play it any more, but I had a good time in it at least.

There's a demo I recommend checking out.
 
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