Indie game tips

[GAGA Extrem]

The difficulty difference between Easy <-> Normal is pretty big.
I have played on Easy to unlock all the type C ships - and now that I am back to normal I get my ship handed to me.

I think the early game is the thing that can be really frustrating. On easy you can deal with most ships pretty easily, but on normal a single good enemy can completely screw you over. My last game ended with the 3rd encounter near a supernova where my ship was fully disabled and then slowly destroyed. :/

 

[civvver]

I remember on normal running into a 2 shield ship in the first sector once and not having enough weapons to get through. I think I ran into a 3 shield ship on sector 3 or 4 before on normal also. Stopped playing normal after that lol. I'll try those levels once I unlock all the ships. But the ftl forum goers swear then can win at least 8/10 tries on hard with any ship save for a couple layouts, so there must be some consistent strategy to it.

I'm on to the Nisios (the stealth cruiser guy) now. Gotta unlock the B layout and get wins on A and B for the crystal cruiser. I feel like it's going to be very hard. Also the rock ship achievements seem difficult and I need to unlock the type B there.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

.. And the battery can let you power some advanced drones like a defense 2 and a regular defense when the super weapons fire.

Some of the new events make the game much easier too, seems like there is more good stuff. I've gotten the rebel flagship construction event I think 3 times now, check it out on the wiki, it's 5 of everything plus high scrap and a weapon.

I think people might be right, the advanced version is a tad easy, but I'm still not ready to jump to normal mode. I like winning most games.

I didn't know that you could increase the total power output on a single system with the battery. This makes it much more interesting

I've found the rebel construction yard by chance earlier. These random events are great and I hope they continue to flesh the game out more. It's really a terrific concept.

I've beaten it a few times on normal, before. Maybe it's time to try it out some more.



I've mostly played Plague Inc the recent weeks. A decent title so far, not more. It feels to linear atm and doesn't have enough randomness or lore to make each individual game feel different. Right now it's the same tactic each time and it seems to work fine. It's an interesting idea that needs more thought in the game mechanic.

 

[civvver]

I don't quite understand what you mean with increase the total power output on a single system. You can't increase the cap, the empty bars, without upgrading the system with scrap. But what you can do is put all your available power into maxing engines and shields and then when you need defense drones pop battery and power those up. A huge limitation in the game is power usage obviously, you generally have to sacrifice level 4 shields or a couple points in engines or not have full weapons or not have full drones, usually 1 or 2 of those. Battery lets you circumvent that pretty easily cus it lasts a really long time. Like in my example, a defense 2 costs 3 power and a defense drone 2 power, that's a lot of power to sink into drones, I doubt you will be able to power 7 to 8 of weapons and have full shields without battery there.

I actually don't understand some of the games perceived value of weapons. For example, dual lasers cost 25 scrap, I don't think you can actually buy them but some of your ships start with them and you can sell them for 12 scrap. The tooltip says something like weak weapon for those who can't afford better. But the dual lasers are really freakin good! They take 1 power for 2 shots on a short 10 second cooldown! For example a burst laser fires twice at 11 seconds and costs 2 power. It's a terrible weapon power wise. A burst laser 2 is one of my go to weapons and it first 3 shots for 2 power. Burst laser 3 I actually stay away from because it's so expensive, 4 power for five shots, not a very good trade off power wise. One of my best run throughs actually was final weapon setup of two burst laser 2s and my dual laser I started with. Plenty of shots to get through boss shielding and only cost me 5 power leaving me tons to put into engines and drones.

Charge laser 4 is another one, takes 20 seconds to get to four charges and costs 3 power. So it fires at the same rate as a dual laser and costs triple power. Pretty dumb.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Ok, my mistake. Could have been interesting to boost the cap for a short while.


Yup, dual lasers are great regardless of the describing text. Some are flat out better than others. I like trying out different combinations. Pegasus missiles are pretty nice too.

 

[civvver]

Yup, and that's what's great about the advanced edition, all the new possible combos, half made possibly simply because of hacking drone (although it's really hard to land a hack on the 2nd boss phase cus of that stupid defense drone). I've won games with burst lasers, vulcan's, only missiles, combos of missiles and lasers, nearly all drones (the combat 2 drone is super effective). Only thing I haven't really done yet is primarily breams. The glaive beam is such a long charge time it kind of turns me off.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

If you get the Pre-igniter augment early, beams can be terrific, but still as secondary weapons, or in combination with hack or similar. The problem with beams is that you're forced to get their shields down, temporarily at least, and time the beams when they're down.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Finished:
The Swapper - 5 hours to finish the game without any achievements, which I managed to do. Good game and atmosphere. Some frustrating puzzles but all solvable.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - 3 hours to play through. Shouldn't be spoilt before playing. I wouldn't say it's a great game, just worth playing through once to experience it. I liked it and recommend it for a few bucks.

 

[civvver]

I don't think I mentioned Capsized. Finished that one a few weeks ago. I liked the graphic styles, the gameplay mechanics, but it was incredibly short and seemed repetitive even with very few levels. Only a couple levels near the end stood out.

Brothers frightens me because the reviews remind me so much of To The Moon. They all say short game, play it for the story, amazing story. To the moon reviewers said the same thing and I hated that game. I know they're totally different games but any game that I'm supposed to experience for the story kind of scares me off, unless it's a telltale game.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

You shouldn't believe the hype about the story. It's easy gameplay where you progress through the story without much hinders. It won't change your life, just worth three hours to experience something new. I think it's an interesting game, not sure I want to say more. Very well done. It's a short saga, a bit disney-like. Don't read about it. Just get it on sale if you can spare a few dollars.

 

[civvver]

Figures. It strikes me that the reviewers who hype up these stories and the emotional journey they got taken on don't ever read, or even watch good movies for that matter.

 

[scheva007]

The swapper is pretty neat, altough i didnt care at all about spacestuff.

Playing Lyne, loads of puzzles, nice braintraining

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Figures. It strikes me that the reviewers who hype up these stories and the emotional journey they got taken on don't ever read, or even watch good movies for that matter.

I think that has something to do with being in different places in life and past experiences. It's easier to have an emotional journey as an 14-20-something playing a video game, than if you're somewhat older. That said, I do recommend playing Brothers because I think it's interesting enough to warrant a playthrough to the end.


I've also played Wolf Among Us ep 1-4: I look forward to the next episode and I enjoyed this setting more than The Walking Dead.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I watched Cry's Let's Play of Brothers instead of playing it (Cry's channel). I'd say it's worth watching. I wouldn't play it myself, and it seems relatively easy and boring and the control thing seems headache inducing for me. But it's true that the story had some emotional impact.

There are many games I watch LPs of instead of playing them...

 

[Loppan Torkel]

The thing is that it's a game that benefits from interaction. There's no way around this. I'd say "The Wolf Among Us" is a better game for watching on youtube, Brothers otoh needs to be played. The whole 3 hours. You can watch it, but you're missing out and I can't say more without spoiling it. It's not hugely important, just what makes the game interesting. My 2 cents...

 

[marlowe221]

Everyone should check out:

Steamworld Dig

Dust an Elysian Tale

Rogue Legacy

SPAZ

Torchlight (1 & 2)

 

[Rub'Rum]

The thing is that it's a game that benefits from interaction. There's no way around this. I'd say "The Wolf Among Us" is a better game for watching on youtube, Brothers otoh needs to be played. The whole 3 hours. You can watch it, but you're missing out and I can't say more without spoiling it. It's not hugely important, just what makes the game interesting. My 2 cents...

Yeah I understand exactly why actually having your hands on the controller seems important. It probably adds to it towards the end as you say. But with a decent LP with a person who is conveying the emotion properly I understood and got the impact I think. And for the record I also chose to just watch a Let's Play of Wolf Among Us... These kinds of games are probably the best for that indeed.

 

[cardgame]

As I said somewhere else, if you like SPAZ, you'll like Starsector.

It's superior in pretty much all the ways, imho. Except it's more sandbox, complete lack of story.

 

[civvver]

I have dust but I thought the combat was extremely boring and gave up on it after a couple hours. I always find it kind of odd, back in the day when I was like 12 side scrollers with the best games around. Sonic, mario, megaman, captain america and the avengers was one of my favorites, various versions of teenage mutant ninja turtles etc. Now when they come out, which dust is basically like a melee version of megaman with powerups all over etc, I find them usually quite dull. I'm not sure why cus they used to be the best to me.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I have dust but I thought the combat was extremely boring and gave up on it after a couple hours. I always find it kind of odd, back in the day when I was like 12 side scrollers with the best games around. Sonic, mario, megaman, captain america and the avengers was one of my favorites, various versions of teenage mutant ninja turtles etc. Now when they come out, which dust is basically like a melee version of megaman with powerups all over etc, I find them usually quite dull. I'm not sure why cus they used to be the best to me.

Have you tried Shovel Knight? It's getting great reviews. I'm holding off this one a while, but I'd like to hear if anyone has tried it.