Xbox Indie Games Recap: Dawn of a New Era

This week thing have begun to get rather exciting in the world of Indie Games, not least because Japanese games have started to emerge, moonspeak titles and all. A huge thanks to the lovely Atheistium of Viera.nu for her help deciphering the titles.

Also new this week is the ability for developers of Indie Games to send out tokens for their games, hopefully to sexy game reviewers such as ourselves. This ties in with some other work we’ve been doing backstage that should result in us bringing you full NG reviews of Indie Games. Now, on with this week’s recap.

Gum Drop Celestial Frontier
Mechaghost – 200 Points
Usually on iGames the genre tag shooter means tedium ahead, this however isn’t a shooter at all. The idea is to use what is effectively a wrecking ball to smash up enemies attacking a mining base. The ball can be thrown around, enemies can be grabbed and used instead of the ball (or just to keep them still) or new weapons can be formed by getting asteroids to the base. A surprisingly deep game here with a swinging mechanic that for once, works quite well. Can get insanely frustrating though.

Crescendo Symphony
Nakfiv – 240 Points

Ooh, 240. New price point action for this side scrolling shooter. Now usually side scrolling shooter on XNA means uninspired space shooter with no challenge. However this is Japanese and while that sounds horribly weeabooish know that all the best shooters like this are Japanese. So rather than dull single shot shooting with stock graphics we get some rather excellent character and enemy designs and proper movement patterns. Unfortunately a looping level set which gets slightly harder each time make this purely a high score run rather than a struggle to the finish and therefore, loses a lot of the appeal for me.

Shopping Crazy
Flying Pig Game Studio – 200 Points

It’s Rush Hour, or any other of the numerous variations on the sliding blocks to get a block out puzzles. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the puzzle style though, and I do very much like the story mode which goes through a series of comics chronicling an eventful day of shopping for the Smith family. It’s just very hard to recommend something like this.

Then My Love
Nakfiv – 240 Points

I’m sorry, I can’t give you an opinion on this. It’s basically the first part of a series of stories I would guess revolve around that girl up there but as it’s all in Japanese I have no idea what’s going on. However just skipping text I made it all the way to the end before the XNA timer stopped me. If you can read Japanese then have a look, but it’s impenetrable for everyone else.

(If you speak Japanese)

Skwug
JeremyVerchick48 – 200 Points

Skwug is a very simple and basic little platformer where the main focus in on your character’s ability to teleport around levels to avoid spike pits or laser beams. It’s a nice idea but the level design is way too focused on leaps of faith and pixel perfect jumps for me to recommend.

XNcAve
SFLM – 200 Points

Once more we head to the flash game Chopper for inspiration. Hold right trigger to go up, release it to go down and avoid all the blocks. It’s simple, clean and boring. The addition of screen shaking earthquakes only serves to make the game more annoying.

Space Math
Hotshot 10101 – 200 Points

Dear Hotshot 10101, die in a fire. This is the 5th of the identical Math games this guy keeps doing.

Game Training Vol. 2: Flight
Justin le Clair – 200 Points

You may remember I didn’t exactly crow from the rooftops over Game Training Vol. 1 but this is a huge improvement. A full 3D flight trainer with quite a few different objectives ranging from Pilotwings style ring flying to surprisingly decent drone shooting. Manages to give me new interest in this series and a fun little flying game.

The Periodic Table
Wiley – 200 Points

Here is the Wikipedia article on the Periodic Table. I just saved you 200 Points. Seriously, it really is just that.

Drop Zone
North West – 80 Points

It’s a cannon shooting game not unlike a rapid-fire Missile Command only instead of missiles you’re shooting down helicopters and paratroopers. Also you don’t have full control over your gun and it’s not fun in the slightest.

Lord Ownage and the Thoroughly UnBritish Invasion
M00nkeh – 400 Points

If you’re a fan of anti-Europe propaganda and slightly offensive British stereotypes and want them mixed in with a very awkward and clunky cross between Bust A Move and Space Invaders then this is your game. Everyone else, stay well away.

Who Did I Date Last Night
North West – 80 Points

It’s basically Guess Who, you’re given a load of girls to look at and a bunch of clues to figure out which one you went out with last night. It’s a decent basic idea but the clues are so vague and subjective (“I think she likes nature” being one) that it’s nearly impossible to get any kind of solid reading from the photos. An example of a decent idea executed very poorly.

Horn Swaggle Island
Beringela – 400 Points

NJ note: We got sent a token for this game so a full NG review is incoming, until then here are Wardrox’s thoughts on the trial.

The game is a fairly generic tower defence game themed around pirates. You have to build and upgrade cannons to stop the pirates going from the green flags to the red ones. The game has a rather nice tutorial, even if it’s more a teach by showing, rather than teach by doing approach. The presentation is surprisingly nice and I can see some lasting appeal with it.

Heavy Payload
William Ulrich – 400 Points

Oh goody, an uninspired dual stick shooter. Please guys, if you’re going to do a shooter then at least try and make it stand out.

Ghastly Ghouls
Simiansoup – 80 Points

Dodging meanies and grabbing goodies when they show up, there’s not much else to it. It has some nice artwork, but the gameplay is about as dull as it gets.

Spaceman
Buddrick – 240 Points

This is a bit more interesting, create blocks and lay bombs to make your way through the levels while collecting points and the key to open the exit door. It’s clunky and often extremely frustrating, but there is fun to be had here if you’re willing to persevere.

Digital Art Gallery: Callad
North Squard – 80 Points

I think I’ve realised the potential point for these Art Gallery collections on here, until now they’ve been generic collections under generic themes but this is all one person’s work. I personally think it’s quite good but obviously your artistic opinion may differ. Have a look and if you like it I think it’s well worth 80 points to support an artist.

So that’s it for now, a big shiny game of the week trophy goes to Game Training Vol 2 which honestly surprises me, I wasn’t expecting much from that series after the dire first volume. Until next week then here’s what seems to be an endlessly lengthening ending bit.

If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then feel free to send us a token, every game we get a token for will get £250 a full NG Review as well as their bit in the recap. If you want to get in on the XNA action yourself then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab.