For the last seven months I’ve played hundreds and hundreds of trials for games released on the Xbox Live Indie Games service. I’ve done this to draw attention to the good games and to ward you away from the crap. With that in mind I have to tell you this will be the last time you find this column on NG. I will be continuing the column elsewhere but this post can be considered my Negative Gamer swan song. My thanks naturally go out to the entire crew who’ve made my tenure here enjoyable and to everyone who’s read and commented on the posts. Knowing someone pays attention to my writing is a great thrill and I hope that’ll continue to the recaps’ new home. I won’t say where that is yet, I’ll leave it for my heartfelt final paragraph at the end of the article.

Until then though we have the small matter of some games to deal with. 12 in total, including one I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. For the last time then, let’s do some recapping.

Jumper Robot
Angel Z – 240 Points

Cute, clean and functional platforming was seemingly the brief for this week’s opener. Jumper Robot is a Johnny-5 lookalike in a very simple game that owes a great deal to the Mario games. Power-ups are sprung from blocks with question marks on by head-butting them, grabbing 100 of the game’s coin equivalent gets an extra life etc. However I’m not one for punishing people who copy a classic formula when they can turn out a good game and Jumper Robot is a good game. The demo level displays a calibre of level design rarely seen in XNA games. Enemies aren’t everywhere for the sake of things and deaths never feel unfair while power-ups are handed out with a nice regularity, even if they are just score boosts. This goes on a par with JUMP from the Arkedo Series as one of the worthwhile platformers on Indie Games.

Crisis Nuclear Holocaust
Silver Dollar Games – 80 Points

Just that developer name fills me with dread. The renamed North Squard have yet to provide me with a game worth even a quarter of a toss and this isn’t the game to do it. A lovely gimmick of a real person playing the villain AI is hampered by the sort of acting that would have disgraced Night Trap. The actual gameplay consists of reasoning with the AI to convince her not to destroy humanity while a clock ticks in the background. This has a chance of working, if ‘reasoning’ wasn’t just a matter of choosing the right response in order to avoid a horrible quick time event hacking sequence. These guys remain a name to be avoided.

Xmas Taxi
FifaKane – 80 Points

Did you play Astro Taxi a few weeks ago? Well if you did then you’ve played this. The level designs are different, there’s some snow scattered around and the taxi now has a hat on but otherwise it’s the same slightly distracting inertia-hell flying game in slightly different packaging. I don’t reward repackagings.

Aesop’s Garden
Excalibur Studios – 240 Points

Gameboy graphics and bleepy chiptune music provide the charm for this block pushing puzzler. Your character has to activate sprinklers to grow plants, then get rid of the weeds that grow with them in order to move from screen to screen with the levels getting progressively harder as you go. Some of the later levels I found challenged even me as a veteran of the block puzzler as new blocks are introduced. I’d say this is one of the best puzzlers I’ve played on XNA, the 240 point price tag might not convince everyone though.

Inside Lacrosse’s College Lacrosse 2010
Carlo Sunseri – 400 Points

Most indie games that I love are joyful accidents that I come across in the process of writing this recap every week. CL2010 however is one I’ve been looking forward to for months after a few posts on The ‘Tak got me nice and hyped for it. I’m extremely happy to report that the finished article has more than justified my excitement. The controls are nice and easy to pick up and the AI on the default setting manages to be challenging without being unfair. I got beat down pretty badly in my first few games but once I had a handle on basic lacrosse strategy (a skill taught by getting scored on time and time again) I began scoring more until I felt comfortable upping the difficulty. The game is pretty bare menu and mode wise, season and friendly are the only actual game modes though upgrade options and a create team mode help to disguise that. I’d say CL2010 is a very strong start for what will hopefully be a new sports franchise.

Wool
Milkstone Studios – 80 Points

Herding games have been rather more common that you might think in gaming. The delightfully odd PC game Sheep and the equally odd and delightful Herdy Gerdy on the PS2 showed us how fun guiding things around into a pen can be. Wool thankfully continues that proud tradition by following what I consider to be the two golden rules of game design. Build difficulty gradually and keep things simple. Your only objective at any one time is to get the sheep from one point to another and the various hazards are introduced one at a time without the levels feeling like tutorials. Another one for the ‘rather excellent’ pile this week I think, especially at 80 points.

The Earth Move With The Moon
Kosei Wada – 240 Points

It took me a little while to grasp the objective of this one as much like all Japanese XNA games the instructions are a little vague. The basic idea is to use your gravity as the Earth to guide the Moon from the start to the level to the finish, both moon and Earth needing to be in the goal area at the same time to clear the level. That’s the basic idea anyway, in practice I found it was much easier to ignore the unpredictable gravity and just bat the moon towards the goal and hope I got there at the same time. It’s a fairly poor situation when a game breaking thing like that becomes the easiest way to clear levels because the core concept is too hard to work with.

Marvelous Galaxy
Darix – 80 Points

We’ve seen turn based strategy tried and failed on XNA before because of bad controls and even worse tutorials. Then they were killed off by bad graphics and a complete lack of any reason to play them. Thankfully this one stops just short of the bad graphics bit as it has rather nice cartoony graphics. This alone got me to push through the initial confusion and get to a quite decent turn based strategy game with plenty of base capturing, stat balancing and commodity harvesting fun. You may not have the same patience as me but if you are willing to put the effort in there’s quite a decent game here for strategy fans.

Aardvark
Idiot – 240 Points

It’s Breakout/ Arkanoid/ Alleyway/ the same freaking bat and ball block breaking game we’ve played billions of times through flash and over XNA. The difference with this one is really that there’s no difference. It’s just a bat and ball which forces me to ask what the point is. We have excellent examples of the genre round here with genuine unique points, there’s no reason to have this here.

Neo Terra
Mechaghost – 80 Points

This one avoids the big major pitfall of XNA strategy by giving a very good tutorial, however it falls down on a rather large problem with the game itself. There’s no strategy here. The basic idea is to send ships out from your colour planets to opponent planets in order to control every planet on the map. What this really means is that you’ll select all your planets and send an armada of ships out to any planet that’s a different colour to you until you hold each one. I tried this strategy with multiple opponents and the strategy got a bit more complex due to me having to gang up on a single opponent to eliminate them one by one. So really this is a strategy game that requires no strategy, therefore there’s no fun or point to it.

A Killer’s Dream
Silver Dollar Games – 80 Points

Silver Dollar again. This time you’re watching a cut-scene looking for letters in order to spell out the name of the killer. I’m not joking, that’s all the is to it. It’s not scary, it’s just horrifically boring.

Catch22
TrackThisOut – 240 Points

The concept of Tetris but with blocks falling from all sides has been done before, most notably by the Tetris series itself on the DS. With that glory in my mind it’s hard to find much enjoyment in this game as all I seemed to have to do was to catch the blocks until the level timer filled up I would hope things would get a little big complex as the levels progress but from the trial I get none of that, which just makes it boring.

Game of the Week is unquestionably College Lacrosse 2010, I was hyped up for a fine videogame version of a hugely enjoyable sport and I wasn’t disappointed. If you don’t like lacrosse then at least try it, you may end up liking it.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then you can advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads or send us a review token for your game.

With that ladies and gentlemen, the Indie Game Recaps on Negative Gamer come to a close. It’s been both hugely enjoyable and teeth-wrenchingly frustrating but now I must leave you, at least from this site. The recaps will continue elsewhere, on my Community Blog over at Destructoid to be precise. Still on Mondays and hopefully maintaining the same vicious nature I’ve come to enjoy. Goodbye everyone, and buy more Indie Games.

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I’ve been a bit ill this week, so it was with slightly groggy joy that I noticed my wireless adapter worked without a fight when I sat down to play these games this week. Small victories are always nice. So anyway, we have nine games to deal with this week and I don’t have some grand speech to make beforehand. Straight down to business it is then, let’s roll.

Lemonade Ltd
Steve G – 80 Points

The American tradition of kids selling lemonade on the front lawn has always been something I love, and not just because I adore American lemonade. I think it’s cute and it’s capitalism from an early age. This game is essentially the little bit from the Theme Park games where you set the prices and stock levels. I like that bit, there’s plenty of room for fine tuning in order to maximise profits while trying to make sure people still buy stuff. The same rules apply here, you spend money to make advertising signs and the lemonade itself, set the price and watch as the glasses fly off the shelf. Other factors like the weather make things a bit more complex, fewer people will want lemonade on a cool or wet day for example. The 30 day time limit for leaderboard purposes is quite nice, forcing you to be ruthless to get the most cash. For some this may be a bit too shallow, but I found it quite engrossing and I’d be more than willing to spend 80 points on it.

Avatar Rockets
SniperED007 – 80 Points

The game boasts full avatar support, but I’d hardly call it Avatar support. Your Avatar just sits in the cockpit of the rocket and unless it had Avatar in the title I doubt you’d notice it. The game itself is more basic flash game nonsense, using a trigger and analogue stick to fly a rocket as high as possible before running out of fuel. There are variations on the theme for Xbox Live play but as usual random Live games will be impossible to find. Ultimately the whole thing is pretty boring, as most of the flash games on Indie Games are.

Armor Valley
Janelle – 400 Points

Now this is impressive, a full 3D shooter/RTS hybrid that somehow manages to do both equally well. The shooter overpowers the RTS but it’s a nice change when you can summon a mountain of tanks to deal with ground targets while you’re dogfighting the super-quick aerial units. Getting more money for getting closer to the enemy base is also a nice feature, rewarding you for risking your own hide in the heat of battle. The bewildering controller diagram shown over loading screens is quickly made sense of by the excellent tutorial level. The combination of loads of good ideas, a great tutorial and some rather excellent graphics make this a really worthy game.

Flytrap
Kiwasabi – 400 Points

Shooting enemies with a water gun isn’t something I’d expect a venus flytrap to do. Nor would I expect it to then suck up the soaked, stunned enemy Kirby style. The basic premise here of stunning and sucking is fine, what kills the game however is the lack of reason to progress other than play for longer. There’s no score or other sign of progression other than faster versions of the same enemies and that just left me not wanting to play after five or six levels.

Starfield Battle
DeadlyEvilRyu – 240 Points

If you wanted to see what Geometry Wars would be like with none of the fun then step right up because that’s what this is. A painfully dull and plain arena shooter with no unique selling point, no charm and no speed. It’s just slow and dull, with none of the fun graphical effects of music that make other arena shooters fun. There’s just no imagination or effort here, and that can’t be rewarded.

y0m_fury
Jojito – 80 Points

First thing that irritates me about this colour based Pac-Man clone is that being caught by the enemies initiates a quick time event. Press X To Not Die finally comes to pure bare-faced reality without apology. Normally this wouldn’t annoy me, I like the idea of being able to get out of a screw-up, but when there are 20 enemies in a small maze and they’re all moving faster than me it starts to become a truly game breaking problem. It practically becomes the game because you’ll be doing it so much, especially when so many of the mazes contain unavoidable dead-ends. No amount of colour play can help this mess of bad level design.

Kissy Poo
The ZMan – 80 Points

Okay, if you’re marketing a game to small kids (which this game is) then putting a message to buy the game up in the middle of the screen during gameplay is probably not a good idea. So I’m against it already for that, the basic idea of moving around to kiss sad animals happy is probably something that’ll keep the little kids giggly for a few minutes, but so will your keys. If you don’t have kids then leave it alone, if you do then get them to play the trial before you drop the cash.

Alderman
Idle Han – 240 Points

There are beautiful 3D games on the service, Armor Valley from earlier on is one good example. This however is not a 3D action adventure as it says in the description but a scrolling shooter viewed from behind your character. Unfortunately that makes shots hard to judge, especially when you can’t shoot further than your knight’s lance will extend. After that the usual XNA shooter problems kick in, it’s too easy, the collision detection is terrible and the whole thing feels like it was made in five minutes.

Ultimate Arcade Chat Rooms
Raining Talent – 80 Points

“Want to chat to random people over Xbox Live?” No of course you don’t, that’s what IRC is for. This is just basic text chat which you can already do for free on the PC you’re reading this article on. Use that and leave this clunky piece of rubbish to rot on the digital shelf. I seriously doubt there’ll be that many people to chat to on it anyway. Even if there are people on there, people on Xbox Live are dicks. Go check out the Negative Gamer IRC, we’re cool there.

Game of the Week is Armor Valley, I think some major name developers should check this out for some advice getting RTS-style shooters to work. Everyone else should just check it out because it’s a rollocking good game.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then you can advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads or send us a review token for your game.

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On a night with a full moon, I must offer it salt and vinegar Kettle Chips and bathe it in the blood drawn from a papercut. Then, and only then, will my Xbox 360 wireless adapter light turn green and allow me onto Xbox Live. This has become an issue and not just because I want to play games online. You see to play an Indie Game you need to be signed in to Xbox Live. Not just a trial or to download games, even Indie Games you’ve bought and paid for. This is something I feel has to be changed, I can play XBLA games and disc games offline but not Indie Games. I have to admit this hasn’t annoyed me until now, but I’ve become slightly addicted to last week’s Game of the Week SFG Soccer. I think it’s the first Indie Game I’ve added points just to buy and the stat building in the Career mode is becoming slightly addictive. I introduced it to my brother, who’s a FIFA nut but was raised on Sensible Soccer, and he loved it for its pure simplicity. So I’m extremely happy that this kind of sports game can work on XBLIG, now about College Lacrosse 2010….

We have eleven games to deal with this week including one game that I played in the Indie Arcade at Eurogamer last weekend. For more info on the other games I played there check out the post I wrote about it here.

Squid Yes! Not So Octopus!
Loafjaw – 80 Points

This game was in the Indie Arcade at Eurogamer Expo and I quite enjoyed it. It’s a very visually busy arena shooter (not dual stick) where the aim is purely to survive for eight minutes. Collecting gems and killing enemies will increase the score further past the eight so that the time bonus gives you up to a maximum score of nine. Awards (basically achievements) are in the game alongside options to play the game with autofire on for disabled people and even options to tone down the visual effects if you’re not into the whole Jeff Minter style eyefuck. I’m quite comfortable putting this alongside I MAED A GAME WITH ZOMBIES as one of my favourite XNA shooters. It knows what it does well and sticks to it, for once an 80 point game that doesn’t feel cheap.

Scare Me
WolRon – 80 Points

Just in time for Halloween last week is a miserable collection of minigames that can be tampered with to trigger unexpected scary things after a set time or by doing something. It’s basically a prank program that costs money and there are plenty of flash games around that’ll do the exact same thing for nothing. Pointless.

Lodestar 1000
BadRadish – 80 Points

Aww, a cute little robot mascot in a videogame? I can’t wait to see what imaginative little game this little guy’s creator has dreamt up for him. Oh wait, it’s another fucking Simon clone. Well that’s not fair, a Simon clone that also uses the analog sticks and the 360′s notoriously imprecise d-pad. So it’s Simon without the addictive simplicity.

Space Milkman
Smileboom – 240 Points

First things first, this is a very good looking game. It has tons of that ‘charm’ thing I keep banging on about whenever an XNA platformer comes around. Basically it’s a 2D platformer, you move left and right, jump and slide around enemies and obstacles to reach the level exit. What Space Milkman has as a unique selling point is coloured berries that give you new abilities. Using these in the right places is essential for finding all the hidden cakes around the levels and getting past the traps and enemies. These berries and their abilities are perfectly explained in the early levels as they’re introduced one by one. I’d probably call this the best platformer on Indie Games right now.

Antigrav Racing Championship
R3dDr4g0n – 400 Points

If I had to describe this game in one word it would be ambitious. R3dDr4g0n not only has a stupid name but also a bit of pedigree with XNA games, his first game Petank Party went all the way to the finals of Dream Build Play 2007 while he no doubt made loads of money from his rather less critically successful A Perfect Massage. So now he brings us a full 3D racing game in the Wipeout/F-Zero mould. It’s clear that a lot of work has gone into this from ship designs to tracks (of which there are 20) but for all it’s graphical prowess the game is let down by one major flaw. The lighter ships turn way too quickly and often buried me into a barrier, while the heavier ships barely turn at all resulting in an irrational fear of speed boosts. Once I had a handle on the game’s extremely loose handling, I found myself having quite a bit of fun. It takes a bit of effort to get into but if you’re willing to put in the effort then I think you’ll have the same fun I did.

Mirror
David Flook – 80 Points

The idea behind Mirror is that you have to guess the position of green dots once they’ve been reflected in a mirror. It doesn’t sound fun on paper and it isn’t fun in practice, even when multiple mirrors are introduced to try and make the game harder. The fractal artwork unlocked by clearing levels is nice, but not nice enough to want to endure the tedium of the game itself.

Snaker Ace
Lemonball Games – 400 Points

Oh hoo-bloody-ray it’s a Snake game. Somehow I have managed to do this column for seven months and not had to deal with one. Yet here we are at the arse end of 2009 having to play Snake, a game that was revolutionary in its day. Unfortunately its day was about six years ago and I’ve long since gotten tired of it. What makes me amazed then is that this game, with full 360 degree control and some rather nicely designed mazes and enemies manages to be a completely broken version of Snake. Once you reach the first real maze you’ll find the controls are so twitchy that the slightest correction to get that egg just over there will run you into either your tail or a wall. So well done Lemonball, you’ve managed to ruin Snake even more than everyone else who’s ripped it off.

Tank-tastic!
Ouch Games – 240 Points

A tank game isn’t interesting to me, a tank game played out through drawings on graph paper however is. It’s fairly basic stuff, the drawings are nice and have the hand drawn look I’d expect considering it’s all taking place on graph paper and campaign missions run a nice variety from kill everyone to capture the flag and capture point. There’s multiplayer value here to be certain so if you have a friend then certainly consider it. For everyone else give it a try as well, you may find there’s enough in the campaign to make you hand over the points.

The Flashlight
Alex Blickenstaff – 80 Points

Oh fuck the fuck off right now. It’s a program which turns your screen white and probably took less than a minute to make. That said there is a strobe mode so if you’re an epileptic looking to cash in on your health insurance or sue Alex Blickenstaff for not including an epilepsy warning you may want to have a look. Just don’t tell anyone I gave you that idea okay.

Head Shot 2
Silver Dollar Games – 80 Points

The original Head Shot was a horribly boring affair with no real goal other than shoot things. Somehow it managed to become popular and sells a metric ton of shit to this day. The sequel looks better and actually has some clues as to who you’re supposed to shoot which improves it immeasurably over the first game already but ultimately it’s still boring as hell because the game doesn’t go anywhere. The backgrounds change and people become smaller but you’re always just looking for someone and shooting them. Interestingly there’s a little catalogue in this game of all the other games Silver Dollar have supposedly done and surprise surprise, it’s practically the entire North Squard catalogue. However there’s something a bit more sinister there. The catalogue shows the brilliant DBP’08 finalist Blow among the games yet Blow‘s page on the marketplace makes no mention of them. I’m currently very wary of Silver Dollar, and I think they deserve to be given a wide berth. Here’s to the first Leave to Die rating for a renamed North Squard.

Experiment 12
Buddrick – 80 Points

Simple no-frills run and jump platforming is something I enjoy a lot and that’s what this is. Avoid pits and cross platforms to reach the level exit by jumping and wall jumping. There’s not much to screw up, but wall jumping is made awkward by having to push the control stick towards the wall before you can jump off it. For long strings of jumps this becomes annoying when you don’t move the stick fast enough and drop down. Jumping is also rather stiff and unresponsive so what I’d say is ignore this and go buy Pixel Man if you want a no frills platform fix.

A reasonable week leads to no clear game of the week. My decision however goes to Space Milkman, a gloriously charming platformer that is cheap, but I would say offers a level of enjoyment on par with plenty of upcoming 2D platformers going for full retail price.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then you can advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads or send us a review token for your game.

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It is sometimes said that the little things are where we find the most enjoyment. So on Saturday afternoon at Eurogamer Expo 2009 I joined forces with the lovely Xander from The Independent Gaming Source to check out the Indie Gaming Arcade that was conveniently set up across the hall from the press lounge. 14 of the super-powered orange PCs that were a common sight in the exhibition hall were set up to run some of the most unusual, pretentious and entertaining indie games currently available or in development. The games I want to talk about today were possibly the 3 most interesting of the games available, Joe Danger, Darwinia+ and VVVVV. You can also hear us talking about Eufloria on the Eurogamer NGCast.

Firstly the least graphically impressive of the 3, VVVVV. This is a game based around zero-gravity platforming and graphically reminds me most of the Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy games on the Spectrum. The story of the game is that you’re the captain of a ship which runs into trouble resulting in your crew being teleported all over the place. The game then follows your journey through several single screen challenges that link to form a Metroidvania-like world in order to find them.

The zero gravity aspect basically means that instead of jumping over obstacles you have to flip the ship’s artificial gravity to avoid spikes, enemies and pits. In gameplay terms it’s about as simple as it could get, yet the level design is perfectly configured to that gimmick. One particular standout of the build I played required me to traverse a sequence of moving platforms on the ceiling in order to avoid the enemies in the pits below. Not being able to flip gravity again until landing on solid ground meant pixel perfect landings were often required yet when I died (and I died a lot) it never felt like the game was being unfair. I saw my mistake and always respawning at the start of the section meant that another attempt started immediately.

The Eurogamer build was an alpha build so there’s a lot of time for the game to be revised and refined, but the core gameplay is extremely difficult and a lot of fun. I hope the game can maintain that when it goes into beta, for more info (and a photo of Terry Cavanagh’s awesome beard) have a look at Distractionware’s blog.

Next up is an upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game from a crew who used to refer to themselves as ‘The Last of the Bedroom Programmers’, the indie heroes Introversion. At a developer session on Friday afternoon game designers and company directors Chris Delay and Mark Morris talked a packed room through some of the hurdles they’d overcome to get the game to XBLA and to make a real-time strategy game to work on a console.

Playing it in the arcade I can say Darwinia+ controls very differently from the Darwinia I played on the PC and unlike any other console RTS. The most notable quirk is that you control your attack units directly with the left stick and control their fire with the right stick. Engineer units control automatically and go about their business without your influence thus freeing you up to deal with attacking enemies and protecting the helpless Darwinians themselves. I personally enjoyed this control system more than the mouse controls in the original game and only being able to have 4 units on the map at any time should help keep the game simple enough to be a console friendly RTS while maintaining the balance and fun that made Darwinia so enjoyable.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to try the Multiwinia side of the game, however the single player should be more than enough to justify the game’s price when it hits XBLA.

Finally there’s Joe Danger, the first game from Hello Games. This is a crew of former members of developers like Sumo, Kuju and Criterion who’ve decided to go independent. This is their first game and currently has no publisher, no platform and very little hype surrounding it. This I find extremely weird since the game is probably the most marketable indie game I’ve ever seen with a clear mascot character and colourful graphics. It plays like a cross between classic Excitebike and the evil Trials games. The aim being to get to the level goal as fast as possible by jumping over, through and scrambling under the various obstacles set up along your route in order for you to show off your skills as a stuntman. Extra goals are also all over each level, the most enjoyable in my play time being the targets which set off fireworks and send the watching crowd into a frenzy. Hitting these is an exercise in pure precision, though I found that each one could be set off by simply driving onto one and bunny-hopping. Hopefully this’ll be rectified before the game comes out, as falling from a great height to make a perfect bullseye landing on a target is immensely rewarding.

Multiplayer races are also in the game and in the arcade these almost hit Bomberman levels of competitiveness, each jump requiring perfect timing in order to maintain maximum speed. I was also shown the level creator which is probably the best I’ve ever seen. Suitably for a game based around precision jumping the level editor allows for these jumps to be created without endless trial and error. A ramp is placed at the start of the level, then the game is unpaused to launch Joe off the jump. As Joe approaches the ground the game is then paused again and a landing ramp positioned, the game is unpaused and Joe hits the landing ramp perfectly on the first try. Hopefully Joe Danger will be picked up by a publisher soon because whoever from XBLA or PSN gets there first is almost certainly going to have a major indie hit on their hands.

So there we go, VVVVV, Joe Danger and Darwinia+. 3 very different games yet all from a developer type that’s gradually becoming more and more influential. Indie games are becoming more successful and polished thanks to the new opportunities offered by the likes of Steam, XBLA, PSN and WiiWare. There will be turds that come from this hive of pretension but most of the devs have only one goal in mind for their game. They just want it to be fun, and in an industry where the big hitters are inching closer to complete brown realism we really need these games more than ever. So pay attention to indie developers, it was an indie dev who brought us Torchlight after all.

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You know what sucks: the 360′s wireless adapter. Mine cut out on me a few weeks ago and started working again this week, so here I am returning to my beloved recaps. The games that were missed while I was out of action will get dealt with, don’t you worry about that, but this week it’s all about the fifteen games released over the last seven days. So grab your indie gear and let’s get down to business.

I think I’ll also mention that we at NG went stomping around Eurogamer Expo this weekend. While everyone else went to play the shiny big budget games I hung around in the Indie Arcade section. I got to check out loads of delightfully pretentious crap and some actual great games. There’ll be a post going up about both those categories later in the week.

Equitunes
See Games – 80MSP

We start with some fast paced logic puzzling. The basic aim is to insert between one to four ‘beats’ into empty red cells so that each connecting green cell contains the same amount. So if a green cell with three beats is bordered with two red cells containing one beat and two beats then the cell is balanced. The skill comes from shuffling lines of cells around in order to balance all the cells before more cells are added, cluttering up the grid and making it harder to balance anything. The pace is nice and quick, there are around 15 seconds between cell additions and there’s also a 90-second time trial mode for quick score-attack fixes. Surprisingly this kind of speed logic works rather well, however the actual rules and intricacies of the game aren’t very well explained in the tutorial.

Ganbare Natsuki San
DK Alpla – 80MSP

Alpla have gotten a reputation for cute little games that revolve around solid gimmicks. This is no exception. Your swimsuited little character has a grappling hook which you can use to swing around the levels collecting items. There are critical flaws with this game. The hook doesn’t always grab onto the part of the level you want, making mid-air grabs is extremely difficult to do without getting right next to the wall you’re grabbing, effectively eliminating the swing. This just doesn’t have the charm I’ve come to expect from Alpla. Disappointing.

Drinkards
The Unallied – 400MSP

It’s a drinking game, a drinking game with the gall and nerve to charge 400 points as well. It’s yet another program that just tells you what to drink and when to drink it. Surely we’re at the point where it’s just nice to drink with our friends without loads of freaking rules.

Primary Attack
Steve Roe – 80MSP

You had me at hex grid. Yeah it’s board game time. Place coloured hexes on the grid to score while stealing and defending opponent’s hexes by mixing them with your colour. So for example, a red hex placed next to a blue hex will turn the blue hex purple. The basic theory is extremely sound and I had a lot of fun with the huge level of planning ahead the game demands. If you like your strategy games then I recommend this.

Pass the Pad
Shuboarder – 80MSP

This is a word game played in the hot potato format. Basically you’re given a word fragment (such as TR) and then a rule (word cannot end with TR) then told to shout words out and pass the pad to other people in the room. It’s a decent idea, but there’s no reason for this to be on here when it could just as easily be replicated with a pen and paper.

omg cats game@#$
RickyWh – 240MSP

Ugh, including cats in a game does not make it a good game. This is yet another example of the steady hand maze game, only with cats blocking the path you have to guide your dot around. This isn’t freaking fun and it’s barely a freaking game.

Guns Loaded
Chise – 240 Points

You know why side scrolling shooters don’t have regenerating health? That’s right, because it makes them insultingly easy. That’s what this game is, only along with the usual XNA shooter flaws of dull enemy design and boring gameplay.

Link Attack
Wizlon – 80MSP

Soviet designs and inspirational proverbs cannot really save a poor game, but they can make it look pretty damn cool. Link Attack is a puzzle game based around linking together groups of same coloured blocks. The basic idea is sound, but once you’ve cleared the larger groups you’re left waiting for the screen to fill up again so you can clear more. With a faster pace this could be a better game, as it is however it’s not worth the time.

Frequency
Ianthraxx – 240MSP

This is a very good looking run and gun platformer. The animation of the robot character are smooth and the colour-based shooting works far better here than I’ve ever seen it used before. That is until you realise that the colour you’re shooting has no extra impact on the enemy you’re shooting at. Similarly there’s the absorbing mechanic where enemies and objects in the world can be drained of their colour to refill your ammo and health. This is a decent idea, but most objects will give you such a tiny refill that you’ll run out of ammo for all your colours far too quickly.

Then there are control issues, ducking and dodging is done with the right stick. While dodging works fine like this I couldn’t get used to ducking with the right stick, many times I went to duck with the left stick a got a load of laser in the face. This is another disappointment given the effort that’s clearly gone into it.

Beat Hazard
ShadowRage – 400MSP

This is from the same person who made The Visualiser a few weeks ago and has the same basic idea. It’s a visualiser with a nice little generic twin stick shooter laid over the top. A twin stick shooter where enemies blend into the background, enemies look like powerups and the whole thing makes your eyes bleed. There’s also no visible link between the music and the action either.

T-KARA
Mexond – 80MSP

More puzzle now, this time with abysmally long loading times, no tutorial and no actual indication of what the hell you’re supposed to be doing. As it happens you’re supposed to be moving blocks around on sliders (so sliding left moves all blocks on that row left) in order to make a picture. This basic concept is fine, but having no way of knowing that from the very beginning loses it all marks it would’ve gotten for a decent premise.

Mr Beatloop
floatstarpx – 240MSP

Music making tools have been around quite a lot on XBLIG, reaching something of an explosion a few months back. This is the first to be released since that explosion and takes the form of a basic beat loop creator. Put little samples down on the grid and the timeline plays them as it passes over. Simple and inoffensive, but the inability to export loops makes this just as pointless as all the other music creators.

SFG Soccer
Stir Fry Games – 400MSP

Sports games are sorely under-represented on here, College Lacrosse 2010 (currently stuck in peer review limbo) was going to be the first proper sports game but it’s been beaten by this. Realism is not to be found here, this is pure arcade five-a-side football. Exhibition and practice modes are joined by a surprisingly deep career season mode. Here you create your own team and take them through the season improving stats and turning them into an unstoppable footballing machine. The short halves, simple controls and fast pace make this one of the most fun sports games I’ve ever played. Highly recommended.

Tiger Storm
Omer – 240MSP

Where many twin stick shooters are far too dull and easy, Tiger Storm has gone the complete opposite direction and is horrifically hard. Enemies have pinpoint accuracy and will seemingly always hit you. You have a large life bar but that is swiftly drained. It looks very nice though, just a shame that’s the only thing going for it.

They Came From The Ground
Malgorithms – 80MSP

It’s Slime Volleyball, jumping around to knock a ball over a line signifying a net. It’s boring, the AI opponents are damn near perfect and the whole thing is unimaginative and rubbish.

Game of the week is easily SFG Soccer, I love this kind of arcade sports game and having a team creation and full career included is a massive bonus.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then you can advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads or send us a review token for your game.

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Why is the header image this week of a lacrosse game? Well it’s because while looking over Kotaku this week I came across a trailer. That trailer was for College Lacrosse 2010, a game that’s hopefully coming out next week on Indie Games. This would be the first ‘proper’ sports game to come out through XNA and it even carries the endorsement of Inside Lacrosse magazine. If this game is actually any good I will be supremely impressed, not to mention extremely happy. I’ve been waiting years for a good lacrosse game. Seriously, it’s one of my favourite sports.

You’ll notice a few changes to this week’s recap. First of all the much requested separator line is being introduced. It’s nothing fancy but it should do the job. Also new is my trial opinion of games we have been given tokens for. Many people have asked for this as well so I’m pleased to take feedback from the crowd. If you think there’s anything else that needs changing about the recaps then let me know in the comments. After last week’s jumbo recap I have a much more compact affair for you this week. 8 games are in the firing line so let’s get started.

Whipcrack
ScottP – 240 Points

First impressions are good for this. The game is fully voiced and using a whip to destroy enemies is surprisingly easy thanks to the controls. The idea is to destroy enemies, then recycle their remains to rebuild a destroyed tower. Seeing the tower take shape level by level is a good motivator to keep playing as is the steady introduction of new enemies and abilities. What keeps me from fully recommending this game is the whip physics themselves. How the whip moves can be extremely unpredictable at times, this makes landing shots more a test of luck than skill. It’s not a gamebreaker, but it can get annoying.

Kaiten Patissier
DK Alpla – 80 Points

Japanese games have largely been cute 16-bit games that look like they’d rather be on an SNES. This is very much the same look, with gameplay that resembles Green Island (from the same developer). It’s puzzle patforming with your character jumping around levels trying to collect cake ingredients. The gimmick for this one is the ability to turn the world when you’re pressed against a wall, much like the excellent And Yet It Moves. However it lacks the charm of Green Island and while the world turning mechanic is fun for a while, the later levels I saw failed to truly build on it. Disappointing.

Slam: Indie Edition
Blackstorm Games – 80 Points

Slam is a 360 Breakout game, that means it’s a Breakout/Arkanoid clone where the paddle can circle around the blocks laid out in the center. These are usually rubbish. Slam is brilliant. That brilliance is mostly due to the huge amount of ideas present and the fact that they all actually work. Firstly if you’re just chasing your ball around the edge or need to time a shot you can hold your ball to the paddle for a few seconds. Secondly the game shows you where the ball will go once it hits the paddle, this makes planning shots possible. Ideas carry into the blocks too, later levels feature blocks that change colour when hit. If multiple blocks of the same colour connect then they will all go if one of them is hit for extra points. Without the other features I’ve mentioned this would be a pure luck exercise, with them however it becomes an insanely addictive high score hunt. One of the best block breaker games I’ve ever played, for only 80 points there is no excuse.

Elfland Reloaded Vol. 1
BogTurtleCarl – 240 Points

First I will put notes down. We have a token for this game and a full review will be given. Secondly this is from the creator of Galax E-Mail, a mystifyingly popular twin-stick shooter from the early days of XNA. This is a remarkably clunky platformer which is the first part of a 2-part series. There’s a lot I like about it, the graphics are uncomplicated and colourful and the character’s dialogue is generally helpful and well written. However the jumping is just horrible, your character pauses slightly before every jump so platforming feels stiff and imprecise. I struggle to like it, but as I said there’s a full review coming.

Dark Skies: Messier
Oesis – 240 Points

The Messier in the title refers to the astronomer who catalogued the 110 nebulas, galaxies and clusters than form the basis of this 2nd part of the Dark Skies. By second part I mean “was left out of the last game so we could get more money” naturally so that’s pretty much it. It’s a virtual observatory with a little game for you to find the 110 space bits I mentioned earlier. Otherwise it’s just a JPEG of stars.

Aimeroids
Simesf – 80 Points

I hate Asteroids. I hate anything that tries to be Asteroids. My hatred reserves special wrath for games like this which try to be an updated version (read: has power-ups) of Asteroids. My fury stems from the overblown inertia of your ship, something that all too often sends you skidding helplessly into a chunk of space rock. The ship here does admittedly move a bit better than most Asteroids clones thanks to its ability to move backwards. Other than that however this is a straight clone, except for those power-ups I mentioned which never really seem to be much use.

Dark
Andrew Russell – 80 Points

We now present some art. Dark is unsurprisingly played almost entirely in the dark. You’re given no objectives, no instructions and often no idea where the hell you’re supposed to go. Your character is a black diamond which you can only actually see in the areas where there’s light from something. Light is used to show platforms, gears and other important things. The effect is actually really easy to understand and complements the graphical style perfectly. To play it’s basically a puzzle platformer where the only real puzzle is where you’re going. Dead ends force you to backtrack to the start of a level where you’ll notice platforms moving in a way you didn’t notice before. Gears can be pushed around to manipulate objects and form platforms. It all comes together quite nicely and I genuinely enjoyed playing. For once an artsy game that lives up to the whole ‘game’ thing.

Trippin’ Alien
TrippinAlien – 80 Points

It’s a copter game. The likes of which you’ve seen millions of times before. Use the control stick to control the height of your ship and try not to hit anything. It’s boring, has been done thousands of times before and isn’t worth any amount of money. I struggle to believe I was once addicted to the original.

Game of the Week is undoubtedly Slam. Block breakers have a tough job convincing me but this one has managed to do it through a sheer mass of good ideas. Special mention to Dark as well, a Dream Build Play entrant and worthy of that association I think.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. If you’re a developer who wants a bit more exposure for your game then you can advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads.

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Sorry for the delay, a failure with my 360′s wireless adapter kept me away from the games last week but it’s sorted and we have a double week to contend with. I want to share something that caught my eye this week though to do with the brilliant Clover. It’s found a proper publisher! Clover: A Curious Tale has been picked up by Blitz 1up to be published on the PC with improved animations, soundtrack, extra puzzles and generally more stuff. If you’ve held out on getting the brilliant side scrolling adventure then this will no doubt be the version to get. It’s also the first XBL Indie Game to get picked up by a major publisher, so congratulations to Binary Tweed for that.

Next a little bit of business, there’s a patch out for Nasty which supposedly fixes a load of the complaints John had when he reviewed the game a while ago. There’s a proper note of the patch changes at the end of that review. OK then, let’s get down to the 33(!) games that comprise this week’s business.

On A Roll
Battenberg Software – 240 Points

Rolling a ball around levels has been done very well before, but usually in full 3D. I dare say it’s been a while since I last saw a 2D game do the idea justice but this game has managed to do it. The physics are restrained enough for momentum to not be a major annoyance while the ability to kill enemies by rolling into them at speed means you never get caught out by something you didn’t see. The level design in general is surprisingly good with all the major hazards well signposted so when you lose lives it never feels unfair. We’re starting on a high really.

Astero Defender
Deadwood Studios – 80 Points

One of the things which makes me wary of games is when they brag on the box art about only been 80 points. This is one of the many times when my fears are justified. Yet another dull and uninspired twin stick shooter that appears to have had no effort put into it whatsoever.

War Ships
Sevcikus – 240 Points

It’s Battleships. Very good looking and well made Battleships but still Battleships. There are a few things that justify it in videogameland, you can place your ships diagonally and also shoot down opponent’s missiles. There are also minesweeper-esque numbered squares to let you know you’re getting close. Surprisingly decent I think.

Tartaros
Enomiya – 240 Points

The FPS has become something of a holy grail in the world of Indie Games. Jonny Crush tried and failed due to a severe lack of polish and bad collision detection yet somehow Tartaros has managed to make the exact same mistakes. Poor animation mean you’re never really immersed in the world and shooting just over an enemy’s shoulder often results in a hit. Despite this however the game has much better pacing and controls than Jonny, which means those problems don’t annoy you as much.

Vector Force
David Turner – 80 Points

California State University San Bernardino is where this game was developed. I have to ask, does it really take a university to create another bland scrolling shooter? Vector Force does nothing that hasn’t been done before in much better games from selecting power-ups to bullet hell. The bullet hell in particular is shameful because there’s no pattern to it and the hitbox (the area of collision detection in a shooter) covers the whole ship. That’s a fundamental flaw that makes the game much harder and less fun than it should have been.

Astro Taxi
FifaKane – 240 Points

Landing games only really need 2 things to be successful. Good level design and tight controls. Astro Taxi manages the first bit but falls down on the controls which are so insanely sensitive that it took me 8 crashes before I could actually get off my starting platform. That’s a shame because the taxi gameplay actually works well with this kind of game, you just shouldn’t have to fight the controls to have fun.

Fireworks Screensaver
Lutas – 80 Points

It’s a screensaver with fireworks. As usual for this sort of thing we’re dealing less with anything resembling fireworks and more some cocky programmer showing off his particle skillz. You don’t even need to look at the rating image below really.

Mole Game
PA2 – 80 Points

There’s a whac-a-mole game elsewhere on XBLIG which utilises the Rock Band drum kit. I played it some time ago and it was surprisingly fun, however what made it fun was that tactile feedback from the drum kit itself. Mole Game has none of that, choosing instead to have 2 hammers controlled by the left and right sticks. It’s a good idea in theory and makes for a suitably tricky game but it’s just not fun.

Jake’s Room
Dennis McWilliams – 80 Points

Flight time now with a game based around destroying some kid’s toys. I love the look and the idea but here comes a flurry of flaws. The controls are stiff, your plane moves incredibly slowly, the game has a very loose definition of ‘toy’ (a bin is considered a toy) which makes clearing levels frustrating and the power-ups rarely seem to be effective in any way.

Cassie’s Corner
North Squard – 80 Points

One of our favourite gripes on NG is the notion on larger blogs that tits = hits. Well in this case a bad quiz game has been bundled with tits belonging to a horrible camwhore and at the time of writing is the second best selling game on XBLIG. Sometimes humanity just doesn’t live up to expectations.

Criminals Under Arrest
InterfaceKO – 80 Points

“One of the most beautiful city in the world” is the first line we get so things aren’t looking good already. It’s not much better in the game itself, the MS Paint graphics are nice but the gameplay is the usual bad collision detection we’ve come to expect from side scrolling fighting games around here. In this genre, that’s a critical flaw.

Junkyard Battle
Daevid – 80 Points

I’ve been honestly surprised by this game. The idea is to use a crane to pick up and carry bits of rubbish around the play area before using them to build a tower up to a line. The crane works well and controls with the precision and accuracy needed for this sort of thing. The physics of the tower are predictable enough for pre-planning to work. You can also concrete your tower to keep it stable. Then there’s a 2 player battle mode if you fancy doing things at speed. Really very good indeed.

Lander Mania
Hotshot 10101 – 80 Points

Hotshot 10101 is well known to us. He made his name with the rubbish maths games. However this is different, a lander game which controls tightly enough for them not be an issue. Landing on pads earns points and the idea is to land on as many as possible before running out of fuel. It’s good, but insubstantial. A more goal-based system of gameplay would’ve made this much better.

Picture Slider
Mortlash – 80 Points

Sliding tile puzzles. If you’re that desperate to play one of these then how about chopping up some of the photos you have around the house then mixing them up? It’ll have the same effect.

The Adhara War
Samuel Potter – 240 Points

At first glance this appears to be a fairly decent space strategy game. You can construct ships, defences for your homeworld and explore vast reams of space dodging suns and black holes through the campaign mode. However there’s a problem. When attacking or being attacked by enemy ships the whole thing changes from a decent (if a little overcomplicated) strategy game to a clunky and horrible to play shooter. This could have been great without that, with it the game becomes horrible.

The Fart Machine 2
Alex Blickenstaff – 80 Points

No. Just no. I am not even going to dignify this with a response, in fact I’m just going to do a little dance right now. Can you see it? Can you see me dancing? Hopefully that’s enough for formatting reasons, now here’s the inevitable.

PushCrates
KRGkill – 240 Points

The first time I played a game like this was on the old prelude to XBLIG the Net Yaroze. The basic aim is to push the crates onto the red X’s to clear the level. Simple and basic yet capable of such horrific mental torture. If you have a burning desire for this sort of game then go for it, but everyone else should seek out the hundreds of flash games that do it just as well.

RadRiverRun
MadMojo – 240 Points

First thing’s first, Rad River Run is very good looking. In screenshots. Yes what looks pretty and 3D up there is actually extremely generic and jerky. The game suffers from the same shiny model syndrome that plagued a lot of early 360 games. Riding round a river also doesn’t have the same sense of excitement when you will just go in whichever direction you point with no momentum carrying over. This is a good game concept which has been done brilliantly before, however R3 just doesn’t cut it.

Alien Encounters
SGN – 240 Points

SGN. Star Gaming Network. These guys have produced some incredible turds in their time. This shows promise though; it’s a full 3D game in that holy grail Indie Game genre, the FPS. So after sitting through not one but two long loading bars (I’ll repeat that, two loading bars for no real reason) we get into a fairly decent shooter with a rather brutal difficulty. Not taking cover will see the enemy’s vastly superior weapons destroy your health bar in seconds. If you can get past that annoyance there’s a lot to like here with a surprisingly complex game.

Summer Vacation
DK Alpha – 80 Points

If you like puzzle games you’ve probably played the awesome Toki Tori (WiiWare). A puzzler based around collecting eggs by using tools and the environment to avoid enemies and cross hazards. Well this is very similar. By pushing blocks around and using the tools you’ll find around the level, the idea is to collect all the stars on the beach. If you have a love of puzzles then certainly check it out, but it’s really not for everyone.

Rail Gun Charlie
Duckocide – 240 Points

This is action defence, defending pods from enemies trying to snatch them away. It’s decent in concept but moves at such an insane speed that it’s a nightmare to control. This sheer speed plus the blisteringly bright colours make everything extremely hard to play, and hard to play makes a game not fun.

XCross
Ralph78fr – 240 Points

Confession time again like it was for Golden Tangram a few weeks ago. I love Picross puzzles to the level where it can get rather disturbing. This is a vast array of very fine puzzles which will give newbies a gentle introduction while providing some stuff I haven’t seen before like 3D Picross puzzles (labelled at ‘experimental’ in case people find they don’t really work) which add an entirely new level of challenge. Picross fans should snap this up and everyone else should at least try this awesome puzzle form. It’s better than Sudoku.

Spider Evader
SRH – 80 Points

We’ve all seen that steady hand mouse game that lulls you into a false sense of security before scaring the living shit out of you once you finally make a mistake. Well this is the same thing. I didn’t play it myself, instead I followed the game’s instructions and got my roommate to play it. My roommate is terrified of spiders and as you’d expect this game scared him shitless. Well worth it, but not worth any kind of money.

D-Cypher
BlatterChip – 80 Points

This is an old form of logic puzzle where a preset sequence must be guessed through trial and error. The game doesn’t work. I entered in the same guess at the code twice and was given 2 different responses as to the colours I’d gotten right. File this one under broken game.

Alien Pyramid Challenge
Swampopus – 80 Points

This kind of minimalist platformer has become pleasingly prevalent on XBLIG lately and I’m very happy about that. The idea is to ferry blocks around the levels to reach the exit. It’s the purest form of puzzle platforming and the well designed levels and difficulty curve make this a joy to play.

Tarot
Pill360 – 240 Points

As someone who writes rather sarcastically I’m supposed to be extremely sceptical and dismissive in all matters related to mysticism and fortune telling. However it’s confession time again and I must say I have some belief in Tarot readings. I like the artwork on the cards (something this can’t quite get across), I have friends who are otherwise incredibly sceptical yet believe in it and it has a specific-ness (that’s a word) that other forms of fortune telling lack. A computerised version though can’t even come close to any of that, so don’t bother.

Paint Boll
Candela Creations – 80 Points

I would love to give you some details on this game, but it only supports two players and I only have one controller. If you’re in a similar situation then avoid, if you’re in a two controller situation then maybe try it but for not bothering with a basic AI…

Galactic Escape
o KB o – 240 Points

More lander nonsense. You start to notice an over-abundance of these genres when you do a double week. This one is pretty and controls rather nicely but commits a cardinal sin of lander games. You can’t see where you’re going. All vision is restricted to your ship’s headlamp which makes playing a nightmare. In a lander game you must be able to see what’s around you, else you turn to look and end up smashing into a rock two inches below you which you couldn’t see.

Pumpkin Carver
Stegersaurus Games – 80 Points

Something like this could work, but only if it’s done in a proper free-form manner. This has you selecting parts from an (admittedly large) list which ruins a lot of the creative fun of carving a pumpkin. Pointless.

Arkedo Series: Jump!
Arkedo – 240 Points

More platformer tomfoolery now in a proper 8-bit style. The idea is similar to Bomb Jack where you must gather up all the bombs dotted around the stage before finding the level exit. Naturally enemies and hazards like falling platforms and spike pits get in your way. The visuals have the same mix of 8-bit graphics with 2009 effects that made us fall in love with Rocket Riot and the game has a very similar sense of humour. Not to mention the power-ups and generally excellent fun this game offers.

Slingstar
Ork Princess Games – 80 Points

What does a token look like? Well Wex knows because he’s gotten the one we have been sent for this not-a-shooter. The full review should be up within a week, so you can look forward to that if you want opinion.

The Visualiser
ShadowRage – 80 Points

Visualisers have started to genuinely annoy me now, partly because they’re worthless piles of turd that don’t belong on the service but also because the default 360 visualiser is very good. It was designed by Jeff Minter, a man who spent years studying lightsynths and then ended up using them in the excellent Space Giraffe. This is probably the closest anyone’s gotten to that default brilliance though. It doesn’t get very close, but it’s the closest. Still not worth paying money for though.

Fields Reloaded
Reedake2 – 80 Points

Side-scrolling shooting, Contra-style. The gangsta look actually gives this game a bit of personality while the light platforming works well enough to not get in the way of the shooting. The game also has a little bullet-time mechanic much like Max Payne. Using this slows time down allowing you to dodge bullets and fire off plenty of your own. It’s something that can go incredibly wrong but has been implemented perfectly, allowing you to escape nasty situations without immense frustration. So it looks good, plays well and its gimmicks work. Only one reward for that combination.

Game of the week? Well it’s tricky but Arkedo Series: Jump! has to take it. Good platforming is hard to come by and this game has gotten it 100% right.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. 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 accept a token for will get a full NG Review. You can also advertise on the site by clicking the Project Wonderful links below any of the site ads.

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2 weeks ago Dust: An Elysian Tail ended Dream Build Play 2009 as the 3rd winner of the competition. It joins The Dishwasher and Carneyvale Showtime in the very exclusive winners club. Now the contest is over we regular gamers get to see what all the fuss is about as the contest games start to appear on the Indie Game channel. We have one of those exalted six in this week’s 20 games so let’s get busy.

Charlie Cat’s Hot Air Balloon
Cute Cat Games – 80 Points

Yawn, the usual rubbish side-scrolling shooter fare which is going to get bought because OMG IT HAZ CATS IN! If you think your faith in humanity is flagging you should see mine when I see people praising games like this. Also there’s no exit button, that’s just lazy coding which no peer-reviewer should allow to pass.

Words Search
KRGkill – 240 Points

It’s a word search. What more can I say to fill this space so that picture doesn’t look weird? Well the menus are horribly designed and ugly, the game auto-plays music from your media library which doesn’t fit the game. Also words you’ve found don’t remain highlighted on the grid, which is a fundamental part of a word search in my opinion.

The Headsman
David Flook – 80 Points

So some shit wuss-metal band want to have their music video playing in the background of an extremely basic (and crap) chopping heads off game? Who the hell do you think you are? Journey? I swear there is no ego that can match up to a band who’ve just made their first video.

Crazy Coins
ByteMaster – 80 Points

When the main menu of a game has every option mapped to a button you know you’re not in for anything special. This doesn’t prove that rule wrong. Moving piggy banks from side to side would disgrace basic flash, let alone something as powerful as XNA.

Graviton AI
BlatterChip – 240 Points

Side-scrolling shooter action now with the “Thinking Gamers’ Shooter” or rather, the very poorly explained shooter. The idea of the game is that your weapon loadout and repair schedule and general strategy will determine whether or not you’ll make it through the badly designed levels and curtains of bullets. The basic idea is sound, but as usual with good concepts it’s the execution that rips this game up. With no tutorial to explain all the game elements you’re left to find everything out for yourself. In a game this dense and complex that’s something I really don’t have the patience to do. Whether you do or not is obviously up to you, but I don’t feel the rewards would be worth it.

Hollow Ball
Victor Ortega – 80 Points

2-player only Pong? That’s laziness taken to a new level if you can’t even be bothered to code a basic AI. As with most Pong clones there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the gameplay but not having a CPU opponent puts this behind all the others.

2GoVids: Rachel Star Stunt Show
GoVids – 80 Points

Oh fuck off. I’m not a video reviewer and the Indie Game channel is not freaking Youtube. Take your crappy videos and get the hell out of my yard. You have no idea how hard it is to keep more cussing out of this section.

Hypnotizing
GoVids – 80 Points

And the same dev brings more guff to our playground. This time one of those rubbish swirly things that don’t hypnotize people. Listen, hypnotizing someone takes more than just a swirl. It takes skill and a willing victim for starters.

Sol Survivor – Dream Build Play 2009 Finallist
Cadenza – 800 Points

Oh now we’re talking. Full 3D tower defence and a Dream Build Play finallist to boot. The game can’t compete graphically with recent XBLA offering Defence Grid but has a few other things to offer. Complex paths from the beginning will tax genre veterans while different selectable COs provide various support options to help out if you get into trouble. The COs also offer varying tower selections. The rebel pyromaniac has little in the way of accuracy but gets to use the flamethrower while the distinguished veteran forsakes firing rate for accuracy. Getting to choose a set of towers that fits your style is a big plus, but at 800 points I honestly struggle to recommend this over other tower defence Indie Games like Electron Defence, Nextwar and GLITNER.

Fire
GoVids – 80 Points

Back in the good old days there was the app that started it all. The one useless screensaver that opened the floodgates for the massagers, magic 8-balls and others. That app was Fireplace and simulated…well a fireplace. This is something of an encore presentation, but somehow manages to be even worse. That’s special.

Dead Meat
x68ST0X20 – 80 Points

Dead Meat’s devs clearly saw the glorious GAEM WITH ZOMBIES IN IT and decided they wanted some of that. What they’ve produced has clunky controls, dull graphics and none of the speed and charm that made I MAED A GAME such a smash. Accept no substitute.

Azubi’s Pool of Bethesda
Azubi – 240 Points

In mythology the Pool of Bethesda (from which I assume the developer got their name) was a healing pool made sacred by angels. In this game the Pool of Bethesda is a 10×10 grid in which are hidden 25 angels. You have to put your patients into the pool where you think there might be angels. However there’s no indication of where the angels are which makes this pure random chance. As anyone will tell you, pure randomness is not something you can build a game on.

Johnny’s Skydiving Lessons
North West – 80 Points

North West. Once again the biggest shit-spreaders on the channel bring us another double bill of games. This is just following an arrow to try and retrieve a parachute. Once again there’s nothing even vaguely interesting here.

War: The Card Game Advanced
North West – 80 Points

Card game? Ooh I like card games. Oh, so by card game you mean button masher? Oh yeah, I see how that fits. Let’s get something straight people, button mashing in athletics games is fun but mashing for mashing’s sake is not fun. Got it?

Origin
William Ulrich – 400 Points

Block breaking now. Multiballs, moving bricks and 360 movement for your paddle help to separate this game from the other breakout clones. However it’s the dull presentation and slow, sticky controls that kill it dead. Not even full circle paddling can save this one.

Pyromanic
Tricktale – 240 Points

I’ve never liked the games that fire different coloured shots based on the colours of the 4 face buttons. Pyromanic somehow manages to bypass that though. Mainly because of the bright and fun presentation and the soundtrack, however once that’s stripped away you’re left with a fairly standard twitch-shooter. So simply put, it’s fun so long as you focus on the visuals and not the actual gameplay.

Fishing Girl
Errcw – 80 Points

Woo, token! We got a token for this rather pretty and stylised fishing game and to be honest I’m very eager to play it. Yeah I’m a sucker for fishing games, but when you’ve played Sega Bass Fishing on the Dreamcast you’re pretty much in for life.

Chillax HD
Mrsquare – 80 Points

Supposedly soothing music played over what look like someone’s holiday snaps. OK so the photos are a little bit nicer than my average vacation pics but it’s still fairly banal stuff. Also no exit button, so laziness points again.

Pixel Man
Super Gravelyn Bros – 80 Points

When did a lack of a save system a selling point for a game? Well here’s Pixel Man, a lesson in 8-bit frustration. Only that’s not quite the case as unlike rubbish 8-bit games there are no unpredictable controls or input delay on this game. When you die it’s usually your fault and dying sends you back to the start of the level rather than right back to the start. The super simple artwork fits perfectly and subtle little platform placement gives out the controls required (i.e. Jump) in a nice invisible tutorial. For 80 points, I can’t find much wrong with this.

Velocity
AxB – 80 Points

More ice block sliding now only the ice is hell and the slidey bit is a ball. Extra little bits and pieces like moving doors and teleporters help to mix things up a bit but the levels get very complex very quickly and once again I am forced to point something out. This is not a fun game even when used as a one-off puzzle in a bigger game. Stop trying to make it into a game by itself.

This week’s best game goes to the immensely charming Pixel Man though if you have the points then do check out Sol Survivor as well, it certainly earned that DBP finalist spot.

If you’ve been struck by game-creating inspiration then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab for tools and advice for making that dream a reality. 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 a full NG Review.

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From hundreds of submissions the Dream Build Play judges reduced it to 6, then finally only one stood above the rest as champion. Who was it? Well it was the game I think everyone knew was going to win, the insanely beautiful Dust: An Elysian Tail. Creator Dean Dodrill can now enjoy a fat cheque for $40,000 and possibly an XBLA publishing contract. Max Blastronaut took $20k for 2nd, Rotorscope grabbed 3rd place and $10,000 and the last $5,000 went to Hurricane 2X Evolution. A massive congratulations to all the winners and indeed to everyone who entered. I look forward to playing your games when they hit the Indie Games channel. This week however we have 13 games to deal with so lets get down to business.

Color Break
Dgamer – 80 Points

Aside from spelling colour wrong there’s nothing I can really complain about with this game. The basic premise of colour matching one-sided Pong is solid to the point of tedium and that’s the sole problem. This is boring. It’s not exciting or fun or even vaguely artsy, it’s just dull.

Kuchibi
Spyn Doctor – 240 Points

The token gods have smiled upon us once again and Spyn Doctor (a developer which hasn’t exactly impressed me in the past) have sent us a token for this impressive looking puzzle game. Look out for a full NG review sometime soon.

Pebble Dash Lite
Lutas – 80 Points

Nothing much really to say here, this is a slimmed down version of Pebble Dash, a game which I’m finishing up the review for. That review will go up later this week so keep an eye on the site for an opinion on this game in general. I would recommend getting the full version of the game over this Lite version however.

I <3 Shift
Fronominal – 80 Points

And here we have an example of what happens when you take a promising idea and completely cock it up. The idea behind Shift is that the game is broken into 2 parts, a puzzle part which has you rhythmically firing off hexagons to form chains not unlike Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move and a shooter part where you get rid of anything you can’t remove by shooting it in the dual-stick style. The idea is sound, but the constant colour shifting of the pieces made me fire off some in completely the wrong direction because I thought they were another colour. Then there’s the other problem whereby once you’ve cleared the boundary pieces around the play area it’s easy to accidentally set off shooty mode and get killed by a million hexes bearing down on you. Bottom line this is a potentially excellent game concept that’s been ruined by poor execution.

Duologue
Funavision – 240 Points

We had a token for this game the day it was released, Funavision have been pretty dedicated to promoting it which is something I love seeing from developers. You know the drill by now, expect a full NG review sometime soon.

Gitigiti
JinCycle – 80 Points

The basic idea behind Gitigiti is to raise an army of slimes to overcome evil slimes that spawn around the screen. To do this you need to cross breed slimes to bring in new, stronger slimes. The problem is that once you’ve produced your first batch of slime kids the screen fills up insanely quickly to the point where breeding adults don’t need your commands, they’ll find partners within seconds just by wandering around. I left the game to run after level 2 and without any input from me it was up to level 8 by the time I next looked up. Once again, decent idea ruined by crappy execution.

Bust A Wall
Kevin Robinson – 80 Points

Breakout/Arkanoid clones are everywhere, I can play Breakout on my phone, my Wii, my PS3 or even in real life by stacking up a load of shoeboxes and getting a tennis racket out. The boxart for this game has ‘OLD’ on it in the corner much like UK retro wankfest magazine Retro “Someone Once Paid £200 for An Issue On Ebay” Gamer so I wouldn’t be surprised if that publication or its readers had a hand in this. The reason I’m being so stally with this is because it’s freaking Breakout. What can I say that hasn’t been said before? You hit a ball with a bat and blocks break until you get to the evil one that you can’t curve the ball to hit. It’s not bad, its actually one of the better Breakout clones on Indie Games, but it’s just there. Like bread or beige it’s impossible to get excited about.

Warfare Soundboard
SFX Dude – 80 Points

OK, I think soundboards are pretty stupid. I didn’t like them in college, I don’t like them now and the idea of paying for one actually makes me slightly ill. So here’s a collection of 50-odd gun and war sounds for NRA members to toss themselves off to. I don’t mind them tossing themselves off to AK-47s, so long as it means they’re not giving their kids guns to shoot up schools with or actually reading the second amendment. Just don’t expect me (or them for that matter) to pay for it though.

Electron Defense
Tafter – 240 Points

Tower Defense! Yes my new favourite genre is getting more and more represented on Indie Games. Where once Nextwar enjoyed an unchallenged reign there are now several fine Tower Defense games around and Electron Defense is the latest. With its maze building and indistinct enemy types it could be mistaken for Horn Swaggle Islands’ hot cousin. The USP of this one is that rather than awarding extra points for cash remaining at the end of a level that cash gets carried over to the next level in campaign mode. This is something I think tower defense games should’ve been doing for years and it shocks me that this is the first time I’ve seen it done. The rest of the game is the usual stuff packaged in a nice inside-the-computer style not unlike the brilliant Darwinia. So another fine tower defense game on Indie Games, unfortunately this one falls just short of brilliance but is still worth the money.

Bailout!
ChefTeslaCoil – 80 Points

Hopefully you know the token drill by now, we have one so a full NG review for this piece of retro styled satire will be incoming soon.

Pulsar
Polychrome – 240 Points

Music time now as yet another music toy tries to prove its worth on the channel. The basic idea is that you light up squares on a grid which then play notes in time, lighting up more squares will then produce a tune or beat. It’s insanely addictive to play around with and the ability to save and load sequences is a good idea. Plus 7 sound sets means there’s plenty of content there. However I really don’t think something that’s available as a flash game is worth 240 points. Give it a go at least I’d say.

Green Island
DK Alpla – 80 Points

Its long been the case that Japanese games run for far less time than the trial lockout. I find it very refreshing therefore to find here not only a game that doesn’t finish before the demo timer but which is also damn good fun. It’s a puzzle platformer where on each level are a number of bubbles to collect. The puzzle comes from firing your own bubbles which then form platforms for you to jump on either in designated free space or up against a wall. Elements such as switches and fans complicate levels as you progress but are introduced gradually enough for you to figure out how to use them alongside what you know. The pixel art style also manages to carry much of the same charm as Jump, one of the earlier Japanese games. I think this is well worth the asking price.

Enemy at the Gate
Big Daddio – 80 Points

Action Defense games, unlike Tower Defense tend to be rather clunky and unfun due to boring enemy AI and bad controls. Enemy at the Gate somehow manages to overturn none of the genre problems instead choosing to make things more difficult by giving you 3 different vehicles, each with its own travel speed and attack range. The problem comes when you realise that each enemy will die immediately after coming into the game becomes both much easier and also far more dull. The mouse-like control scheme doesn’t help much, making it look like a PC game that’s been straight ported to the console pad. Once again this is a genre that’s yet to prove that it can actually be fun.

Filler
SimianLogic – 240 Points

Territory control is a concept I love to see in a game, the problem is that it’s very rare to see a game that does anything different from the classic line drawing of games like Qix. Filler does something different, holding down the A button gradually grows balls which then drop and settle in the game area. Once the balls fill up 2/3rds of the play area the level is complete. Smaller enemy balls flying around can burst bubbles you’re growing which loses lives. Challenge levels give you larger fill requirements and restrictions on how many balls you can use. These add some great extra challenges to an already solid foundation. However I can’t shake the feeling that my enjoyment was largely down to my love of Qix and the like. Others may find it too frustrating and sedate to be any real fun.

This week’s best game goes to Green Island, but only just. Hopefully we’ll see more excellent Japanese games following in its footsteps. Something else I’d like to see is more devs trying that pixel style, it looks excellent which is more than can be said for the bad 3D or stock graphics that seem to be commonplace round here lately.

Dream Build Play is officially over for 2009 but if you want to get started on a game for next year then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab. 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 a full NG Review.

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Dust, Kaleidoscope, Max Blastronaut, Hurricane 2X Evolution, Sol Survivor and Rotorscope. One of these games will win its developer $40,000 as the winner of Dream Build Play 2009. Also any of these could get themselves onto Xbox Live Arcade. It’s hard to pick a winner from these to be honest, they all look brilliant but I don’t know how they play. You can see the trailers (in HD) for each by clicking on their names up there and read more about them in this article G4 did earlier this week. This week though we have 14 games including the return of some XNA superstars.

Dark Skies: Constellations
Oesis – 240 Points

A bit of observatory action to kick off with. Either looking around the starry skies or hunting down constellations. As a tool it’s not really much use as the excitement of astronomy comes from the movement of stars over time. As a test of your constellation knowledge it’s overpriced. Really nothing to get excited about.

Crystal Spear Remake
Former – 80 Points

A remake of what I can’t think, as I’ve never heard of a game called Crystal Spear. Anyway it’s some tunnel flying action dodging beams and trying to get to the end as fast as possible, yet it’s single straight line means it’s not fun to play and like so many Japanese XNA games the 8-minute trial limit remains unchallenged. So not worth the points even if it was fun.

Shining Blood
Teasoft – 400 Points

This is a pretty game, all red and black wireframe stuff. The basic aim is to use one of 3 given mechs to shoot down all the enemies in a level, then hop onwards to a new layout and tougher enemies in the next level. It all seems like a good idea and it is really. The problem is that this game has the worst controls I’ve ever seen in a videogame. When I did something it seemed like an accident and beyond that none of the controls are where you’d expect them to be. A good game ruined I think.

Sky Arena
Wangjuntom360 – 80 Points

Again this is a pretty game. The blocky polygons and loud guitars work within the context and feel of the game. What doesn’t work however in the context of a dogfighting game is the extremely close viewpoint. This makes it hard to see any incoming cliffsides or missiles. In these modern times the lack of any missile lock warning is also a cardinal sin.

Fireworks Spectacular
GoVids – 80 Points

Ugh, screensaver. How do I pad this out with enough words so that the entire formatting of this article isn’t screwed up? Well I can easily rant about how the trial version of this doesn’t let you do anything. I could say this makes me unable to judge the game or I could put unfairly assume it’s shit. Guess which option I prefer.

Mini-Golf 360
Jhample – 240 Points

Anyone who spent time on flash games as a student knows of games like this. I certainly spent my fair share of time on them while the teachers weren’t looking. Anyway this is 18 holes of miniature golf lovingly ripped from several other mini golf games which you can find over at this site right here for free and with much better controls.

Halfbrick Rocket Racing
Halfbrick – 240 Points

Halfbrick are an incresingly well known developer. Their upcoming Raskulls for XBLA is getting plenty of attention and we’ve seen them in this space before with the rather poor Echoes a few months ago. Anyway this is a game they mentioned a little while ago which has had me waiting for its arrival. It’s a top down racing game using one of three control styles thankfully, the ever unwieldy tank style using the triggers to fire each of the ship’s rockets individually to turn, the same system but reversed or just the one trigger to accelerate using the left stick to turn. The controls work well and the tracks are nicely laid out to accommodate the system whereby boosting off the walls gives you extra speed. However the only actual racing you’ll be doing will have to be against other people in the same room. Xbox Live multiplayer isn’t present and neither are any AI opponents. If you have friends then get it in, but those omissions from a developer who’s perfectly capable of doing both are inexcusable.

Wizard’s Tower Screensaver
SGDarkSquirrel – 80 Points

Well at least it’s being up-front with its screensaver ambitions there. However just like the fireworks earlier this is keeping anything past the menu strictly under wraps in the trial. For that reason alone I’m going to pad this out by saying it deserves this swift kick up the jacksie.

Avatar Golf
Barker’s Crest – 400 Points

See the developer name there? Barker’s Crest are one of the finest developers working with XNA. Their last creation was the incredible Easy Golf which not only was a brilliant golf game, but put the similar XBLA title Golf: Tee It Up! to shame with its character customisation and course creator. Now they’re back with what is effectively Easy Golf 2 and if you STILL haven’t bought the damn thing let me tell you why you should. This is everything Easy Golf was but with 6 brand new courses and the ability to play with your Avatar, making this the first Indie Game to feature Avatars as a playable character. The courses are brilliantly designed, there’s a fine community built up around the game and if Easy Golf was anything to go by you can expect some DLC for the game as well. Buy this game. Seriously, buy this freaking game. I don’t know how much more persuasive I can be without actually threatening you. BUY! THIS! GAME!

The Answer to Life
Clay Schubiner – 80 Points

Once again Get The Ball is repackaged with another useless little gimmick which once again is unavailable in trial mode. You know looking over this week’s games I was looking forward to the play sessions I’d have expecting there to be some real gems in there. I’m being sorely disappointed right now.

Avatar Drop
Rodyan – 80 Points

Oh boy, no-one tell Rare but someone’s equipped the Avatars with some spectacular ragdoll physics. The idea here is to control your falling Avatar as it breaks and buckles from hitting point scoring rings and balloons blocking your path. It’s weirdly cathartic fun and it gets rather competitive when you get more than one person involved. Fun enough to buy though is something I can’t commit to.

Magical Melody
Nakfiv – 240 Points

Yeah in the alt-text of that image I’ve put the phrase Pedobear Approved and I’m really right. This is a bit of sugary jpop alongside 3 undoubtedly underage girls who you can control using the face buttons tapped in time with the beat. Download it and see what it’s all about for a laugh if nothing else but it’s not worth the money. Just don’t blame me if the authorities want a word.

Flash Cards for Kids
Talryyn – 240 Points

To say this does exactly what it says on the tin would be both lazy and inaccurate, as there are no cards and no tin. If you have kids then you’re probably better off buying a proper set of flash cards, they’ll probably cost less.

Stereo 3D Gallery
Aztec – 80 Points

Another gallery, only instead of some rather decent original artwork we have some extremely poor 3D images which are both dull and don’t really work. All this from the developer of the Amazing Hypnodisc. Which was rubbish as well.

Game of the Week goes to the only worthy game of the week, the sublime Avatar Golf. Go give Barkers Crest your money.

Dream Build Play results will be out before the end of the month but if you want to get started on a game for next year then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab. 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.

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I’m excited my friends. Tomorrow we enter September and that is results month for the Dream Build Play contest. Run a Youtube search for Dream Build Play 2009 and you’ll find a load of excellent looking trailers for loads of the games that have been entered. I would make special note of Basketball Three, which is the first game I’ve seen to have Avatars as playable characters. The top prize for the winner is a fat cheque for $40,000 and any of the games could potentially become Xbox Live Arcade games like The Dishwasher. Keep an eye on the Dream Build Play website for the results through September.

Pastels Square
Nobusi – 400 Points

Last week a game went up and then disappeared called Matrix. It was a horrible puzzle game based around building a grid from falling lines. Pastels Square is from the same developer and based on the same idea, only now you’re constructing coloured squares which then disappear. This idea works much better for several reasons, the falling lines are now identical in shape, the instructions for the game are easier to understand thanks to some diagrams and a single screw-up doesn’t destroy your game. The only thing keeping me from a full recommendation is the 400 point tag. I’m not quite convinced it’s worth that.

Bed Time Nursery Rhymes
North Squard – 80 Points

Oh goody, another masterpiece from Indie Game shit-spreaders North Squard. Sure it’s pretty and the music is calming, but there’s so little actual coding effort here that it’s sickening. Not even the voice that reads the rhymes is good.

Shellblast HD
Optum – 400 Points

A game without screenshots or box art on the marketplace always makes me nervous. Are the devs too unsure of their game to not want me to see it? Is the game just a giant pile of turd? Well possibly the first one I think. Unlike every other bomb disposal game which is just sequence memorizing crap heap this is closer to Picross in its execution. Using a pair of lines you are charged with finding a certain amount of spots on a grid. The lines show you how many of these points they cover and then it’s a case of using logic and deduction to find them. Under a time limit this can get stressful and tricky, really quite a surprisingly good game. Well worth the cash I feel.

Puzzle?
MarkMD76 – 80 Points

A collection of word games with over 400,000 words says the game description. Well it certainly is a collection of word games, 3 to be precise. Most of them adhere to the ‘here’s a load of letters, how many words can you make’ formula. TicTacToe is thrown in here as well, for no decent reason. Other than the extremely basic formula there’s not much to fault, but there’s not much to complement either. There are just so many better word games around.

Deddora GO!
Zenryokutei – 400 Points

Tower defense time again. This one has an office setting, so your towers are cute anime office workers at desks. Where the classic formula is changed here is in the need to keep your workers maintained. Enemies will throw passing attacks at the workers, so keeping an eye on their health bars is important. This adds another dimension to your money as curing workers costs money. Also, in a long needed but small feature workers can be moved. These small additions make this another excellent example of the genre, however the text is all in Japanese. So ultimately you’re buying decision should be determined by whether or not you’re willing to figure out what does what by trial and error. That’s what keeps me from a full on recommendation.

Nasty
Chris Steele – 400 Points

Mr Steele has given us a review token for this game, so it will be getting a full NG review in the future. The reviewer is our dear Editor in Chief as well.

Streets of Fury
Cyrille Lagarigue – 240 Points

Mortal Kombat first used motion capture to provide some truly awful digitized sprites. It’s been nearly 20 years since then, and now Streets of Fury brings that glorious technique back for more beat-em-up fun in the Final Fight style. The idea here is to fight through each level beating up hoards of identical street thugs with a surprisingly deep fighting system. Counters, blocking and specials are all here and are complemented by a brilliant cast of swaggering twats serving as characters. The humour and gameplay work perfectly so look past the intentionally terrible graphics and you’re in for a punchy, kicky treat.

Octagon
Floor – 240 Points

Now for some shooty fun. The arena is octagonal and shots can be charged, that is important as bouncing shots off the walls can be critical to success. However as usual the single button forward shooting model doesn’t work in the arena shooting format. Bouncing off the walls helps this, but doesn’t make the game less clunky. The reason for the single button shooting is that enemies can only be destroyed by bullets the same colour as them. A fine idea, but executed rather badly. Make a note developers, you need a dual stick control method if you’re making an arena shooter.

Storage Inc
Stolpskott Studios – 400 Points

This surprised me, what seems to be a multiplayer focused point scramble is actually an increasingly frantic game based around storing and sending out boxes as they come into and have to be sent out of the warehouse. You do this using a cumbersome forklift which is controlled in RC style. The left stick moves forwards and backwards and the right stick rotates it left and right. It works surprisingly well but the only real problem is that in its early stages the game is far too slow. If you think you can manage to work through these glacier speed early maps then you’ll get plenty of enjoyment from this.

Downtown Smash Dodgeball
Miracle Kidz – 800 Points (wait…what?)

800? No, I don’t get it either but this is a full XBLA style 800 points. Basically this is a remake/copy of the old SNES game Super Dodgeball. Tournament and single game modes are available with lovingly ripped sprites. OK so I can’t beat around this particular bush any longer, this IS Super Dodgeball and nothing more. For 400 or 240 I may have considered it, but at 800? Not a hope in hell. The game is fine, but it’s a pure rip off. This sort of thing shouldn’t be encouraged. Find the SNES version somewhere or even better, track down the vastly superior GBA remake. Just don’t support this sort of behavior.

Hotel Danger
North West – 80 Points

How do you review a matching pairs game? Well that’s my challenge here right now. It’s not really matching pairs though, there are a few ‘killers’ scattered around and matching a hotel ‘guest’ with these will see them ‘killed’. Match 10 hotel guests without losing 10 to clear each level. It’s purely random and also insultingly easy at the same time. Let’s not forget of course, the fact that it’s incredible boring.

Balls and Blocks
Ben 3DX – 80 Points

It’s a fairly pretty game here with a basic concept. Use your big ball to push the little balls off the stage. Nice idea but pushing around the little balls seems like a pointless addition when the levels are enough of a challenge by themselves without having to get stupidly close to the edge. There’s not really much else to it really. It’s Super Monkey Ball with an artificial extra goal. Nice, but far from essential.

Track Architect
Victor Ortega – 80 Points

Trials. Yep it’s Budget Trials time with a little buggy, anti-gravity arrows and a weird habit of bouncing around on a perfectly flat surfaces. The Trials racing stuff works as nicely as you’d expect but the focus of the game is the track creation tool. Weirdly the pure 2D style makes the editor much easier to use than the Trials HD one. So basically here’s my thought, if you don’t have Trials HD yet, give this a shot.

Arrow Run
North Squard – 80 Points

Using the 360′s notoriously wonky and imprecise dpad the idea here is to press a sequence of directions before someone else or a computer opponent can. Nothing else here except mind-crushing boredom. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

15 Puzzle
Snowcap Games – 240 Points

Time for sliding tile puzzles. Very pretty sliding tile puzzles admittedly but still sliding tile puzzles. I can do this stuff on my desktop or in a browser. Why the hell would I pay 240 points to do it?

Hot Potato Online
Adam and Perusse – 400 Points

OK I’m in something of a moral dilemma here. All the profits from this game will go to Penny Arcade’s brilliant Child’s Play charity so if the game is turd then I’m going to come across as a dick for saying you shouldn’t give money to charity. However by the same token if I say you should buy it then I’m being overly forgiving for the sake of sick kids. Well screw that, this is a game about lobbing bombs around an arena trying to ensure either it explodes in the hands of or near to your enemies in order to score points or eliminate them. The inclusion of Xbox Live play is hugely encouraging as what would usually be a dull solo-fest should provide some heated multiplayer laughs as EVERYONE IS GOING TO BUY THIS GAME FOR CHILD’S PLAY, GOT IT?

Ninja Guardian
Phoenix Game Studios – 240 Points

Ninja time again. This time it’s about jumping up completely vertical levels slashing at enemies in order to save the environment from evil polluting shoguns. The premise is rather excellent and for the most part the gameplay holds up. The main problem I have is with the controls, the A button jumps at the start of the level, but A in mid-air attacks while double-jump is relegated to a trigger. This can get confusing in a fast based game where a single mistake means restarting a level. So the game is good, but the controls prevent me from giving a full blown recommendation.

Colotristar
Hacker Face – 240 Points

Puzzle time to finish up this week. Swap coloured stars around and form lines of 3 or more to have them disappear from the grid. However those stars aren’t replaced, so the puzzle style is more in-line with Peg Solitaire. By that token every move needs to be thought about and the grid analyzed in order to clear the grids. It’s a decent puzzle concept, but I don’t find it terribly fun. More hardened puzzle fans may well enjoy this as a change of pace though.

Oh man, a very very good week means an serious conflict over the game of the week spot. For it’s pure pisstake appeal however I am handing the trophy to Streets of Fury, I was honestly surprised how fluid and fun that game actually is.

Dream Build Play results start to come out this week hopefully. If you want to get started on a game for next year then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab. 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.

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When you’ve been doing this as long as I have you start to recognise developer names. At some point I’ll probably start to create a Hall of Shame for the developers who consistently load endless piles of turd onto the channel. A few of the usual suspects show their faces this week, see how many you can spot amongst the 20 games that make up this week’s recap.

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
Jamezilla – 80 Points

Chances are you know this game. Top rated, current chart #1 and raved about by everyone the second you mention it. It’s the new game from James Silva, and if you don’t recognise that name then you’ll have to go play his last game. Dream Build Play 2007 winner and XBLA game Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. This is a dual stick shooter, however it is also a parody of and carries homages to several other games. The levels melt together with the music and new kinds of enemies seamlessly blend into the game. This is exactly how an arena shooter like this should work. For about 15 minutes I played in a kind of trance, only stopping to unlock the full game when the trial timer expired. In terms of addictive score attack games on Indie Games there is nothing better than this to play, watch or even listen to.

Gogs
Gogs – 80 Points

Knocking like coloured balls into each other to clear them sounds like a decent idea on paper. For the first few levels I was playing it played fine as well, not brilliant but there was potential there. However once I reached level 4 and more balls were added I started to notice the extremely dodgy collision detection. After hitting a ball a few times my controllaball (sorry) started to just pass straight through the balls it was supposed to hit. Moving onto other balls quickly had the same effect so I’m forced to file this under ‘Broken’.

Power Hour
GIGGITYGIGG1TY – 80 Points

Another week, another game about beer. The rules of this drinking game are that you consume 1 shot of beer every minute for 60 minutes. All the game does is keep time, pop up some quotes about beer and play music. Not even the music is decent as it cuts out each track after a minute. Get a stopwatch and leave this alone, or play a better drinking game.

The Drinking Game
North Squard – 80 Points

Lo and behold here’s another drinking game. This one however is just a slot machine. A beer appearing means a drink, 2 beers for 2 drinks and everyone drinks if a wench shows up. Really just not worth it. As if you thought it might be.

Zens 360
xMONOx – 80 Points

Simple enough, this just displayed a zen thought for the day alongside some calming music and imagery. If you meditate in the mornings or otherwise I can see it being somewhat interesting, but for everyone else this is pointless.

Johnny’s Minefield
North Squard – 80 Points

Within 5 seconds you have to memorise the layout of a minefield. Then the mines disappear and you have to walk from one side to the other. As a grid based game this sort of thing could work, but as a free moving game it starts requiring more precision in your memory than I think exists. The character’s expression changes when you’re close to a mine, but most of the times I noticed this and tried to move the other way the mine blew up anyway. Whether the mine is on a timer or the trailing arm is included in the collision detection is unclear. Before I noticed that it was dull, with that problem there it’s infuriating.

Livelayer Prototype
Kamadasyoko – 80 Points

I find this maze game strangely enthralling even though it’s really over thought. Basically there are 2 sides to the maze, A light side with no enemies, keys or traps where your health and energy recharges and a dark side where your energy drains. The skill in the game comes from using the keys you bring back from the darkside to unlock the right doors and escape the maze as quickly as possible. The other challenge is moving through the darkside sections quickly so you have the energy to bust out the keys. The problem is that the game isn’t that much fun when you think about it. However despite this I kept playing so there is potentially a game you may like here, I however find it kind of hollow.

Game Finder
UberGeekGames – 80 Points

The ability to sort and find games that interest you is just 80 points away. This is of course on Xbox Live where you need an internet connection so I’m assuming anyone using this has a browser somewhere. If that is indeed the case then ignore this and check out XBLARatings.com.

Goldens
Mark Westbrook – 240 Points

Now for some arena combat. Not shooting for once though. The idea behind this game is to mine gold nuggets from the mines that appear and disappear as the game progresses. Then it’s a case of sucking them up into your posession before shooting them into the mine carts that trundle along the track that runs through the maps. The mechanics are sound, the controls take time to get used to but work rather well, the bot AI is suitably dirty and competitive and the game is surprisingly nice to look at. Really this is a lot better than I was expecting, but I do say it’s much more worthwhile if you have friends willing to play too.

Shardscape Assault
Arthur Prescient – 80 Points

A token we have and a token we will utilise. Look out for this game getting the full review treatment soon. The email we got showed that Mr Prescient believes in the game though. I always like to see that.

1337 Ship Deathmatch
LocoPuyo – 400 Points

More multiplayer arena shenanigans now. Asteroids style inertia steering govern this simple shooter. A warping ability adds a bit of spice to the standard fly around shooting things formula but I can’t get past the fact that the game looks like ass. The blurb promises 1080p HD and 3D graphics, but the only thing 3D about this game is the timer. There are far better shooters of this kind around.

Wacky Karts
Krollware LLC – 400 Points

Once again we have been graced with a token for this kart racer. Naturally this means there will be a full NG Review coming soon. The stats are fairly standard though, 16 tracks split into 4 tournaments. I consider that the basic standard for XNA racers.

Atomhex
Escapist Games – 80 Points

More dual stick action now with a very pretty shooter. The basic idea of the game is that the white atoms are harmlesss as are the coloured hexes. However once the 2 combine they become a lethal enemy spawn point. Then your ship needs to be the same colour as the Atomhex to destroy it. Destroying hexes alone will allow you to change colour. The need to keep an eye on colours adds an extra bit of challenge to an already rather good shooter. Adding to the good stuff is the presence of awards, these achievementlikes have been in several Indie Games, but Atomhex not only has 100 of them but awards them with the achievement tone and flashes them on the bottom of the screen. I like that for attention to detail. This one comes recommended to dual stick veterans.

Arbor Vitae
Erpberger – 240 Points

“It Takes a Hero To Save A Tree.” With that eco-warrior message made blatantly clear it’s off into another dual stick shooter with another interesting twist. This time you’re not at risk of defeat from enemies, you’re now in charge of defending a tree. This involves more complex thinking than just shooting everything that comes to attack. You’re helped out by a group of wisecracking nanobots which can perform tasks like watering the tree or helping you fight off enemies that have latched onto the tree. The balancing of these nanobots tasks gets tougher as enemies become more numerous and that makes this game more than a dual stick shooter. The fact that the wisecracks of the nanobots is actually funny helps out there too.

Ninja Train
Dot Zo Games – 80 Points

I can’t help but wonder why games with awesome titles are never that good. Ninja Train is a constantly scrolling platformer like Jump was last week. However where Jump got a pass thanks to its charm and style, Ninja Train has none of that. The pixel art is nice at first, but a limited field of vision due to the action being viewed from a train window makes it hard to keep your character in view. The other problem is that there’s no challenge, no enemies or pits to fall down so finishing the game’s 3 stages within the 8 minute trial is easily possible. Japanese developers need to sort this problem out if they want any sales.

A Frog Game
Imagodespira – 240 Points

Jump from one lilypad to another and eat flies. Jumping just requires the A button and eating is done with the triggers. It’s unbelievably dull to play. There’s just no depth, no challenge, no entertainment and no point.

Crecendo Symphony 2
Nakfiv – 240 Points

You may remember Crecendo Symphony being a somewhat average shooter back when Japanese games first appeared on the service. It was very pretty if nothing else and this second visit to the Crecendo Symphony world maintains that. Rather than a shooter we now have an RPG style puzzle. Flipping tiles under your character provides attack or defence with special moves available which make it easy to launch special attacks. With all the story text in Japanese and only one battle here however it makes for another decent idea which just doesn’t do enough to deserve the points.

Zombies 2.0
Danthekilla – 240 Points

More zombie shenanigans now, this time it’s about defending a base from the living dead. Right stick aiming, right trigger firing is the control scheme we’re working with here. However, as with a lot of zombie games, it’s just as much about what you can see. Your character (a robot) has a torch which gives you a small field of vision. Other forms of light are available though, lighting barrels on fire will help as will flares. The ability to buy new weapons and make repairs with money earned from successful defence is also a nice touch. However the difficulty ramps up way too quickly for me to make this a full on recommendation. Definitely give it a shot though.

Dodge These Balls
Imagodespira – 80 Points

Move the red ball and avoid the black balls which gradually increase in number. A simple idea makes for a simple game. Unfortunately it doesn’t make for a fun game. What I’ve described is literally all there is to the game, just not worth its space.

Penguin Slip Slide Lite
SGN Casual Games – 80 Points

Refer to comments I made about the non-lite version of this game some time ago. For those not willing to track them down though here’s the basic idea. This is that sliding ice block puzzle used in several games (most notably recent Zelda games and Bionic Commando Rearmed) but stretched out into a full game. I don’t like this puzzle at the best of times and the tacky presentation that has become a hallmark of all the SGN games doesn’t do much to endear me to it.

Game of the Week? It’s tricky this week but I’m going to say that I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 just edges it. That does it for now but keep an eye on NG throughout the week for some more Indie Game reviews.

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. If you want to get in on the XNA action yourself then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab.

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This is usually the bit where I ramble on about stuff that’s rarely relevant. This week however we have a lot of games (21) to cover so I’ll keep this short by just mentioning 2 important things. Firstly you can now unlock Indie Game trials from the game library just like XBLA games. Secondly you can now rate games using a 5-star system. Make sure you rate your favourites and watch the Top Rated section to find the gems everyone else likes. Now we have 21 games to deal with so let’s get going.

Zen Sound
Polychrome – 400 Points

This is more of a toy than a game, you move the cursor around the screen and press A to play a note corresponding to that position. Notes will repeat in musical time as they were played which can make for some eerily relaxing tones that just come out of tapping the button whenever you feel like it. It’s fun to mess around with for a while, but I don’t think anyone will feel the need to purchase the full version.

Jump!
Yuwaka – 80 Points

It’s very rare for a game to come along that has so much charm and cuteness that I’m prepared to look past its flaws and just let my mind enjoy the visual and aural pleasuring it’s getting. This is one of those games, a constantly scrolling platformer (one of my least favourite game mechanics ever) which just has such a happy and carefree look and sound that almost makes me ignore the fact that this is a basic, easy and very short platformer that I managed to complete in the trial time. Worth a trial though, if only to see if it can melt the cold, cynical ice that surrounds your heart.

X-Over
Section S – 240 Points

I like shooters, I especially like hard shooters. So I like X-Over. Following the false start that was Crecendo Symphony a few weeks back this is what I consider a proper bullet hell shooter. A well sized hitbox, decent enemies who actually make some effort to hit you as well as some excellent artwork help to make this one of the best shooters on the service.

Bitstream
Projector Games – 400 Points

You may remember a game covered during Wardrox’s covering weeks back in May called Streamline. A line racing game which had very little depth, didn’t look too great and just wasn’t much fun. Bitstream is the complete opposite of that. First of all there’s a lot of depth to the game. Travelling straight will gradually increase your speed so winning races becomes less about reactions and more about finding the fastest route from start to finish. There are 16 tracks split into 4 tournaments with 8 racers in each. A load of flare effects on the lines and musical cues every time you move makes the game a delight to look at and listen to as well.

ULTRA POWERED MASSAGER
Clay Schubiner – 80 Points

Like Jeremy Clarkson this is a fairly weak and feeble thing that just screams POWER a lot. It’s the same developer as Get The Ball from about a month ago so if you missed that here’s your chance. Not that it’s really worth getting either.

Zombie Mania
William Ulrich – 400 Points

So it has come to this, Pac-Man with zombies. You wander around a maze collecting body bits and occasionally hacking a zombie with the axes dotted around. Then once all the bits are gathered you move on to a slightly more complex maze with more zombies. Zombies don’t make everything better, they deserve better than this.

Beer Screensaver
Entrager – 80 Points

Fuck off. From the one who brought you Remote Masseuse comes this shameless atrocity. Just a vaguely beer coloured screen with a few bubbles running up it. Remote Masseuse is the massage game most often cited as the spark for the flood and this isn’t going to help improve Entrager’s standing in the minds of most XNA developers.

Agent MMO: Maximum Overdeath
Agent MMO – 240 Points

AMMO is a game filled with references and in-jokes from Destructoid, a videogame site we love round here and where the game was nurtured through regular playtest sessions. The game is so steeped in the site that the entire staff is featured in the game. The problem is that the controls are extremely loose and the game moves as such a fast pace that it’s hard to keep track of just what the hell is going on. However, this is a game that was made for multiplayer dicking about and in Indie Game land that’s tricky territory. If you can convince your friends to buy it or if you’re already part of the Destructoid community that’s playing this game nightly already then it’s worth the money. If not however, you’re unlikely to get much fun out of it.

Pebble Dash
Lutas – 240 Points

We have recieved a token for this game so there will be a full NG review coming up before next week’s recap. Up until then I have no rating for you I’m afraid.

Music Roll
XELF – 80 Points

Another music sequencer, this time based around piano rolls. Those are those long rolls of paper that play automatic pianos. The problem I have with this however is that I can’t find any way to actually change the note played. I could figure out changing the note length, but an actual new note? Seemingly not possible. Something like this needs a controls diagram somewhere and for missing that out….

Destruction Tank
CS Kid AMC 360 – 240 Points

Yeah, bit of 3D tank action is what you need after that poncy music stuff. The 3D is very basic, almost 3DO stuff. Tanks have 2 weapons, a main cannon which needs restocking from ammo crates and a machine gun that overheats if used for too long. It’s basic one on one arena fighting but it’s still rather fun and if you can rope in a human competitor things can get rather heated and vicious. Might’ve just been my roommate though.

360 Mega App Pack HD
Seph – 80 Points

A massager, clock, button mashing game, a magic 8-ball, a calculator, random number generator and a Simon clone. This is pretty much the greatest hits version of the constant streams of crap that come through here. There’s a weird charm to the button masher though. Purely for gathering everything into one managable package I think this deserves more than the usual. If you have to buy this stuff, buy this whole pack so we only have one blight on the charts. Still cack you shouldn’t buy though.

Advanced Rock Paper Scissors
North West – 80 Points

Now I’ve seen this idea before elsewhere and I quite like it. The standard RPS (earth, water and fire here) formula plays out as you’d expect but numbers on the cards determine the damage done to each player. However the strategic possibilities of the idea aren’t properly realised. Breaking ties or even cancelling out potential winners with the element strength could’ve been done. This is an idea that shamefully hasn’t realised it’s potential.

Superspace
DeepSpace – 240 Points

The description made this sound like a sort of Freespace/Elite style trading game. What we have is a fairly dull game of collecting crates and shooting enemies in an environment so full of inertia that it makes any kind of precision control impossible. Disappointing.

SBDM-1
Notohoho – 240 Points

What is it with music sequencers around here lately? This is another one that looks very pretty but just like Music Roll is completely useless because once again it’s near impenetrable due to a lack of clear controls. I figure it’s based on a real sequencer, so if you know how to use that you’ll likely have more luck. For everyone else though, stay away.

The Last Cannonball
Jhample – 80 Points

Fire a cannonball and see how far it goes. That’s pretty much it. Bouncing the ball off dead bodies (slightly tasteless) and landmines will keep it going while sandpits and birds will slow it and stop it. It’s the sort of thing you’d see in a basic flash game but you’re being asked to pay for it. When pure luck is the only way to score highly it’s never a good thing.

Contagion
Trailer Matze – 240 Points

Contagion is a good looking game, there’s plenty of decent 3D models and animations in there. Just thought I’d get that out of the way because like so many good looking games the gameplay isn’t quite up to the job. The game itself consists of flying a ship around increasingly complex levels nurturing and controlling a bug population in order to restore power to the planet by utilising the bug’s inate electrical power. It’s fine in theory but the bulkiness of the ship combined with the need to keep the bug population under control makes things much more difficult than they need to be. Nice idea, shame it’s not really that much fun.

Megalopolis
Monkeys in Space Suits – 400 Points

They’re only there as window dressing in the stats screen but this is the first Indie Game to use Avatars! Good job the game manages to be pretty decent then. It’s a very nice looking Sim City-esque game with a focus on the environmental effects your growing settlement has on the surrounding area. So power stations and houses produce CO2 which has to be absorbed by planting trees. Produce too much CO2 and natural disasters will come in to wreak vengeance leading to global warming flooding your island. It’s nice and topical and really quite a lot of fun to play. Unlike regular Sim City.

Pentominion
Xisai – 240 Points

This is a thoroughly impenetrable puzzler. On the surface it’s Tetris with 5-part blocks instead of 4 to which I scream the usual “it’s 4 for a freaking reason” rage. However it adds in a scanning line that turns the blocks into music (which isn’t at all like Lumines, not even slightly) and an extremely confusing bonus system it terms “ignition”. This basically means finding a block with a special symbol in it, using that block to clear a line while ensuring no other block comes within a 1 block space of the symbol block and then surrounding the special block with other blocks to form an ignition block and boost the points you get for clearing lines. Confused? Yeah it didn’t make a damn bit of sense to me either, broken english tutorial or not.

Wacky Water Fun
North Squard – 80 Points

The shooting gallery idea can work for a videogame, it has been done. However it’s always done with a lightgun. With a controller this sort of game loses all of its fun and most crucially, its challenge. I’m not against these games being around, but with only an analog stick and a button there’s no fun in them.

Golden Tangram
Spyn Doctor – 80 Points

Here’s a confession, I love Tangrams. I believe that in any list of the greatest puzzling concepts ever made the Tangram and the lesser known offshoots the Pythagoras and Crossbreaker, both also featured in this game, should be seated high at the top table. The basic idea is simple, arrange the same 7 basic shapes into a multitude of different patterns. No time limit, no score, just you versus the puzzle. It’s basic to the point of insanity, but does contain 250 puzzles that should keep you going for weeks. For the price of an Avatar t-shirt, this is a no brainer if you have any interest in puzzles.

This week’s game of the week medal is proudly worn by Megalopolis, Keep an eye out for the full review of Pebble Dash at some point in the week and also bear in mind that we have plenty of other Indie Game reviews outside of this feature.

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. If you want to get in on the XNA action yourself then check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab.

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There’s a tab in the Indie Games section labelled ‘Contest Finalists’. A load of great games come under that tab like Blow, Carneyvale Showtime and Trino. The contest in question is Dream Build Play, a game making contest for XNA developers. Entries for this year’s contest closed this week so naturally YouTube is rather full of trailers for beautiful looking XNA games like Dust: An Elysian Tail which,above, you can see promo art for. Go check out the Dream Build Play website here for more info.

Extreme RPS Online
Monkey Ware – 200 Points

RPS Online has had a lot more effort put in art wise than most of the rock paper scissors games. Weirdly it also has a neat little combo mechanic where you expend power to throw out more than one symbol in a round. No amount of neat little touches however can cover up the fact that this is Rock Paper Scissors.

Reef Rave
North Squard – 80 Points

Yet again we have a screensaver. There are plenty of styles to choose from but I repeat, this is a screensaver.

The Oracle
Loidi – 80 Points

Magic 8-ball. Nothing more, nothing less. A magic 8-ball that gives me attitude as well for not buying it.

Spectral Music Massage
Pow Studios – 240 Points

You’ve already seen the key word in that title. Massage. Yep it’s been a while since we last got one of these but here’s one to open that crap salon once more. This one’s gimmick is that it will vibrate to your music, so I threw in some Queens of the Stone Age (Little Sister if you’re wondering) to really try it out. My controller was not vibrating anywhere near where I would expect it to, hell it wasn’t even matching the basic rhythm. It’s sad when a massage game can’t do what it says it will.

Mayan Countdown
Zenfar – 80 Points

December 21st, 2012. That’s the date this glorified pre-set stopwatch is counting down to. It’s the date on which many people believe will bring the apocalypse and the end of civilisation based on ‘evidence’ taken from the Mayan calendar. There is no proof of this and even Mayan descendents say it’s balls. Ignore.

Ultimate Sacrifice
Teasoft – 80 Points

Yay it’s an XNA shooter. YAY IT’S JAPANESE!! OK so it’s not terribly brilliant. A massive ship seems cool to control at first but quickly becomes unwieldy when you realise you’re too big to dodge anything for certain. The game compensates for this by having a massive life bar so you’re rarely going to find yourself in trouble. Disappointingly dull really.

Card Arcade
YYR – 240 Points

It seems like it could be a perfect cash in, but this is instead a collection of games designed to be scored in this videogame format. From the no doubt familiar Three Peaks to a rather nice variation on Blackjack. I expected this to be a rather cynical collection of games but I ended up enjoying it a lot. The minimalist pixel style of card art appeals to me as well. Worth at least a trial.

Steel Transfer Tiyou Oshi
Shingahaku – 240 Points

Yeah I used Google for the translation. So what we have here is a bit of side scrolling ninja action not unlike Shinobi. If Shinobi was horribly unresponsive and too fast for its own good. Half the time I didn’t even see what killed me (which I would imagine is appropriate, these being ninjas) and the other half of the time I was cursing the controls for not doing what they were told. I wanted to like it and it’s pretty to look at, but it just isn’t fun to play.

GLITNER
Hironori – 80 Points

Tower defence time again, but in 3D? It works a lot better than you might think. The enemy path is shown and you can’t put satellites on that, but having a full 3D area to work with allows you to get a lot more creative with your defences. Other improvements over the classic formula include an excellent controller optimised toolbox for quick placement and even a stat box to show clearly the sort of enemies you’re currently facing. For 240 points this would’ve been excellent, for 80 it’s a freaking steal.

Division Omega
Murkaeus – 240 Points

Right, time to play with some tanks. I wasn’t expecting much from this basic looking game but I ended up pleasantly surprised. The tanks are simple enough to control (though a bitch to get used to), the guns are sufficiently meaty but the scrolling levels are only functional. Worth a try I think.

Veks and Silence
i ENDER i – 400 Points

The smash hit game Veks and Silence has been BANNED and its hero thrown into the videogame asylum. Soon enough though zombies fill the streets and it’s up to Veks to save the day by storming through 13 levels of zombies and gaming satire. This is at its heart a 2.5D shooter platformer but has 4 very nicely balanced weapons, a glorious art style and a great sense of humour. Those factors make it a huge amount of fun to play, another essential Indie Game. Also, it has zombies.

Headshot
North West – 80 Points

Wait for one of the hundreds of identical sprites to draw a gun and shoot him in the head. That’s all there is to it, the gunmen will get quicker but that’s about it. Not to mention there’s no indication of where the gunner might be making it almost pure pot luck whether you actually see them before they fire. Don’t even look.

That’s your lot for this week. My Game of the Week is easily Veks and Silence. More finely crafted games with zombies like this please.

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.

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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.

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Oooh, get us and our big new name. Yes the change has finally come and this is now the weekly recap of Xbox Live Indie Games, because Community is rubbish. With the name change has come a few other changes, chief among which is that XNA Studio 3.1 games are coming. Not for a few weeks but they are being accepted for peer review now so we’ll likely see the fruits of those labours when the dashboard update rolls out in August, I can’t wait to massage my avatar. Also there will be pricing changes, games will now fall under 80, 160 and 400 point banners. Can’t see the point of those myself, I quite like the 400 and 200 system. Most importantly for media types like myself though is that iGame developers will now get 50 tokens for free downloads of their game, effectively giving them 50 review copies to use as they see fit. I can only hope that’ll help motivate bigger sites to start reviewing iGames more often and get the service spoken of as something more than the dirt on XBLA’s shoe. You can see the full list of new features and changes over here.

Chart stuff and Kodu has seemingly hit the slippery slope, after a few weeks at #1 it now rests at #7. Somehow RC Air-Sim remains #1 so I have to ask who the hell is still buying this game? It’s been out over 6 months and is still top of the charts. The mind boggles when I consider how much money it’s made. The only other interesting bit of the chart is Gamerbots which holds stubbornly to the lower order at #8.

To celebrate the name change (which TECHNICALLY doesn’t take hold until tomorrow) we have a big fat 14 titles to look at. Wonder how many are any good?

Ice9
Ceiyne – 200 Points

Balls come from the center and you catch them using your paddle at the edge. It doesn’t sound fun, and it isn’t fun.

Leave to Die

Math Gardener
Hotshot 10101 – 200 Points

From the genius mind that brought you Math Aerobat and Math Sniper comes the exact same fucking game once again.

Leave to Die

Cyborg Mice Arena
Bioroid – 200 Points

Once again the dual stick shooters attempt to dodge that stigmatic tag by using the triggers to shoot. It’s never a good idea to make the controls more complex and they don’t help to make this any more than another multiplayer arena shooter. There are much better examples of the genre on the service.

Leave to Die

The Amazing Rumbling Hypno Disc!
Aztec – 200 Points

If you fancy being hypnotised with your ‘massagers’ here’s something for you. For the rest of us…

Leave to Die

Super Xblox 360
GiggityGigg1ty – 200 Points

Tetris, only with the massive revolution that not all blocks have 4 pieces. Look guys, Tetris blocks have 4 blocks for a reason. Messing with that just makes the game not fun and rubbish, not that a Tetris clone would ever struggle with those criteria.

Leave to Die

Choc-a-rific
Projector Games – 200 Points

I remember this game from when it was called A Great Easter Egg Hunt. Please don’t re-release your game under a new name. I will notice. I didn’t like the game back then either.

Leave to Die

LED Display
Mr Brian – 200 Points

A scrolling LED display which can also show the time. Stunning.

Leave to Die

Tabe-Ball
Idle Han – 200 Points

It’s table football (foosball to you Americans) with the sticks being used to control the players. It’s pretty much like regular table football, only without the fun.

Leave to Die

Rock Paper Scissors EXTREME!!
Chef Tesla Coil – 200 Points

EXTREEEEEEME!! It’s rock paper scissors. Only with a massager and fortune teller built in. So basically it’s a greatest hits compilation of XNA’s biggest spacewasters.

Max Fun Times
Claymerikorp – 200 Points

It’s a spinner onto which you can put your own rules for a drinking game. If you are really desperate for a d12…

Leave to Die

The Review Channel
Treeway – 200 Points

If 2 weeks is too long for you to wait for the Dashboard update that brings in user ratings, here’s your chance to pay for the priviledge early! Only no-one will read these.

Leave to Die

Maladras
Vincent V Soolen – 200 Points

OK, so now we finally have some decent puzzling in this week’s ocean of crap. It’s a pretty simple tile matching game with a few very well defined rules. Lines between tiles can’t make more than 2 turns and you can take lines outside of the play area. It’s simple to begin with but gets much more complex as environmental hazards, an increasingly unforgiving timer and walls that your line can’t go through are introduced. It’s the kind of simple that I’m more than willing to subscribe to for 200 points, puzzle fans should certainly check it out.

Try It

Xtreme Polygon
A Super Sonic – 200 Points

A dual stick shooter that behaves like a dual stick shooter for the first time in a while, but that doesn’t make it any good. The idea is to blast around shapes to smash them into your opponents. Not really fun, even with other humans.

Physics Sandbox
xMONOx – 200 Points

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, a 2D sandbox in which you can create a load of physics toys. Cool, but a nasty interface makes creating anything that works properly a nightmare.

Try It

Game of the Week in the biggest pool of turds I’ve ever had the misfortune of playing is Maladras. I’m off to buy some cake so I can get the nasty taste from those games out of my mouth. I’ll see you next week.

If you think you can do better (and by god you can) check out XNA Creator’s Club or Kodu Game Lab.

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I realised a little something before I started writing this. I spend most of my writing time these days singing the praised and bitching about the failings of independant games. I wrote a blog entry over on Destructoid earlier this week actually with a list of what I consider to be the 10 essential Community Games and it kinda makes me feel like a massive Indie Fag to have written an article like that. I don’t really mind though, because I honestly love and believe in this service. That’s why I do this every week. OK, now I feel like a sappy asshole for writing that.

Chart time now and RC Air-Sim has disposed of Kodu to reclaim the top spot. Last week’s game of the week Gamerbots has debuted at #5, which is something positive to look at in a chart which contains 2 screensavers and 2 massagers.

Chick Chick Chicky
Dunham Bros – 400 Points

You may have asked yourself in the past, with all these Tetris and Pong clones on Community Games where are the shameless copies of that other great retro game Pac-Man? Well here you go, a perfect Pac-Man clone. Doesn’t use what we would consider the classic Pac-Man map but otherwise it’s the same enemy avoiding, pill grabbing action we’ve come to expect. And be rather bored by.

Leave to Die

Nebulon
Dark Omen – 200 Points

Nebulon looks like such a good idea at first. A cool looking neon shooter where the right trigger fires and the right stick moves the targeting cursor. Unfortunately the cursor disappears when you start moving, so this is a fast paced shooter with plenty of enemies where you effectively can’t move and shoot. Nice idea, but just way too frustrating in practice to really work.

Leave to Die

Pop Quiz
Thunder Hammer – 200 Points

I’m a bit of a quiz buff so I was looking forward to trying this. The presentation is a bit dull and the voiceover is extremely annoying but the questions are actually rather well written and at a good difficulty. If you enjoy 1 vs 100 but fancy a slightly more difficult class of question then you may well find something to like here.

Try It

Also This Week…

Screensaver fans can get their rocks off to Fireworks HD and Magic Eye enthusiasts can get eye strain over 3D Magic Images.

That’s all, yeah there wasn’t much this week so game of the week goes to the only game to not bore my tits off which was Pop Quiz. If you want to make some games of your own then you can either check out Kodu Game Lab or go the full length and hit up XNA Creators Club.

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You realise this feature has been going for 3 months now? Scary huh.

A communication/real life fail meant we didn’t get this done last week and a computer fail on my end meant this didn’t get done yesterday. So shout from the rooftops you lucky Monday fans because you get the Cgame recap on your favourite day for once. In a change to the usual formula we’re only looking in depth at actual games for this double week recap, I’ve come to think it’s not really fair to judge a perfectly functional utility released on the service by the standards of a videogame. Don’t worry, even taking them out there’s been plenty of turds dropped this fortnight.

Chart news and we have a new champion!! RC-Air Sim has been well and truly kerbstomped by the Microsoft Research project Kodu. While Kodu is on the Cgame channel I won’t be covering it in this article, however there will be a full scale Not Review coming up sometime soon. The rest of the chart is the usual mess of Aquariums and Massages, let’s get down to business.

RotorMania
Raccoon456 – 200 Points

XNA puzzlers have a tendency to want to be the new Rubik’s Cube, that is damn near impossible and insanely frustrating yet just rewarding enough to ensure you keep coming back to it. Remarkably RotorMania seems to have nailed that formula through being a full 3D puzzle with an insane amount of difficulty even on the easy setting to someone who’s not particularly keen on Rubik’s style puzzles. Simply put you rotate blocks around a central axis while shuffling them up and down into empty spaces to try and make the columns match up in terms of colour. Like a Rubik’s Cube it’s a case of planning ahead enough so that all 6 columns fall into place at the right time, this is helped by a 2D minimap to keep tabs on where everything is without having to scroll around the full column. The drop and return appeal of a Cube is also enabled with an autosave system. Probably one of the best puzzlers I’ve seen in some time, XNA or otherwise.

Buy It!

Game Training: Dexterity
Justin le Clair – 400 Points

I’ve been a videogamer for 16 years, so I’m a little curious at the idea of a series of games that can improve my skills as a gamer using minigames. Dexterity presents itself as a DDR style rhythm game, control functions such as a d-pad direction or a face button scroll up the screen and you hit them when they get to the top. However whether it’s a design choice or a bug I’m not sure but just holding down the button will count the hit. So it doesn’t work as a rhythm game, the notation isn’t particularly challenging for anyone who’s ever played Rock Band, and the music is dull as hell. So to put it simply, if I want to train as a gamer, I’ll go play a videogame thanks.

Leave to Die

Bennu
AlMra – 400 Points

Bennu is a game about swinging. Think the Ninja Rope Racing from Worms mixed with Breakout and you will actually be pretty close to the mark for this one. Using a ball on a chain the idea is to knock out all the coloured blocks in a level by swinging around, changing colours and effectively smashing up all your chain’s attach points. As blocks disappear it gets harder to get the remaining blocks purely because there are fewer places to hang the chain. The physics are hugely exaggerated to the point where while a good hard swing makes it easier and faster to get higher up it’s not necessary to build up a swing to progress. The whole look of the game is very charming as well, presented as an Egyptian puppet theatre. However the fiddlyness of firing the chain and the deceptive length of said chain makes this otherwise excellent game incredibly annoying.

Try It

Eye-Ball
Von Chrono – 200 Points

Pong. Moving on.

Leave to Die

Roid Riot
Chaos Nyrb – 200 Points

Full 3D space shooter sim, it sounds so good on paper but presentation lets Roid Riot down. Boring visuals once you get past the 3D stuff and some rather poor controls really ruin this promising shooter.

Leave to Die

Gamerbots
Hotwave Games – 400 Points

Excellent. Truly stunning. A full 3D third person shooter with insane levels of customisation and a single player that effectively works out as a career mode. Completing missions and online matches earns money that can then be used to buy new parts for your Gamerbot (a cute little robot with your gamer picture on the front) as well as new and upgraded weaponry and the ammo required for those weapons. A few odd control choices (no manual reload, right bumper used to shoot) will feel nasty at first but the game as a whole is incredibly fun and surprisingly challenging. Another Community Games essential.

Buy It!

Lotus: Stellar Conflict
MindStar Games – 400 Points

Regular readers may remember Project Alpha from about a month ago. A space shooter based around trade and shooting stuff. Lotus is pretty similar but with the focus gone from free trade to mission based combat. This I would say is what the XBLA Wing Commander game should’ve been. the voice acting, while clearly done by a group of mates with headset mics, is passable enough to be enjoyable and shooting stuff is simple enough to be fun immediately while having enough depth to satisfy in the long term. Only real complaint from me is that I would’ve liked a customisable weapon loadout like in games like Wing Commander and Freespace, but as it stands this is a very solid addition to the catalogue.

Try It

Get the Ball
Clay Schubiner – 200 Points

I was all set to hate this, screenshots don’t really get the point across I don’t think. In reality what looks like (and is) a very quickly thrown together game actually turns out to be pretty entertaining for a few minutes. I don’t think it’ll stay fun in the long term but it’s another entry in the list of cheap games that will be fun if you have some drunk/stoned friends around.

Try It

Button Memory
Thunder Hammer Studios – 200 Points

You know what I’m about to say. Yep, it’s Simon once again.

Leave to Die

Also This Week
Fans of international time zones can check out World Clock, art fans can have a look at Landscape and Urban Art Galleries, Etch-a-Sketch is available in the form of Sketch and anyone interested by mildly decent dual stick shooters may like to know that a Lite version of Karnn Age is now available for 200 points.

That’s all for this double week. Game of the Week honours go to the brilliant Gamerbots and please let me know what you think of the new condensed style I’m trying out here. If you fancy making some games of your own then either head over to XNA Creator’s Club for the full monty or ease yourself in gently with Kodu.

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Nothing changes at the business end of the chart with Aquarium and RC-Air Sim holding fort at the top. However #16 is currently occupied by the excellent Light’s End from last week. Extremely well deserved there, though it deserves more. Nothing else to say on that subject so let’s get down to business.

Plows in Hell
Handkor – 200 Points

Is it just me or does Plows in Hell sound like a Native American name? Anyway, what we have here is a dual stick shooter the likes of which are always knocking about on Cgames. What makes Plows different is that the snow surface where play takes place will melt throughout the game both from enemy heat and the fires that surround the arena. This both shrinks the play area as the game progresses and makes it uneven to block your laser. This is actually a very cool idea, especially given the ability to repair the arena so long as a giant ice crystal in the center remains intact. The ability to set up turrets to increase firepower and decoys to draw emeies away makes this one of the better shooter on Cgames.

Try It

Bop ‘n’ Pop
Trufun101 – 200 Points

An interesting take on Puzzle Fighter next, the idea being that rather than destroying groups of bubbles you can only destroy the bubbles in a single column at a time. This sounds pretty decent, but pretty quickly becomes extremely annoying as there’s no strategy to it. There’s no potential for chain reactions so advance planning is unnecessary and it just becomes a case of who gets luckiest with the blob draw. Disappointing.

Leave to Die

Shield Defence
PitchMobile – 400 Points

Tower defence is the immediate thought, but this is defence without the towers for once. You control a shield capable of rebounding tank shells and whatever else is thrown at it back, making this a weird semi-variant on Pong. The problem hits when you realise the initial tank shells are extremely small and hard to see. This makes the game damn near impossible to play early on, however if you can see the shells, it can be pretty fun.

Try It

Gravity Bounce
Toddm – 200 Points

Pretty cool stuff here dispite the most dull, uninspiring visuals I’ve ever seen. Simply put you have to grab the balls in the play area with an electric lasso to charge them then launch them around the screen to make them collide with more charged balls to make them disappear. The physics in the game are well done and consistant enough to make launching the balls around predictable resulting in some truly excellent level designs. Very deceptively good indeed.

Buy It!

Super Xblox 360
GIGGITYGIGGITY – 200 Points

O I SEE WUT U DID THAR!! It’s Tetris. Moving on.

Leave to Die

System Override
Centurion Games – 200 Points

Yawn, another Simon clone. Seriously guys, these things are like aquariums right now.

Leave to Die

Sky Defender
Starlit Sky Games – 200 Points

And finally the trifecta of XNA scum is completed with the no-effort shooter. Virtually identical to Starfighter from a few weeks ago actually. Stock graphics, music and no movement or fire patterns whatsoever really starts to show when there are so many games using them.

Leave to Die

That’s all folks, I’ll give game of the week honours to Gravity Bounce for being the best of a pretty bad week. All the info you need to get making Community Games is over on XNA Creator’s Club and I won’t see you next week as I’m off somewhere exciting for a week. Instead you’ll have Wardrox for company, enjoy that.

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Last week a big fat 13 games included 3 that were very much worth your cash. What I want to talk about in this little pre-article bit here though is a game I played a few weeks ago called Clover. A delightful little sidescrolling adventure game that I said everyone should buy. Well the always awesome Destructoid this week gave Clover a full review giving it a 7/10 and recommending that people should buy it. I applaud Dtoid for bringing attention to a Cgame like that, especially one I love so much. You all bought unRevolutionary last week didn’t you? Yes? Good.

Quick look at the charts shows myFishtank continuing its reign of terror at the top. None of last week’s games have made the top 10 (figures) but cool virtual Lego kit Constructor from 2 weeks ago has settled in at #7. Other good news is that the excellent Trino has held its place in the top 20 at #16.

Bobby Says – Dance With Me!
Mexond – 200 Points

Oh joyous. Another button matching memory game. I would rather see another fishtank before I have to play another one of these.

Leave to Die

Sushi Bumper
Tinderbox – 400 Points

Sumo! Well, sort of. It’s 4 player sumo crossed with King of the Hill. A single piece of sushi appears in the center of the ring and you need to run over it to put it on your plate. Then you push all the other plates in the ring onto the conveyor belt that circles around the arena. When only the sushi holder is in the ring their clock starts to count up and whoever has held the sushi undisputed for the longest after 3 minutes wins. It’s a pretty fun game, if a little simple but with 4 (possibly slightly drunk) players this has the potential to become extremely competetive and fun. Sober and alone though, it’s not so much. Certainly worth a look if you have friends round however.

Try It

Math Acrobat
Hotshot 10101 – 200 Points

Remember Math Sniper from a few weeks ago? Yeah this is pretty much that exact game only with planes flying through clouds and terrible collision detection.

Leave to Die

Light’s End
Ryan Thorlakson – 200 Points

If you listen to the NGCast then you’ll have heard me mention this game as the RPG I was looking forward to playing. Well RPG is probably the wrong word, it’s really more of an adventure game. The big gimmick is that you’re not really playing the various characters you’ll control but rather the spirit that’s posessing them, this allows you to switch to controlling other characters in order to solve puzzles or just to see the story through someone else’s eyes. As a mechanic it works well and without fuss and the story is well written enough to make me pay the 200 point asking price just to see what happened next (the trial period cut off at a rather inconvenient time). The trial version saves as well, so if you do leave the game and decide to come back and buy the full version later you don’t need to repeat the opening stages of the game. More games need to do that, it makes the trial even less painful when you know you’re not losing anything by going away to think about a purchase. For 200 points this is well worth it.

Buy It!

Chinese Checkers Deluxe
Per Pixel Games – 200 Points

I quite like chinese checkers to be honest so I was rather looking forward to seeing if this would add anything to the classic board game. As it turns out it does add a pretty decent Puzzle mode which works in much the same way you’d expect it to but really for 200 points all I needed was a competetive AI and a UI that didn’t make me want to burn my eyes out. If you like the game then have a look.

Try It

Penguin Slip Slide
SGN Casual Games – 200 Points

You know those sliding block puzzles you get in all kinds of games? They’ve been in Zelda games, Bionic Commando Rearmed and plenty more. The one thing they have in common is that they’re always a giant pain in the ass. So here’s a game built entirely around getting an annoying puzzle you want out of the way quickly so you can do something more interesting. Only in this game that more interesting thing is a slightly longer annoying puzzle that you want to get out of the way quickly. Basing an entire game on a bad and overused puzzle idea is one thing, but making later levels so large that not even an HDTV can help you judge whether a slide will send you into a block or off the screen. SGN are getting a reputation in my mind for producing bad games.

Leave to Die

That’s it, only 6 for you this week. Game of the week honours go to Light’s End for being rather well done and well priced. Hopefully next week I’ll have a few more for you though as we’re entering the summer I doubt it somewhat, all the XNA devs have better things to do.

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So, Xbox Live Indie Games is going to be the new name for this service once we get into August. Can’t say I’m thrilled but the user ratings coming at the same time should make things interesting. Of course, they’ll have to be pretty damn good to convince me that user reviews are actually worth the time it took to read them.

Bestseller time and MyFishtank has vomited all over the #1 spot, the first time RC-AirSim has been kept down at week’s end since its release. The best performance from last week’s crop is Illusions 360, which says a lot about what people buy around here. Constructor finds itself just outside the top 10 though, silver linings and all that.

Whack Em in a Hole
Thomas Woo – 200 Points

Hmm, a whack a mole game to start the week. Not particularly interesting but it does utilise the Rock Band drum controller which makes things a little more justifiable. However it’s still whack a mole, all the combo systems and big controllers can’t change that. Still, some points for effort.

Try It (with the drumkit)

A Moron’s Challenge
Arcarocket – 200 Points

The real moron challenge is this, did you just pay 200 points for the flash game “The Idiot Test?” Well if you buy this game then yes, yes you did. Moron.

Leave to Die

Eyecandy: Chromadose
Polychrome – 200 Points

Screensaver. Moving on.

Leave to Die

Plasma TV Break In
Zenfar – 200 Points

See above. The break in part of the title refers to the period during which a new plasma TV is to having still images being burnt onto the screen as the plasma hardens. More info is here.

Leave to Die

Golden Royal Hold ‘Em
Star Gaming Network – 400 Points

Yep, it’s poker. First time I’ve seen Omaha rules in a console poker game incidentally so points would be scored for that if I didn’t think Omaha was a pointless waste of time. Other than that the usual online mode that no-one’s playing because XBLA has it’s own poker game in addition to the free play sections of every poker site in the world ever and the most useless poker AIs I’ve ever seen add up to a giant waste of time.

Leave to Die

Jigsaw World
Eduardo Jimenez – 400 Points

Arcade fans will no doubt remember Puzzle Arcade from earlier in the year, a fine game which hit the right spots for all puzzle fans from the hardcore 400 piece nerds to the 12 videogame fans. This is a kinda stripped down version of that game, however for all its similarities this game struggles by having a poor sorting system where only 4 pieces are visible at any one time. Compared to Puzzle Arcade this is just extremely disappointing. Worth a look if you only have 400 points and could never get any more ever.

Try It

Revenge of the Evil Aliens
Harald Maassen – 200 Points

Never, ever put the description of your game as “The Long Awaited Sequel!” because it’s probably not long awaited and just shows off your ego for what it is. Anyway this is a pretty uninspired scrolling dual stick XNA shooter the likes of which I have to play at least once a week.

Leave to Die

The Galactic Aquarium
GoGo Robot – 200 Points

Wait! Come back! Yes it says aquarium in the title and yes we’ve had 3 of these now in the space of 3 weeks but this one is different. This is effectively Viva Pinata Aquarium. You buy fish from the shop, either as food for bigger fish or to breed into new species and sell for mucho cash. While the only real point of the game is to make lots of money (yay capitalism) it has the same mesmerising quality as Viva Pinata. For 200 points this is well worth it.

Buy It!

OK, I just gave a positive review to an aquarium. Let’s see if my credibility sticks around for the rest of the article.

Mind’s Eye of Jupiter Episode 1
Rogerst – 200 Points

A few weeks ago Jonny Crush proved that while FPS games aren’t impossible on XNA it’s going to take some serious effort to make a good one. So Mind’s Eye of Jupiter uses the same first person view and feels very similar when moving around, but this is an adventure game instead of a shooter. Tracking down items is weirdly fun in the first person viewpoint and it’s made easier when you’re told through an on screen message when you’re near a useful item. Add in some hilariously self-aware writing and this is a steal for 200 points.

Buy It!

Starfighter
Cilcoder – 200 Points

Yet another insipid XNA shooter to bore the pants off me. This one doesn’t even carry the usual “shooter novices may enjoy it” because it’s….so….damn….slow….

Leave to Die

unRevolutionary
Julio9 – 400 Points

If this came out as a boxed game I would buy a copy, go up to any XNA developer making a shooter and smack them round the face with it screaming “This is how it’s fucking done!” because this has officially ripped away Biology Battle’s crown as the best shooter on Community Games. A number of different ship types, all with different abilities plus a RPG style levelling system plus the sort of homing AI that works so well in this sort of game PLUS some excellent level structure makes this an incredible success. So much so in fact that this next bit is going in ALL CAPS and I’m putting it in bold as well.

BUY IT!

Battle Ball
Jhample – 200 Points

Pong with guns. It really is as simple as that, landing a shot on your opponent slows their paddle down and makes it easier to score. It’s a neat idea and one I haven’t seen before, but (and I can’t believe I’m about to say this) there are better Pong games on CG. Yet at the same time, it’s still just pong.

Leave to Die

Puzzwords
Mr Brian – 200 Points

Word games are common on impulse buying services like CG or the iPhone app store. Word Soup is the big one, but Puzzwords occupies a very different space. That space is the one filled up with insanely hard word games for people who eat dictionaries for breakfast and then have a thesaurus for lunch. Letters drop down in groups of 3 which must then be arranged Columns style to form words horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When a word is made it’s definition appears in a window to the side which is very nice when what you think is in fact a random assortment of 3 letters turns out to be an actual word. The multiplayer, which gives you a list of 10 words and challenges you to make them before your opponent makes their list is also very good, adapting the base gameplay into some fast paced battle gameplay. It’s a very impressive package, but I’d only recommend it to the word game hardcore.

Try It

13 games with some really impressive stuff in there. Just a shame the bad games are real stinkers this week. Game of the week is unRevolutionary without any shadow of a doubt. You should buy it, then send flowers, chocolates and offers of sexual favours to it’s creators. See you next week.

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Hey, it’s NJ back from vacation and ready to drive a few more knives into some horrible Community Games. I do, as always, have the bumper chocolate basket ready for any CGame that can genuinely impress me though. Unlike the temp I got in while I was gone I have the occasional flash of charitable thoughts.

A quick look at the best sellers list shows that unsurprisingly MyFishtank has found itself on top. I do often wonder whether some developers miss the whole “Games” part of Community Games. Hell, WiiWare only has 1 aquarium compared to the 2 on CG. Also, XBLA already has a freaking aquarium, only the developers of that at least had the decency to put a decent game of Tetris over the top.

The Towers of Cedrick

Puzzle & Trivia – 200 Points

Move blocks from one peg to another, not putting a larger block on a smaller one. Yep it’s a collection of variations on that theme and it’s just as dull as the standard puzzle itself.

Leave to Die

Radial Gun

Shooter – 200 Points

A bit more interesting, it’s a shooter where your craft moves on a circular axis around a central turret. The idea being to use the simultaniously destroy the blocks around the edge and use them for cover from the turret fire. A decent concept, and one of the few challenging shooters on CG.

Try It

Illusions 360

Toy – 200 Points

It’s a collection of optical illusions. That’s literally it.

Leave to Die

Jungle Blocks

Action – 200 Points

It’s Breakout/Arkanoid. Only with a ball that moves so fast once it gets going that it’s damn near impossible to keep in play with the super twitchy paddle. How the fuck did you guys manage to fuck up Breakout?

Leave to Die

Cube Stacker

Puzzle & Trivia – 200 Points

It’s Tetris.

Leave to Die

Spy Chameleon

Action – 200 Points

It’s MGS-lite. Only being a chameleon gives you the ability to change colour to blend into the floor. Actually a pretty interesting idea, some more work on the graphics and some less random collision detection could’ve made this essential.

Try It

Heli Good Spelunker

Action – 200 Points

It’s that helicopter game where you click to go up and release to go down. Only with terrible collision detection, horrible sound and the fastest descending helicopter in the world. How is it possible to screw stuff like this up?

Leave to Die

TicTacToe

Classics – 200 Points

It’s Noughts and Crosses with online multiplayer that no-one’ll ever use. Next.

Leave to Die

Hangman’s Revenge

Shooter – 200 Points

Not what I was expecting, rather than a lame attempt at a Hangman game it’s a side scrolling shooter. Only all the effort seems to have gone into the story, stick figures are rebelling after one too many of them were killed during games of hangman. It’s pretty dull and too easy, like most XNA shooters.

Leave to Die

Constructor360

Toy – 200 Points

Lego! Basically a Lego board but with an interesting challenge mode which gives you a set of blocks to memorise then lets you try and recreate it. I actually really like that.

Try It

Fittest

Shooter – 400 Points

Geometry Wars yet again, another arena based dual stick shooter. For the same price as the original Geometry Wars or even Biology Battle which has dropped in price.

Try It

Bobbin’s Quest

Platformer – 200 Points

A decent enough platformer, having fruit as the enemies gives it the extra kick that you can eat their remains to gain experience. A small mini game where you fling seed bombs into clashes between rival fruit factions is also rather entertaining.

Try It

Project Alpha

RPG – 200 Points

A space trading and combat sim not unlike stuff like Elite and Freelancer, obviously stripped down a bit from the mind-numbing complexity of those games but still with some depth and a lot of freedom. Well worth checking out I think.

Try It

Defenders of Zorgaba

Shooter – 200 Points

And finally another uninspired XNA shooter.

Leave to Die

[Guest Review by Wardrox, because NJ was so disgusted]
2060 Cyber Racer

The person who made this game (incidentally, the same person who made A Perfect Massage) should be banned beyond the limits of the Xbox. They should not be allowed remotely near a computer again until they stop being rubbish. They clearly hate Community Games. They have reskinned the Racing Game Starter kit (available for free here) and actually tried to pass it off as game you should give them money for. Microsoft, if you give even the slightest shit about Xbox Community games you have to stop stuff like this.When people are copying an entire game, and simply changing a few .jpgs here or there, and then selling it on your service, you have a problem.

Go fuck yourself (Leave to Die)

That’s it for another week, game of the week honours go to Project Alpha.

If you’re looking to get into game development, you could do a lot worse than by making some Cgames of your own. All the info you need is over at XNA Creator’s Club.

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This week I decided not to use the official Xbox list of new games as I discovered last week that some games appear on that list, even though they aren’t actually new and have simply been updated. Very sneaky. Thankfully, xblcg.info provide a very useful list, so I’ll be going off that from now on.

On to this week. There was not just a new massage game, but also a virtual fish tank! How exciting! Those are the two things I think the Xbox Community Games really need more of.

Incursion

Strategy & Simulation – 200 Points

An RTS of sorts where you have to get immigrants across a guarded border. There are some special types of immigrants you can use, such as those that can dig tunnels, others that can run fast and some that can cut through fences. It’s a bit like lemmings in that regard. You have to clear obstacles and take your guys across the border whilst avoiding being caught by the guards. It looks like there is more to it and it could actually get quite fun, but the fact your money comes in very slowly from the people you have already gotten across the border, money you need to spend to get more people, makes it very slow going. The controls are also a bit on the awkward side. Why people implement a stick controlled mouse for console games is beyond me.

Try it

A Perfect Massage

Other – 200 Points

Fuck off. Seriously. A garbage miserable pile of “game”. It’s just:”Press this button to vibrate the controller. Press this button to make it vibrate more. Press this button to make it pulse.” And not a single instruction on actually how to give a massage (FYI: rub the muscles in question firmly and very slowly (but not so firmly it hurts) and find the lumps. This is where the tension is so these small lumpy bits are where you massage. Make sure to get plenty of feedback from the recipient and you’ll know when you’re doing it right.) But that doesn’t seem to matter here, probably because the makers just want to make a quick buck from the “oh ho ho, buy it for a grrl LOLOLOLVAGINA” group of idiots who don’t know there is already more than one of these games out there (which is more than one too many.) This also explains the unnecessary A at the start of the name, anything to get first in the lists. Urgh.

Leave to die, alone, in an uncaring world

Cold War Commander

Platformer – 200 Points

A platformer with MS Paint décor in which Gorbachev has invaded The United States of Freedom and stolen your jelly beans. You have to get them back. Reach the end of each level having the jelly beans. With some arguably poor level design and Mega Man-esk exercises in frustration management, the game surprisingly still has some charm. Perhaps it’s the light humour, the price, or perhaps it’s just my lust for jelly beans. This is the first community game I have actually bought.

Buy it!

Pocket-Jongg 2009

Card & Board – 800 Points

Firstly, I have no idea what’s “pocket” about a game you need an Xbox to play. Secondly, it’s just Mahjong (which is already available free in more places than I can count) with some animation and sound effects seemingly added by the same people who think sound effects on a Power Point presentation are fun. It has some LAN options, but nothing to warrant the price tag.

Leave to die

myFishtank

Other – 200 Points

It’s a virtual fish tank. Graphically I’ve seen better free ones on the PC. However it’s not all bad, not that there is much there to actually be bad. You can paint your own fish, change the scenery, add plants and send fish and saved aquarium set-ups to friends (which actually earns you achievements in the game). It also has the ability to play music from your Xbox whilst you watch the fish. This confused me as I had the Saints Row 2 disc in the drive. Selecting this option greeted me with rather ill fitting gangster rap. Still, the (limited to two in the demo) fish seemed to dig it.

Leave to die

Pendoku

Puzzle & Trivia – 400 Points

Solve a Sudoku puzzle given jigsaw pieces with the numbers on. That’s basically this game. I’m quite good at Sudokus and found the solutions to both easy and medium difficulty level without really trying. I think the medium puzzle took me less than two minuets to complete first time round. But then the “difficult” level just stumped me. There was only a single piece on the playing board, which made the puzzle go from very easy to very much trial and error (and no fun) very quickly. A nice idea, but ultimately just Sudoku and not worth the price.

Leave to die (unless you really like Sudoku)

Angry Barry

Action & Adventure – 400 Points

The higher price is apparently due to the size of the game not being small enough to fit into the 200 Point range, which sadly makes it much harder to recommend. It’s a side scrolling beat-em-up where you are Obama Angry Barry killing enemies to gain their votes. I think. Considering the usual quality of Community Games (low) I was actually surprised at how good the game looks. There are animations in the movements and although only two enemy types (that I encountered in the demo), you have several different moves you can pull to defeat them. Still, it did all start to feel rather repetitive and by the end of the demo I was really hoping for some change. That wasn’t just a witty pun, I really was.

Try it

So, that’s your lot. I actually bought one, shocking. Hopefully we can see more, actually original titles come out in the weeks and months ahead. To all developers; if you are making a game that already exists, and is shit, please stop. If you’re not an XNA developer and would like to be, check out everything you need to get started over at the XNA Creator’s Club.

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As NJ is on holiday and didn’t have the decency to take his Xbox with him, the weekly reviews of the Community Games have fallen to me. Keep in mind I have better things to do on a Sunday (ok, that’s a lie, but I could be in bed eating pizza) so I’m going to be harsh.

The games I’ve marked as Leave to Die I just had no interest in and would likely never consider buying. Also, to anybody making a game, please make it has an exit button. Otherwise you’re just being lazy and an arse.

NJ also never had it so good. Last week he had a moan because there were a whole nine games. This week, there are 15.

Find Teddy

Family – 200 Points

You are given clues to a teddy you need to pick out from a selection. In one level of the demo you are looking for a teddy with a red hat that’s also holding a blue flag. I don’t think this game is aimed at my demographic.

Leave to Die.

Minesweeper Mayhem

Card & Board – 200 Points

It’s Minesweeper with a bunch of features you never wanted. It’s clearly a well made game and has about as many features as I could possibly think you could add to minesweeper. However it doesn’t get away from the fact that they want money for a game every PC in the world has on it for free.

Leave to Die

Cubix Classic

Puzzle & Trivia – 200

Are you fed up with how a Rubix Cube is a physical object? Me too, which made this game perfect! It’s a Rubix Cube simulator! Woo! Considering this game is on the Xbox and they want money for it, it surprising how ‘œclassic’ it really is. Just something basic like hints, or maybe a solution demonstrator would be nice. Just add anything and it could make this feel even remotely worthwhile.

Leave to Die

A Bomb’s Way

Platformer – 200 Points

As well as having crap audio and near impossible to read text on an SD display, there is actually a game here. You are a bomb, you have to collect all the clocks to finish the level whilst avoiding the enemies. Each clock adds some extra time to your time-out fuse, which if it reaches the bottom, blows you up. As generic as it feels there is one noticeably interesting mechanic, you can rotate the entire level 90 degrees at a time, adding some interesting puzzle elements to the game.

Try it

Sqong

Classics – 200 Points

Hey, you enjoyed Breakout right? Where you bounce the ball of the paddle to break the squares? Yeah, this is that game. You can tilt the paddle, and that’s about all the differences I could find in the demo. Power ups, multipliers, and a  standard sounding electro background music make this game generic yet inoffensive.

Try it.

Golden Royal Blackjack

Card & Board – 200 Points

It’s blackjack. It has Xbox Live multiplayer, but who cares?

Leave to Die

Endless Swarm

Shooter – 200 Points

A surprisingly new feeling take on the tower defence genre. Your towers are long the bottom of the screen and the enemies fly in along the top. There is a nice variation on enemy types, which is kind of a necessity with a tower defence game. Each of your towers can be of only a hand full of types, and annoyingly requires constant supervision. They only fire in one direction, so to change this you need to select the tower and manually re-aim. Whilst I can see why the makers have done this (to keep up the pressure) it’s not really for me. Part of the fun of tower defence games for me is to predict the enemy, and watch as they break up against my mighty defences.

Try it

SpeedMath

Educational – 200 points

Maths has never been such fun. I think this game is aimed at the same people as Find Teddy. Up to four players are given a basic sum and 4 answers to pick from (the face buttons). Points are awarded for the speed with which you answered the questions. I have nothing mean to say about this game. If you have young kids it might actually be worth while buying. Saying that, if you don’t have kids, leave it.

Leave it to Die

StreamLine

Racing & Flying – 200 Points

A ‘œracing game’ where you are a line going horizontally. Avoid the blocks, try to get in the speedups and don’t die. You have a boost that uses energy and an air brake that slows you down. The graphics are simple, as is the game. Generic electric music plays and you get bored. No tutorial, guide or any other feature exists within the game making it hard to recommend.

Leave to Die

What The?!

Puzzle & Trivia – 400 Points

A surprisingly entertaining clone of The Price is Right. But, it’s not the game that’s actually any good, it’s the fact the creators actually went to the effort to record a voice over for everything (including questions and prizes). It’s worth playing just to listen too. Other than that, it’s basically crap. Oh, and watch out, after the game is over they have it set to open the ‘œbuy the full game’ window. Sneaky buggers.

Try it

GravSheep

Sheep herding in space. You are a space dog tasked with rounding up the space sheep into their space pens. There are some obstacles along the way, like doors that require keys. It’s a very generic game and I would say to just ignore it normally. But it has space sheep. This makes the game worth checking out. I am easily amused.

Try it

Scrambled Egzz

Puzzle & Trivia – 200 Points

It’s a word game. Eggs with letters on slowly move down the screen and you have to select them in the order of the word they form as an anagram. It’s got a multiplayer and has some options, but I don’t think I could ever find this game remotely fun.

Leave to Die

Dock’em

Strategy & Simulation – 200 Points

You have to guide boats to their harbours. Boats come in from the sides of the screen and you have to draw them a path to follow which avoids rocks and other ships, which gets them to their destination. As the number of ships increases, collisions become much harder to avoid. I would probably buy this is if was an air-traffic sim, but I’m a nerd for planes.

Try it.

Planet Crashmania 9,000,000

Classics – 200 Points

Possibly one of the most misleading names I’ve seen in a while. The game is basically asteroids. Instead of being a ship however, you’re on an orbiting planet spiralling into the sun and you’re trying to protect another orbiting planet. Stuff floats in, you shoot it. You also fire rockets full of your people to the other planet before you hit the sun. Maybe things get more exciting in the full game, but in the trial it was immensely boring.

Leave to Die

Grid Chasers

Action & Adventure – 200 Points

The first thing you notice with grid chasers is the slightly odd, relaxing jazzy sound track. It makes you feel like you’re in a bar, drinking away your final paycheck during a montage of depression. The rest of the music is also surprisingly good. The game itself is similar to Bomberman. You and three other players (multiplayer available in the full version) slide around a grid. When you ‘œattack’, the squares in front of you light up and after a short pause, fall away. You’re trying to cause your competitors to fall of the grid. Fun for about a minute.

Leave to Die

As you can see, not a single game I would buy. It seems to be quantity over quality right now. I’m really hoping it lets up, but I don’t remain optimistic. Still, my Game of the Week goes to Dock’em. If it was an air-trafic control sim I would buy it no questions asked.

Gonna do better? Check out everything you need to get started over at XNA Creator’s Club.

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There is a period I knew was coming when I started this. Last week was something of a precursor to it but when I went for my first download session on Tuesday I realised we’d hit that point. The University year is wrapping up and game development students are publishing their XNA projects onto Community Games. This means a jump in quality, as these games have been in development for some time and have the effort of a decent team behind them. However it also means that there’s a hell of a lot more for me to do so my time becomes stretched and I stop being the forgiving reviewer I once was. You have been warned.

A brief rundown of the fortunes of last week’s games. Ezmuze grabs itself a spot on the most popular page but remarkably so does the excellent Clover. I thought good games didn’t sell? RC-Air Sim continues to rock out in the top spot though.

Trino
Shooter – 400 Points

PopCap. Hire this man. Trino is similar in basic idea to Qix, a line drawing territory game from some considerable time ago. You need to trap enemies inside territory to destroy them and harvest the energy they leave behind. It differs from Qix as that territory remains part of the play area for enemies to continue roaming. It fits the perfect casual game format in that it starts out easy to get you used to the concept then gradually introduces new enemies, increases scoring complexity and changes the size and shape of the play area to keep things interesting. It’s not visually spectacular, but it has the feel of something made by the masters.

Buy It!

Chalked
Action – 400 Points

Chalked has many things in common with full price retail games. It looks a lot better in screenshots than it does in motion and the basic concept doesn’t play nearly as well as it should. The premise is that you can either save the city by catching the guys trying to destroy it or destroy the city by setting bombs and levelling buildings. Unfortunately due to some dodgy AI and dull gameplay neither side is really fun to play. It looks pretty and sounds like a good time, but like so many big budget games the execution just isn’t there.

Leave to Die

Pellmell
Shooter – 400 Points

Shooters are extremely common on Community Games, it’s not hard to see why. They’re easy to code and require little if any AI coding. For that alone Pellmell deserved props for being interesting. It functions like a cross between side-scrolling shooter and 2D platformer in that as well as blasting everything in your path you can also jump over obstacles such as blade pits and ground based enemies. For the time I was playing it I was having a decent amount of fun, however much like Retro One from a few weeks ago Pellmell suffers from me being a jaded shooter expert. I never really felt challenged, while there were loads of enemies around a very forgiving health bar and copious power-ups kept me storming through. Not one for the shooter veteran, but novices may well find enjoyment here.

Try It

Jonny Crush
First Person Shooter – 800 Points

What? An FPS on Community Games? What witchcraft is this? Yes it’s a visually promising FPS based around slaughtering hundreds of giant bugs, not an unworkable premise as WiiWare game Onslaught has showed me. Unfortunately Onslaught is a professionally made game with a good mission structure, decent graphics and waggle. Jonny Crush is a boxy, imprecise FPS that not only fails to register enemy hits alarmingly often but has some of the worst enemy AI I’ve seen. If I turn around to see an enemy in my face I at least expect it to be attacking, not just buzzing there. That this costs not only more than Onslaught but more than the original DOOM is hilarious. File under ‘tech demo’.

Leave to Die

Iris
Music – 200 Points

If you go into your 360′s dashboard under the My Xbox tab there’s a bit that takes you to your Music Library where you can listen to music stored on your harddrive, portable device or a CD. That’s what Iris does. It’s a media player on a console that already has a media player. The business equivalent of selling condoms to the Pope I think.

Leave to Die

Jammer
Music – 400 Points

What the game maker took 25 words to say I can say in 2. It’s Amplitude. Or it’s Frequency depending on which you prefer. Basically you move left and right to play bits of song before moving over to another bit. Unfortunately this game has 2 major problems compared to Harmonix’s masterpiece. Firstly there’s no feedback, the music keeps playing no matter what. It sounds minor but this is the critical point to pretty much every modern music game, if you screw up so does the music. Not having that is a problem once you realise it. Secondly there’s no measure of progress, simply put there’s no scoring. After finishing a song you just get a pass or fail. Not having that score raises one critical question. What’s the point?

Leave to Die

Reflex Turbo 3
Minigame – 400 Points

Where are Reflex Turbo 1+2? Anyway it’s a set of minigames where you either hold A, press A or hammer A. The presentation is poor, the games are extremely un-fun and you’re charging £4 for this? Not a hope in hell.

Leave to Die

The Mystic Orb
Toy – 200 Points

This was made by someone who has named their company “Half-Ass Games”. Given that it’s an electronic Magic 8-ball I’d give him points for honesty.

Leave to Die

Ultra Dual X Racer
Racing – 400 Points

Ultimate Generic Title! It’s yet another drive up the screen avoiding obstacles game, these are extremely dull at the best of times. UDXR is probably one of the better examples but like all the rest of these games it suffers from showing off all the game in the trial. When a game does that it’s never going to convert to a sale, because what’s the point?

Try It

Game of the week award goes without any doubt to Trino, I’d call it one of the best games on the service without any hesitation. Worst game though goes to Reflex Turbo 3, a shining example of what some people think will sell on Cgames. I’ll give you devs some fair warning now, I’m on holiday for the next few weeks. This means I won’t be writing this column. Filling in for me will be Mr Negative himself, Wardrox. God help you.

Prove to me that Cgames are excellent. Go to XNA Creator’s Club to see how you can make Cgames yourself.

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