By Kieron Gillen on June 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 pm.
I’ve got a lot to write about recent Indie-faves later, but until then, here’s a quickie about a pre-RPS indie fave which caught my eye. Specifically, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. Digital Eel have released their IGF-winning sound-track for download and ear-listening. You can get it from here. Hell, the Demo is on the same page and I strongly recommend you to give it a shot if you haven’t already. It’s a gloriously hyper-speed space-exploration game. Essentially, when most normal humans play a game of Solitaire in a coffee break, people who read RPS should be playing things like Weird Worlds. And for more information, here’s my 2005-era Eurogamer review.
02/06/2008 at 20:32 GibletHead2000 says:
[hijack]Hopefully one of the recent indie-faves will be Gumboy Tournament (please?) as they released it a couple of weeks ago with zero fanfare, and as a result nobody seems to be playing it. Which is a shame, as it’s an absolute blast, but plays so much better with a good number of people on a level.[/hijack]
02/06/2008 at 20:38 MindBrain says:
I played the demo for Weird Worlds, awesome game
02/06/2008 at 20:50 Dave says:
Weird Worlds is brilliant. I bought it 18 months ago or whenever it was released, and still fire it up once in a while.
(The coffee break solitaire thing for me is Monsters’ Den: Book of Dread. Though it’s more of a “forget that I’m on a break and realize I haven’t been working for the past 3 hours” sort of thing.)
02/06/2008 at 21:03 Gurrah says:
Oh yes, good old Weird Worlds. Thanks for the heads up Kieron, up until now I only had the Mantle of Babulon.mp3 which, incidentally, is just below the soundtrack, so make sure you grab that one too!
02/06/2008 at 21:07 Theory says:
I actually think it’s quite pretty in motion, with all the particle effects going.
I never bought it though: I prefer the original, plus the price was still very steep last time I looked.
Edit: blimey, it’s not even gone down! Fifteen quid, still? They need to take a look at the prices on Steam and realise how much custom they’re losing.
02/06/2008 at 21:27 andthensobecause says:
Yeah. I have to agree about the price. The US economy just can’t support $25 for this game. The music is quite enjoyable however.
02/06/2008 at 21:34 Lorc says:
Hmm – weird worlds is indeed great. I suppose I could fire it up again. Unfortunately I’ve got a horrible feeling that sierra utilities ate my record of the registration key (along with half my hard drive).
Prottip – DO NOT use sierra utilities’ uninstall – delete it by hand.
But yes – weird worlds; woo!
*edit* Upon reinstalling, it turns out that I don’t need to input a registration key to access the game I’d already paid for. Hooray for sensible download design!
02/06/2008 at 21:44 roBurky says:
I bought Wierd Worlds. Was good fun. But I recommend not playing about with the custom battle thing. Realising which weapons/enemies are overpowered can take a lot of the fun out of the game.
02/06/2008 at 22:03 Him says:
The Babylon Project mod makes the game interesting if you’re bored of the vanilla game.
02/06/2008 at 22:16 Zonderic says:
I get irrationally bothered when people refer to games as “vanilla,” even though I understand why perfectly. It’s just that vanilla is so good that I feel like it should be the king of flavors.
02/06/2008 at 23:32 Him says:
I too, enjoy vanilla. But then, I couldn’t have vanilla ice-cream all the time. Besides; Weird Worlds lends itself easily to modding – should a man not attempt to explore what else his game can be made to do?
03/06/2008 at 00:15 Zonderic says:
You are correct, yes. Vanilla is such a good base, so much can be added to it and it would be a sin not to try the other permutations of this offering. I am just proposing: What if chocolate were the base and you added vanilla to make it better? Maybe the offering would be the same, but also possibly, better.
03/06/2008 at 00:16 Scott says:
@Theory: Yes, still, although we offer enough sales throughout the year that it’s fairly easy to get it for less than that at the right time. Sorry, one thing we don’t do is slash the prices on something because it’s been out X number of months, as that’s unfair to the developer. It’s a shame that years of retail gaming has created an environment when people expect a game to be knocked down 50% after six weeks on the market.
03/06/2008 at 00:31 Al3xand3r says:
I love this game. But when will shrapnel finish the 101st sequel, 82nd?!
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/sg_development/All%20American/3.htm
03/06/2008 at 03:04 nabeel says:
Really like this game, still fire it up from time to time.
nabeel
03/06/2008 at 03:36 Shon says:
I just wanted to add that Weird Worlds is worth every penny. I play it between work breaks, when I am frustrated with my latest 50$ game and when I am just plain bored.
03/06/2008 at 04:09 Hypocee says:
Or you can buy a 50p d6. Roll it. Is the number greater than, say, 4? You win! Otherwise, you lose! Needless to say, when I tried Weird Worlds it did not grab me or even seem to display any merit. There are only rarely any real choices; it’s usually a series of obligatory gambles.
03/06/2008 at 04:12 Cibbuano says:
Weird Worlds is a great, casual game. It’s stupidly addictive, thanks to surprise events happening. You think you’ve got it all sewed up, then stars start exploding…
Also, vanilla is a fantastic flavour, especially if you fork out for the real stuff. I had a creme brulee, made with real vanilla beans… it was such a rich, sensual flavour that I almost wished that I could fill a Sarlacc pit full of the stuff and eat my way out. Mmmmm, one thousand years…
03/06/2008 at 16:27 Hunty says:
This looks pretty cool, I’ll have to check it out. The idea of firing off to some random spaceplace as a huge gamble, with no idea of what you’ll find, makes it sound a bit like the game of the novel Gateway, which is a bit of a personal favourite. But you know, trading the tension and tortuous isolation for kablammo. I tend to enjoy kablammo more than tortuous isolation on my lunchbreak.