Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Note my romantic idealisation. You see, it’s actually Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf and it’s like Ice Climbers but with a deliciously engaging maniac singing a catchy song. But then, no, it’s suddenly like falling to a horrible demise while the same maniac becomes irate and uses ‘gay’ in a fashion that will surely offend some people. Argh, but no, it’s not that either, it’s a button mashing, vomit-strewn lycanthropic transformation sequence, and now there’s chasing and slicing and killing while the song becomes ever stranger.

What it is, as well as all those things and more, is a new downloadable game from Cactus. I suspect the song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, for it is a malicious and worrying ear-worm. Probably with teeth. There’s a new trailer for the madcap developer’s entry into the IGF as well.

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How’s this for another proud example of why the PC is the most wordly and intelligent gaming platform in existence. Hot Throttle is a new browser racing game where instead of cars you control men who believe they are cars. It’s a collaboration by Doomlaser and indie powerhouse Cactus, though I suspect if Cactus were really a house he’d be an overpopulated squat with an unidentifiable corpse in the upstairs bathtub. You can watch some footage of Hot Throttle after the jump in the form of someone’s video review, plus two more secret bonus videos! Yes. Thanks to the Indie Games blog for the tipoff (and header image! I am cheeky).
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I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Funny I’d end up posting it on the same day as Kieron posted his own thoughts on uniquely disturbing game. I doubt many of you went ahead and downloaded Norrland, Cactus’ pseudo-8-bit hunting trip, but – and I’m treading on eggshells here – hiding inside Norrland is a… moment. A scared, devastating bullet of a moment, fired in desperation. This moment was my single favourite bit of gaming in all of 2010.

The following is safe for work, but only just.
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Indie dev Cactus has released two new games, both deeply different and both deeply Cactus (read: disturbing).

Gamma4 is a beautiful, disappointingly brief headtrip set to a club beat where you guide four independant lasers through various squres. I say it’s disappointing, but I’m sure if it were any longer it’d just start to hurt. Norrland is a little stranger, being a kind of 8-bit simulator of a Swedish hillbilly on a hunting trip. In between shooting and punching various animals you deal with dreams of withering insecurity. Videos of (and thoughts on) both after the jump.
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I’m a little late to this party- about a year and a half late, to be exact- but I’ve just noticed Jim’s favourite indie developer, Jonathan ‘Cactus’ Söderström, has on his site a collection of 17 of his games, all zipped up and accessible through a fancy menu, under the name of Cactus Arcade. I think this is awesome, and if you’ve yet to experience the first-person arthouse headtrips that are Mondo Medical or Mondo Agency then you should download the thing right away. It’s right at the top of the Games section. Ooh- and in case you missed it, here’s the interview Jim did with Cactus last year.

As the Independent Game Festival approaches, I thought a series of short interviews with all the PC-relevant short-listed entries would be an idea. First up is indie-Godhead Cactus who received a nomination for the Nuovo Award for the abstractly beautiful platformer Tuning, which looks like Nebulus as re-imagined by Escher. The interview and footage follows…
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Confession time! I have never played a game by mad-brained indie wunderkind Jonathan ‘Cactus’ Söderström before. No idea why – despite Jim regularly giving his games an approving nod, in that stern, stoic Jim Rossignol way of his, I’ve managed to miss every single one. Dungeon, his collaboration with one Arthur ‘Mr. podunkian’ Lee (what is it with these names? I’ve gotta get me one. Call me Alec ‘Windows Sound Recorder’ Meer from now on, if you will), rather confirms my opinions from afar – that the chap is making splendid but oddball independent videogames that will please anyone who doesn’t scream “pretentious!” the second they’re faced with something even slightly artistically-minded. Not that Dungeon is necessarily artistically-minded – it has another agenda…
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Jonatan ‘Cactus‘ Soderstrom is one of the most prolific and interesting indie developers currently working. During the IGF judging sessions I was fortunate enough to play an early version of Mondo Nation, the compilation of Cactus’ series of bizarre, unsettling FPS puzzle games. These games are, I would suggest, about as close as videogames have come to the weirder elements of a David Lynch production. Cactus cites Mr Lynch, along with plenty of other esoteric influences, in the interview below. If you want to set the scene for yourself, and get a little flavour of Cactus’ mad humour, then perhaps you should play some of his games before reading onwards. Mondo Agency, Psychosomnium, or SeizureDome are all good places to start.

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My favourite indie soloist, Cactus, is now part of a duo, Lo-Fi Minds, and they’re working on a new platform adventure called Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld. They’ve just released a brief demo for the game, which will be out in full shortly. (And that’s probably days rather than weeks if Cactus’ usual turnaround rate applies here.) I’ve also just noticed that Cactus has created a 40mb (2.something Peggle) compilation set of his previous games. That’s a great place to start if you’re unfamiliar with his insane lo-fi coding.