By John Walker on February 7th, 2012.
I’ve never understood the charm of those games where you have to make sure you don’t spill something. Going for a walk in a forest is fun. Going for a walk in a forest where I’m trying to balancing a china tea service on the end of a pole is a slow, awkward time where I can’t appreciate the woods for the teas. However, clearly I’m a tiny fool because they’re immensely popular, and the brilliantly named Snuggle Truck continues the theme in 2D cutesy truck-bouncing. And it’s out now.
By Adam Smith on February 7th, 2012.
You there! You enjoy an independent game from time to time, don’t you? I can tell by the way you walk, chin forward, face to the front, heels to the rear. It’s the kind of sensible approach to ambulation that befits a voyager in the wilder realms of the land called Game. You’ll be pleased to hear that the voting for the IGF 2012 Audience Award is now open, meaning you can pop over to the site, download any entrant that has a publicly available build and then vote for your favourite. In the meantime you can also familiarise yourself with the main event finalists in this fine series of word-speaks.
By Adam Smith on February 3rd, 2012.
More free gaming to set you up for the weekend. Even if you enjoyed the Pacman stylings of the earlier duo, that’s not to say you won’t also enjoy the Advance Wars meets Defcon horrors of Fail-Deadly. It is, at its core, one of the most horrible games I’ve ever played. It’s also remarkably entertaining. Two forces are at war and you are a terrible person at the head of a terrible organisation who wants nothing more than a stalemate between them. Your goal isn’t to bring about a state of everlasting war though; you really are a nasty piece of work and what you want is a conflict so evenly matched and soul-sapping that the participants turn to the last resort. Nuclear destruction. Free to download.
By Craig Pearson on February 3rd, 2012.
Depth Hunter‘s a Fisht Piercing Shooter, if you’ll allow me to be so dreadfully mean to the English language: you’re a diver in the not-so-competitive world of spear fishing. That means you take deeeeeeep breath (why not interactively take part in the blog post by holding your breath?) and plunge into the azure waters looking (still holding your breath?) for fish to spike with your harpoon (now find a nearby body of water to dive into, like a lake or a spill in the nearest public lavatory). No air tanks: just you, your mask, your spear and what’s in your lungs.
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By Adam Smith on February 3rd, 2012.
The latest release from Nitrome is one of those games that I wish I’d discovered later in the day, because I’m going to spend the remaining hours until I’m released from the shackles that bind me to the keyboard wishing I was playing it. It’s called Rainbogeddon, which should really be enough to make you click here and play it. If you haven’t, know that it’s Pacman, Bomberman, Dig Dug and loads of other brilliant things all packed together into a browser window. Destructible mazes? Of course. Oodles and oodles of powerups? Definitely. A little too tiny for my dwindling eyesight to fully take in? Regrettably. Go and play it. Do it for me, because I can’t.
By Craig Pearson on February 3rd, 2012.
Some days you click on a trailer and realise the developers have mapped out your life for the two months following their game’s release. Assuming Team Fortress 3 isn’t squeezed out in Summer of this year, I’ll be jetpacking around on Natural Selection 2, Unknown Worlds’ Aliens-inspired FPS/RTS multiplayer game. Here’s why.
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By Adam Smith on January 31st, 2012.
I’m going to design a Door Gun. It looks a bit like a normal gun but with some glowing science parts, ut when you shoot it at a wall a door appears. There’s a dial on the barrel that can change the type and size of the door, so if you want a dark wooden veneer, that’s fine, but if you’d rather have some sort of horrible formica-like slab it can handle that too. It’ll mostly be used by architects and joiners. Not like a Gateway Gun, which is a bit like a Portal Gun, and is for the exclusive use of scientists and test subjects. That brings me to Gateways, an upcoming side-scrolling platform-puzzler. The trailer made my brain hurt.
By Adam Smith on January 31st, 2012.
Cube World looks more interesting every time I see it and we’re well past the point now where it’s necessary to mention Minecraft in the first sentence of every post about the game. Of course, I’ve gone and done it anyway in a gesture of shooing impatience and that probably makes me part of the problem. The solution is the latest trailer, which shows the ‘improved combat’ but also gives more glimpses of environments that cuboid characters will be chopping their way through. Looting and levelling seem far more important than carving and crafting, and the use of destructible scenery in the troll fight at the end seems a fantastic way to mark the aftermath of an epic clash.
By Adam Smith on January 28th, 2012.
Here is where you find download links and a video for a brilliant game that took me just over five minutes to complete. It’s a two-button scenery-dodger in which the scenery is a succession of angry shapes and forward motion is impossible to halt. It’s called The Cat That Got The Milk and I feel like it contains colours I’ve not seen on my monitor for ages. It’s an interactive art gallery of sorts, in the least masturbatory way. If you enjoy the nifty soundtrack, it’s available for free here. The game is free as well. Download for Windows here or for Mac here.
By Adam Smith on January 27th, 2012.
You may remember Pineapple Smash Crew as the game that reminded us of Alien Breed, Cannon Fodder and other fun things. It was our pick of the indie games at the Eurogamer Expo last year and today Rich Edwards sends news that all the explodey jollity is coming to Steam on February 2nd, with a Desura release also in the works. For more of our thoughts on the game and an interview with Rich click here, or watch the trailer below and bop along merrily to the music within.
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By Adam Smith on January 27th, 2012.
Naval strategy game Oil Rush is now available direct from developers Unigine, and on Steam and Desura. Rather than being powered by burning up the planet’s lifeblood, it runs on the studio’s own Unigine Engine, which seems capable of producing some attractive visuals. It’s a fast-paced take on strategy, focusing around the capture of platforms, nodes scattered around each map that produce either units or oil. Unit-producing nodes can be defended with various sorts of turret while oil platforms have no such protection and must be defended by the various warcrafts churned out. Observe.
