The Indie Supper-Singing Spectacular
So many wonderful indie games, so little unwonderful time. How is RPS to cover them all? Well, making their devs do the hard work for us is a start. A few days ago, we put out a call on the Twit-witter-wotter: tell us, indie developer man/woman-person, in around 100 words, why we should turn our sentinel gaze upon you. So some did. Here're the funnest entries received, or at least those that came closest to fulfilling the mandate of "incredigood words."
We make no claim as to the quality of the titles in question: that's for you to find out. Our interest in this instance is in pretty, strange, psychotic or otherwise worthy collections of syllables. Will they cause you to play these games? Let's see...
Ordered entirely at random by an idiot (that's me), here are the 10 Chosen.
(Those entries without attractive screenshots are such because their senders flagrantly ignored my instructions to do so, by the way. Pah!)
1. Ziba:
Fish Listening to Radio is a 4-player, ukulele fueled derby. It's an intense spectacle frequented by the whoops and groans of players and spectators enthralled by a rapid fire festival of skill, accident, cooperation and murderous competition. And player 2 is a "Trouser Fish". Attack of the Show loved it on XBOX before we added online multiplayer, ranking and made it free on PC.
Optional mode: 4 hands on the keyboard. Cozy, communal, slightly erotic?
2. Alec Stamos:
You should play Space Captain McCallery Episode 2 because you play as a space pirate fighting dinosaurs. You should play it because it's a top-down action adventure game, and there are not enough of those. You should play it for the in-game hallucinogens. Also, the exploration. There's much that is hidden in the game, and you could be the first player to find it. Did I mention dinosaurs? It's got cool music too. You should play it because it's probably the largest indie game I've made, and I've put a lot of work into it. Also dinosaurs.
3. Robin Clarke:
You should play our game Garden Gnome Carnage because you've always wanted to steer a building on wheels to swing a shades-wearing, Christmas-hating gnome through the air on a bungee cord to knock Santa's sleighs out of the sky and lob bricks at elves and get airstrikes baked for you by the princess and call in reinforcements and shake off the elves scaling your walls and coax the magical cat down your chimney and control the wind direction and blow all your bricks off in a surge of blind architectural fury.
Haven't you?
4. Arvind Raja Yadav:
The A.Typical RPG is a peculiar mistress,
Tis a tale of college friends in distress,
The gameplay unique, the universe the present,
It’s releasing soon, be ready for it, peasant!
5. Rob Fearon:
1983. We didn't need colours. We didn't have a bloody choice, did we? Lucky if we got more than black and white.
The future holds pretty colours. It has to. I've seen Tron, Disney wouldn't lie.
2010. What do I get? Shit brown, piss yellow, orange and bloody teal.
Not good enough, games industry.
Well, if you're not going to sort it, I will. Let's take this outside. I'll be Giant Haystacks, you be Big Daddy, let's rumble.
I'm making games with pretty colours because you won't. You let me down.
FishFishBangBang has pretty colours. It shits rainbow hearts.
That's my future.
6. Hanako Games:
What a cute little girl! She fights walking compost heaps in randomly generated dungeons, digs through trash for spare change, sells beer to swaggering warriors, gets paid to 'party' with men, and tries to marry a prince who may or may not be her biological brother... or she's an angel of a schoolgirl who goes to church regularly and donates money to hospitals, if you play her that way. The graphics are shit (I drew them personally so I can say that!) but the game is addictive and you can play for under five bucks.
7. Charlie Knight:
You should play Scoregasm because it’s a fun, exciting and hugely varied non-linear shooter for Windows, Mac and Linux, but if that isn’t enough to convince you, here are some other features that may or may not be in the game:
• Live Jazz soundtrack by wirelessly channeling the ghost of Miles Davis into the person next to you
• Advanced facial recognition technology allows hot buttered toast to be ejected from your CD drive every time you look hungry.
• Optional, feature length commentary by an aroused and over familiar Brian Blessed.
8. Chris Steward:
"Players who love epic strat games should buy Sword of the Stars because the series bundle is a steal, hardcore players are still getting surprised four years later, the AI can beat the lead designer, our aliens are actually alien and not slightly tweaked carbon copies of one another, and randomized tech trees are the shit. Genetic algorithms have never won a war when a sado-randomizer is involved. Also, it links to Sword of the Stars 2: The Lords of Winter, out next year – now is the perfect time to get to know the SotS universe! Repensum est Canicula, baby.
9. Igor Hardy:
One shouldn't look too lightly upon Snakes of Avalon. Sure, it's full of sulky, talking beer mugs, stuffed animal trophies that turn out to be your good and evil consciences, and pig-like monsters asking you from movie posters to bring them toilet paper, but it's also an exploration of themes of alcohol addiction and childhood trauma presented in the form of Hitchcock-style suspense story filled with fiendish surreal puzzles. Creepy murders, jazzy soundtrack and Citizen Kane homages only add to the flavor. Play it, or you’ll never know what Arthurian Avalon has to do with all this.
10: Christiaan Moleman:
Guppy is a game about swimming. You're a small fish. It's a big pond. Try not to get eaten.
It's about how fish move, weaving through the water... Hide in the shade of a lily, then venture into the open in search of food. Use the environment to your advantage and move deftly to avoid predators.
So there you go. CHOOSE YOUR GAME(S).
We'll probably do this again at some point. Keep an eye open. PREPARE.