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Captain Red

Indie games thread!

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Cave Story - This one is personal favorite; it makes me feel vaguely nostalgiac. There's something unique about it that I can't quite put my finger on.

Minecraft - Speaks for itself.

SCP: Containment Breach - A free survival horror game based on a rich mythos of creepy short stories. The randomly-generated layout makes the experience a little different each time you play. Since it is still under development, it is glitchy and sometimes crashes or, otherwise, makes it impossible to progress through the game.

Terraria - For whatever reason, this game failed to grab my attention and I have yet to revisit it, or really give it a chance for that matter, so I withhold any judgment.

Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith - These games are not easily obtained unless you live in Japan so I "borrowed" MoF to see what the fuss was about and I was pleasantly surprised. This is supposedly the easiest game in the series, but, even when played on the most forgiving difficulty setting, it is hard as nails (at least for me). It plays like a challenging arcade "shoot-em-up" with entrancing music and visuals. Much of the gameplay consists of memorizing the intricate attack patterns of the various boss enemies in the game and dodging between a never-ending barrage of brightly-colored projectiles. The controls are simple and, while the game is easy to learn, it is nigh impossible to master. Most of the games in the series are awfully similar, though, so it would hardly be worth owning more than one or two games in the series, unless you are some kind of rabid otaku.

Dwarf Fortress - I found myself not wanting to read through all of the documentation necessary to pick this one up, so I can't say too much about it.

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No documentation needed - information is now available in convenient ADD video form!

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Jodwin said:

I'd say Awesomenauts is by far the best thing on that bundle. Even if you don't like MOBAs (and I personally don't) it's still great fun as it deviates from the standard LOL and DOTA gameplay quite a bit by the virtue of being 2D. Definitively worth a try for anyone who likes 2D action platformers and multiplayer.

Also, Thomas Was Alone is kind of wonderful. That game simply oozes character from every pore in ways unimaginable. Do yourselves a favor and give it a go.


I got it for free on the PS3 and hated it. Then again, I didnt know it was pretty much just another multiplayer game. I generally dont do multiplayer.

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If you buy into PS Plus for $50 a year there are a lot of great games for free or at discounts. Sleeping Dogs, Megaman 9 & 10, Street Fighter 4 Arcade, Spec Ops the Line, Dark Souls come to mind... for free. They say for a limited time and even though the date expired on the games, it seems like I can still play them.

As for $5 I've scoured that thing... PSN games tend to be more expensive, but I'd say Jetpack Joyride is good and free. Good in the sense you can quickly play it in an arcadey fashion, have your fill then get out. Its a good brief time killer.

Hydrophobia the Prophecy for $3. I've played it a few times and while its good if not great for $3, its not additively fun.

Amy is $2, but a lot of people love to hate Amy for being a bad game. So far I haven't found where it lives up to all the hype of how terrible it is... but I haven't gone through it all.

There was some other new school type of Asteroids game I bought for $2. Haven't played it yet...

Otherwise go for classic games like Megaman 2 for $5 or 3 for $5. Or any old classic games for $5. The slap in the face is buying Megamans one at a time when there are collections you can spend $20 for all of them.

Other than that, to be honest nothing really stands out for $5. There are sales but it seems like the sales in the past 3 weeks have just stopped. PSN Plus owners could get GTA SA and other GTA's for $5 each. I got a shitload of God of Wars for $5 - $10 each.

Free PSN games that come to mind... Uncharted 3 Multiplayer. Dust . DC Universe.

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Bucket said:

No documentation needed - information is now available in convenient ADD video form!


... why can't someone make a Doom Fortress? :-( It would need a new engine, but your bullets could do more damage like RPGs you'd buy upgrades to do more damage. There can be different colored enemies, so when you see a blue caco, you know not to mess with it til you upgrade your stuff.

And have it randomly generated. What's the Oblige guy doing?

Doom Fortress :-(

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Incidentally, I'm amazed no one ever ported TF to the ZDoom engine.

Is Psychonauts worth $5?

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Oh yeah Psychonauts. I forgot about that. I bought it with the Double Fine Bundle. Have yet to play it yet.

It looks like Sonic CD and Wolfenstein 3D are $5

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Stygian said:

Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith - ...Most of the games in the series are awfully similar, though, so it would hardly be worth owning more than one or two games in the series...

Speaking as someone who has all the "normal" Windows Touhou games, that's simply wrong. Of course the genre stays the same, but there are some significant mechanical differences between the games and, perhaps more importantly, the level designs and patterns vary quite a bit. MoF is probably the worst game with its more rigid levels and patterns, while UFO, for example, forces you to play much more aggressively due to how the game is designed. In Doom terms, MoF would be a level where you stand in one, empty end of a room and shoot at monsters running straight at you, while in UFO you'd be weaving between the monsters and dodging attacks at the same time.

Also, the only reason MoF is considered as easy as it is is because of the bomb system which allows you to spam bombs more than in the other games, not because of the levels themselves. Ten Desires is actually by far the easiest, despite which it's really, really fun to play.

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geo said:

... why can't someone make a Doom Fortress? :-( It would need a new engine, but your bullets could do more damage like RPGs you'd buy upgrades to do more damage. There can be different colored enemies, so when you see a blue caco, you know not to mess with it til you upgrade your stuff.


You mean like this?

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No. I meant a FPS. sorry. I should have elaborated.

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geo said:

No. I meant a FPS. sorry. I should have elaborated.


Hmm... there's a number of Zdoom mods that add stuff like that in. Psychic played on Oblige maps might scratch that itch. Doesn't Oblige support custom monsters now?

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Just wanted to say I'm having a total blast so far with Dust: An Elysian Tail. It's an beautiful, fun, overall fantastic SOTN-style game (metroidvania?) that I think is available on several platforms (just came out on Steam). Great stuff.

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Katamori said:

Who knows Darwinia?

One of the best concepts I've ever seen.


I have it on the 360. A truly wonderful game. I can't convince a single person to try it though..

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Introversion games are great. Too bad they won't be making a sequel to Uplink.

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My only problem with Darwinia was that the game was unplayably hard for me. I got stucked on the second level!

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The Torchlight series. I've always considered it superior than Diablo and always will. Mainly because Runic Games is mostly Blizzard North, who made Diablo 1 and 2. Blizzard (the normal one) decided to make Diablo 3, while Blizzard North turned into Runic Games and made Torchlight.

Torchlight 1 was single player only, but it was great fun nevertheless.
Torchlight 2 I have yet still to finish, but it's an amazing game that was worth the purchase. It has LAN and online multiplayer, as well as general improvements of the gameplay. Both games are set in a steampunk universe, and are overall more colorful than the Gothic style of the Diablo series.

Both games you take a pet with you. Of what is your choice. Both games have a Dog and Cat option, and a ferret (If you have Torchlight 1's retail). Torchlight 2 has a lot more options that keep getting bigger. No matter what, they all have the same functions, and can attack (and thus attract attention), cast spells you find, and pick up items in it's own inventory. The great thing is that you can send your pet to town to sell the items (how, idk). In Torchlight 2, it becomes a little more ridiculous as you can send it with a shopping list to buy potions and scrolls.

Both games also support mods. Unlike Diablo 3, mods are welcome and there is even an achievement for having 10 loaded at once. Torchlight 2's online mode has a whitelist (AFAIK), so not everything can be used.

Torchlight 1 is $15, while the sequel is $20. I strongly recommend it if you enjoyed Diablo 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay, as the atmosphere is more light hearted, though blood and gore is still prominent.

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already posted but...

FTL : Faster Then Light


"What was that?"
"Did you see that?"
"Was that the primary bumper panel?"
"It did seem to-"
"Did the PRIMARY BUMPER PANEL fall off my ship for some ghorram reason?"
"Looks like."
"I thought Katie just checked the engine coils..."
"Yeah well if she doesn't give us some extra flow from the engine room to offset the burn through this landing going to get pretty interesting."
"Define 'interesting'"
"Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die?"
...
"This is the Captain. We're having a little trouble with our engine sequence. You might feel a little turbulence and then... Explode."

It all goes wrong. Always. Your you shields with be gone Your ship will be boarded, your hull will be breached and your life support room will be on fire. Some people compare it to star trek, let me tell to: The Kobayashi Maru test AIN'T GOT SHIT ON FTL.

It's hard is what I'm saying. but it is fun. Nasty, hard fought rougelike fun, but a better game to capture the feeling of being Admiral Adama I don't think I can suggest.

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Four extra games added to the Humble Bundle for those that beat the average.

- Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers
- English Country Tune
- Intrusion 2
- Oil Rush

I haven't played any of them (Tiny and Big is supposed to be a lot of fun), but Intrusion 2 is a run n' gun in the style of Metal Slug with some pretty cool bosses. It looks floaty but should be a lot of fun.

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dobugabumaru said:

I haven't played any of them (Tiny and Big is supposed to be a lot of fun), but Intrusion 2 is a run n' gun in the style of Metal Slug with some pretty cool bosses. It looks floaty but should be a lot of fun.

Intrusion 2 is, in fact, a lot of fun provided that you can get past the wonky (to say the least) physics. The word I'd use to describe that game more than anything is "relentless": The levels are long, they throw plenty of tough encounters at you one after an other after the beginning parts and the boss battles are outright ludicrous. Highly recommended if you enjoy old schoolish action.

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Intrusion 2 looks awesome like Metal Slug.... I'll play it soon. From the look it either looks floaty or wonky or the animation is just swingy.

I'm watching the story of Shank and even though its an EA game... it really seems like a 2 man game that they EA enslaved.

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This week's humble bundle sale is Serious Sam. For those who don't know, it's one of the few FPSs that continued the trend of just throwing waves of enemies at a player with an arsenal of fun guns at your disposal. Glad I picked it up, as I have yet to touch 2 or 3.

(I swear I'm not a humble bundle employee! I've been meaning to make a post cataloging some interesting indie games in the making but these keep grabbing my attention)

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Well I just played Organ Trail, the parody of the old Oregon Trail game. Wow I didn't like it. I'm happy that I didn't spend more money on the free game when it first came to Steam. It has parody, and that's about it, bad shooting controls, just made me run around zombies when possible, and stupid random events just designed to deplete your supplies so you need to get more. I'd rather fail at something and be punished than just have random events deplete everything. While everything is randomized, I can't imagine playing this a lot and getting more entertainment out of it past the charm of being a parody of a really old game.

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I've been playing PAINKILLER OVERDOSE as I've made another topic. I think that counts as an indie FPS game. While it might be very linear and one dimensional in terms of circle strafing, its well worth the $4 that I bought it for. 2PS with crisp graphics. It feels very arcadey and smooth.



GAME DEV TYCOON oh what a darling it is. You play as a game developer from the 80s til today. There have been other games that use this formula. More indie than this even. Its a text based game even if there are barely any visuals. Once you figure out to make everything a young RPG and change between Mid-Eval and Sci-Fi genres the game is just so easy. Too easy. It gets so tedious. I want to like this game a lot, but after playing through it so much its just a chore. Nothing is ever different. The consoles that come out are always the same, they always seem to die the same time. So in other words.... Sega will never beat Nintendo. So you always know what to invest your liscenses in. People in your team might get overworked, but nothing interesting happens to them. No one is suddenly out for a month because they had a kid. There are little things that happen, but they don't seem to have any impact on the game.... you just pay for new security or pay for new air conditioning. There is no consequence or deviation. Oh and always you'll make your big game that sells a million copies no matter what to sort of tell you the tutorial phase of the 80s is over. Since it just gives you a hit game no matter what, it feels insulting. Like you don't have to work for the hit game. But oh well.



GAME OF DWARVES is just like Dungeon Keeper 2, but without voice acting, charm, fun or anything of interest really. The game is less pick up and play than Dungeon Keeper 2, because there is a lot of text that needs to be read and well supplies that you buy with gold. Supplies like wood to build stuff... you buy it, you don't chop it down. No this game is completely under ground like Dungeon keeper 2. And you play as Dwarves on a grid. Your dwarves dig out walls along this grid, but unlike Dungeon Keeper 2, you can dig up and down instead of just north, south, east and west. You hire new dwarves and assign them roles or jobs. Its just so much like Dungeon Keeper 2, but less faceted and a lot more boring. Not to say that every FPS is like Doom, with a new coat of paint, but imagine if a game released 10 years after Doom, used a modified Doom engine, yet had less interesting things than Doom. This game just feels so dull, incomplete and uninspiring. The only plus is that playing custom games will generate a random underground world for you to explore.



ANOMALY WARZONE EARTH is surprisingly entertaining, with great tutorials. Its a top down somewhat tower defense game... only in reverse. You lead a squad of vehicles that must take clear cut streets through enemy defenses, but you select the route and your caravan just keeps following the path you set for them. So imagine a train on a tracks with multiple paths. If something blocks your train track, you divert your train at the next intersection by going to a tactical route map and just clicking on the intersection to point their next direction to head in. Its really as easy as that. You don't control the vehicles so much as just point out the route to take.

Since you're going through a warzone, the enemy has turrets, and other defenses setup to slow you down. So this is like you play the part of a GPS and they'll do the fighting as they come upon enemies. You can buy more vehicles for your caravan and assign their formations. Like do you select a less defensive more offensive vehicle to go first or do you select a more defensive less offensive vehicle? Another thing to consider is range of attack.

As a commander, you have abilities to repair your vehicles as the train keeps rolling. Your player character isn't limited to staying with the caravan, he can go out and wander to find things. This is a very simple yet engaging. The only downside is the controls could be better. A lot of times my commander was accidentally walking all over the place when I wanted him to repair things. Just because you hit the abilities menu, then select the ability with the mouse. Well when you use the mouse it makes your player character walk.

It is definitely worth a play. Good instructions, good voice work explaining everything in a simple manner.

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...adding to the Touhou Indie games section.

I picked up Touhou 6: EoSD about a year ago (...legally...) and figured that normal, well, should be normal people. Since then I've been through many of the games, and although the foundation for each game is pretty much the same, different patterns, better music, and some side gimmicks makes getting each new game worth it, for me at least. (Current -> 10.5)

Minecraft - Picked it up during its Alpha phase to check out the growing hype. Didn't quite grow on me, but it's still sitting on my cpu for that one day when I have absolutely nothing to do.

McPixel - The fuck am I doing?

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This was in ZDoom's off-topic, game called Star-Made. Here's the official page.

Quite interesting, and I have sort of weakness for space games. Unfortunately it doesn't run in this piece of shit. Thanks Intel. :P

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