I know I’ve been waiting for that for a while, anyway. This video was sent in from the recent Global Game Jam, an indie meetup where developers have 48 hours to build a game. Any game. The theme at this game jam? “Ouroboros,” the snake eating itself. Or, as the presenter here says, “Basically, a snake fellating itself.” More »
How can a game made over the course of a weekend remind me of Rez and Crayon Physics Deluxe? By sending me soaring through the universe with simple controls and quirky hand-drawn artwork. Made by a team of 5, The Universe Within puts in the control of a pixellated dot that you need to steer through obstacles as it advances from the the galaxy through the stratosphere and into a human being’s cells. More »
Well, that didn’t take long. The foaming outrage over the arrest of Kim Dotcom and the shutdown of his MegaUpload empire needed all of five days to result in this, MegaUP: Upload If You Can, a protest title released Wednesday on Xbox Live’s Indie Games service. Proceeds from the sale of the game (after Microsoft takes its cut) benefit its maker. Kim would be so proud. More »
Tower defense hasn’t had its day just yet, judging not only by the large percentage of games on the App Store that hail from the genre, but also this insane-looking monstrosity from developer MCRO. Eight-player online co-op and an additional dimension are the game’s selling points, as is an 8-bit soundtrack, which may or may not pillage the sanctity of your eardrums. More »
At first blush, the environs and first-person perspective of puzzle platformer Q.U.B.E. might look familiar. The game tasks you with manipulating a series of coloured three-dimensional cubes that have various effects on the environment. More »
Ken Silverman was definitely on to something with that voxel stuff. The man was batty about them before they were big and now, everyone’s getting in on the action. The latest is this upcoming Xbox Live Indie Games title called, simply, Block Zombies. More »
Just as its sister site ModDB picks the top PC gaming mods of the year, IndieDB rounds out the year with a countdown of the top independently developed games of the year. Think of it as a shopping list to help establish your indie gaming cred. How many of the top 10 have you played? More »
When we last saw the upcoming game from Jonathan Blow this summer, The Witness already looked like an intriguing experience. The way that Blow’s game design interwove puzzles and environmental cues created a hypnotic level of immersion where you had to pay attention to a gameworld like never before. More »
You’ve gotta love a game that makes a sly reference to 2010 indie darling Limbo. But, further perusal shows that Pid‘s not going to be like PlayDead’s hit game. It’s got color! Energy! localised gravity fountains! The retro-styled release happens on a remote alien planet where you’ll need to jump, solve and float your way past the local fauna — or are they automata? — through multiple levels of platformer action. Pid‘s the result of a partnership between developer Might and Delight and production company Beefy Media. Collectively, the guys who make up Might and Delight have titles like Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield, and Killzone on their resumes, but their most relevant experience in this instance is their joint work on the first Bionic Commando: Rearmed release from Capcom. Pid will launch into orbit on Xbox 360, PS and PC next year. More »
Video games have a language all their own. It’s a language that most people understand implicitly — concepts like extra lives, levelling up, experience points and boss battles have gone mainstream. That language has begun to seep into other media as well — movies like The Matrix, Source Code, and books like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World all use the language of games to tell stories in fresh, interesting ways. More »
