{"id":216,"date":"2010-12-09T19:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T18:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/?p=216"},"modified":"2010-12-06T14:02:08","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T13:02:08","slug":"independent-game-festival-2011-%e2%80%93-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/09\/independent-game-festival-2011-%e2%80%93-part-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Game Festival 2011 \u2013 Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi again!<\/p>\n

When you’re reading this, I’ll probably be playing “Cataclysm”, getting my awesome mage to level 85 and raid ready! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve prepared this beforehand, and I probably posted on that before this goes online.<\/p>\n

So, let’s get down to it: the last part of my IGF2011 showcase… I’ll still do a wrapup post aswell, with some last impressions on this IGF…<\/p>\n

Nimbus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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According to the creator, “Nimbus” is an open ended puzzle-racing game. The player controls a ship that doesn’t propel itself, instead relying on the stuff on the levels to increase it’s speed (and mainly to go up).<\/p>\n

“Nimbus” has already been released (through Steam), and seems like a fun game… unfortunately, haven’t had the time to play it yet, but I’ll be sure to take my turn at it!
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Overgrowth<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Another known name in the indy community, “Overgrowth” is a game by Wolfire Games<\/a>. Although I’m not a big fan of the game itself, their toolchain and marketing abilities are impecable and well worth taking a look into, to learn “how it’s done!”. The game features is a Rabbit on Rabbit action… Kung-Fu-wise, that is!<\/p>\n

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Proun<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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“Proun” is a racing game of sorts… the objective is to avoid the obstacles by rotating a sphere around the tube it is travelling on… Some stuff on the trailer is insane, and it looks great.<\/p>\n

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Q.U.B.E.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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“Q.U.B.E.” is a game that kind of reminds me of “Portal”. It plays as a first person game in which the player has a glove that enables him to extrude or push blocks of the same color as the glove, and has to use that to solve puzzles and progress further into levels. Looks sweet!<\/p>\n

Ray Ardent: Science Ninja<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This one has the Silly Factor crank way up! Best way to explain it is that it’s like Cannabalt with more stuff in it… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Player has to control “Ray Ardent” in a scrolling environment, avoiding obstacles and bad guys without loosing pace… Simple, yet addictive, if it’s anything like Cannabalt.<\/p>\n

Retro City Rampage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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If Grand Theft Auto was done in the 80’s, this is what would come out… An open-ended sandbox-y game with 8-bit graphics (that look totally awesome). ’nuff said, I think!<\/p>\n

Retro\/Grade<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This is one of the most original twists on a shoot’em up I’ve ever seen: you play the game backwards in time… This makes the game look more of a rythm game than a shooter, to be honest, but the result is impressive nevertheless… Basically, the player has to position himself at the correct position where he was when he fired his lasers… weird, hum?<\/p>\n

In the video, it’s easier to understand, but I fear this mechanic might be too strange to get acceptance, since it involves a mental paradigm shift to accomodate for the time-is-backwards thing… The execution is also a bit weird, since there are lots of glowy things to confuse the player and misleed him to the wrong position. Still, it’s very impressive!<\/p>\n

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Shield the Beat<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Another mix between a rythm game and a shoot’em up, in this one, the player has to use the analogue stick to control the shield’s position around the ship while changing the color of the shield to reflect the incomming bullets… This all in a “on-rails” shooter context…<\/p>\n

It’s pretty neat and innovative, which is always good to see!<\/p>\n

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Snapshot<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Another original one (seems I can’t use any other word to describe most games I’ve chosen for my IGF2011 overview)… In this platformer, the player can take “pictures” of areas of the screen and then move them around the play area to solve puzzles. It’s really weird and wonderful…<\/p>\n

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Spectre Spelunker Shrinks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Although it has a terrible name, the concept behind this platformer is quite nice: play with the characters’s size. Although plenty of games have done in the past (for example, “Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap”), this is the first time I saw this mechanic applied to a platformer, and to such a good effect:<\/p>\n

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Spiral Knights<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Co-op action RPG? I’m in! \ud83d\ude42 Specially if it reminds me of “Darkstone<\/a>” (an old game I really loved!). I’m curious on what the creator means by “clockwork world” that changes over time…<\/p>\n

Strength of the Sword<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This one is impressive for an indy game… top-notch graphics and animation, which is rare these days (animation being so expensive to produce, compared to the other parts of the tech\/art). The gameplay seems to be a bit too “arena-based” for my taste, but each to his own, to be honest… “Heavenly Sword” was arena based and it was enjoyed by millions… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Swimming Under Clouds<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Physics-based platformer… The awesome part is that it looks beautifull and includes fluid simulations, which is something I love… The weirdness of the main character (a fish in water travelling through a world) is just the strawberry on top of the cake!<\/p>\n

Symon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This graphical adventure got me curious because of it’s procedural generated puzzles… I’m extremely curious on how this will work in practice, to be honest…<\/p>\n

The Line<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Looks good and seems to have an interesting gameplay going on… Just draw and erase lines to get the player character from one place to another. Another game that seems to be a good match for the iPhone.<\/p>\n

Trainyard<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Another interesting puzzle game, it seems to me this one will drive me insane (if it would come out for Android)… Just lead the trains from start to finish, avoiding collisions… seems simple, right? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Vizati<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This is an interesting puzzler, and I wish it would come out on Android (since I don’t enjoy these games so much on PC as on that kind of devices, not sure why)… A puzzle game in which you shift the game world to move pieces together. It’s available for PC, iPhone, iPad and WindowsPhone 7 (an impressive feat by itself, with just one tech guy working on the game, in a short while).<\/p>\n

So, that’s it… now back to levelling (well, technically not, since I posted this on Monday, but you get the general feeling!) \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi again! When you’re reading this, I’ll probably be playing “Cataclysm”, getting my awesome mage to level 85 and raid ready! \ud83d\ude42 Anyway, I’ve prepared this beforehand, and I probably posted on that before this goes online. So, let’s get down to it: the last part of my IGF2011 showcase… I’ll still do a wrapup […]<\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-indy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}