34 articles Articles posted in Indie games

Party Boat

Party BoatMesshof (aka Mark Essen) has just released this dodge-the-missiles game. It is fun. But it’s only fun when you’ve worked through the three ‘stages of comprehension’, which are:

1. realising that you’re rotating and thrusting, and — oh! — you can suddenly control the blasted helicopter

2. remembering that the title screen told you that you can ‘FLIP FOR MULTIPLIERS!!’

3. stopping trying to flee from the missiles, and starting to weave elegant looping 360-degree-flipping arcs around the sky that are mathematically calculated to avoid death

Then you’re playing it all night. Play Party Boat (Flash)

Fathom

FathomYou must play this. The first few seconds of Fathom’s shooty platforming are pleasant enough: chunky pixels, slick control, synthy sounds. But are you thinking the opening boss battle seems suspiciously hard? You’d be right. Suddenly, Fathom turns into something very beautiful indeed. We won’t spoil the surprise. Except to say that the title will, eventually, make a whole lot of sense. Play Fathom (Flash)

Squid Yes, Not So Octopus: Squid Harder (beta)

synso2Yes, somewhere in the midst of that image above is your ship. Squid Harder is the sequel to the original SYNSO, and things have got about 10,000 times more Geometry Wars in the interim. This shooter is insane. The easiest level asks you to survive for just 60 minutes in a kaleidoscope of throbbing explosions and fizzing death, and we only managed it on our third go. SYNSO2’s ship controls are a bit slippy-slidey, yep, but you’ll forgive it for taking your eyes on a frightening adventure they’ll never forget. Download the v0.9 beta release now and — take our word for it — use the autofire option. Link to website

Blasterman vs Yellowskull

This little platform-shooter gets it right in all the right places. It’s about shooting roving droids and solving the odd door puzzle — but the slickness, the sounds, the little ‘boomph’ as you stomp on a switch and bounce perfectly off — it’s several notches above the average. Link to download (Windows, 9.2Mb)