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[TotalAnarchy]

In the last few years we've seen the rise of independent game makers who often self-publish their titles and distribute their games using services such as Steam or their own sites. I know you really want to enjoy them. Problem: they're too many for their own good. That's why I suggest that in this thread we highlight those we consider interesting... and why, so as to filter what others will consider good purchases.

First is:

Available on Steam Dustforce was made by the 4-man team of Hitbox, living in a garage near you. It's a fast-paced platformer where you have to keep the streets clean of leaves and dirt. It's not as monotonous as it sounds, because the challenge lies in keeping the speed up and doing combos, while climbing up walls, sweeping and hitting enemies. It has great art style and atmosphere, ornated by an inspiring retro-music stolen from the gods, composed by Terrence Lee. It reminds me of tunes taken from Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru.

Gamefront has given Dustforce a 95/100 associating it with Flashback and Another World in terms of art, Super Meat Boy in terms of difficulty. They praise it for its brilliant and intricate level design "that requires a lot of skill", "great soundtrack", "solid controls", but admit "it may be too tough for some players".

[Lulu_Jane]

Paging Frodo to this thread

Has anybody played Gemini Rue? I'd love to hear what people have to say about that one, I keep nearly buying it then not.

[Smiling Spectre]

I didn't played (or even bought) it, but I heard good things about it from "adventure-lovers". So I think, I will buy it at the next Steam sale.

[TheChosen]

If you liked old adventure games, Gemini Rue is definitely for you. Not that its impossibly hard like your standard Sierra adventure, but because it really looks like one. Really pro stuff.

[TotalAnarchy]

It's a tower defense game made by the guys behind the 3DMark benchmark and Shattered Horizon. The title's originality oozes out of its specific style and cutscenes, meant to replicate the sci-fi movies of the 50s. Humans discover they're not alone in the universe; and the aliens are bent on obliterating us. It's your job to save mankind!

Radiant Beem and Gorg are the coolest villains I've seen in a while. It seems they've really put some effort behind the world they created. Check this Making of... blog, you won't regret it.

The gameplay stands out from the usual tower defense formula. Investing in different weapons and resource generators isn't special, but the trick is you place these sattelites on orbits which you can rotate freely, so as to adapt to the continuous waves of alien scum that annoyingly change their invasion's trajectory.

Mastering Unstoppable Gorg is like mastering DOOM: it's all about choosing the right weapon for the right enemy at the right time. There is much experimenting to be done here!

Destructoid has rated it with an 8 out of 10, praising it for its replayability and charming style: "Inspired by classics like Forbidden Planet, these little videos are a joy to behold for any sci-fi fan that knows there is a version of The Day The Earth Stood Still that doesn't star Keanu Reeves".

Unstoppable Gorg was released on Steam a couple of days ago.

[TotalAnarchy]

Time to explore some of the upcoming indie games, especially indie RPGs, since everyone likes those, and we need to cheer hunvagy up cause he is disappointed in Bioware AND Big Huge Games. I'm afraid if I don't post something RPG-related, he will become a casual gamer.

Age of Decadence has been in development for a couple of years now. The devs love oldschool role-playing games, so that's why this title presents special interest to us. Here's the site, here's their media page and here's proof that it's not vaporware.

The site sums it up pretty good: "The Age of Decadence is an isometric, turn-based, single-player 3D role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire. The game features a detailed skill-based character system, non-linear gameplay, multiple skill-based ways to handle quests, choices & consequences, and extensive dialogue trees."

So far I really like the setting (although early Middle Ages is the bread and butter of RPGs, the fall of the Roman civilization in the West with all its intricacies has been scarcely touched as a theme), the turn-based combat and all those combat and death animations. It's also quite a looker, relatively speaking. Keep this one on your radar folks, it might come out this year.

[Dave]

I feel to suggest an Indie Puzzle-Platform Adventure called LIMBO.

The reasons why you, a young nameless boy, awakens in the realm between death and life are not known, it's up to you to discover what happened.

It's a very atmospheric trial and death game, the game mechanics are really thin and easy to learn and developers added gruesome elements to make players use their head. The puzzles are nice and intelligent, but not immediate to understand and require you to think. (A very interesting feature nowadays )

The real faults I have found are that it can be considered short and that the end could not satisfy your thirst of answers, you can give it different interpretations.

A demo is downloadable from their official site: DEMO

Also available on STEAM

[TotalAnarchy]

I think everyone might be interested in this one. There's a 10-minute show on Gamespot which runs every friday. It's called IT CAME FROM XBOX LIVE. The show follows a basic format. They play 2 crappy and 1 good indie game. Much lolz ensues. Well the format changes in the 4th episode where there are 3 ok games. So far they have 4 episodes:

• Episode 1 - Crap (Bioerosion, No Luca No); Good (Escape Goat)
• Episode 2 - Crap (Hockey Fights, Piggle BBQ); Good (Speedrunner HD)
• Episode 3 - Crap (Streets of Fury, Blood Tempest); Good (Urban Space Squirrels)
• Episode 4 - Zombie Death Zone, My Cat vs. Zombies, Dead Pixels

From these, I really liked Speedrunner HD and Escape Goat; Urban Space Squirrels and Zombie Death Zone also seemed worthwhile.

[MrFlibble]

While browsing this list of indie games my attention was caught by Palm Kingdoms 2 Deluxe, which is a clone of the Heroes of Might and Magic that looks a lot like HoMM2. The first instalment in the series, Palm Heroes, was released on handhelds, but the sequel also has Windows and Mac versions. A downloadable demo is also available.

Also of interest might be the following websites, which are predominantly about indie games:
ManifestoGames
Play This Thing!
Rampant Games

[Panthro]

Cliffski, who makes Gratuitous Space Battles and Gratuitous Tank Battles (amongst other games) also runs a website with links to various indie game developers, called showmethegames.com