Weekly Indie Update (Week 5 of 2012)

Feature

This time we’re kicking off with a game I haven’t even mentioned on my blog yet, but one everyone who picked up the Humble Voxatron Debut bundle are familiar with: Voxatron!

It’s a top-down voxel-based shooter with a lot of potential, some of which has already been realized in updates since its appearance in the indie bundle, but I’m sure there’s still plenty more coming from these guys! Especially considering that this past week saw not one, but two updates, in the form of 0.1.7, soon followed by 0.1.8. A lot seem to be enjoying what’s already in the game and while I haven’t spent a lot of time playing it, I must say that picking it up was definitely money well spent; even with it still being in alpha-stage and under heavy development. I believe it’s called.. “alpha funding”?

Moving on to another promising indie still under development: “DRUG CAMP” (BECAUSE CAPS KICK ASS). This one is still in alpha and the only way you’ll get to play it, is by donating $8 through the website, which then gets you a closed alpha invitation code; those with access can enjoy the recently released 0.56a patch. Since I haven’t donated yet, I can’t really tell you much about the game, other than.. well it looks exciting! But I’m sure some of you hadn’t heard about the game prior to reading about it here, so.. worth mentioning for that! In any case, here’s the description from its website:

DRUG CAMP is a fully persistant top down multiplayer action game, in which you strive to build and uphold the most impressive drug farming settlement.
Your main goal is to plant exotic drug plants and harvest them to get money.
Sounds simple enough? Well, you must also keep your defense perimeter up by building walls, sentries, traps and placing robots. This is because even if you are not playing the game, the camp is still always there and can be attacked – either by other players, the somewhat brutal robots of the drug police or plain old monsters.

It sounds like quite an entertaining game, and I’ll certainly be following its development (and keep my readers updated) as it progresses, but now it’s time for one of the most anticipated indie games of 2012.. I’m sure you all read about Gunpoint right here last week, right? RIGHT?! Alright, well this week I’ve got a bit more in the form of a short Q&A, as part of Gamasutra’s “Road to the IGF” series. I so can’t wait for this game to get a release.. or at least, a release date.

Next up.. uh.. yeah, it’s merchandise related. Not something I usually talk about, but seeing how the products include cool looking Super Meat Boy coffee mugs and Terraria t-shirts, I figured.. why the heck not! It looks like quality stuff, after all.

From coffee mugs and t-shirts to newsbits about no less than two indie RPGs: First there’s Wanderlust: Rebirth, which made the jump to 2.52. This patch brings with it a revamp of the cleric/fighter/alchemist classes among other things; good stuff! In my opinion, it’s one of the best indie RPGs right now, so why not try the demo if you haven’t yet?

While Wanderlust: Rebirth is a great game, I’m even more excited about the development of the upcoming dungeon crawler, Legend of Grimrock. This time it’s about breaking a leg on the dancefloor.. or maybe not, but it is about music! I’m not exactly sure what all the instruments this week’s post is about, but it can be read here in any case.

On the very first day of this month, Arcen Games took it to the sky with a A Valley Without Wind update, bringing it up to 0.568, an update that completely changes the way skies are rendered in the game, along with a lot of fixes and tweaks. This was quickly followed by 0.569, though this was little more than a small maintenance release. But that’s far from everything AVWW fans got this past week, as they were part of the latest Just Press Start podcast and an interview with Konstantinos Dimopoulos of Gnome’s Lair (links to both here). Wrapping up a busy week is the 0.570/0.571 patch, which is most likely the largest update yet.. wow! Can’t wait to see how this one turns out, once out of beta.. though a demo is available, so feel free to take it for a test-run in its current stage!

Better bring lots of guns (and supplies), for the gates of hell have been opened on XBLIG and the zombies have taken over! What, you think I’m exaggerating? Here are just some of the zombie themed games a browse through the marketplace brought to my attention: Attack of the Zombie Horde, Block Zombies, Dead Pixels, I Zombie, No Pain No Brain, North Pole Zombie Massacre, There Will Be Brains, Yet Another Zombie Defense, Zombie Armageddon, Zombie Estate, Zombie Football Carnage, Zombie Slaughter Is Fun, Zombies Ruined My Day and I likely forgot quite a few! Wow.. I used to think the zombie genre had been done to death in movies, but this.. is crazy.

While I haven’t tried them all (yet?), I did find two that were very impressive:

“I Zombie” has you play the role of a zombie (finally, eh?) and you’re tasked with infecting everyone in each level without getting killed. This may sound simple and it would be, were it not for the fact that your targets include armed-to-the-teeth soldiers.. damn. It gets challenging pretty fast, but never so much that you’ll want to throw your controller across the room in frustration.

Another zombie game that actually stood out as both unique and interesting, even if it’s been done before (without zombies that is), was “Dead Pixels”. Everyone knows how much dead pixels sucks, so why not pick up a gun and blast them in this zombie action RPG, complete with (offline) co-op and a recent update, which not only adds two brand new modes to further enhance the experience, but also brings along a new difficulty level. Considering how rare it is for an indie game to get any kind of content added post-launch, that’s quite a nice patch.

Well, afraid that’s all I’ve got, so here are the lists!

Reviews

Interviews

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Wraithkal

Whenever a big AAA title claims it'll "innovate with groundbreaking features", it usually turns out to be a snore-fest; one which simply mimics other games (poorly). This is where my interest indie game interest comes from: pick a random title from a pile of these, and chances are you’ll end up with something genuinely unique - often for well less than $60 too.

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