Indie Game Fan

Starsector 0.6.1a out now

2013-10-03T13:54:00.002-04:00

Buyers of the incredibly fun (albeit somewhat difficult to start with) Starsector will be happy to know that the latest update is available now.

The full patch notes include a number of welcome hotfix items, including stability fixes for computers running integrated graphics and some changes to Combat Readiness. Best of all, the developer says that another large update is coming a little faster than the last.

Starsector (formerly known as Starfarer -- the name had to be changed for legal reasons) is one of my favorite in-development games. You can purchase it for $9.99 now, or buy it when it's finished (it will cost more on completion, so buying it now will save you some money).

Just a short note regarding Starsector: it's one of my favorite games. I favorably compare it to Mount & Blade in space, a delicious blend of personal character development (skills, attributes, levels), ship development (weapons, modifications, systems) and fleet development (buy and customize frigates, carriers, and more). It's really a lot of fun even in Alpha.

Finally, I'd like to encourage interested gamers to check out the mod subforum for the game. There are dozens of high quality mods for more gameplay, additional factions, and additional ships.

IndieGameStand: Inverto (pay what you want)

2013-10-03T02:34:00.001-04:00

You can read more about Inverto, or buy it from IGS for the next 96 hours at a pay-what-you-want price. Beating the average will get you some good stuff -- namely, a level editor.

Cross platform (Linux, Windows, OSX).

The game is a lot like Portal (not a bad thing) with some Prey trappings. If you like FPS puzzle games, this one is worth your time.

Deals on games that aren't on Steam

2013-10-02T23:28:00.000-04:00

Steam is amazing. Having most of my games in one location makes upgrading computers somewhat painless (especially if you take advantage of Steam's backup feature), but not every game is on Steam. And not everyone wants to use Steam.

Enter Not On Steam, a shop for games that you can't find on Valve's servers. Humble Widget (Amazon Payments, Google Wallet, Paypal, credit card) serves as payment provider to several titles. To make things even more appealing, you can take advantage of the Not On Steam Sale until next Wednesday.

Some games don't have a set price point, so you can pay what you want.

Titles include:

Tiny Barbarian $6.99 (down from $9.99)
Dungeon of Elements $9.99 (down from $19.99)
Longshot $2.49 (down from $4.99)
Inescapable $4.99 (down from $9.99)
Mousecraft (pay what you want)
Race the Sun $5 (down from $10)

Looking through the rather vast pile of games there has reminded me just how great indie gaming is -- sure, we've got some voxel games (made popular by Infiniminer and Minecraft), some platformers, some puzzle games, and some RPGs as well as some openly-artsy offerings -- but there are a number of gems and curiousities that make it worth your time to check it out.

Reus is 50% off for two more days

2013-10-02T01:00:00.000-04:00

Grab Reus for half-price during Steam's midweek madness sale.

About the Game

In Reus, you control powerful giants that help you shape the planet to your will. You can create mountains and oceans, forests and more. Enrich your planet with plants, minerals and animal life. There is only one thing on the planet that you do not control: mankind, with all their virtues and and all their vices. You can shape their world, but not their will. Provide for them and they may thrive. Give them too much, and their greed may gain the upper hand.

This is a game with an interesting presentation and a pretty cool soundtrack. Quite a lot of reviews pegged it as a good deal for the $10 price range.

Weekend Deal: The Binding of Isaac

2013-09-28T20:48:00.000-04:00

Grab The Binding of Isaac this weekend for under a buck, direct from Steam!

Space Pirates And Zombies (Beta)

2011-05-16T14:26:00.000-04:00

Remember Star Controller 2? You should really check out SPAZ. In this game you're a pirate, starting out with a single beat-up mothership capable of building a small variety of support and attack ships. As you progress through the game, you'll discover new technologies for weapons and components, find new blueprints for bigger or more lethal ships, and choose a faction to support (or kill them all) while travelling all over the galaxy.

The goal of the game is to eventually reach the center, where the enemies are very difficult indeed. Getting there will require you to fix up your mothership and gather as much weaponry and technology as you can get ahold of. Stealth drone bombers? You can build those. Massive missile swarms? Yep. Automated turrets? In!

Each starsystem has random missions that appear from time to time, rewarding you with data (for technology research) and rez (for building ships). If you're friendly enough with either of a particular starsystem's factions, you might be able to spend some of your resources to get technology you need. Or you can just prepare an invasion squad and blast the station and it's escorts into space dust, taking what you need from the burning wreck.

A lot of small touches make this game fun. I won't spoil them all, but let's talk Goons for a minute. Goons are your piratey crewmates, and when you staff a ship with them you get benefits (like faster repairs). They can be lost during fights in various ways, but you can always pick some up from defeated ships (via escape pods). They may not want to join you, though. In those cases, you vent them out of your airlock, unprotected, and can either let them die slowly, run them over with your ship (providing a satisfying "squish") or fry them with your fusion cannons.

The voice acting past the cinematic is actually not bad. There are definitely some memorable one-liners throughout, so kudos to the dialog writer!

SPAZ (Space Pirates and Zombies) is in beta, but you can order it and play it right now. The game feels mostly complete, though it could do with a few balance adjustments in some places.

Better yet, try out the Demo for yourself and decide if it's worth the asking price. Beware! SPAZ is addicting!

Terraria is Available NOW!

2011-05-16T14:04:00.002-04:00

Note: Steam now has Terraria showing up in searches and on the front page.

You might not see it on Steam when you do a search. As of right now, you definitely won't. But it's there. In fact, it's right here. Buy it now for $9.99!

Additionally, a Four Pack for Terraria is for sale on Steam for $29.99.

For all the Terraria fans looking to get ahold of this and unable to find it through Steam search, you're welcome.

Terraria : on Steam this Monday!

2011-05-14T21:19:00.000-04:00

2D Minecraft / Metroid with multiplayer, random worldgen, and optional PvP? Why, yes, Terraria is all these things and more.

Best of all, it's not expensive. For $10 (but only for the week of release) on Steam this Monday (May 16th), you'll be having a blast building and defending your towns (complete with NPCs), hiding from gigantic (seriously, watch the trailer) monsters that laugh at your walls, and doing everything you can to claw your way to power with a huge array of weapons and armor.

I'll be honest. From what I've seen, there's a lot to love here. Windows only.

Garshasp - Gameplay Vid

2011-05-10T17:22:00.000-04:00

One of the first games out of Iran, Garshasp is now available on Steam.

SpyParty - Early Access Beta (Paid)

2011-05-10T14:41:00.000-04:00

A Spy Game About Subtle Behavior sounds like an interesting game in any medium, and now everyone has the opportunity to play the early access beta for $15.

Windows only. For now. Cross-platform options are planned at some point in the future.

Mount & Blade Fire & Sword: A Guide

2011-05-09T22:59:00.001-04:00

This is a long and detailed guide on getting started in Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword. It goes without saying that this particular installment of the M&B franchise has some difficult spots (like affording well equipped troops and not getting killed by a lucky peasant with a gun), but this guide definitely smooths the transition.

I'm not sure if I like Fire and Sword as much as Warband, but I'll give it some time before declaring it worse. Guides like this, and mods that will come in the future, are all going to make for more fun.

The Tiny Bang Story

2011-05-09T12:04:00.000-04:00

A beautifully drawn point-and-click adventure game that's fun for all ages and out now. You can grab it from Steam or GamersGate. See more screenshots and videos at the Colibri Games website.

Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.8 Released!

2011-05-09T11:59:00.000-04:00

The video above is a much older version, but it gives you an idea of how GRA plays. It's 2D (tile based) and still early in it's development cycle, but still playable.

Go directly the announcement, or man up and just download now.

Drains

2011-05-07T20:43:00.001-04:00

Drains, a platform game by Pathea Games, has been released on Direct2Drive and Impulse. You can grab a demo at Direct2Drive and try it yourself. According the feature list, it has more than 15 hours of gameplay, lots of areas to explore, and a leveling system to increase your power while fighting off 20+ types of enemies.

Might I also say that the trailer above has a great soundtrack. Note: the Direct2Drive version is less expensive as this was published, at $9.95 vs $14.99 at Impulse.

Age of Fear: Multiplayer Testers Needed

2011-05-06T21:08:00.001-04:00

Check the Age of Fear forums for details: Multiplayer beta testers needed

Frozen Synapse SP Missions

2011-05-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

If you pre-ordered Frozen Synapse, you can download and play some single player awesomeness (55 missions) in a grand campaign of destruction. Right now. Today. Do it!

Fan Suggestions for Devs

2011-05-06T13:47:00.007-04:00

This post is intended for indie game developers and is written from the prospective of the fan. Any mid-size or larger indie game project may benefit, smaller projects might not see a need for it.

Read more after the jump!

If there's one thing I appreciate when I get interested in an indie game, it's community building. This doesn't mean you need to be on Twitter (though that helps) or Facebook, nor does it mean you need to have a forum. What it does mean is that you should be responsive.

Set up an automatic Google Alert for your project. You need to know when people are talking about your game on their favorite forums so that you can register and answer questions. This builds hype in your project, but more importantly it builds good will. Gamers appreciate that you've taken the time to find them and interact with them on their home turf. Set one up for free.

Don't act like a huge corporation. Talk to your potential customers as equals. Encourage feedback, accept criticisms without melting down, and never let yourself fall into the "corporate drone" monologues. Every good game creator is a game player. That's your common ground. Don't try to be Sony or EA when you communicate with people. As Han Solo would say, "fly casual."

Don't over-promise. Many indie fans are very forgiving and understanding of your plight when things don't go well. Maybe you miss a release date, or maybe you can't deliver a feature that you absolutely thought you could. No matter how careful you are, someone (or several someones) are going to have issues with how you react to these things. Remain calm, polite, and apologetic, even if they don't deserve it and act like assholes. This goes back to generating good will with everyone else.

Live patch notes are a good thing. Post-release support is expected, and adding features along with bug fixes is going to go a long towards keeping interest in your project high. A great way to build hype and understanding in what you're doing is to post (in an obvious place) a pseudo-real-time list of changes for the next release. Every time you fix a bug or finish writing a feature, update the list. Your fans will love it.

Frozen Synapse - Release Soon!

2011-05-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

Not much longer now! Frozen Synapse is an action strategy game that plays, in part, like the planning section of the old Rainbow Six games. The action, which is brutal and fast, doesn't make you wait around for "the fun part."

In short, you plan your moves, test them, then execute them when you're ready to see what happens. You and the enemy move at the same time. It's kind of like chess, if chess moves were simultaneous and the pieces carried heavy weapons.

The Second Guest (Teaser)

2011-05-05T12:21:00.001-04:00

Even after watching the trailer, I'm not sure I understand what is happening here. It's a little vague. I think it takes place in 1923 London, and it's intended to a frightening game. Maybe we'll find out more closer to release.

There isn't a website for the game. Yet. The development team is composed of Twice Effect and HeadUp Games.

Dragonsphere Free from GoG

2011-05-05T12:15:00.001-04:00

Good Old Games, the website that sells old (and I mean old) commercial games is offering Dragonsphere for free. It isn't really indie, but I'm sure it will appeal to indie lovers. Why not? It's classic gameplay, man!

If you've never played Dragonsphere, it's a rather charming point-and-click adventure game with a great story. You should probably play it now since it's free.

Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword Siege trailer

2011-05-04T21:09:00.000-04:00

Mount & Blade (and the later Warband) is one of the games I always have to have installed. Usually for the mods, which are far better than the vanilla game in every possible way. Typically.

With Fire and Sword adds (officially) guns. Among other things (which you can read about if you like), including a new map and an entirely different time period, fully customizable armies, new multiplayer action (command AI troops in addition to general deathmatch), better towns and economy modeling. Most places have it for $15 or thereabouts, though initial reviews aren't so great this time around.

A Valley Without Wind: Dev Progress Video

2011-05-04T20:38:00.000-04:00

The guys that brought us the amazing AI War: Fleet Command are continuing to develop their next game, A Valley Without Wind.

I've had mixed feelings about the path AVWW is taking (that's a long damn name), but the core of the game appeals to me. Surviving in a procedurally generated world can't be all that bad. Of note: the game never really ends. If you kill off the big bad dude, you've saved that region ... but other regions have their own evil guy causing trouble, giving you more to do.

Definitely worth watching.

Game Dev 2010 Salary Survey for Indies

2011-05-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

Gamasutra: Game Developer Reveals 2010 Game Industry Salary Survey Results

The big take away for indie game devs? Contracting your talents out to someone else will earn you more money. According to Gamasutra, the average solo indie dev reported average income of $11, 379.

That said, more than half (55 percent) made less than $500 from game sales in 2010.

Starfarer: Alpha is Awesome

2011-05-04T20:18:00.001-04:00

Starfarer has been in alpha for awhile now, and anyone that pre-orders it gets to try it out. As one of those lucky people, let me say up front that I'm loving this game.

The performance is very good even on sub-par computers. The graphics are excellent, the particle effects are awesome, the weapons have serious punch, huge ships are still vulnerable to smaller frigates and tiny bombers, and the sounds/music are very good.

What you can do in the alpha

The alpha only allows you to play the "combat" section of the game (the full version will have a larger strategic layer similar to Mount & Blade) for now. You get access to a few scenario missions, though you're able to mod the game already to create more, or give yourself massive battlecarriers for fun.

The difficulty of these missions ramps up swiftly. You'll need to juggle control of your starship (with WASD, assigning weapons to autofire or fire manually via your mouse), with controlling your fleet (which includes such things as fighters, bombers, frigates, cruisers, battleships and carriers).

Why you should play it
It's unique. There aren't any modern games out there that marry 2D top-down arcade-like starship combat with real-time tactics, role-playing, crew modeling, and the "galaxy-view" (not the official name) of choosing when and where to fight, how to upgrade your ship, and outfitting/choosing a fleet.

Do you want a small team of incredibly powerful ships? Or a larger team of weaker, but easily replaced ships? The idea is that you can make it your own, while watching the impact of crew skill shape the battles. I can't wait for the full release.

Knight Teaser for Hack, Slash, Loot.

2011-05-03T14:24:00.015-04:00

Tell me this doesn't look like a great way to spend a few hours. You can visit the Hack, Slash, Loot website for more info on this "coffee-break roguelike," and, even better, grab a copy of the beta to play yourself (Windows, Mac, Linux versions are available).

I've tagged this as a "free" game, but there will be an option to purchase it once the commercial details are finalized. How this will happen is yet to be decided, though the website specifically mentions a free version will coexist with the paid version.