Indie

Review: Tank Universal

Posted Aug 27th 2008 5:00PM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Features, Action, FPS, Indie, Opinion

Tank Universal captures the nostalgic feel of classic games like Battezone mixed with an art style similar to the movie TRON. Even the plot follows a TRON-like plot line. A person diagnosed with a terminal illness enters into a virtual reality, where he ends up in neon world primarily made up from simple polygons. There, he joins a rebellion group fighting against a murderous and oppressive dictatorship. In order to upset the seat of power, players must jump into a tank and start blasting away the opposition.

Continue reading Review: Tank Universal

Strong Bad trailer declares freedom

Posted Aug 27th 2008 10:30AM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Adventure, Indie, Trailers, Video

The first Strong Bad game only released a few weeks ago, but the tireless developers at TellTale Games are right on schedule with the second monthly episode of this hilarious adventure game series. Is the world ready for the independent nation of Strong Badia the Free? We'll soon find out. For more humor, check out the first video for Behind-the-Bad and see how Strong Bad got into video games to start with.

Download the SBCG4AP Episode 102 HD Trailer (28 MB)
Download the Strong Bad Behind-the-Bad Part 1 Video (151 MB)

Multiwinia teaches heavy lifting

Posted Aug 26th 2008 7:00PM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Indie, Multiplayer, Trailers, Video, Strategy

The latest Multiwinia Monday reveals the Capture the Statue mode. This variation on capture the flag requires many multiwinians to pick up a large, heavy, statue and move it back to their base. Obstacles like steep hills and aggressive opponents stand in the way of progress.

Download the Multiwinia "Capture the Statue" HD Video (39 MB)

TIGJam is ready to go!

Posted Aug 25th 2008 6:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Culture, Indie

For those folks looking for an excuse to make games with the best of them, here's your chance! TIGSource and Flashbang Studios (the guys behind the incredibly fun Raptor Safari) have teamed up for a fusion of indie development and community down in Phoenix, Arizona. Dubbed the TIGJam, it's a game jam for you to work on your latest game in development, either alone or with someone else. With food, drink, and one of the best communities around, it's going to be a huge blast for all involved! Sleep is entirely optional.

New Cave Story mod available

Posted Aug 22nd 2008 8:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Action, Indie

We here at Big Download obviously love Cave Story. A lot. It is then, with great pleasure, that we found out about a Cave Story hack being offered called Hack9. It's in Japanese, but you can figure out the game itself pretty easily. The only downside is unless you are fluent in Japanese, you'll have no clue about the story. It plays almost exactly like Cave Story but with a significantly darker tone. You are killing soldiers and destroying tanks and helicopters, lending it a much more military flair. All in all, if you're looking for a fun platformer, it's definitely worth a try, even if you can't understand it.

[Via IndieGames]

Fight in the Epic War

Posted Aug 22nd 2008 5:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Browser, Indie, Strategy

For those that must get their high fantasy strategy fix, there's Battle for Middle-earth. For those that can't play that, either because of system requirements, setting, or they just plain don't like it, there's another option. Epic War is a new browser strategy game. It's more of an arcade strategy game, not a traditional one, and that's fine by us. Send out your units, upgrade them, use spells, and wield a gigantic crossbow try and take down the Dark Lord's tower. Simple but fun strategy stuff. Winning is very much dependent on using all of these in conjunction.

Don't get lost in The Vacuum

Posted Aug 21st 2008 6:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Adventure, Indie

There's two sorts of adventure games. There's the kind popularized by King's Quest and the like, which are the hard, unforgiving games with great stories. The kind where puzzles twist your mind into impossible knots. Then there's the kind popularized by the LucasArts games of yore, with strange puzzles, but great humor and far more forgiving gameplay. The Vacuum falls into the second category. A retro-styled adventure game, you play the husband of a couple traveling across space in a cargo ship. There are several endings depending on your actions during the game.

[Via IndieGames]

// 0 Comments

Multiwinia makes you king of the hill

Posted Aug 19th 2008 7:30PM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Indie, Video, Strategy

The latest video to come out of Multiwinia Monday introduces the King of the Hill mode. All players have to do is amass an army of Darwinians to take and hold as many control points as possible, for as long as possible. Sounds simple until your opponents make a carpet out of your soldiers.

Download the Multiwinia "King of the Hill" HD Trailer (67 MB)

Welcome to the Border of Life

Posted Aug 18th 2008 8:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Action, Indie, Arcade

For the indie and amateur developer, a shmup is a great way to learn the ropes of the industry. The engine is easy to build, you must make it interesting and unique, balance it to provide a good challenge, and the concepts are very simple to understand. A student team at KobeDenshi have followed this philosophy and created Border of Life, a grapple-mechanic horizontal shooter. The graphics are effective, but the gameplay could use some more refinement. It's hard, mostly because the controls are difficult to get used to.

[Via Lithium Leaf]

Oh no! Ghosts of Aliens!

Posted Aug 18th 2008 7:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, RPG

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden: Chapter 1 of the HoopZ Barkley Saga is one of the strangest, goofiest, and altogether fun freeware RPGs you can play. A bizarre sense of humor, decent gameplay, and well-made sprites and environments made it an instant classic in the indie scene. Following in the footsteps of this incredibly strange endeavor, Ghosts of Aliens takes this sort of surreal humor and applies it to traditional RPG tropes. You are the ghost of an alien, given a second-chance at life as long as you kill 5 Doom Beasts. The gameplay is traditional JRPG stuff. Choose option, hit enemy. Altogether, not a bad game.

[Via IndieGames]

Freeware Friday: Battle for Wesnoth

Posted Aug 15th 2008 1:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, RPG, Strategy

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Sometimes you just have to sit down, get some drinks, and plug away at an addicting strategy game. Exercise your mind, either against computer or human opponents. I know this need very well, and as I haven't featured many strategy games on Freeware Friday, I present to you Battle for Wesnoth. It's an open-source strategy game that is one of the best freeware releases you can find, strategy or not. However, unlike Freeciv, it can be played in nice, bite-sized increments.

Continue reading Freeware Friday: Battle for Wesnoth

// 1 Comments

Live vertical scroller history with Genetos

Posted Aug 14th 2008 7:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, Arcade

Nothing like traversing your roots to make you all nostalgic. Genetos is a freeware shmup that goes back and takes a look at all the old styles of shooter, getting players in touch with their shmup roots as it pushes forward the generations. The gameplay is simple. You play it like any other shmup, only collecting green items will push you towards a "generational shift". When you shift (which is always during a boss fight), you are suddenly using a ship from the next generation to fight a boss of the last generation. It goes from Space Invaders to Galaga to Raiden to Bullet Hell at the moment, with one stage still left before all the stages are finished.

Fight the withdrawal in Hikkikomori Quest

Posted Aug 12th 2008 7:30PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, RPG

The very first thing you can say about the folks over as Mechafetus (NSFW) is that they are positively insane. The second thing is that they really know how to make funny, yet great, art. Combining these two qualities has created the thoroughly bizarre Hikkikomori Quest. Playing a hikkikomori (a Japanese term for a recluse), you must adventure out to find the love of your life. Featuring bizarre (and definitely mature) imagery, multiple endings, and incredibly hard gameplay, it's not for the weak of heart. The game is much like Earthbound, Phantasy Star, or Dragon Quest, only done in the Mechafetus style. You will have a laugh playing it. We guarantee it.

You Have To Fertilize The Egg!

Posted Aug 12th 2008 7:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie

A sequel of sorts to the incredibly unique You Have To Burn The Rope, You Have To Fertilize The Egg is much more... interesting. Taking place inside a vagina, you play a top hat wearing sperm on his way to fertilize an egg and "make the princess". It's all rather silly, especially since the song, instead of urging you on like the You Have To Burn The Rope song, describes your exact situation. Thankfully, nothing is actually explicit, instead being rendered in cute black-and-white cartoony graphics. It's there for a giggle, and it definitely elicits one, especially since there's nothing else to the game.

[Via IndieGames]

Multiwinia trailer shows how to dominate

Posted Aug 12th 2008 11:30AM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Indie, Video, Strategy

Here we have first looks at Multiwinia, the much anticipated follow-up to the independent strategy game, Darwinia. The flat stick figure people continue with excellent strategic gameplay, this time with multiple modes and multiplayer options. This video demonstrates Domination mode, where players need to take control of spawn points in order to grow a bigger army and win. More modes will be revealed every week over the next month or so with Multwinia Mondays, ramping up to the game's eventual release.

Download Multiwinia Domination HD Trailer (61 MB)