LittleBear says: Wake up and spill the coffee.23.05.06
TIGSource is back up
TIGSource is back up. Great news, it was sorely missed these last months, as it’s a great source for indie news and gossip.
21.05.06
Bullet Candy
I received a copy of the final Windows version of Charlie Knight’s Bullet Candy today, and my cheeks are sore from grinning like a big kid all evening. I’m not kidding when I say this is one of the funnest games I’ve played for quite awhile… and I see a lot of games.
Let’s jump straight to gameplay. Bullet Candy is an arena shooter, a style rekindled somewhat in recent years by Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars. The former is one of my all-time favourite indie titles, and Bullet Storm measures up very well. It’s a faster game, or so it seems, with an amazing amount of bullets on the screen. I use my PS2 DualShock 2 controller, and the 2 analog sticks are meant for this type of fight. That said though, the game is perfectly playable using a keyboard and mouse combination as well.
I tend to approach an arena shooter by running around the edge and firing mostly towards the center. This doesn’t work so well for me with Bullet Candy, as a diverse group of enemies quickly cut off my path. I found each level, after the first few, required a bit of strategy and planning on just who to destroy first, and how to approach the level over-all. In fact, the level design and the variety of enemies is one of the games strongest qualities. It’s never boring. Each level comes with “gold ships” to collect, increasing your bonus multiplier, and other power-ups. Unfortunately the power-ups only last the duration of that level.
It’s nice to find a game that has all the little extras. By little I mean we tend to take them for granted, but considerable work goes into their creation. Bullet Candy comes with several unlockable, bonus modes. Complete the first 20 levels and Surival Mode is unlocked. This is a great one, where never ending waves of increasingly difficult enemies spawn at increasingly faster intervals. One life, that’s all you get. There’s a Minter Mode, named after gaming legend Jeff Minter. There’s a Hard Mode, the Asteroid Belt, and a Turbo Mode. I’m still working on unlocking these, but I have to give my cramped hands a brief rest. The Turbo Mode sounds absolutely manic, as the game runs as fast as your computer will allow with no attempt at a set frame rate.
The graphics are absolutely beautiful, with plenty of particles and explosions going off everywhere, and plenty of great bullet patterns, all in hi-res 1024×768. I don’t often make too big a deal on the sound, but Bullet Candy has a great soundtrack. The main theme is very cool, a jazz-type number with a bass and percussion, like something out of the old Spiderman cartoons. It’s still going through my head at the moment.
I really like this game. I consider it one of the best indie games I’ve played in the last year or two. It’s good, solid fun, the kind of game that makes you want to try to get past a level “just one more time.” I also want to emphasize how important I feel it is to support a game like this. These types of games are all but ignored by the mainstream industry, so the only way we’ll get more is if we encourage developers like Charlie Knight by buying their product. Try out the free demo if you still have doubts, but believe me, this is a game worth buying.
Dragon Forever
My Experiment in Progress gets an official name, Dragon Forever. It also gets a proper game loop with a title screen mode, a game mode, a game over mode, and a proper state machine to move between them. ‘S‘ to start for now, from the title screen, ‘P‘ pauses in the game, and ‘escape‘ will exit the current game, then to the title screen, then will finally quit the game altogether.
The menu is just for show at the moment. Nothing new in the game itself, but if the surrounding stuff doesn’t get done early I find it never gets done. Please try it out on Windows, MacOSX, and Linux, by launching Java Web Start from this link: Dragon Forever (more details about this here).
Thunder Vector
Thunder Vector is a pretty good shmup written in Flash. It’s got some nice graphics, especially the level introductions. Fairly standard gameplay, you’ve got different weapons that can be powered up, but switching starts you off at zero again. There’s a combo meter for scoring, keep it going by chaining kills before the meter runs out. You have smartbombs as well as something called a “boost“, which seems to act like a shield. Play is through your browser of course.
20.05.06
Terra Galactica
Thanks to Shoot the Core for the news of Terra Galactica from Shadowsoft Games. The site has more information, screenshots, and a development diary for this upcoming Game Boy Advance title.
Monster Mash
Puppy Games have put up the first screen mockup of their next game, Monster Mash. Continuing in the graphical style of Titan Attacks and Ultratron this new game is already looking good. For pure fun and entertainment value, you just can’t beat the stuff from Puppy Games. Image from their site.
Review Round-up
There’s a good review of TUMIKI Fighters over at the Shmups Forum. I’ve discussed the game here, and if you haven’t already done so consider this an opportunity to download a great game for free.
Feuer Frei
Feuer Frei should be out shortly for the Dreamcast. Don’t let the 999.95 Euro price tag scare you, it’ll be free. A new screenshot is up, but you can’t tell much about the gameplay from it. It’s a shame that Karugamo: Wiederstand, another game at Project Firestorm has been put on hold, the screen shots look great. Boo Battle looks good too…
18.05.06
Rez Sequel?
Well, this is what Tetsuya Mizuguchi says in an interview with Eurogamer: “I’m currently seriously considering it. It’s always there. I’m always thinking about it. [Grinning] Also Space Channel 5.” An exciting thought, no doubt about it.
17.05.06
Wrath
Tim gives Wrath a review over at Independent Gaming. This one hasn’t clicked with me, but seeing this review and Shoot the Core’s “must have” recommendation I’ll spend some more time with it.
