The Weekly Report #2

By: Paul Eres

On: September 15th, 2010


1. Hikuri. By Lief. Danmaku (bullet hell) game, where the main goal is to avoid bullets, but not Japanese (sorry, Ashford Pride and Anarkex). The movement’s radial, you can only shoot when within a circle (and it’s automatic inside it). I found it very fun, and it’s still early in development so I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s like when complete, although the only things I think it really lacks are music and a variety of bosses. 29113 is my high score.


2. FRENZY DEFENSE. By JW, who has made dozens of other games like Coptra, 10800 Zombies, The Gutter, and Gregg the Egg. It’s a simplified tower defense game where clicking places a tower; the type placed depends only on how much money you have. Although somewhat random rather than strategic the frenzy makes up for it. My current high score is 109.


3. Probe L. By Tadeon. Mouse-controlled game, hard to describe but easy to understand once you see how it works. The challenge ramps up quickly, and is usually of the “I know what I have to do but it’s very hard to do it” sort, rather than being a puzzle. The movement system is what really makes this game unique, it’d be interesting to see this system used in an action game.


4. Chill Out. By GZ Storm, who collaborated with Tales of Games on Barkley: Shut Up and Jam, Gaiden. Made as a remake of an Action 52 game for Mr. Podunkian’s Action 52 Owns contest. The point of that contest is to take all the terrible games from the Action 52 collection and remake them to good games, and this one does a pretty fair job at that. I especially liked the Super Mario Bros. 3 style level selection screen.


5. Dude Icarus. By Switchbreak. Platformer where you collect features, each of which gives you an additional “jump” (you start with a double-jump, next a triple, quadruple, etc.). The goal is to get to the sun. Nicely designed and peaceful, although patience is required to complete the game due to how slow the platforms that you need to get higher move around the world, and how few of them there are rotating around the world.


6. The Arm. By Tipp (who also made two A Game By Its Cover entries: Pidgeon Racing and Refus Q. Jibberjabber’s Day Out. Grab the blocks with your arm and drop them in the fire. I loved the art style. It’s a short five-minute game, but memorable. A few problems with collisions and controls. The game reminded me of Arms, a relatively unknown game by cactus, which both feature mouse control of an arm and grabbing things.


7. L’Abbaye Des Morts. By one of the makers of Hydorah, Locomalito. It’s a puzzle platformer that has unique riddle-like puzzles and requires a high level of platforming skill. It’s pretty short, but some of the puzzles are obscure enough that without a walkthrough you may never solve them. There are limited lives, no continues, no saving, no pausing. Good luck.

8. Cadet 227. By Shen Games. A game without visuals, intended for the blind but playable by anyone. Pretty short, but only the first three parts of it are done. Worth playing just to see an example of how an audio-only game can be implemented. No image because, well, it’s audio-only. There’s a video trailer here.


9. Loneliness. By Necessary Games (aka Jordon Magnuson aka Flaming Pear aka the founder of TIGSource.com). Notgame about loneliness. I liked how different orientations of dots could be taken to represent different kinds of social structures. Don’t expect much game here, and also the controls don’t seem to work for me in Chrome (only FireFox). It reminded me of one of my lone Flash experimental game which I probably shouldn’t link to for fear of self-promotion accusations, but the basic idea of representing social structures through the gravitational relations between particles was similar. Also, there’s a message at the ending, so when the screen goes black don’t quit just yet.


10. TimeStill 2. By Zack, who made other games like 5400 zombies and Paper Dreams. Platformer where the main mechanic is the ability to stop and restart time. When time is stopped, you can do things like stand on bullets, using them as platforms. I found the controls too slippery for my tastes though (vertical speed is much faster than horizontal speed, which feels strange). But the graphics and level design are pretty good.


Classic of the week: Orbit Racers. By Pug Fugly, who is perhaps best known for Return to Sector 9. I reviewed Orbit Racers on TimW’s old indygamer blog years ago when it first came out, but still replay it from time to time. It’s a single-button racing game where the button moves you into or out of the orbit. It shares some similarities with the Super Mario Kart games: collecting items which knock back other players, and driving over arrows to zoom forward. Very well-made.

  • eva

    :

  • rAzzB1tCh

    Just postin to say that L'Aabbaye Des Morts is fantastic.

  • bennett

    Abbaye des Morts has exceeded its download limit – does anyone have a mirror?

  • PixelProspector

    Download Mirror for “L'Abbaye des Morts”
    http://www.mediafire.com/?l099pkoiug072mp

  • http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

    Hey, Bennett – I just gave L'Abbaye its own post and provided a mirror for the game (direct download).

  • Tranquility

    “By the makers of Hydorah, Locomalito.” Locomalito is the nickname of the guy making those games. Is not a company or a group name so it shouldn't be referred to in plural. Other than that, great section, keep it up.

  • rinkuhero

    kk will edit

  • Aperaham

    No mention of JaJitsu's “Jables's Adventure”?

  • http://ortoslon.makgam.com ortoslon

    “pig based space game” covered in TWR#1 has been named Plasma Pig and finished http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/PlasmaPig/

    Fish Fish Bang Bang demo has been updated http://twitter.com/retroremakes/statuses/24369150298

    i've recorded a playthrough of Chill Out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2QHJJNuWEA

  • rinkuhero

    i tired that game but didn't like it as much as these, so it didn't get in the top 10. would be in the top 20 though.

  • DalaranJ

    You might want to mention that there is some text about the purpose of the (non)game at the end of “loneliness”. I was about ten seconds from quitting it when I realized that there was going to be an “ending”.

  • rinkuhero

    same, i felt he waited too long to show that message, danger of quitting was high; will edit

  • Rolly

    OpenDNS thinks the Hikuri link, shmup-dev.com is a phishing site.

  • rinkuhero

    shmup-dev is a long-standing forum for shmup developers which goes back years and years, so that's very unlikely

  • Aperaham

    That's pretty lame, dude.

  • rinkuhero

    haha, my apologies — it's just that there are hundreds of indie games released every week, not everyone's favorites will show up in this list. if you really like it, you can write a 'guest review' of it and derek may post it up.

  • Aperaham

    Hundreds of games, sure. This game, Jables's Adventure, was originally posted and produced by a member of this community, with popular critical acclaim.

  • rinkuhero

    understandable, but also understand that we (that is, ortoslon and i) don't really decide what games to post about in this feature based on community popularity, or based on who made them

  • Aperaham

    Yes, I understand that a community member made game, an artfully crafted and respected game at that, is not on the list of “The Weekly Report”. But I still don't understand. How do you decide?

  • Makani

    My game also got released this week on iPhone, iPad and Android, 'Red Card Rampage'. Can it be included?

  • rinkuhero

    no, because i don't have an iphone, an ipad, or anything that runs android; although if you want to donate an ipad or something to me so i'll be able to review ipad games that'd be great

  • rinkuhero

    how does anyone decide which games they like? it's mostly an unconscious process. some games i find more interesting than others. including jables's adventures would mean excluding one of the games here, and i liked all of the games here more than jables.

    timw also found the game kind of boring, although he did post about it:

    http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/09/freeware_game_pick_jabless_adv.html

    i had similar issues as he did with the game:

    “Though flawed, Jables's Adventure is still a decent game to play, just as long as you don't mind the incohesive storyline plot and slightly drab level design.”

    he got a lot of argument over his negative review too, but, perhaps because timw and i have played so very many indie games, we have different tastes in what makes indie games good than the average person does

    the core issue for me is that the level design was *really* forgettable and boring — just wide empty spaces that felt all the same, very repetitive. i appreciate how hard level design is to get right, though.

  • Tranquility

    It's funny how everybody, everywhere, is calling this section “The Eres Report”, yet Paul is so humble he won't name the post like that. hahaha love the guy, but screw it, dude! We want this to be The Eres Report, help us a little bit, will ya?

  • http://ortoslon.makgam.com ortoslon

    from TWR#1:
    'A couple of people suggested I call this “The Eres Report” but it’s really just as much Ortoslon, who suggested most of the games here.'

    since TWR#2, i also pick and crop screenshots.

    people call it the eres report because it sounds funny and poetic

  • Aperaham

    You unconsciously decide what games you like get posted here?

    Yes, now it's all starting to make sense. You believe you “…have different tastes in what makes indie games good than the average person does”. This coming from the same person who posted a game (#10 from the first weekly report)

    http://www.tigsource.com/2010/09/06/the-weekly-report-1/

    about rolling a rock around endless terrain and later posting that Jables's Adventure wasn't worthy of your list because “… the level design was *really* forgettable and boring…”

    I also advocate you changing the name of this section to “The Eres Report”, so that the “average” person may skip your nonsensically biased choices for what gets front paged on TIGSource.

  • rinkuhero

    so much hate just because a game you like wasn't posted here, haha. you shouldn't worry about games so much, they aren't your whole life and aren't very important. is it really worth getting this worked up about some favorite game you liked not being someone else's favorite too? have sense man.

  • Mike Hunt

    Theres Report

    Haha I get it!

    Sorry

  • Que

    No love for The Arm in these comments?

    It's easily the funniest game I've ever played. I laughed out loud, repeatedly.

  • rinkuhero

    ya, i liked when the arm suddenly got legs

  • LaguardiaSinaria

    hey I liked the myth of sisyphus. i liked the jables adventure too. how about “the weekly eres report” lol

  • allen

    yeah I think that was the best part

  • Mike Hunt

    Anybody get Orbit Racers to run in Win7? I've tried compatibility options + run as admin but nothing happens when I try to run it.

  • rinkuhero

    try the 'game maker vista converter'. it may be made in gm6, which can't run in vista or windows 7. use the converter on the .exe and it will run.

  • [:O)

    What is it with art games and being complete wastes of time?

  • Mike Hunt

    Thanks Paul, Orbit Racers is pretty awesome.

  • chuan_l

    What is it with most games being complete wastes of time?

    — Chuan

  • [:O)

    Most games are at least entertaining. Loneliness is just pointless. I don't care if it's trying to make a “statement”; it's a statement that everybody already knows. You're lonely when people avoid you? I had no idea! And then the whole “Korean people are so lonely” thing came up at the end and felt like that kind of comment spam that includes a bit of the post that it's advertizing on.

  • evktalo

    Looks like the [platform] thing is missing. I find it useful to see if I can quickly check the game out in the browser (i.e. it says [Flash]).

    –Eino

  • http://twitter.com/WaveringRadiant Giuseppe Navarria

    I can't access shmup-dev.com too, fuck OpenDNS and their new unwanted “services”, I'm going back using my provider DNS…