Your Doodles Are Bugged!

By: Guest Reviewer

On: February 12th, 2010

[This is a guest review by anosou. If you’re interested in writing an article for TIGSource, please go here.

Your Doodles Are Bugged! is quite the game. Created by German developer Spyn Doctor (responsible for Golden Tangram and Kuchibi), this is one of the most unique, personal games on Xbox Live Indie Games.

So, what the heck is it? Well, to speak in gamer’s terms, it’s a combination of Lemmings and Paint. Its genius is in its simplicity. Your task is to guide the little bugs to the jar of honey, passing the various “doodles” that block your way or form your path. To do this you basically draw lines for the bugs to jump and walk on. The gameplay is almost rudely intuitive and it’s a breath of fresh air in an ocean of twin-stick shooters, platformers, and massaging apps.

You control your doodling pen with the right analog stick, which responds pretty well to your touch. To draw you hold down A and to erase you hold down X, simple as that. You can go faster by holding the right trigger, a much-appreciated addition for the bigger levels, and you can undo with the B button. The most important control feature is the ability to zoom. The levels in YDAB! are remarkably advanced at times and without zooming on you wouldn’t have much luck trying to complete them.

To add a bit more depth to the gameplay you have a limited supply of ink. This might seem obvious and harmless at first but it really provides a challenge in the later, densely doodle-populated levels. It’s really good fun trying to figure out the best way through the dragons and clouds and fishes and smiling faces and trolls and squids and trees and birds and… oh sorry, kinda lost my train of thought there. What I mean is, there’s much challenge in just finding the least ink-draining route. You soon figure out that you might only need a little dot to get your bugs over a gap that a lesser player just would’ve made a bridge over. Overall it’s a very rewarding albeit sometimes time-consuming experience to make it perfect. Add to this a classic timer to compare your high score to your friends and you’ve got some terribly addictive gameplay. Add to that some very clean and pretty the doodled graphics, in-game tutorials, and an adorable story, and you end up with quite the package.

I have a few very minor issues with the game though. The first, and least intrusive, is in regards to the music. There’s only one track looping infinitely and even though I appreciate chiptune-infused folk music for mandolin and accordion as much as the next guy it gets a bit grating after a while. Another issue is that the bugs can be quite the little assholes at times. If one of your drawings is a pixel off that might result in a squadron of bugs leaping to their death. It does add a lot to the challenge and you get used to it but it’s still a bit disturbing.

Overall though, YDAB! is one of the absolute best on Xbox Live Indie Games. The amount of love and polish in this game is just amazing. There are plenty of levels and they’re suitable for a pick-up-and-play session basically anytime. I mean really, for 80MS (1 PUNY EARTH DOLLAR!) you’d be an idiot not to pick this up. There I said it, you’d be an idiot.

This Is How Bees Work

By: Guest Reviewer

On: January 21st, 2010

[This is a guest review by Cosmic Fool. If you’re interested in writing an article for TIGSource, please go here.]

I think I’m going to have to meet bento_smile.

This Is How Bees Work is from the creative minds of Jasper ‘superflat’ Byrne and bento_smile, and I know right now its a game I’m going to remember. The passive and relaxing gameplay of bento_smile’s games has never failed to bring a smile to my face, and This Is How Bees Work is no exception.

You open the game to be greeted by 2 simple instructions (Move and Plant) and a pleasantly relaxed queen bee resting on quite a comfy looking plant. The contented smile on its face is a sign of things to come.

The joy of growing and harbouring a home for the bees made me feel like a good person. When I would see the first forest I had created on the horizon I felt happy simply to see it from a distance as a measure of my achievement. It also amazes me the sense of reward I got out of subtle graphical changes. When I would spawn a purple tree or begin to collect red bees I began to genuinely feel like I had created something beautiful in this strange and weird magenta land.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a game for everyone. Its lack of a superobjective and general endlessness might not appeal to those approaching it as a traditional game. Its beauty lies in a desire to excel on your own terms. If you got joy simply out of traversing the new environments in Knytt and Knytt Stories or seeing the new friends appear on your map in Tanaka’s Friendly Adventure, I’m sure you’ll garner some enjoyment out of this game, hampered only the brevity of the experience.

Osmos

By: Derek Yu

On: November 27th, 2009

The concept behind Osmos is quite simple: bigger motes can swallow smaller motes. Most motes just float around, but the player and other intelligent motes can propel themselves by “farting” (my term) out smaller motes, becoming smaller in the process. Farting can also be used to push things away.

The execution of Osmos is extremely well-done. In the hands of another casual developer the motes might have had bug-eyes and squeaky sound effects, but the creators wisely went with a minimal and organic design which is very effective. Despite the simple graphics, there’s a lot of detail to the motes, which react to their environment by pulsing, glowing, and animating in various ways. The coolest effect, in my opinion, is how the motes change color depending on how much bigger or smaller than you they are. It’s really satisfying when you swallow a large mote and watching the whole screen turn from a malevolent red to a peaceful blue. You are now the king!

Osmos is a competitive Petri dish. The mechanics create a lot of interesting dilemmas and the graphics and music make the deceptively serene world come to life. The different game modes pit you against a variety of challenges that are well-suited to the mechanics – some of the levels get quite tough. I really enjoy this game. The chill atmosphere and abstract graphics shouldn’t fool you into thinking that it’s necessarily slow-paced or boring.

The game’s been out for awhile, and right now it’s on sale at Steam for a dirt-cheap $2. You can also support Hemisphere Games by buying it direct from them for the full $10.

TIGdb: Entry for Osmos

Critter Crunch: Behind the Scenes

By: Derek Yu

On: October 22nd, 2009

Just as he did with Machinarium, Mr. Brandon Boyer gives us a peek of the art direction behind Capybara’s gorgeous Critter Crunch, a ridiculously cute puzzle game that nonetheless involves a lot of puking into someone else’s mouth. This is 2 critters and NO cup, ladies and germs.

The game started off on the iPhone, where it won the IGF Mobile Best Game award and the Audio Achievement award, but it’s now available on PSN for $6.99.

TIGdb: Entry for Critter Crunch PSN

Fig 8.

By: Derek Yu

On: August 21st, 2009

Fig. 8 is a new browser game from Intuition Games (Dinowaurs, Effing Hail) where you control a bicycle through a city displayed as a technical diagram. I really enjoyed it – it gave me a great reminder of how relaxing it is to ride a bike through a suburban neighborhood (something I haven’t done in a long time). Somehow this wouldn’t have worked without the graphics, audio (great music), and the way the bicycle’s wheels leave tracks.

I’m not sure if it was the right idea to add highscores and combos to this game, however – it’s a lot more fun to do loops and draw pictures on the ground than to maintain a straight line or “grind” edges. Similarly, I think the checkpoints put too much emphasis on finishing rather than simply enjoying the biking.

In the end, I guess I’m uncertain whether it should have been a race at all. I got more enjoyment out of the game once I dropped that pretense. Otherwise, it’s a really wonderful experience.

TIGdb: Entry for Fig. 8

Today I Die

By: Derek Yu

On: May 9th, 2009

Today I Die is the last in a trilogy of art-games designed by Daniel Benmergui that deals with causality and human relationships. In each of the three games – Storyteller, I Wish I Were the Moon, and Today I Die – he gives the player a unique mechanic with which to play with these themes. In Storyteller, the mechanic is dragging and dropping, in I Wish I Were the Moon it’s photography, and in Today I Die, it’s poetry. I enjoyed all the games very much, but I appreciate them even more as a kind of gaming triptych.

Today I Die is definitely the most “gamey” of the three, and involves some action and puzzle-solving. But like all art-games the value doesn’t come from the challenge so much as the way players can explore a concept through simple interaction and possibly find tender or revelatory moments inside. Causality, in particular, is a rich concept that’s been important in philosophy as far back as Aristotle, who defined four types of causes that can all be seen in these games. It’s also the central theme of Gregory Weir’s I Fell in Love with the Majesty of Colors, which was inspired by Daniel’s work.

Daniel is trying out an interesting business model to support his games (i.e. keep them ad-free) – sponsors who donate a certain amount can receive prizes like custom characters or custom endings.

TIGdb: Entry for Today I Die

When the Bomb Goes Off

By: Derek Yu

On: April 27th, 2009

Tom Sennett Appreciation Week continues: It’s amazing what Tom Sennett can do with stick figures and some old timey music! In WarioWare the humor revolved around figuring out how to win in each microgame – When the Bomb Goes Off adds a very humanist touch to the basic concept.

Somehow I imagine that when the bomb does go off, I’ll be trying to finish a post for TIGSource!

Tom Sennett, Procrastinator

By: Derek Yu

On: April 22nd, 2009

I was going to post this when it came out 3 weeks ago, but… well, you know.

Tom, don’t think we’re going to accept this as an excuse if you and Matt never finish RunMan: Race Around the World!

Effing Hail

By: Derek Yu

On: April 10th, 2009

Intuition Games, the creators of the multiplayer strategy game Dinowaurs, have released a nifty new browser game called Effing Hail. Apparently hail is actually formed the way it is in the game, starting as frozen rain drops that get bigger as updrafts keep them afloat. Thankfully, the largest hailstone ever recorded IRL is still only (!) the size of a volleyball.

I wonder if, when that volleyball-sized hailstone hit the ground, some deity somewhere was like “FUCK, I could have made that so much BIGGER!”

TIGdb: Entry for Effing Hail

What’s Bothering Carl?

By: Derek Yu

On: April 3rd, 2009

A slightly offbeat recommendation, but my friend and game developer Andy “astrospoon” Hull is starting something cool that I think is very much in the indie spirit – he’s creating interactive storybooks for kids through his new company, Story Fort (who would have thought that he once created a game called Nun n’ Gun?). Andy single-handedly wrote, illustrated, coded, narrated, and wrote music for his first book, What’s Bothering Carl?, which features lots of interactive bits on each page as well as a card-matching game and two full-length, animated music videos (!), which are a riot. I dunno, it’s a really nifty and inspiring thing, and brought back all kinds of good memories of when I was a kid, playing with educational stuff like Manhole">The Manhole and pix">Kid Pix, which had a big impact on me. I would have killed to have a book like this. Maybe you guys have or know of some younglings that might likewise appreciate it.