GIRP

By: Derek Yu

On: March 28th, 2011

Billed as the spiritual sequel to QWOP (which is now on iPad), GIRP employs every alphabetic character on the keyboard to great effect, letting you experience the closest feeling to rock climbing you’ll have while your fat butt is still glued to your chair. The goal of the game is to reach the top of the cliff and find the treasure hidden inside a bird’s nest.

According to Bennett Foddy, the game’s creator, GIRP is “NOT AS HARD AS QWOP BUT I THINK YOU WILL FIND IT… HARD ENOUGH.”

TIGdb: Entry for GIRP

Orbitals

By: Alehkhs

On: February 21st, 2011

For Android users who would prefer to get their physics-based kicks from a simulation with a cluttered interface rather than by flinging colorful birds at colorful pigs, Orbitals might just be the overlooked charm you missed.

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NightSky

By: ithamore

On: January 9th, 2011

The PC version of Nifflas’ NightSky is still available for $7.20, but today is the last day to buy it at this discounted release price. Tomorrow, the price will be raised to $10.

If you’ve been looking forward to the PC version, now’s the time to try out the demo if all the previews, reviews, and videos out there weren’t convincing enough for you to have purchased it already. However, if you would prefer to express you enjoyment of and delight in NightSky and Nifflas’ other games by waiting for the $10 price, you also have that choice as a means of expressing your gratitude.

One Arm at a Time – An Octodad Interview

By: Alehkhs

On: December 5th, 2010

Octodad is a quick little game, full of charm, put together by a team from DePaul University. Taking control of an octopus attempting to keep his cephalopod nature a secret from his human wife and children, the player must perform a to-do list of chores around the house. Sounds easy enough, right? But then you get to the controls, which are a perfect balance between ‘impossible to use’ and ‘insanely fun,’ and you begin your day in the life of Octodad.

Having played the game myself, and having enjoyed it thoroughly. I sat down to talk with some members the team behind the project. The interview is after the jump, but if you’ve never played Octodad yourself, then check out the trailer and then go grab a download for yourself.

Game Site

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Happy Wheels

By: Derek Yu

On: November 20th, 2010

Dammit, why are ragdolls so much fun? In Jim Bonacci’s Happy Wheels, you’ll have quite a few to choose from, from “old man in rocket-powered wheelchair” to my personal favorite, “irresponsible dad”, a man with his toddler riding behind him on a bicycle. The goal of the game is to get to the end of each level alive, but in this case, it really is about the journey itself – the best levels in the game are cleverly designed to inflict pain on the happy wheelers in the most absurd ways possible.

Happy Wheels comes with a built-in level editor and users can easily share their morbid senses of humor in-game. Jim is also continuing to work on the project, adding new features and characters (the latest addition is a young couple riding a moped).

TIGdb: Entry for Happy Wheels

Nimbus

By: Lorne Whiting

On: October 26th, 2010

So, puzzle/action game Nimbus was released on Steam (for ten bucks) yesterday. It’s pretty damn fun. You pilot a spaceshipy thing with no internal propulsion system glider shaped like a spaceship, meaning you have to rely on the environment and gravity to move. The barebones plot has you struggling to rescue your ship-mate– Err, mate who is a flying ship.

It’s pretty simple gameplay wise, controlled entirely with the arrow keys. It’s also billed as a racing game but getting a good time is entirely optional and it definitely seems more puzzley. While it starts simple– straight-forward navigating to the exit –more elements are added to the levels and it becomes harder and harder to retain precious momentum or avoid spikes and lasers, growing quite challenging. There’s also tons of unlockables, in the form of trails and different ships, and unlocking them requires secret items (giant coins and hidden levels!), which range in placement from the simple 10-feet out-of-reach to brain-rackingly difficult to get to.

The game is very polished, and it’s difficult to fault it for anything; the failures are fair and the challenges are well, just part of the challenges. On a different note: there’s strangely almost no information on the developer’s, Noumenon Games, website, but… eh, too bad. It’s fun.

There’s no demo, sadly, but it’s easily worth the $10 if you’re willing to make the leap-of-faith.

Cut It

By: Derek Yu

On: July 13th, 2010

[This is a guest review by Pinky. If you’d like to write an article for TIGSource, please go here.]

His first game about drawing, Crayon Physics Deluxe, won the IGF Grand Prize in 2008 and since then, Petri Purho has been developing experimental games on a monthly basis. Cut It is his most recent project and features similar concepts seen in Crayon Physics, but also introduces new ideas and offers a solid concept from which the crayon master can draw on.

The gameplay is simple enough: use scissors to cut a straight line across various pieces of construction paper in order to make the white square land on the green paper and be at a standstill for a few seconds. There are multiple ways to complete each level, and apparently every level is possible to complete with a single snip. The gameplay itself is simple, offering no additional mechanics such as those seen in Crayon Physics Deluxe because it is only an experimental tech demo.

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IGS 2010: Fantastic Contraption Postmortem

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: April 16th, 2010

Colin Northway gave a fairly business-oriented postmortem of his game Fantastic Contraption at this year’s Independent Games Summit called (no big surprise here) Postmortem: The Design & Business Behind Fantastic Contraption. He had actually given this talk previously at the last GDC Austin, so I can link you to Brandon Boyer’s detailed Offworld coverage of that session rather than typing up all these darn notes myself! In short: Flash is good, Box2D is great, and anyone can create and publish a successful game all by themselves. (Though, backup from Andy Moore certainly doesn’t hurt!)

Okay, it was a bit more in depth than that. Read on, if you dare!

Fantastic Contraption was conceived one night when Colin awoke and scribbled down a note beginning with “Cool Shit Idea.” The majority of the game was done within a few weeks, using only notepad and a command line compiler. A bunch of user (i.e., family) testing and website work later, the game was released. After going away for a weekend, Colin returned to find the game had blown up on StumbleUpon, crushing the servers. “It was a good problem to have, but there are no good problems, only problems.” Needless to say, the game quickly became a success. Andy Moore was soon brought in to manage the rapidly growing fan community.

Apart from the stats and such, what I really took away from this talk were some great messages for independent (and wannabe independent) game developers in general. Colin built a solid game that seemed to perpetuate itself, putting no resources into press, portals, publishers, ads, or anything. Here are some of the more quotable quotes:

“Box2D is the Fire Flower of game development.” (He even kicked back some of the profit from the game to Erin Catto, which is awesome.)

“Money is dumb and lonely and just wants to be with other money.” Once the game took off, people started coming to him. But “pay attention to the slime factor” when dealing with the business end of things. (Colin was at one point offered a couple hundred bucks for the source of and full rights to the game.)

“Go into the wilderness” when deciding what to make, “make what you want, not what people say” — you will find success with your own creativity. Sometimes “everyone says no” but “you don’t need permission to make a really good game, or a successful one.” “There are no gatekeepers.” (This is my favorite!)

Embrace social networking; you don’t need to conquer it to use it. And “close the information gap, talk to other indies.”

Also, Colin casually said “fantastic” (outside the context of the game’s title) like fifty times. I wonder if he noticed. :)

All in all, pretty inspiring stuff!

Sumotori Dreams Full Version

By: Derek Yu

On: December 18th, 2009

Perhaps spurred by the game’s television debut a couple weeks ago, Péter Soltész has released a “full version” of everyone’s favorite drunken sumo sim, Sumotori Dreams. For $4 you get 4 players (only 2 human players, however), 5 new destructible arenas, improved AI (uh, I didn’t really notice any improvement!), and modding features. An aggressively time-bombed demo of the full version is available, and the original game is still around, too.

For the die-hard Sumotori fan. (Thanks, Tim Sebek, for the heads-up!)

TIGdb: Entry for Sumotori Dreams

VVVVVV Trailer

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: September 14th, 2009

Distractionware‘s Terry Cavanagh has released this trailer for his upcoming gravity-shifting platformer/exploration game VVVVVV. (Yes, VVVVVV.) Initially a small “design exercise,” VVVVVV has evolved into Terry’s biggest game yet. A few months and nearly 200 screens later, it’s looking great.

Head over to Terry’s dev log for more details and screens. And look for VVVVVV to be released “in the next few weeks.” (Hopefully!)