It’s the Age Thing

July 11, 2012 by 16 Comments

Some people chalk up my site’s growth to what is called “The Girl Thing.”  I don’t agree with that, because I don’t really play the gender card too often.  And when I do, it’s usually self-deprecating and done for laughs.  I’ve had a couple of people tell me my site’s name is cringe-worthy, or “atrocious” as one fan described it.  Yikes.  Look, it’s really simple.  We came up with a list of names, and Indie Gamer Chick seemed like the most memorable.  That’s all.  It was almost Indie Game Stuff.  That would have sucked.  So would have Random Game Crap.  Indie Gamer Chick was catchy.  That’s why we chose it.

I’ll admit, people might be more likely to give my writing a look over because of The Girl Thing.  But landing a long-term reader requires more than that.  It takes a unique point of view, and I’m not really interested in looking at gaming from the point of view of a female.  But gaming from the point of view of someone from my generation?  Now that is something I want to communicate.  I turned 23-years-old today.  On average, that’s eight to ten years younger than my typical reader.  That doesn’t sound big, but in terms of how far games had progressed from their childhoods to mine, it’s humongous.  My average reader grew up in the era of Atari or the NES.  I grew up with PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Dreamcast.  While your teen years were spent with Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo, I spent my teens on PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox.  Needless to say, I think that gives me a different perspective.

Memory is a funny thing. I honestly don’t remember my childhood looking this bland.

My older readers had it easier than me, because gaming evolved with them.  They were there as games transitioned from large sprites to complex open 3D worlds.  On the other hand, I have to look back on gaming’s history without the benefit of nostalgia.  Thankfully I did have a Game Boy Advance, and as everyone knows, 90% of the really good games on there were just ports of SNES games.  So I don’t go into shock every time I play something from gaming’s past.  In fact, I’m quite fond of several Golden Age coin-ops.  But, I do have to admit that I can be mortified by some of the games you guys consider classics.  I also can’t put myself in your shoes and try to picture a game like, say, Manic Miner, at a time when it was considered good.

People get weirdly over-protective about nostalgia.  Some people have told me that when they have kids, they won’t be allowed to play modern stuff until they learn to have an appreciation of their classic games.  Scary.  Do you know what a normal person would call that?  Brainwashing.  And the whole concept is fucking absurd as hell.  It would be like saying your kid can’t watch 30 Rock until he sits through the entire series of Mork & Mindy whether he likes it or not, but he damn well better like it.  What that attitude does is turn gaming from a pastime into a cult.  If the child catches a whiff of what modern games are like from one of his friends (assuming he has any friends left after his father is done fucking him up), he’s not going to have an appreciation for his daddy’s era of games.  He’s going to think his dad is off his fucking nut.  Every form of entertainment his father pitches to him from that point forward will carry the taint of that time daddy sat him down and forced him to play Golden Axe.

The thing about nostalgia is it’s always in the eye of the beholder.  The childhood favorites I have played as an adult, even HD ports of them, haven’t aged well.  Xbox Live Arcade has brought me re-releases of Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark.  These were two of the defining games of my childhood, and yet after an hour spent with each of them today, I would rather be dead.  Games have come so far, and I can’t pretend they haven’t for the sake of feeling like a child again.  I don’t even like Modern Warfare 3, but I would rather play that today over Perfect Dark, which was probably the definitive game of my childhood.  Despite that, saying that I have no interest in playing it anymore in no way tarnishes my memories of Perfect Dark.

Portal 2 is amazing to you and I, but our children could very well prefer cutting their own fingers off to playing it. Only time will tell.

Which is not to say nostalgia is wrong.  You should feel proud of your gaming heritage, and there is nothing wrong with replaying your childhood favorites and not cringing at them like I have mine.  Perhaps your classics have aged better than mine.  What I’m saying is don’t try to convince people of my generation that those games are relevant to us.  They’re not.  Most of the games that were legendary at the time of your childhood are probably going to be torture to people my age.  Very few games are truly capable of withstanding the test of time and becoming masterpieces.  And really, shouldn’t it be that way?  There’s no 30-something trying to convince me of the greatness of Pauly Shore’s filmography, yet plenty are trying to tell me that I have it all wrong about Manic Miner.  Here’s the thing though: Pauly Shore was HUGE for a time, a tremendous box-office draw.  Nobody would dare call In The Army Now or Bio Dome timeless masterpieces.  That would be silly.

Yet, every rinky-dinky game from the 80s that wasn’t a total abomination is somehow just as good today as it was when you were a kid.  And it might be, but for you.  For me?  Not so much.  I think the original Legend of Zelda is lame.  I can’t honestly believe anyone would still want to play that over almost any triple-A game released over the last five years.  I certainly can’t believe anyone would say it’s still the best Zelda ever!  To me, guys who say that sound like fucking raving lunatics.  Then again, when I say I don’t think it’s any good, people say I’m the raving lunatic.  Which side is right?  Both.  Or neither.  I guess.

On the other hand, I think Link to the Past holds up almost flawlessly, and that’s a game that I didn’t play until it had been out for over a decade.  I think it’s fitting that the first game in the series doesn’t hold up as well.  It demonstrates progress.  Why do we have to pretend that people my age will find the original Metroid good?  Super Metroid is right there, and there is a chance they will find that good, on account of it actually holding up.  Don’t get me wrong, a game doesn’t have to be an absolutely flawless diamond to still be good today.  I played the Adventures of Lolo since starting this site, and I thought it was perfectly swell.  Is it an all-time classic?  No.  And neither was Boulder Dash, a game I tried after reviewing an XBLIG clone of it, just to see if I was missing some perspective.  I wasn’t.  Judging a game’s merits by today’s standards in no way takes away from its accomplishments at the time it came out.  Would anyone want to play Space Invaders today?  Of course not, unless you’re really desperate to be bored.  Does that take away from what it has meant to gaming history?  No way.  Would I like to play Pac-Man today?  No.  Would I like to play Pac-Man Championship Edition DX?  Fuck yea.  Does that mean Pac-Man Championship Edition is more important to the history of gaming than the original?  Of course not.  Having an appreciation of history and wanting to experience history are two very different things.  I don’t need to infect myself with the black plaque to grasp how bad things were in 14th century Europe.

I’m not a big fan of Frogger, but I really want to try Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition. By the way, it is my birthday, Konami. Hint, hint.

It’s this perspective that makes me unique.  Gamers of past generations need people my age to tell them where gaming is now.  Just like my generation needs yours to give us a sense of where gaming has come from.  Somewhere between the two, we might get a sense of where gaming is going.  Here’s a preview: your kids are going to be even more mortified by your stuff than I was.  And their kids?  They’ll end up passing laws saying that anyone with a Pac-Man tattoo or a Donkey Kong cabinet in their garage just opted out of Social Security.  It will make you long for the days when that miserable Indie Gamer Chick was simply saying “you know, I do believe The Simpsons Arcade Game was kind of shit.”

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The Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time: Part 5

July 6, 2012 by 10 Comments

And finally we wrap things up with the top five titles you can get on Xbox Live Indie Games.  Of course, you could buy the other twenty to go along with these.  Check out the previous parts, starting with part one.  Remember to click the name of each game to read my review.

#5: Antipole

Developed by Saturnine Games

Sort of like: Bionic Commando, only with better controls and God-like powers over gravity.

Why I liked it: Antipole takes a passé genre, the platform-shooter, and invigorates it with a clever hook: the ability to reverse gravitational pull.  The result is a game that is steeped in tradition, but feels fresh and original.  You’ll even encounter some homages to gaming’s past, like a boss fight that will be familiar to fans of Super Metroid.  Antipole has some of the most clever platforming-level design on XBLIG.

How it could have been better: I don’t think Antipole ever reaches its fullest potential.  For the most part, the gravity features never extend outside the most obvious uses.  I don’t know if you could do more with it, but what is here is very basic (and very spectacular).

Who will like it: Manufacturers of red trench coats, would-be superheroes, Michael Jackson.

Who won’t like it: Galileo, Sir Issac Newton, the guys who have to clean ceilings.

#4: Chester

Developed by Brilliant Blue-G

Concept: Take a basic platform-shooter and include the ability to alter the presentation in ways that affect the gameplay.

Sort of like: Mega Man mixed with Nicktoons.

Why I liked it: Chester had the potential to be one of those annoying collect-a-thons that grew old for me around the time Donkey Kong 64 came out.  But Chester avoids that by providing one of the most original gameplay hooks I’ve seen in a while.  The idea is that you collect various backgrounds as you make your way through the game.  Using the bumpers, you can change the entire art style of a level on the fly.  Doing so might also change the strength of your character, or the enemies, or the frequency of which special items are dropped.  You also collect new forms for your character, all of which have different modes of attacks and special abilities.  Combine all that with what is probably the most stylized and breathtaking art of any XBLIG, and the end result is Chester is a winner.

How it could have been better: The conditions for unlocking some of the cool stuff really requires too much time and effort.  I’ve never looked at Xbox Live Indie Games as a source for games that can (or should) take ten or more hours to complete.  With all the crap to find or buy that Chester has packed in it, it will probably take several multiples of that.

Who will like it: Schizophrenics, Ralph Bakshi, Stalwarts.

Who won’t like it: Unemployed Cheetos mascots, grammar teachers, Green Lantern.

#3: Dead Pixels

Developed by CSR Studios

Concept: Zombie apocalypse gone old-school.

Sort of like: River City Ransom (NES) with guns.  And zombies.

Why I liked it: Having never been a huge fan of zombie games, I have to admit that I was pretty leery of Dead Pixels.  Shooting zombies?  Whoopee!  8-bit graphics?  Wow, you don’t ever see that on XBLIG!  But actually my snotty sarcasm was unjustified.  Dead Pixels is amazing.  It’s one of the few zombie survival games I’ve played that actually puts an emphasis on the whole “survival” part.  Yea, you have guns, but they’re limited in ammunition, and you can only buy so much from stores.  Sure, there is a huge variety of items and weapons, but the more you carry, the slower you get.  Yes, you can engage a mob of the undead, but maybe sometimes it’s best to just leg it.  These all combine to make a zombie game that doesn’t feel like a glorified gallery shooter, which has always been one of those things that bug me about zombie games.  They’re more about the body count.  Dead Pixels, on the other hand, is simply about making it out alive.

How it could have been better: A wider variety of settings and enemies would have been nice.  It does have a tendency to feel a little samey after a while.

Who will like it: People unaware that The Zombie Survival Guide is not an actual zombie survival guide, that one stock character that has his shit together in every single fucking piece of zombie fiction ever created, barterers.

Who won’t like it: Hoarders, the Commerce Department, zombies.

#2: We Are Cubes

Developed by 1BK

Concept: You’re a cube and you shoot spheres, because fuck spheres, am I right?

Sort of like: Tempest crossed with Pang.

Why I liked it: I was born in 1989, so the Golden Age of Arcade Gaming was pushing up daisies long before I came around.  I need games like this to make me ponder what I missed out on.  Featuring absolutely lightning-fast gameplay with remarkable wire-frame style vector graphics, We Are Cubes is a neo-retro game that does it right, taking traditional mechanics and using them in original ways that retain a familiarity about them.  It strips gaming down to its core: twitchy, reflexive, fast-paced fun in its purest form.  If this had come out in 1982, it would be remembered as one of the all-time classics.

How it could have been better: The multiplayer modes are pretty weak.

Who will like it: L-7s, neon enthusiasts, teachers trying to find fun ways to explain cell division to students.

Who won’t like it:  People who use the circle when they play Tic-Tac-Toe, things that don’t have corners, Kevin Flynn.

#1: Escape Goat

Developed by Magical Time Bean

Concept: Help a wrongly-convicted (or least I hope so) goat bust out of the clink.

Sort of like: Solomon’s Key.

Why I liked it: I’ve been playing XBLIGs for a year now.  After 240 games, nothing has remotely touched Escape Goat for overall quality.  The two most important factors to me in games are always play control and level design.  Escape Goat is the best in both of those areas.  Play control?  Escape Goat is without peer on the platform.  Level design?  The puzzles are clever, whether they’re logic based or dexterity based, they are so smart and so intuitively constructed that you never feel lost.  And they’re accessible to everyone, not just brainiacs.  It never made it to #1 on my site, because sometimes you don’t know a good thing when it’s staring you right in the face.  I realized that tonight.  While Dead Pixels changed my perceptions on how conventional gameplay mechanics can be retooled for the modern era, and We Are Cubes made me regret that I didn’t grow up in an era where a quarter bought you a chance at glory on a high score table, the one game that will stick with me long after the Xbox 360 is put out to the pasture is Escape Goat.  It is the greatest Xbox Live Indie Game ever made.

How it could have been better: Escape Goat features the Mega Man-ish ability to choose the levels in any order.  Although this works fine, it means that the difficulty can never truly ramp up, and thus there really is never any true head-scratching stages.

Who will like it: Satyrs, Thor, the Sorting Hat.

Who won’t like it: The guy in this video, Steve Bartman, actually the Sorting Hat now that I think about it.  Fucking thing doesn’t even have hands.

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The Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time: Part 4

July 5, 2012 by 3 Comments

We’ve reached the top 10.  Which are featured right there on the sidebar of this very site.  So much for building anticipation.  Oh well.  You can read parts 1, 2, and 3.  Here are games #10 through #6.  Click the names to read my full review.

#10: Star Ninja

Developed by Bounding Box Games

Concept: Throw bouncy throwing-stars at pirates.

Sort of like: Angry Birds, only better.

Why I liked it: Star Ninja was an early review on this site, but it remains my personal barometer for the potential of Xbox Live Indie Games.  If I had to bet on which of the 240 previous games I’ve reviewed had the greatest chance to be a major world-wide commercial success, it would be this.  It does the “aim & fire” action-puzzler genre better than Angry Birds, and it also features better characters, puzzles, humor, and graphics.  If Bounding Box Games can get this on iPhone, it could very well be the next big runaway hit.

How it could have been better: It’s not always clear what is something that the ninja star will bounce off of and what it will get stuck in, so building the stages out of a more distinctive material is probably necessary.

Who will like it: People who take the “ninja” side in the pirates or ninjas debate, the guys at Disney making a movie where Steven Seagal discovers Flubber, Splinter.

Who won’t like it: Butters, Honus Wagner, Oroku Saki.

#9: Cthulhu Saves the World

Developed by Zeboyd Games

Concept: Help Cthulhu get his mojo back in this comedic 16-bit RPG.

Sort of like: H. P. Lovecraft as read by Mel Brooks.

Why I liked it: Although Zeboyd’s technical masterpiece was Penny Arcade, I thought the writing in that was often mediocre.  In Cthulhu, the idea that you’re playing as the Great Old One kind of wears thin quickly, but the overall story and humor remain strong through-out.  In that sense, it made a hypocrite of me, because I’ve always said gameplay is king.  Penny Arcade plays better, but Cthulhu Saves the World is the better game.  Not that CStW is a slouch in the gameplay department.  The battles are fast paced, the insanity system is fun, and it packs bonus content like developer commentary and an original second quest, all for $4 less than their recent title.

How it could have been better: Zeboyd didn’t realize fast enough that random encounters are a thing of the past.  If you could combine Penny Arcade’s gameplay with Cthulhu’s story, it would have been the #1 game on this site.

Who will like it: People who can spell “Cthulhu” without having to check Wikipedia, Metallica, unimaginative Scribblenauts players.

Who will dislike it: The Roivas family, Hastur the Unspeakable, Megazord.

#8: Miner Dig Deep

Developed by Substance Games

Concept: Dig for precious metals that you use to buy equipment that you use to dig for more precious metals.

Sort of like: Dig Dug – Enemies + Minecraft = Heroin.

Why I liked it: You’ll either grow to like Miner Dig Deep or you’ll hate it immediately.  For months, I had people telling me that I had to play Miner Dig Deep, but they wouldn’t tell me why.  It was suspicious, and a bit ominous.  After a while, I caved in (no pun intended) and bought it.  Then, six hours later, I emerged from a dazed stupor after I accidentally beat the game.  Thank Christ it had an ending, or I would still be playing it.  If you want an actual explanation of why I liked Miner Dig Deep, I can’t really offer you any reason other than “I honestly don’t know.”  The gameplay is repetitive, grindy, and the game is nothing more than a time sink.  Its appeal exists on an almost primal level.  Or maybe it’s a Freudian thing relating to me just wanting to get drilled.

How it could have been better: As I stated, you can beat the game, and then it gives you the option to start over or keep digging up your currently map.  I wish it offered something more.

Who will like it: Geologists, people attracted to shiny things, Solomon.

Who won’t like it: OSHA, environmentalists, canaries.

#7 Chompy Chomp Chomp

Developed by Utopian World of Sandwiches

Concept: Eat-or-be-eaten party game.

Sort of like: Bomberman meets Pac-Man.

Why I like it: With the exception of Worms, I’ve never really been into party gaming.  Chompy Chomp Chomp must have something going for it, because I spent hours playing this online and off, with friends and family, colleagues and acquaintances.  Chompy keeps things simple enough that anyone can pick-up-and-play it.  Vast improvements have been made since the original build, fixing problems with spawning, and thus negating frustration.  With more fixes planned, Chompy has the potential to climb up these rankings.

How it could have been better: A lot of the stages are just no damn good for the type of game offered here, making it too easy to get cornered.  Try to figure out for yourself which ones don’t work before playing this with friends, because they can really kill the mood.

Who will like it: Social butterflies, hospitable hippos, the Donner Party.

Who won’t like it: Dieters, vegans, Katniss Everdeen.

#6: LaserCat

Developed by MonsterJail Games

Concept: Guide a cat around a castle in search of keys.

Sort of like: A 1980s PC -styled Metroidvania.

Why I liked it: I guess I’m a sucker for exploration-based platforming.  LaserCat takes a minimalist approach to this concept.  You have no offensive options at your disposal, there are no secondary items to collect, no cut scenes to sit through, and the whole game takes about two to three hours to finish.  It sounds limited, but LaserCat’s focus on pure gameplay works.  This is one of the most enjoyable experiences on a modern console.

How it could have been better: In order to collect keys, you have to answer trivia questions, some of which are non-nonsensical riddles.  This was done to meet XBLIG’s unwritten minimal shittiness quota.

Who will like it: Subscribers of Cat Fancy, Eleanor Abernathy, YouTube.

Who won’t like it: People with ailurophobia, Saturday Night Live, Mumm-Ra.

Continue to the Final Part

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The Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time: Part 3

July 4, 2012 by 3 Comments

Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2, here are the best Xbox Live Indie Games, #15 through #11.  Click the names to read the full reviews.

#15: Blocks That Matter

Developed by Swing Swing Submarine

Concept: Solve puzzles and reach an exit by collecting blocks and then linking chains of four of them.  Oh, and it’s a platformer.

Sort of like: Mario mixed with Crafting mixed with Tetris.

What I liked about it: My top 25 might be a little bit on the brain-bendy-heavy side, but I can’t help it.  I’ve seen so many examples of very good puzzle design on the XBLIG platform and yet it I’m still always surprised by how smart they can be.  Blocks That Matter ups the ante by adding a clever hook (pausing the game to arrange platforms) that uses a trendy mechanic (material harvesting) to go with good (if somewhat unintuitive) play control and highly intelligent level design.  This won the grand prize of Dream-Build-Play 2011, and it deserved it.

How it could have been better: While movement and jumping physics are spot on, the controls for opening up the menu and placing blocks on the board never feel natural.  I’m not actually sure how they could do better, but that’s why they’re the game designers and I’m the.. point out what’s wrong.. person.

Who will like it: Blockheads (as in fans of blocks), miners who take the daily Sudoku down into the shaft with them for their breaks, Johnny 5.

Who won’t like it: Blockheads (as in people who skipped to #14 as soon as they read the word “puzzle”), miners who take whiskey down into the shaft with them for their breaks, Slimer.

#14: DLC Quest

Developed by Going Loud Studios

Concept: Satire of the game industry’s over-reliance on up-selling additional content for games you already paid for.

Sort of like: Super Mario Bros. mixed with Idiocracy.  You’re not sure if this is really a comedy or a bleak look into our future.

Why I liked it: DLC Quest mixes parody with an amusement park ride.  It’s not about what you do, but rather just taking in the experience.  The game only lasts anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, enough time to make its point.  The jokes work, and we know they do because these are the exact same gags we think about when we kid around about the subject matter.  DLC Quest is a send-up, but one made because it feels your pain.

How it could have been better: It really couldn’t have been better.  The things people request most, like more gags or a longer length, would have just made it worse.  DLC Quest did it’s bit and walked away before the joke stopped being funny.

Who will like it: You must pay $1 to unlock this line.

Who won’t like it: Anyone who didn’t laugh at the previous line.

#13: Aesop’s Garden

Developed by Excalibur Studios

Concept: Extract weeds from your prize-winning lawn.  That actually sounds like something children spin on the chore wheel, but trust me, it’s fun.

Sort of like: The Adventures of Lolo, only more so than Crystal Hunters.

Why I liked it: Aesop’s Garden mixes 8-bit aesthetics with some absolutely stunning puzzle design.  Maybe I’ve over-saturated this list with logic-puzzlers, but when judging the top games on the basis of quality, you have to go with the games that are designed the smartest, and the funnest.  Aesop’s Garden probably is the best of the “hard-puzzler” breed on XBLIG.

What could have been better: The controls are touchy as hell, leading to all kinds of unnecessary deaths.

Who will like it: Green thumbs, Nebuchadnezzar II, people who can declare they enjoy hoeing without giggling to themselves about it.

Who won’t like it: Weed-Whacker advocates, migrant workers, Eve.

#12: Pixel Blocked!

Developed by Daniel Turong

Concept: Create patterns using a block gun.  Sigh.  I hate games that sound more boring than they really are when you write about them.

Sort of like: Picross mixed with Bust-a-Move (that’s Puzzle Bobble outside of the US).

Why I liked it: Pixel Blocked! was one of the first games I reviewed, and it stuck with me long after I finished writing about it.  Then the developer drastically altered the game mechanics, and it got even better.  It was the first (and so far only) game to be ranked in my top-ten list, fall off the list, and then return back to it.  The finished product is a very sharp puzzler that is probably the most professionally designed of any XBLIG I have played so far.  Dare I say it, Pixel Blocked! is primed for acquisition from a major developer.

How it could have been better: Although they are unnecessary towards making progress, the game offers some rewards that are borderline unobtainable.  These are typically related towards speed-runs, which have no place in logic-based puzzlers.

Who will like it: People with an abundance of grey-matter, people who don’t have an abundance of grey-matter and wish to grow some, people who have recently destroyed their grey-matter when they decided to give that whole paint-sniffing craze a try and now have buyer’s remorse.

Who won’t like it: People who don’t know what grey-matter is, people who think grey-matter is the stuff between your toes, people who tried to color their grey-matter purple by shoving a magic marker up their nose.

#11: Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

Developed by Zeboyd Games

Concept: Sequel to the previous Penny Aracde RPGs, only this time it’s 16-bit, and on Xbox Live Indie Games.

Sort of like: The Far Side meets Final Fantasy.

Why I liked it: Games that try to look and feel retro often rely on archaic game mechanics and don’t take risks with the established formula.  Rain-Slick 3 takes everything Zeboyd knows has no place in modern gaming and chucks it out the window.  The battles are fast paced, the mechanics are hugely customizable, and the dialog can be very funny.  This is probably the most enjoyable “retro” RPG I’ve ever played from a technical perspective.

How it could have been better: The dialog can be very funny, but it often falls flat, and the banter between the characters can drone on and on forever.

Who will like it: LARPers, Walt Disney’s head, people who always wondered where the guys in RPGs keep all those fucking potions at.  Their pockets?  Where the fuck are black mage pockets at?

Who won’t like it: Tim Buckley, the rest of Walt Disney, that noise that happens when you get a random encounter in games that is now out of a job.

Continue to Part 4

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Tales from the Dev Side: The Game Industry Needs More Clones by DJ Arcas

July 3, 2012 by 23 Comments

Games similar to Minecraft dominate the sales charts of Xbox Live Indie Games.  Four of the top-10 selling games in platform’s history fall into that category.  The first games on XBLIG to gross $1,000,000 USD are both what are refereed to as “Minecraft Clones.”  I’ve not yet played any of those top-selling games, but I understand why they exist.  The gaming industry has always followed-the-leader.

When Pong first hit the world in 1972, it was immediately imitated, copied, cloned, or outright pirated world-wide.  Even Atari cloned its own baby, releasing such titles as  Super Pong, Doubles Pong, Doctor Pong, Puppy Pong, Hong Pong Phooey, and Pong Arm of the Law.  This continued with Breakout (itself referred to during development as “one-player Pong”), Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Defender, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, Street Fighter II, Doom, Bejeweled, Resident Evil, World of Warcraft, and Angry Birds.  Think about it.  There are major studios out there right now who saw the first trailers for Watch Dogs or The Last of Us at E3 and said “guys, we need our own version of that and we need it by Holiday of 2013.  Get to work.”

In an industry where there are few trend setters, it has kind of surprised me how much animosity there is for those that are simply doing what the major studios are doing.  But the bitterness is there.  DJ Arcas, creator of FortressCraft, has dealt with it.  Last year, FortressCraft was the first Xbox Live Indie Game to gross $1,000,000.  I really ought to get around to reviewing it.  But while the first XBLIG-made millionaire continues to tweak his creation, he also has had to deal with the criticism that his game is merely a knock-off of a game that happens to be absurdly trendy right now.  I did once joke that Xbox Live Indie Games needs some form of a 6th Day Law, but DJ has another thought.  Maybe clones aren’t so bad after all.

  Read more of this post

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The Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time: Part 2

July 3, 2012 by 5 Comments

Continued from Part 1, here are the best Xbox Live Indie Games, #20 through #16.  Click the names to read the full reviews.

#20: Alien Jelly

Developed by Collective Mess

Concept: Sci-fi logic-puzzler where you move a group of gelatinous aliens around a maze.

Sort of like: Cuboid (PSN) as directed by Tim Burton.  Only it doesn’t suck, unlike everything Tim Burton has done over the last decade.

Why I like it: I know logic-puzzle games are not extraordinarily popular.   I would say they are an especially tough-sell on XBLIG, but Alien Jelly really shines brightly with great graphics to go along with some absolutely brilliant (and difficult) level design.

How it could have been better: The camera was terrible, leading to all kinds of problems with perspectives and depth-perception.

Who will like it: Puzzle fans, Sci-Fi fans, you know what?  Fuck it, let’s just save time and say “nerds.”

Who won’t like it: SETI personnel, Martians, Travis Walton.

#19: Flight Adventure 2

Developed by CAVOK Games

Concept: Pilot a P-51 Mustang across a beautiful landscape in this shockingly detailed flight simulator that is officially licensed by Boeing.

Sort of like: Take your pick of any flight sim out there.  It’s like that.

Why I like it: I’m not into this genre.  At all.  But Flight Adventure 2 absolutely hooked me.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s anything but newb friendly.  Yet the game has no actual “goals” in the strictest sense, freeing you to not feel any pressure to perform.  It’s just about flying around and enjoying the sights.  But it’s done in a very impressive way.  It was released before the file size limit for XBLIGs was increased to 400MB.  I’m actually scared what these guys could do with the extra space, considering that Flight Adventure 2 had incredible draw distance, mostly realistic physics, and even online multiplayer (with a tacked on and somewhat dull race mode).  It’s also worth mentioning that this is Brian’s favorite XBLIG by a vertical mile.

How it could have been better: More landscapes, planes, or modes.  I sure hope Flight Adventure 3 is on the way.

Who will like it: Amateur aviators, armchair pilots, people with pteromerhanophobia.

Who won’t like it: People with pteromerhanophobia, Germans, The Big Bopper.

#18: TIC Part 1

Developed by RedCandy Games

Concept: A mechanical robot man thingie tries to save the environment from evil oil drillers.

Sort of like: Any non-threatening, Nintendo-esq platformer.  For some reason it reminded me of Super Princess Peach (DS).

Why I like it: XBLIG is populated by platformers that want you to suffer, but TIC is a tender loving game that would rather you enjoy the experience instead of cursing the day the spike was invented.  The production values are nothing short of spectacular, but the smooth gameplay and excellent level design really put this one over the top as one of the best of its genre on the format.

How it could have been better: As the name implies, TIC: Part 1 an incomplete game.  It’s been a year since I played the original and there has been no word on when Part 2 can be expected, which does sour the experience.

Who will like it: People who try to live “green”, Greenpeace, The Jolly Green Giant.

Who will dislike it: Sarah Palin, Texans, Hoggish Greedly.

#17: Minigame Marathon

Developed by Battenberg Software

Concept: Fast-paced minigames that you try to complete in as minimal time as possible.

Sort of like: Nintendo’s WarioWare series done with old-school game concepts.

Why I liked it: WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ was undoubtedly my favorite Game Boy Advance game (and I would consider calling it the absolute best game I’ve ever played.  Feel free to ponder that for a while), and Minigame Marathon is as close as I’ve seen an XBLIG come to that.  But while WarioWare focuses on absurd themes and juvenile humor, Marathon looks to gaming’s distant past for inspiration.  Bite-sized versions of Pong, Frogger, Breakout, and their kin are sandwiched together in a game that’s potently addictive.

How it could have been better: In split-screen multiplayer, the graphics get too scrunched down, rendering some of the games nearly unplayable.  The game features online leaderboards, but not multiplayer, and that’s a shame.

Who will like it: People with short attention spans, speed-run enthusiasts, people with short attention spans.

Who won’t like it: Fans of the color blue, Pheidippides, Rosie Ruiz.

#16: Orbitron: Revolution

Developed by Firebase Industries

Concept: Try for combos as you shoot down enemies while under a huge time crunch.

Sort of like: Defender if it was remade today like Pac-Man Championship Edition.

Why I liked it: Orbitron: Revolution has professional-level graphics, a true rarity on XBLIG.  But that has nothing to do with why I like it.  The gameplay is pure white-knuckle, high-pressure, score-driven, golden-age era fun.  It really is like Defender, only with a time limit and without any little dudes to rescue.  I never liked those guys much anyway.  The constant rescuing of them really harshed my mojo.  Orbitron is currently priced at 80MSP, but the price goes up to 240MSP on July 9, so get it now.

How it could have been better: Each wave of enemies spawns in different positions on the board, and sometimes achieving a high score is dependent on having a wave spawn in a way that is just perfectly set up to string together a combo.  Success in Orbitron is not totally dependent on luck, but that unquestionably factors in, perhaps too much.

Who will like it: High-score fans, Eugene Jarvis, guys who have Buckner & Garcia’s “The Defender” on their iPod.

Who won’t like it: People who like the ability to reverse, guys waiting for Radarscope: Championship Edition, Darth Vader.

Continue to Part 3

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The Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time: Part 1

July 2, 2012 by 9 Comments

As promised, I’ll close out my first anniversary celebration in style.  Here we go, the Top 25 Xbox Live Indie Games of All-Time.  According to me at least.  For the sake of this not taking up too much space, and because I’ve been having trouble finding time to write this out, I’m breaking this up into five parts  If you’re looking for the very best Xbox Live Indie Games has to offer, this is where you should start.  As a reminder, you can purchase all 25 games on this list for less than the price of one single disc-based release.  25 amazing games for the price of 1?  How can you say no to that?  You can click on the titles to read my reviews.  You can also visit the Leaderboard to see what the remaining twenty games are.  I really kind of did this in the wrong order.  I suck.  This list doesn’t.  Let’s roll!

#25: Crystal Hunters

Developed by DreamRoot Studios

Concept: Collect crystals while avoiding enemies in this top-down logic puzzler.

Sort of like: The Adventures of Lolo (NES)

Why I like it: Crystal Hunters is an intelligently designed game.  Puzzlers on XBLIG sometimes forget to properly scale the difficult level, dumping players off in the deep-end early on.  Crystal Hunters eases players into the mechanics of the game.  Make no mistake though, the difficulty scales up hugely towards the end.  If you like mind benders, this sucker will go all origami on your brain.

What could have made it better: The play control is pretty touchy.  The graphics are small in resolution.

Who will like it: Mensa types, eggheads, grizzled old prospectors.

Who won’t like it: Dummies, the recently lobotomized, girls named Crystal Hunter.

#24: Lair of the Evildoer

Developed by Going Loud Studios

Concept: Fight various undead enemies while trying to escape the lair of an evil genius in this twin-stick shooter.

Sort of like: Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES) if it was a rogue-like.

Why I like it: Lair of the Evildoer is an intense, though very clever shooter.  Games that feature randomly-generated levels tend to feel generic, but Lair of the Evildoer is overflowing with personality.  With a wide variety of enemies, weapons, and customizable stats, this is probably one of the most intelligent shooters on the platform.

What could have made it better: It was practically begging for co-op.

Who will like it: Shooting fans, zombiephiles, Austin Powers.

Who won’t like it: Shag carpet salesmen, actual evil geniuses, human resources managers.

#23: Wizorb

Developed by Tribute Games

Concept: Old-timey brick-breaker with some RPG elements peppered in.

Sort of Like: Arkanoid set in Middle Earth.

Why I liked it: In my original review, I absolutely scorched Wizorb.  And I regret that I wrote that review the way I did, because I failed to articulate that I really did like the game.  I’m not exactly a fan of the genre, so the fact that Wizorb held my interest until the end is kind of a miracle.  The only other brick-breaker that has done that for me is Shatter on PlayStation Network.  The charming 8-bit graphics that are without a tinge of a modern influence are among the best of their breed on XBLIG.  Wizorb is really special.

What could have made it better: The RPG stuff is mostly smoke and mirrors, so I wish they had gone further with the concept than they did.

Who will like it: Retro gamers, Breakout enthusiasts, demolitionists.

Who won’t like it: Bricklayers, union contractors, people who would rather be the Elforb instead of the Wizorb when they play Dungeons & Dragorbs.

#22: Johnny Platform Saves Christmas

Developed by Ishisoft Games

Concept: Yuletide puzzle-platforming.

Sort of like: The Game Boy version of Donkey Kong.

Why I liked it: The sequel to Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp (#36 on the Leaderboard at the time of this writing) combined fast-paced platforming with some clever level design and puzzles.  There should be more games like this on XBLIG.

What could have made it better: Both Johnny Platform games feature a useless lives system that halts progress and forces replaying previously beaten levels for no reason whatsoever.

Who will like it: Platforming fans, people who like puzzlers that don’t require an IQ north of Albert Einstein, Ralphie.

Who won’t like it: Children on the naughty list, the Grinch, people waiting for Johnny Platform’s Hanukkah Brouhaha.

#21: Lexiv

Developed by Andrew Gaubatz

Concept: Build cities using words and parts of speech.

Sort of like: Scrabble and Sim City had a beautiful baby that is potentially a genius and occasionally shits on you.

Why I liked it: Lexiv is probably an acquired taste that requires a love of word games mixed with a deep fondness for simplified Sim City-esq strategy and maintenance.  Despite being a very rough build (I would safely call it a beta), you can see the potential.  I could see Hasbro licensing this and branding it as Scrabble City.

What could have made it better: Every stage begins with “L-E-X-I-V” as the starting word that you have to build on.  This is incredibly stupid because X and V are not the most versatile letters.  I actually hate V more than X.  V’s are the wisdom teeth of Scrabble.  When they show up, they cause nothing but pain and are in dire need of extraction.

Who will like it: City planners who play crossword puzzles, crossword fans who aspire to be city planners, those little shits that make the Scripps finals.

Who won’t like it: Pepole hoo relie to munch un spel chek, the dude who was planning to make “Words of Warcraft”, Charlie Brown.

Continue to Part 2

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Tales from the Dev Side: What Xbox Live Indie Games Have Meant to Me

July 1, 2012 by 15 Comments

Trust me, nobody was more surprised that Indie Gamer Chick caught on than I was.  And I was even more caught off guard when I realized that I was starting to have an influence on the Xbox Live Indie Game community.  A positive one at that.  At most, I figured I would inspire people to raid my house with pitchforks and torches to tar and feather me while setting my dog on fire.  Instead, people actually use my reviews and my editorials as a case study on what people from my generation (gamers who started during the 32bit era) expect from gaming.  I have to admit, I never figured anyone would seek my advice when it came to game design.  I’m still a little stunned by that.  Part of me is flattered, while the other part thinks you guys need your fucking heads examined.

Realizing that I had something special going with Indie Gamer Chick, I thought about how so many people who come here previously had little to no awareness of Xbox Live Indie Games.  Obviously the lack of promotion on Microsoft’s part shares some of the blame for that.  But part of it is undoubtedly the fact that indie developers typically are faceless to the gaming population as a whole.  That’s not exclusive to XBLIGs, by the way, but I doubt anyone will be rushing to make an award-winning documentary on the trails and tribulations of creating Escape Goat.

It was in that spirit that I came up with Tales from the Dev Side.  Well, that and the fact that it would be an easy way to get content on my site without having to do much work myself.  Again, laziness prevails!  Since starting the feature in December, readers have enjoyed a wide range of topics from pricing to community acceptance.  Hell, one in particular has been cited as the definitive piece on creating online multiplayer games on the platform.  It’s really incredible to me how receptive my readers have been to the variety of topics discussed by developers here.  Thousands of views have been achieved between them.  The people want these, and I want you to contribute them.

Xbox Live Indie Games are niche.  The market is small.  The community is small.  But the people involved are wonderful human beings.  Being Indie Gamer Chick has changed my life, and all I do is write about the games.  I wondered if any developers out there would want to talk about what XBLIG has meant to them.  The results were, in a word, overwhelming.

Read more of this post

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Introducing the New Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard

July 1, 2012 by 3 Comments

One of the most popular features on my site has been the Xbox Live Indie Game Leaderboard.  But, I have to confess that I wish I had held off on implementing it.  You see, I started the board last August, after only having my site for one month.  Although people have had fun watching it evolve over the last eleven months, there have been games that probably would have never had a shot of making it today, and other games that would have made it on if I had played them earlier.  Maybe that’s the nature of such a ranking, but still, I wish I had waited until today to put it up.

But, I didn’t.  I can’t go back and do it over again, but I can make the board what I always envisioned it would be.  I based the concept on the Leaderboard on the BBC television series Top Gear and its Power Lap Time board.  On the show, they rank every car they’ve reviewed against each-other.  Although I don’t want to put every single game I’ve reviewed on the board, my intent has always been to have more rankings.  When my first anniversary approached, Brian and I talked about my options, and we both agreed that genre-based Leaderboards made the most sense.  So I started to put them together.

Here was the problem with that idea: developers have funny views of what genres their games belong to.  Dead Pixels, a shooter that has some stat-upgrade attributes, was labeled as an RPG.  Huh.  Party game Chompy Chomp Chomp was set up as an Action-Adventure title.  Weird.  Cute Things Dying Violently was listed as a platformer.  Okay, now you guys are just fucking with me.

Check out that platforming action. Super Mario ain’t got shit on this.

I do get it.  Puzzlers don’t attract a lot of interest.  Trust me, I know.  Every time I review one my page views nose dive like Mark Zuckerberg listed them on the stock exchange.  Still, that didn’t help me too much.  Brian and I kicked around the idea of assigning genres ourselves, but fuck it.  That would require more work than we’re willing to put in, so laziness prevails, as laziness tends to do.  Instead, I would take every game that received a positive review and rank them all against each other.  Wait, now.  I demanded the lazy solution.  That sounds like a lot of work!  Sigh.

After a few weeks of sorting and debating, I ranked all 105 games that received a “positive” review from me.  There has been some controversy in the process.  People have said that this is in violation of my “no review scores” policy.  It’s not.  If I said games 1 – 10 got 11 1/2 gold stars, maybe.  What I’ve done is just say which games I would prefer to play over others.  The process was actually very simple.  Have you ever been to the eye doctor?  Do you know the part where they ask you if image A is “better or worse” than image B?  That’s what I did, with every game on the list.

The board is now up, and you can go check it out for yourselves.  I’m very, very satisfied with the rankings.  They accurately represent my views on the top games on the platform.  The list is good.  The list is absolute.  I’m going to hell for using those lines on a video game list.  But, the list will always be changing.  New games will be added weekly.  Well, assuming I play good games that belong on it.

I would also like to point that the leaderboard operates with a paid sponsorship.  I had been getting inquires for months asking if I would take advertisements on my site.  I was against the idea of trying to make profit off Indie Gamer Chick.  I feel that the minute I start treating this like a business, it stops being my hobby and starts being a job.  I don’t want that.  I don’t need that.  So I had to think of a way to make it work, without my site looking like a billboard.

There are two really wonderful charities out there that I have benefited from in my life.  One is called Autism Speaks.  They’ve made amazing contributions in the field of autism research, but directly help the lives of those in the community that are affected by it.  The other is the Epilepsy Foundation.  As you can imagine, being a gamer and being epileptic mix about as well as Seth Brundle and a house fly.  The Epilepsy Foundation is dedicated to targeted research towards discovering the causes, triggers, and ultimately the cures for people like me that live with this condition.

If you want to sponsor the Leaderboard, I don’t want your money.  But these charities are worthwhile causes that will benefit many people all over the world.  So instead of giving me your money, give it to them.  If you want to sponsor the board, contact me and we’ll discuss the terms.  Sponsors will need to provide a receipt confirming donation to one (or both) of the charities above.  If you are donating with the intention of setting up a sponsorship here, do not do so before discussing it with me first, as the current sponsorship is locked up through September of 2012 and I’m already in discussion with other potential sponsors.

Official sponsor of ranking games.

That’s pretty much it.  I want to thank the community for their support.  I want to thank my first sponsor, Mario Wunderlich, whose game Count to a Billion (appropriate, no?) will be launching soon on iPhone.  In closing, I want to put this out there to all developers: challenge me.  If your game is on the board and you think you can do better, prove to me you can.  Patch your game, and let me know it.  I never turn down playing a game a second time.  If your game missed the board the first time, fix it and try again.  The worst thing that can happen is your game stays off the board.  Well, you’re already doing that.  But maybe you can make the board.  Since starting this site, I’ve had developers on the board credit their placement on the top ten with sales spikes.  That can be you.  It should be you.  And I want it to be you.

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Reflections on One Amazing Year

June 30, 2012 by 19 Comments

Today marks the final day of my first year running Indie Gamer Chick.  I started this site on July 1, 2011, and somehow a year has already passed.  I would ask where the time went, but I already know the answer to that.  It was spent having the best time of my life.  And I mean that.  If you’re looking for a mouthy, sarcastic, atypical Indie Gamer Chick piece, this probably isn’t for you.  However, I’ve been doing this site for 366 days now (stupid leap years) and I think I’ve earned the right to speak from the heart.  Just this once, I promise.

When I started Indie Gamer Chick, I had never really considered doing anything like this.  I’ve always been pretty opinionated about gaming, but I never really thought to air those opinions to anyone.  And then I met Brian, my best friend in the world.  He did what friends do, which is listened to me whenever I rambled about gaming or movies or life in general.  I’m not exactly chatter box, but he made me feel like I could be one, with a lot of practice.  He also encouraged me to find a way to talk about this stuff, and get it out there.  Nobody would probably read it, but it would help me to learn to express myself.  I was diagnosed at age 4 with autism, and self-expression has always been a trouble spot for me.

Around this time, the annual summer gaming drought was in full effect.  I was starving for something to play, and I was actually planning on checking out stuff on Steam.  I don’t remember why, but Brian, his roommate Bryce, and myself were comparing our games for Xbox and PlayStation.  I think we were looking for stuff to play against each other.  And then I stumbled upon Breath of Death VII.  I had an “oh yea, I totally forgot about this.  Xbox has an indie game channel.”  I’m not a huge PC gamer.  I prefer to kickback on a couch to hunching over a monitor.  Breath of Death and I Made A Game With Zombies In It were the only two XBLIGs I had purchased, and it had been quite a while since I had even checked out the channel.

I had been talking with Brian about doing some kind of blog.  I wasn’t sure if I would talk about plot holes in movies or gaming.  That sounds weird but that’s really what the two choices were, since those were the only two subjects I had ever had long, borderline articulate conversations about.  Now while I have to admit that it would have been enticing to talk about how all my favorite movies are completely brain-dead at times, I wasn’t sure it would be something I could talk about at length.  I mean yea, it would have been nice to be able to explain why Minority Report’s villain reveal was the worst of its kind in history.  I mean the fucking dude commits the perfect crime in a society where there are things that accurately predict murders before they take place, which would take an absolute genius level of preparation, and he gets found out by a stupid slip of the tongue?  Really?

I enjoyed working with your husband almost as much as I enjoyed using our infallible system to get away with murder. Oh wait, you didn’t hear that, did you?

But I chose not to talk about stuff like that.  Instead, I chose to talk about video games, specifically Xbox Live Indie Games.  Who knows, maybe Nit-Picky Movie Bitch will show up someday, but for now, my subject matter is Xbox Live Indie Games.  Of which my experience had been two full games and a handful of some of the worst fucking demos I’ve ever played.  Still, I was sold on the idea, so I did what any rational person with no writing experience and a history of would-be hobbies holding my interest for an average of 2.3 days would do: I bought about $100 worth of games.  Oh yea, Cathy, you’re a genius.

My first logo, and the only one I did myself. Yea, not great.

After doing a now non-existent “look at me, I have a blog!” post that I’m fairly sure only Brian and my other friend Sydne read, I turned out my first game review, for a title called The Angry Hand of God.  I wish I had saved the first draft of it.  It was terrible.  I was trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.  I remember reading it with Brian and thinking “Wow, this is horrible.”  And it wasn’t fun to write.  It really seemed like my idea of writing as a hobby was not going to fly.  Thank God for Brian.  He was like “oh come on, you can’t give up after one attempt.  Just try it again, and try to have fun.”  So I shit-canned the previous attempt, cleared my thoughts, and wrote this.  Tactful?  No.  But I didn’t feel like a tool writing it.  In fact, it felt pretty cathartic, especially after I had just burned a dollar playing it.

My second review again felt like a wanna-be professional review, Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes.  Only this time I just hit publish.  I’m thinking of retconing that review right out of existence and doing a special edition.  That would require playing the game again though, and I would rather not do that.  Still, I was on my way.  Sure, I averaged only 17 views a day my first week, but I was having fun.  And then about a week after I had started, I got my first feedback from a developer on a game.  It was for A Hard Game Without Zombies.  Not exactly my favorite game, but at this point I was shocked that actual people who didn’t know me were reading me.  Even more crazy was a developer of a game read me.  And considering that I said his game “sucked more than a vacuum cleaner powered by a black hole” he took it pretty well.

Still, I wasn’t exactly taking off.  Then I met this dude named Master Blud, who operated a site called Vintage Video Games TV.  He gave me a couple of tips.  First, I had to get on Twitter, and second, I really ought to take part in this thing called the 2011 Indie Game Summer Uprising.  So I did.  I know Ryan, aka Master Blud, isn’t a huge fan of me these days and probably wishes he hadn’t helped me.  But even so, I’ll always be grateful.  He helped me out when I had no fucking clue what I was doing, and it laid the groundwork for me to take off the way I have.  Heck, he even designed a better logo for me.

So I interviewed some guys, and people started to notice I was around and that my reviews were, for lack of a better term, different from what XBLIG developers were used to.  I started forming friendships with other writers, and even with the guys making the games.  Talk about a shocker.  I had almost no friends growing up.  Now, I have so many that I don’t know how I’m going to go about keeping track of them.  I did have a “Small World” moment when I started comparing notes with Armless Octopus founder Dave Voyles and realized that we had played NBA 2K1 against each-other many times when I was about 10 years old.  I tell you, this shit has been crazy at times.

I ended my first month averaging a couple hundred views a day.  Not bad at all, considering that my first week total was 134.  And it was all uphill from there.  Today, on the final day of my first year, I reached 200,000 page views, and have averaged over a thousand views daily over the last couple weeks.  Although I’m so proud of that, it’s what I’ve accomplished in the relationships I’m building from Indie Gamer Chick that I’m most proud of.  The friendships I’ve made I treasure like they are precious, because they are.

Nate, we have so much in common that it scares me.  You’ve been my ear when I want it, and my friend when I need it.  I love you so much.  I’m glad you’re writing again too.  Don’t go away again.

Alan, you’re so funny and you’ve been an amazing friend to me.  You’re so much better at writing than me too.  Plus you have that sexy British accent that is somewhere between suave and Bond villain.  I think in another lifetime, you and I would have been best friends.  Without benefits.  Shave the beard and we’ll talk.

Tim, I’ve grown to like you so much as a writer, and love you as a friend.  You’ve always been one of my biggest boosters, and I feel like I don’t do that enough with you.  You’re incredible.

Dave, I have so much respect for you.  You’re another guy who has gone out of his way to help me.  You’re a great guy, and I think the world of you.

Cyril, we’ve gone rounds and rounds, but I’m so happy to have met you.  Even if I think you’re flagrantly wrong about everything, and vice-versa.  I look forward to future arguments.

George, I think you’re the guy who “legitimized” me to the Xbox Live Indie Game community.  You did so by calling me the Spawn of Satan, but you did so in such an endearing way that I think people quit treating me like I was here to blow their houses down and instead started seeking me out for advice and support.  Thank you George.  The XNA tattoo is fucking ridiculous though.

Ryan, I know you don’t like me.  I’m probably not what you were expecting when you helped me out.  But you did help me out, and I’ll never forget that.  You can be a really great guy most of the time.  Just take off the Sonic hat.  You look like a schmuck.

Tristan, Brooks, Mike, Daniel, Ian, Shahed, Alex, Jack, Lisa, skinny-as-fuck Mike (the GameMarx guy), Stegs, Matt, Kris, Ryan, Ben, Jesse, James (TEAM ROCKET!), Scott, Mitchell, Brad, Zachary, Sam, MikeB, Sean, Adam, Gary, Michael (too many Mikes.  You guys need to do some kind of Thunderdome thing to thin your ranks), Josh, Mario, Steve, Bill, and some fucking dude who talks like the Incredible Hulk.  I probably missed a ton of people.  Which is kind of cool.  I’ve got so many friends that I’m missing people in my big thank you moment.

My third logo, designed by Nate Graves.

What I really need to do is thank the Xbox Live Indie Game Community at large.  I know I bust your chops quite often, but you guys treat me great and have made me feel so incredibly welcome among you.  I’ve never really fit into anything, so being part of this, even if I’m the one walking around banging pots and calling you guys poo-heads, has meant the world to me.  I guess it’s the idea that I’m being taken seriously that is so flattering.  It makes me want to try harder for you guys.  And I will.  I always will.  You guys bring out the best in me.  I had no idea I was capable of doing something as rewarding as Indie Gamer Chick has been.  I want to thank you guys for making me realize that I could.

And so, one year later, I’m more excited than ever to be part of this.  This has been the best year of my life, and I owe that in part to you guys.  Whether you’re a developer, a gamer, or a fan (holy shit, I have fans!), you’ve all made me feel special.  I’ll never forget that.

My new logo, designed by Tristan of Clearance Bin Review. The “Sweetie” character was redesigned by Brooks Bishop, and it would look bad ass on a t-shirt.

And I’m excited for the future of Xbox Live Indie Games.  People talk about it like the death knell has been in effect for months.  I think its peak hasn’t even been in view.  In my year of being Indie Gamer Chick, I have been so impressed with the talent I’ve seen, and the desire to improve.  I don’t believe any of you have reached your fullest potential yet, and that makes me so anxious to see what games I’ll be playing from you in the future.  No, XBLIG is not dead.  It hasn’t even began to blossom.  It won’t be going anywhere.  I won’t let it.  I can do that.  I’m Indie Gamer Chick.

-Catherine “Kairi Vice”.

June 30, 2012.

PS: I really can’t do that.  Seriously, it’s fucking doomed.

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