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.

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

June 30, 2012 by 11 Comments

I never have been huge into Penny Arcade, or comic strips in general for that matter.  I did read it for years, but after a certain point it was done more out of habit.  I suppose it’s the same reason I always check what Garfield is up to every Sunday, even though I don’t think I’ve ever found a single joke in it to be funny.  I’m not sure anyone over the age of six ever has.  I heard a guy somewhere in the South once laughed at one of the endless “he’s a fat cat, get it?” gags, probably something involving lasagna, but that might be an urban legend.  At least Penny Arcade is topical to me, even if it’s really just observational humor with a couple generic stock characters conveying it.  It works, because we notice these things too.  And after going through their recent archives in preparation for this review, I learned that it’s still funny.  I mean come on, who could have watched E3 and not laugh at this?

Having said that, I really didn’t enjoy the first two Penny Arcade games.  And it had nothing to do with developer Hothead Games, who went on to do Deathspank and The Swarm, a couple of my favorite PSN titles.  I have a theory on this, and it goes like so: maybe these characters don’t actually lend themselves well to being in a video game.  Penny Arcade belongs outside the confines of the industry, looking into it and saying “you ever notice how fucked up all this is?”  When you place these characters in a position to drive a complex narrative, it seems like the entire point of their existence has been missed.

The Mario Party series has gotten weird.

I pretty much feel the same way about the latest Penny Arcade game.  Even with a new developer, the insanely talented guys at Zeboyd Games, something about it just doesn’t work.  One of the biggest problems is how married this sequel is to the original two games, the second of which didn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire.  It seemed weird to me that they would do another sequel.  I figured the people had spoken with their wallets and there wasn’t a lot of interest in continuing this particular story any further.  Granted, you don’t need to have played the previous two games to play this.  In fact, they advertise that fact in the game’s blurb on the marketplace.  Again, if we’re going to do that, maybe they should have just started all over with a fresh storyline and new characters.

I actually thought the storyline for On the Oil-Slick Recipe of Blackness Electric Bologna 3 was as dull as a butter knife at times, while downright fucking surreal at others.  The dialog can be sharp and at times very funny, but most of the time I was just like “please stop talking so I can fight something.”  The jokes are hit and miss (emphasis on miss), with the funniest bits not coming until you’re about 75% done with the game.  The best laughs I got were typically from the enemy names, although some of them were pretty damn good.

Ha, Optimus Mime. Classic.

The actual plot of Tycho being some kind of janitor to the universe was confusing and clumsily handled, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a way the ending (the real one, not the bullshit one) could have let me down more.  Maybe if it had advocated the benefits of eating baby seal meat while getting puppies drunk on helium.  I’m still not sure that would be as disturbing as the tone the game took at the end.  It would be like ending a wacky situational comedy by having the lead character suffer a nervous breakdown after watching someone smother a chicken to death.  Only it wasn’t a chicken.  IT WAS A BABY!

(Brian, who actually has watched M*A*S*H*, just told me that the show was supposed to be half-serious, half-comedy.  Yea, fuck that.  It had a laugh track.  It was a comedy.)

I’m not just hating for the sake of hating here, by the way.  If all the stuff you read in the previous 672 words sounded bad, let me reassure you that On the Slick-Dick of District 9 is one seriously amazing RPG.  You can tell Zeboyd spent many of their formative years growing up playing the classics of the genre (which typically included at least one of the following three words: Fantasy, Chrono, or Mana), but knew what could make them better.  So when they were all grown-up, mentally warped, and insane enough to give game production a try themselves, they actually fixed what was wrong with RPGs.  As opposed to most RPG developers who include every antiquated, conventional mechanic, just because that’s how an RPG is supposed to be.  Gone from this game are random encounters, items to juggle, and boring fights that you could win by training a woodpecker to beat on the A button while you go outside for a smoke.

In their place is a simple-yet-deep system involving “pins” that change your character class on the fly.  Each of the four main characters has one default class, but you can equip up to two others, each of which levels up independently as you play the game.  I loved this set-up and was still mixing-and-matching the different pins right up until the last boss.  It never got old, and that is so rare in a role-playing game.  Whenever things threatened to get repetitive, the game will toss out special conditions to change things up, if only for just a fight.  It’s nice that a developer finally recognized the potential for their game to stagnate and put fail safes in to prevent that.

Every mechanic of this game just works.  The combat is fast paced, varied, smart, but complex enough that you have freedom to experiment.  It’s a rare turn-based RPG that feels like more than scrolling through menus.  You truly feel like you are in charge.  Sure, a few stereotypes rear their ugly heads.  The accessory system is more or less the same shit every RPG has, but at least it complements the fighting system well.  Thankfully, you don’t have to stockpile items.  Every item used is replenished between fights, and there’s only six types anyway.  It sure beats dealing with a U-Haul full of potions, mid-potions, high-potions, elixirs, herbs, tents, and bombs.  Instead, you pay to upgrade each item in a shop, or buy the ability to use it more times in every battle.  Having dealt with decades of what RPGs have taught us, that you’re allowed to carry enough health potions that you could practically replace your own blood with the shit, I liked this system.  It kept things clean.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is not perfect.  The dialog can just drone on and on.  When the dialog works, it’s entertaining.  When it doesn’t, that’s usually when it just won’t fucking shut up.  But, as a game?  It’s incredible.  Again, I think most of the problems with it can be tied to the source material.  Penny Arcade is funny.  Penny Arcade as a semi-comedic, semi-dramatic video game is not.  These are characters that make jokes about iPads and E3.  I don’t want to see them dealing with doomsday scenarios and deep introspective soul-searching.  I want to see them taking the piss out of the gaming industry.  Rain-Slick 3 doesn’t do that.  I figure there’s two ways to go around it.  One is to do a straight gaming parody, like Airplane! did for disaster movies.  The other idea is a bit more radical: leave the Penny Arcade characters out of it.  Make Penny Arcade the gaming brand for parody, like National Lampoon or Monty Python do for film.  Oh don’t worry Mike & Jerry.  You guys can still have the ego-inflation you need by inserting yourself into the games, but as cameos.  Hey, some people go very far doing that!  You know that old dude with the sunglasses and the mustache that’s in every single Marvel Comics movie?  Stan something.  Yea, him.  Get this: it turns out THAT GUY actually wrote the original comics those films are based on.  I know, right?  Crazy shit!

Maybe I accidentally didn’t play the right game. Instead, I played a game called “3” that was about the guy from Metal Slug hunting Adam Lambert.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-oh fuck it.

Penny Arcade 3 was developed by Zeboyd Games

400 Microsoft Points thank everyone for an incredible first year.  I love you guys.

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Chester (Second Chance with the Chick)

June 29, 2012 by 3 Comments

Despite being a bit on the underwhelming side, the 2011 Indie Game Summer Uprising had a few gems floating among the sewage.  Cute Things Dying Violently provided some good laughs, while Take Arms provided me with being called a “camping ho-bag.”  Which brought a smile to my face, if nothing else.  And then there was Chester, a polarizing game that I loved, but others loathed for reasons that baffle me.  Even my brother from a different mother Alan told me he thought Chester was lame.  Dude.  We had something between us, you and I.  But our views on Chester have driven us apart.  Now he’ll return to his life of Goolin and Fish & Chips, while I’ll return to my life of hanging out with Brian, watching Top Gear and Doctor Who.  Wait, which one of us is British again?

Chester, which I reviewed way back in September, impressed the hell out of me with its quirky hand-drawn graphics coupled with running and shooting platforming.  It had what so many games on the service doesn’t: personality.  Well, that and it actually played well.  But here’s the weird thing: the version I played back in September was more or less an unfinished beta build.  The Chester that is currently on the marketplace is a much more complex game.  And it’s even more fucking awesome than before.

In the old build of Chester, you could change the backgrounds of each stage to reflect different art styles.  Now, the styles actually change the gameplay, affecting the strength or speed of the enemies, or your weapons, or the amount of rare items enemies drop.  There are eight different backgrounds, and scrolling through them is a breeze: just use the bumpers.  Likewise, the character of Chester takes ten different forms, all with unique abilities and attributes.  Combine this with the elemental system that turns battles with enemies into a game of rock-paper-scissors and what once was a fairly simple (if stylish) game is now a pretty complex one.

Chester is so loaded with so many unlockables and extra content that it’s actually a bit overwhelming.  Every stage has various trinkets to find, hidden rooms, and enemies that drop delicious brains (thus making the  XBLIG minimum zombie quota in a roundabout kind of way).  You have catalogs to fill up, shit to buy from stores, and multiple difficult levels to try.  If you’re gaming on a limited budget, Chester could very well be the game you’ve been waiting for.  Hell, I bitched about the game’s lack of boss the first time around and now there is one.  It kinda sucks, but hey, it’s the thought that counts, and I appreciate the effort.

If I had to make a complaint about Chester, and I do, it’s that the controls are still a bit on the stiff side.  Then again, each character handles a little differently, and stuff like gravity affects each one in different ways.  Maybe I made a booboo by playing through most of the game with the default character.  The game can also feel like too much of a collectathon at times.  If you’re the type prone to OCD, Chester might be the worst thing to happen to you.  There’s so much shit to collect and stuff to buy in stores that I don’t think I could ever spend the days it will take to get it all.  Don’t worry, you’re not going to be missing out on levels or anything.  But still, I kind of want a chance to see everything a game, especially an indie game, has to offer without having to invest enough time to drive cross-country and back.  I want my games to feel like a diversion, not a second job.

Still, Chester is amazing.  It offers so much value for so little money.  That is, if you buy on Xbox.  On IndieVania or Dasura, it will cost you a whopping $9.99, compared to a meager 80 Mega Super Pesos on Xbox.  Quite a jump there, fellas, one that doesn’t make a whole ton of sense to me.  It would be as silly as asking for $20 for a Blu-ray, but $50 for a 3D Blu-ray.  Okay, bad example.  Or maybe good example seeing how those things would have trouble selling if they came bundled with a holographic Angelina Jolie giving out force-feedback handjobs.

Chester was developed by Brilliant Blue-G

80 Microsoft Points have Chester’s nuts roasting on an open fire in the making of this review.

 

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Mystic Forest

June 28, 2012 by 11 Comments

Mystic Forest is the latest steamer from Team Shuriken. It’s a text-based adventure where you play as a dude who finds a buxom fairy in the garden he was growing for his vegan ex-girlfriend and oh fuck it you’re just here to read about the boobies, aren’t you?

Perhaps it’s long overdue that we discuss the dos and don’ts of Xbox Live Indie Games and sex. You see, developers have a set of rules of things they can and cannot do called the “Evil Checklist.” Among those things they can’t do is make a game with nipples. Boobs are fine, as long as they’re covered. No sex either. The best you can get is flirting between the characters.

This still isn’t reaching you, is it? All I have to do is post a screenshot of the game and you’ll be super gluing your mouse buttons with spunk, correct?

I can practically hear the FAP FAP FAP coming from your computers.

Well, for those of you paying attention:

See, 

her,

breasts?

See her breasts?

Those two bumps on her chest?

Notice no nipples.

It’s very simple.

They’re on the evil Checklist!

No sex is allowed.

Among the XNA crowd.

Their accounts will be suspended.

If the rules are unattended.

If you want to see boobles.

Have a stop at Google.

They have breasts!

They have breasts!

THEY HAVE BREASTS!

See this game?

It’s so lame.

Most Team Shuriken stuff is all the same.

A few texty slides and some choices.

They don’t even bother having voices.

It’s so dumb.

It’s no fun.

And it’s over-priced for some.

240 points for some sex.

Being horny is a hex.

How much do Playboys cost?

Think of the money lost.

To see these breasts.

See these breasts.

SEE THESE BREASTS!

It’s fairly transparent why I’m doing this game.  It’s good for page views. And obviously there’s market for shit like this, because otherwise Team Shuriken wouldn’t turn these things out at the rate they do. They’re businessmen. I can respect that. But the writing in these games is abysmal, they often don’t have proper spelling or grammar, and they’re just so half-assed. These guys aren’t total washes as game designers.  Dream Divers was at least an attempt at doing something with actual gameplay in it. I just have to wonder what future generations will think when they drudge through the wasteland we leave behind as a civilization: what will they think of us?

Mystic Forest was developed by Team Shuriken (who else?)

240 Microsoft Points are sorry Cathy, I can’t let you do that in the making of this review.

Thanks to Nate Graves of Gear-Fish.com for the picture. Really sealed this review good. 

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Washington’s Wig

June 27, 2012 by 6 Comments

Washington’s Wig will win no points for historical accuracy.  Hey guys, Washington didn’t have a dog named Dogsworth.  That sounds like the name of a dog that would follow around Scrooge McDuck or something.  Washington in fact had dozens of dogs throughout his life, including ones named Rover, Drunkard, Vulcan, and Captain.  But none named Dogsworth.  For shame, Team2Bit.  If you can’t trust Xbox Live Indie Games for historic.. wait, they actually have “Historically Inaccurate” right on the box art.  Crap.  I had about 500 words worth of complaints about the type of boat used for crossing the Delaware in this game.  Now I actually have to talk about the gameplay and shit.  Sigh.  I really hate those guys.

Washington’s Wig was the game that won for Team2Bit IGN’s Next Game Boss competition.  It was kind of surprising to me, because when I watched it I thought the game looked so fucking stupid.  Well, now the game is out on XBLIG and having finally had a chance to play it, it might surprise you to hear that I think the game is, well, fucking stupid.  Washington’s Wig is an auto-runner where only the A button is required.  You hop across icebergs, collecting coins, stars, and getting assistance from sturgeons and eagles.  It’s a shallow, completely one-dimensional time sink of a game.  One that I burned a couple of hours on.  With a smile on my face.  To all those who say I have no taste, trust me when I say, I question that myself all the time.

To be clear, Washington’s Wig is dumb.  Wearing your socks over your shoes dumb.  But it’s also kind of addictive.  It’s simple even for an auto-runner.  There’s only basic obstacles to clear.  Mostly dogs that are fighting for the Red Coats.  Some of them stand still, some of them charge at you, some of them jump up at you.  This kind of stuff has been done dozens of times before.  If not for the absurd theme, Washington’s Wig would probably be forgotten almost as soon as you turned it off.

It is lacking in some areas.  It’s a game driven by scores, but there’s no online leaderboards.  The game also has no variety in backdrops.  You’re stuck crossing the Delaware, on a freezey cold night, and that’s it.  They could have totally fucked with the source material and had other levels where Washington crosses the Nile, the Amazon, or the Rio Grande.  But no, it’s just the boring ass Delaware.  There is an included two player race mode, but I thought it kind of stunk.  Really, Washington’s Wig would have been a better fit on iPhone, with Game Center support.  Without competing against other scores, there’s really no reason to play it more than once.  You won’t get much out of Washington’s Wig, but I actually still had fun with it.  Even though I’m not sure if that’s because the game is good or because I have some kind of undiagnosed mental illness.

Washington’s Wig was developed by Team2Bit

80 Microsoft Points wouldn’t mind a sequel.  Perhaps some kind of aerobics game for the Wii starring Sally Hemings.  They can call it Jefferson’s Hand-Job in the making of this review.

Whoever put that God-awful “Washington’s—–Wig” music in the game is now on my list.  That is the worst fucking music in game history, and I can’t get it out of my head.  They used to behead people for less. 

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Spoids (Second Chance with the Chick)

June 26, 2012 by 3 Comments

I reviewed Spoids back in April and it aggravated the ever-loving shit out of me so much that I wrote an editorial on game difficulty in part because of it.  Well, Spoids is back, all patched up and ready to kick your ass some more.  Why?  Because all the changes implemented are so miniscule in their scope that you’ll hardly notice them.  Since I had a fairly big list of complaints last time, I’ll do what I’ve done in the past and go over every concern one by one.

Original: The enemies are too bullet-spongy.

New Build: The enemies are still too bullet-spongy.  I can spam whole sections of the board with all sorts of firepower and the fuckers still can walk through entire hallways with minimal damage.  The bosses are allegedly less tough, but it doesn’t really seem that way in practice.  The bosses that unleash five extremely fast-moving enemies when they die are still able to absorb entire rows of gunfire without so much as blinking.  They’re usually pretty close to an exit when they die, leaving no time for your defenses to stand a reasonable chance at stopping half the shit they drop, no matter how many things you put to slow stuff down.  Speaking of which, the slowdown stuff is ironically too slow to activate.  When the fast-moving “zoomers” show up, they often cruise a few spaces past the slow-down-thingies before they actually do yield.  We call this “Getting a Yellow Light in California Syndrome.”

God this stage pissed me off. Fucking gloriously addictive piece of shit.

Original: The flying enemies and their associated tower are way unbalanced.

New Build: Efforts were made to fix this, but they failed.  The only tower that attacks flying creatures is the Homing Missile.  Before, they cost $125 a unit, which was way overpriced for a tower that is useless against the vast, vast, vast majority of enemies.  The guys at AirWave took this advice to heart and discounted the tower that is useless against most of the enemies and slow to react to the ones it is effective against to a generous $110.  Gee, thanks guys.  Meanwhile, you still need to occasionally couple them with radar towers, which cost $50.  So the discount you gave us isn’t even enough to make a down payment on one of those.  Hell, it’s barely a third of the cost of the weakest offensive tower in the game.  Why not just suck the fillings out of my teeth while you’re at it?

Meanwhile, the flying guys are allegedly weaker and attack less frequently.  I will admit that the flyers are  slightly more tolerable, but they still are overpowered compared to the price and effectiveness of the towers that can attack them.  A problem with Spoids in general is the important, single-functional towers are slow to react to everything.  The radar stuff takes too long to make the invisible enemies visible.  The slow-down stuff takes too long to slow down the zoomers.  The missiles take too long to fire on the flyers, and they don’t put out enough bullets or fire often enough.  I once again spammed entire sections of the screen with the worthless-against-99%-of-the-enemies missile towers and radar and still had entire strings of flyers just shrug them off and cause damage.

Original: Money doesn’t accumulate fast enough.

New Build: It still doesn’t.  In a game that has so many enemies that require special, non-offensive towers just to open up their vulnerability, you really don’t get enough resources in Spoids.  In the stages where enemies hit you from two different starting points, you often have to pick and choose which side to “let go of” and hope you can catch up later.  You often can’t.  When guys who phase in and out of view are around, you have to set up radar towers, which are costly and don’t fire.  The phasers are every bit as spongy as everything else, so you often have to set up multiple towers just to pick off the front line.  When the zoomers come in, not only do they take more damage to kill than Jason Voorhees but they run faster than your towers can shoot.  To have a chance, you have to put the slowdown towers in, but they come at a cost of $100.  However, their range of effectiveness is small and they don’t activate fast enough, meaning that most of them will receive minimal damage.  You have to cover every corner with the slow-down-thingies, but if you do that you won’t have the money for guns.  It sucks that the tougher enemies don’t pay in proportion to how much they cost to kill.

Don’t count on being able to cover the map like this during story mode. Not even close.

Original: The game cost 240 Microsoft Points.

New Build: The game costs 80 Microsoft Points.  Thus I now feel comfortable recommending Spoids.  For all of its faults, and those faults are massive, Spoids is every bit as fun and addictive as tower defense games can be.  If you’re into these things, that is.  Haters of the genre won’t be converted by it.  But, I liked it.  Don’t get me wrong, if I ever encounter the developers I might give this whole “strangle a fellow human being” thing a test drive, but it will be because I liked the game.  Just not as much as I could have.  AirWave Games has talent.  I just wish the next time they say they’re going to fix a game, they do more than drop the price.  Which was admittedly enough to sway me to say “okay, it’s worth buying” but that’s not the point.  I’m not even sure if the game is better.  I did beat it this time, but it still took me over a dozen tries to finish the 8th and final stage.  After that many tries, you don’t feel a sense of satisfaction.  You feel a sense of “thank Christ I don’t have to start all over with it again.”  Games should never leave you feeling that.  Ever.  They’re entertainment, not dental surgery.  Still, Spoids is one of the most polished looking games on the market, and it’s very playable.  And it’s made by some really cool developers whose necks I’m hoping will be very wringable.

Spoids was developed by AirWave Games

IGC_Approved80 Microsoft Points have always wanted to try the Vulcan Nerve Pinch on someone in the making of this review.  Oh Mommy, come here for a moment. 

Spoids is also available on Desura for $2.99.  This version is unverified by Indie Gamer Chick.  The XBLIG version is Chick-Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

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Mambow

June 25, 2012 by 4 Comments

Mambow is sort of the Xbox Live Indie Game version of Donkey Kong Country.  Of course, when a game is the Xbox Live Indie Game version of any established franchise, that usually is a sign the game won’t be any good.  Such is the case with Mambow, which has pretty decent graphics and little else going for it.  You play as Mambow, a lion who is king of the jungle.  I never got the whole “lions are king of the jungle” thing myself.  I would think people would be the kings of the jungle, what with our guns and blood lust and the fact that we kill shit just for recreation.  Lions, you need to step up your game.  Kill a wildebeest and keep the corpse around just for decoration.  Because that’s what we did with your grandfather.  No eating it.  Then you can have your title back.

If you have suffered any recent eye trauma, you really would mistake Mambow for Donkey Kong Country.  Instead of bananas, you collect meat, and instead of a gorilla you play as a lion wearing jeans.  Otherwise, the gameplay is pretty much the same idea.  You make your way across 10 levels, searching for tons of hidden trinkets, swinging from vines, visiting platforming clichés, and jumping on the heads of various wildlife.  It sounds great, and it looks like it will be fun, but the developers of Mambow failed to capture the intelligent level design of the DKC series.  Too much of the platforming centers around leap of faith gaming, which is a pet peeve of mine.  I’m so sick of titles that make you take blind jumps onto platforms with enemies or possibly into pits.  It’s the gaming version of walking around your house in the dark and stubbing your toes.  That is not fun.  It fucking hurts.

The controls aren’t exactly silky smooth, either.  Movement is really sensitive, sometimes forcing you to heel-toe it through sections.  Some of the attacks, or at least I think they’re attacks, seem to be worthless.  You can swat in front of you, but every time I tried it with even basic enemies led to me  taking damage.  Jumping on enemies can be a bit fickle too.  They don’t seem to have a generous enough collision box, leading to times where you do seem to land square on them but still take damage.  You get the ability to roar, but I never did figure out what the fuck its good for, beside getting the attention of enemies.  Couple these with problems in the ascetics where platforms and decor are indistinguishable, and Mambow starts to cross into that “hopelessly broken beyond all repair” territory.

When Mambow launched, it was 400 Microsoft Points.  I originally intended to review it soon after it came out, but the developers asked me to give them time to fix some problems.  So I did.  The biggest problem they fixed was dropping the price to a less insane 240MSP.  It’s still 160MSP too much, but at least it stings significantly less.  I’m not sure what glitches they tried to fix, but I encountered a few annoying moments.  The camera shook violently a few times just from me standing on a moving platform, making it impossible to see what was going on.  I also once got stuck clinging to a fence.  For whatever reason, the dude would not let go of it.  I thought my button had gotten jammed, but the guy remained stuck even after I pulled out the battery.  Maybe it was a Venus Lion Trap.

I got used to seeing this after the character got stuck to the fence while I played it. I could move him. I just couldn’t get off.

Mambow looks really good, but gameplay is all that matters to me.  The graphics are polished to a mirror shine (they reminded me a little of Yoshi’s Story), while the mechanics are as sloppy as they get.  I don’t really care if Mambow is a Donkey Kong Country wannabe, even if I think that series was never good to begin with.  Oddly enough, Shigeru Miyamoto is on my side here.  He once famously said “Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good.”  I agree with him, but I feel that it can also be applied to developers as well.  Mambow is an example.  I’m sure the developers are proud of it, because the graphics are sharp.  But graphics should never trump gameplay.  Mambow controls poorly and the level design is boring, if not terrible.  I think this might have been their first game.  If I’m right, highly commendable effort, fellas.  Just remember: gameplay first, graphics second.  Write it down and hang it up on a wall.  Put it next to one of those “hang in there kitty!” posters.  Meanwhile, the only reason why this lion is sleeping in the mighty jungle tonight is because I just euthanized his ass.

Mambow was developed by Team-Mambow

240 Microsoft Points really suck at correctly identifying the correct developers of these games sometimes in the making of this review.

Gameplay courtesy of Aaron The Splazer.  He’s been providing these videos for the community for a while now.  Go follow him on Youtube.  He’s earned it.

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Indies in Due Time: Dream-Build-Play 2012 Episode 4

June 25, 2012 by 6 Comments

Kairi: We’re back with yet ANOTHER part of the Dream-Build-Play special.  Hey, there’s 400+ games entered into this year’s competition.  This shit is going to take a while to sort through.  Today’s four games were chosen by Brandon Schmidt, Managing Editor at The Indie Mine, and he also joins us.  Brandon, what brings you here?

Brandon: Well, you asked me to come.  I think you’re only bringing guests on because it saves you the time of actually selecting the games yourself.

Brian: He’s onto us, Kairi.  Abort, abort!

Kairi: Activating abort process.  Brandon, you know that suicide pill we handed you when you came in here?  Would you mind taking that now?

Brandon: Is that why you gave that thing to me?

Kairi: Yea, if someone catches onto our lazy plans, they take the pill.  So that we don’t get caught.

Brandon: Wow, where to begin.  First off, this thing is a Tylenol.

Brian: Too much Tylenol causes liver failure.

Brandon: Second, you usually take the suicide pill yourself, or you kill the person who catches you.

Kairi: So, you’re saying we need to kill you?

Brandon: Um, there’s no good answer to this.  Can we just watch the trailers?

Kairi: Fine.

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