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View Full Version : 5 indie games for the price you want.



herman.tulleken
16-12-2010, 04:41 PM
Hi all,

Just in case you haven't seen this - there is a cool offer for Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans all in one bundle. You can name your price, and say who gets what (developers, charity, etc.)

http://www.humblebundle.com/

ht

BlackShipsFillt
16-12-2010, 05:40 PM
Sweet! thanks...

I'm quite excited... Revenge of the Titans by Puppy Games looks very much like what I was trying to do in Competition 24.

ShellShok
17-12-2010, 09:39 PM
Revenge of the Titans is amazing :D combines tower defence and rts gameplay almost flawlessly

I'm sure everyone knows about Braid by now :P

Osmos is... different. Haven't played many games like it but I enjoyed it

Haven't downloaded Machinarium or Cortex Command yet... waiting for next month so as not to rape my cap hehe

All in all, worth whatever you decide to pay :)

BlackShipsFillt
19-12-2010, 03:12 AM
Actually I was a quite disappointed in Revenge of the Titans... the graphics are amazing, and worth the price on their own, but I felt that the game is in some ways the worst of both tower defense and real time strategy.

Revenge of the Titans has the clickiness and constant scrolling around the map of an RTS, and the one dimensional gameplay of a tower defense game. Most levels you know by the 2 minute mark whether you have won or lost. You can collect resources, but there is no strategy to it (because you aren't fighting a opponent for control of the resources, you have them at the start and you are fending them off). And as a trade-off for having pointless resource collection most of the creatures you kill do not give you any reward. To be fair it isn't really a strategy game at all, the opponents do not respond to your actions, so beating a difficult level amounts to restarting it enough times until you know the pattern and then play from there. You cannot affect your opponents as you would in an RTS, they have no bases or resource collection of their own, so each level always plays just about exactly the same. And, because every little bit of cash counts in this game, it encourages player to play perfectly, rather than play. Early on, while things are still new, this is fine, but I found that the last bunch of levels were a real chore.

The shooter mechanics were potentially a lot of fun, except here they were poorly implemented, so instead of giving the player destructive control over his/her towers the shooter elements amounted to a perfect resistance puzzle and yet another clicky maintenance feature (which this game is choc-full of). In fact a huge proportion of the game plays like the Zerg-Spawn-Larvae feature (which is arguably the worst part of Starcraft 2).

It's still a great game, and beautiful, but I was expecting something else. (because in theory a perfect tower-defence RTS mix would be the ideal game for me).

Evolution
19-12-2010, 10:52 AM
I agree with you on Revenge of the Titans. The research mechanic I didn't like because you can only purchase one research at a time and also you never know what a certain research will give, you can only see them after your purchase, which makes it impossible to plan ahead.

I also had a problem with Cortex Command. I thought it would have been fun to play, but turned out to be frustrating. The physics was cool, but it needs more work to make playing the game a pleasant experience. Also the controls play as if you using a control not a keyboard and mouse, which makes it even more frustrating. Hopefully they polish this one off for a final release.

Both games could have been so much better if they undergone play testing and had these issues resolved before charging people for a broken game.

herman.tulleken
19-12-2010, 07:40 PM
I think Cortex Command is still in development; I remember reading about some unsatisfaction because it has been included in the bundle. Maybe they will fix some of the issues.

The main game I bought it for was Machinarium; I finished it today, and I am still a bit in a trance...it is just so beautiful and atmospheric... (Although, like all point-'n-click adventure types, the play was more fun in theory than in practice [that might just be me]).

Osmos is also pretty cool, although it gets hard quite quickly. It reminded me a lot of a (much simpler, cruder, but addictive) Experimental Gameplay game (on the original site, can't seem to find it now) which had similar mechanics, except that it seemed you were punished for playing well (each time you won, the enemy got an extra blob, and vice versa...).

Gonna check out the other now...

BlackShipsFillt
20-12-2010, 05:24 AM
Just to be clear, I do think Revenge of the Titans is a awesome little game, it's got a special touchy (Darwinia-ish) feel to it, and charming humour, I would really like to see future games expand on its direction and learn from its mistakes.

I checked out Cortex Command again now... this game has the distinct feel of vapourware. A shooter/resource-collection strategy game with a physics simulation controlling everything including the individual footsteps seems like an impossible task. I still haven't played past the second level, and what I've played so far is exactly the same as what the developers had done one year ago.

Actually Cortex Command (if I were to be harsh) feels like a really really ambitious prototype that failed and then the developers carried on polishing it anyway (instead of improving it). Its ambition is far more interesting than its gameplay.

Like you say Evolution they should have done some proper playtesting.

I'm really excited to play Machinarium! I'm gonna reserve myself some Machinarium time as soon as I'm not under pressure.

BlackShipsFillt
20-12-2010, 07:55 AM
Only one day left!

ShellShok
22-12-2010, 03:08 PM
3 days left :)

Revenge of the Titans and Cortex Command are still under development so maybe we can see some improvement soon. RoTT's site even still says pre order so I guess it's still in beta?

They added the ENTIRE first humble bundle for free... That's World of Goo, Aquaria, Penumbra: Overture, Lugaru HD, Gish and Samorost 2. And all of them are activateable on Steam, except Samorost. Can this bundle get any more awesome?!

BlackShipsFillt
22-12-2010, 06:44 PM
Yaaaaynesss!

That was one sweet Christmas present! 6 classic Indie games!

It could get better if it had a beta of Spelunky XBL (just saying).