The Indie Mini Thread

This thread is dedicated to all your passing obsessions and observations about vidja games, those too small to really merit their own thread but still significant enough that you want to share them with the class.


My current mini-obsession is Realm of the Mad God. Thanks to the new Steam client, I've gotten back into this.

If you don't know what it is, it's sort of like Diablo's deformed pixilated SHMUP-like bastard child. It's a 2D top-view game where your character explores a landscape, collects gear, chugs potions, and levels up like in kind of Diablo action lite RPG, but fires at monsters and contends with huge numbers of bullets in a 2D "bullet hell"-like shooter.

Another notable feature: death is permanent. But for character achievements you generate a spendable resource called fame, which is only added to your fame amount after your character has died. Thus, dying is a natural part of a character's life span, and equipment has a vaguely disposable feel to it because of it (especially because there's fame bonuses when you die with the best equipment slotted).

The result is a brutish, hectic, hop-in hop-out experience that is just simply fun.

It relies on micropurchases for support, but there's nothing that's locked to you if you don't spend any money, nor are there any annoying daily limits to contend with for "free" players. Micropurchases just unlock conveniences (character slots beyond 1, more slots in which to bank equipment, multiuse potions), vanity items (dyes and pets), and "dungeon keys" which let you hop into a particular instanced dungeon quickly rather than having to unlock them by killing the appropriate character in the overworld. (Dungeons also are nice but extra: the most powerful equipment is dropped by bosses in the overworld as well.)

Definitely give it a shot for at least a few minutes.

So far I've liked Shank 2, Braid, Bastion, Trine 1&2. I'm sure I have a few more, but I REALLY REALLY should be studying for my midterm in 11 hours. I have 300 more powerpoint slides to study.

I played terraria, the binding of isaac, and dungeons of dredmor on steam. All of them are pretty good.

I use Steam and have a habit of buying Indie games when they're discounted to a buck.

I liked Terrarria for a while, but I put it off because I'm certain that updates won't show up in your current world. I put it off so long that I guess I'm going to wait until they stop updating the game. Actually, I just moved on to other games like the Binding of Isaac which I found really fun.

Cave Story+ is a fun and short adventure. I think I stopped playing right before a level or two near the ending of the game.

Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World were games I planned on beating. I think the lack of achievements and overall interest just put them on the backburner. I played one of them for a bit and quickly lost interest.

Space Pirates and Zombies looked like the game that I wanted to play. Build a fleet, attack other ships, starbases, pirates, planets, etc. The formula kind of got old and I didn't get very far.

Solar 2 is fun but I didn't give it much time because more mainsteam games pushed it out of the way.

I also have AI War Fleet Command and Magicka, and I don't remember why I bought them or why I never really played them.

oh yeah I also played Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World. I guess it's not a good sign that I didn't remember them.