Another week, another batch of great upcoming indie games to take a look at. I try to base each weekly article on a certain theme, but I haven’t been able to find one consistently, so I just grab three games that pique my interest and write about them. More and more, I am learning about new indie projects on my Twitter account, which I have just about figured out how to navigate without one of my children guiding me. If any of you know of a promising indie game, message me and let me know.
Escape Doodland: Invader Dash
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Developer: appSideDown
Platform: PC, Mac
Release Date: Q2 2017
Available via: Game Jolt
Imagine if all the doodles you made in grade school came to life as a frenetic platformer. That is Escape Doodland: Invader Dash in a nutshell.
This game’s mechanic couldn’t be simpler. You play as a Doodler, an inhabitant of Doodland, and you are attempting to escape from Invader, a toothy nasty that’s attacking your town. Your Doodler runs perpetually right as the Invader gives chase. Simply avoid the obstacles in your path by jumping, climbing, or dropping. You can pick up coins, stars, and gifts along the way to unlock more Doodlers.
I say simply, but this ain’t simple. You have to have pretty fast reflexes to navigate the levels. Step in fire and you slow down, allowing the Invader to close the gap and take a chomp at your posterior. You can beat him back once during a level, but mess up too many times and you’re a snack. The pace can get quite hectic, even on the easy setting.
The visuals literally look like grade school doodles gone horribly wrong, and I love it. The music is very jaunty despite your surroundings, and the controls are simple – just the left mouse button and a couple of keys – and that’s a good thing, because when you’re trying to time your jumps on platforms and over fire, you don’t need a lot of input choices.
This game’s demo is available on Game Jolt and I highly recommend you give this game a try if you haven’t already. I am heavily anticipating this game’s release.
Prism
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Developer: Monkey King Studio
Platform: PC
Release Date: TBA
Available via: Steam Early Access
I love me some shoot ‘em ups. From classics like Time Pilot to bullet hell jobs like Deathsmiles, I love them all. So when I see one that takes the shoot ‘em up genre and literally spins it around, it has my attention.
Prism is a 360º spatial shoot ‘em up. Your ship rotates around a prism centered on the screen. As enemies come at you from all directions, you spin around this prism and shoot at it, which refracts your shot into a multi-shot that you then point at the enemies. You can change the refraction on the prism to be normal – meaning the shots go straight through the prism – or reverse – where the shots reflect at an angle. As you fight through the waves of enemies, they will drop power-ups. You can upgrade your ship using these power-ups.
While reading the mechanics sounds interesting, actually watching it, seeing your ship pirouette around the prism as you pick your spots through the waves of enemies and bullets, flicking shots off the prism like a pool sharp bounces the 8-ball off the rail…I mean, I’m hooked!
Prism is set to be available via Steam Early Access soon. They will also be at E3 with a playable demo. I’m extremely hyped for this game!
Ley Lines
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Developer: Miria Studios
Platform: PC
Release Date: End of Summer 2016
Available via: Steam Greenlight Page
I was initially hesitant to include this game. The more I saw of it, though, the more interested I was.
Ley Lines is being developed by a team of students currently attending Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, a graduate video game design school at the University of Central Florida. It’s an action-adventure puzzler where you are tasked with restoring the ley lines of the world of Miria in order to revive it.
The interesting part lies with the puzzle mechanic. Your character wields a bow and arrow and is attuned to five different powers. You can slow time, alter gravity, shift space, and create paths. Some powers seem to be created by shooting specially attuned arrows; some seem to be triggered by your character.
While the story and mechanics are vague on paper, they look very intriguing in action. The world looks stark but colorful, and seeing the powers used to navigate the environmental puzzles makes me want to give it a try. The game is still a work in progress, as the sound effects are a bit jarring when compared to the soft, mellow soundtrack. Fortunately, the team working on this game seems to appreciate the feedback they get.
The game was recently uploaded to Steam Greenlight. I believe it is worthy of a positive vote.
