June 6-12, 2010
Another bucket-load of titles poured into the Indie Games ocean. Will any rise to the top?
The Round Up
Adrift
Top-down twin-stick boating shooter, with largely ineffective shooting. 240 Points.
Avatar Penalty Shootout
Lack of an aiming indicator makes this mediocre…along with the general mediocrity. 80 Points.
Avatar Takedown
Essentially Head Shot 2, with Avatars. 80 Points.
Block Smash
Some reasoning in this puzzler, but also much trial-and-error. 80 Points.
Bumblicity
Tile dropping, word spelling, point scoring type game; call it Scrabble meets Columns. 80 Points.
Crisis in the Gulf
Simple, pointless (no score and I think it continues until you lose), yet somehow amusing tower defense. 80 Points.
Dragoon
Shades of Rise of the Robots, anyone? 80 Points.
Fishie Fishie Fifty
Fun single-switch eating game for up to 52(!?) players. 80 Points.
GochaSuraDash
Rules are Puyo Puyo-like, but what the heck is going on beyond that, I have no idea. 240 Points.
I Suck At: Word Games
Pretty much Boggle. 80 Points.
Legend of the Rune Lords
“Short form” RPG, seems decent enough. 80 Points.
Nice Try
Cute obstacle dodging game. 80 Points.
Painting Beats
Move to the beat and…that’s about all I could figure out. 240 Points.
PolyWobble
Old school 3D scavenger hunt, and polyhedral primer. 80 Points.
RC Airplane Challenge
If we put enough layers of attract-mode backed fancy menus in, maybe people will buy it before they find out it’s unplayable. 240 Points.
SFG Beach Volleyball
Decent, but difficult, Avatar volleyball. 400 Points.
Spell Find
Word search battle game I’ve yet to fail to lose. 80 Points.
That Seagull Stole My Chips
Meh target shooter. 80 Points.
The Brain of Bob
Overcomplicated platformer. 400 Points.
Towers
Rock hard tower defense. 80 Points.
TransSubversion
Stylish puzzle platformer. 240 Points.
Try Not To Fart
Is this button matching game still trying to ride the coattails of iFart, or does Silver Dollar genuinely think fart games are a good idea? 80 Points.
Urban Space Squirrels
Grab deez nuts, yo!*
(*Urban space squirrel for: “A rather fetching diversion, chappies.”) 80 Points.
Video Poker
I guess, if you play these sorts of things in the pubs, you might enjoy it even without the under-the-table payouts. 80 Points.
Zombie Hunter
Rudimentary FPS. 80 Points.
Zombie Sniper HD
Utterly ridiculous target shooter. 80 Points.
Best Of The Week
9572AD
Crisis in the Gulf really doesn’t merit any sort of recommendation, but somehow it got me to play it repeatedly. A far better example of tower defense is Towers, if you don’t mind the hair loss. Is it even possible to kill everything? If you’re into killing orcs, Legend of the Rune Lords might be up your alley. Walking was a bit of a chore, but the dialog was somewhat humorous. A satisfied belch makes up most of the dialog in Fishie Fishie Fifty – a frantic fun single-switch game, but best played with others. Others might enjoy Bumblicity more than I, since it reminds me too much of Scrabble, which I hate. I love Boggle, though, which is pretty much the only reason I Suck At: Word Games is getting a mention. Did I mention the unique ink and watercolor looking style of TransSubversion? It’s a solid puzzle platformer to boot. But Urban Space Squirrels was slicker, and my favorite Indie of the week.
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Wow…Towers is literally a copy of Pixel Junk Monsters. From looking at the screenshots, they even copied the EXACT level layout of the levels in Pixel Junk Monsters.
Well, that’s disappointing. Perhaps Pixel Junk people will catch wind, submit a copyright abuse claim and get it pulled, then.
I’ve never played Pixel Junk Monsters, myself.
Hiya,
I made the game (with help from my family). Yes, there’s obvious inspiration from PJM. But, I did the levels myself. I know there are similarities in some, but that wasn’t intentional. The fact is that you’re actually quite limited in what screen space you have and in a way, there are only so may levels you can actually make without making something that’s not TD.
Bear in mind that the vast majority of TD games might as well be rip offs of each other. Grid based, top down, sandbox game anyone? I can name many and with google, list hundreds. There are plenty of things this game shares with loads of TDs out there, but there are also plenty of personal touches which make it very much it’s own game. A few examples? Multiple endings based on how you do. An original soundtrack.
Saying PJ should pull this game, is a bit like saying that the maker of the first World War 2 themed FPS should pull any others that might come out after it. Or pick any other genre for that matter. Either way, I’d happily recommend PJM. It’s a good game, and I’m biased, but I think Towers isn’t too shabby either for one developer in his spare time.
BTW. While I’m here, there’s an update coming out very soon which adds easier difficulty levels.
Cheers!
Adam of LedgeWizard Games
Wanted to edit, but can’t, so I apologise for replying to myself.
Just wanted to add, that it’s clearly not an EXACT copy. The levels were designed by myself and people who hadn’t even played PJM. You’re essentially talking about having baddies walking in at point A and going to point B. With the graphics the size they are (which is less of a problem in top down TDgames due to their gridlike nature), there’s only so many ways you can lay the path. You can split it and have baddies come in from multiple paths.
I’ll give you an example. Draw a 3×3 grid (like noughts and crosses). Now start on any edge square and draw any path you like without passing through a square twice. Make sure you go through at least 4 squares. Then repeat. Perhaps surprisingly, you’ll find that you run out of combinations remarkably quickly, especially if you rule out rotating or symmetry.
Tetris gives another good example, by showing that there are only actually 7 ways to organise 4 squares into different shapes.
I’ll grant you that, yes, you are building towers on trees to fight monsters. Seems I made a tower defence game.
That said, I think that the levels are original works and the tower set, interface and graphics are very different. I other words, not the same then. 
Yours sincerely,
Adam
So, then, it’s NOT literally an exact copy of PJM? Cool.
I’ve still not played PJM.
I really like Towers. It’s like a Greatest Hits CD for tower defense games – nothing new or surprising, but everything is very well done.
Maybe Legend of the Rune Lords gets better later on, but I really didn’t like the 15-30 minutes I spent on it. Painfully slow walking, frequent and boring combat, mediocre visuals & music, and tiny monster roster (in the time I played, I only saw 2 monster types, one of which was a palette reskin of the other).
Zombie Sniper HD’s box cover looks hilarious. It’s a shameless rip-off of a Sega Genesis game box, complete with an undead hand grabbing a SNES Super Scope and nonsensical text.
I think the art would’ve looked better without all the extra graphics.
I bloody love Fishie Fishie. It’s mental
Been playing it with my kid a fair bit.
[...] word spread about Spell Find. GameSetWatch was quick to post a very positive review. Thanks also to XNPlay and BYOND for their coverage, and http://screwattack.com/videos/Spell-Find/1#comment_457641, [...]