Options
XBLIG - Xbox Live Indie Game Thread
2dshmuplover
Posts: 8,271
Forum Member
✭
Thought I'd start a topic to just see if there's any interest in the Indie Game scene? It's been a feature of the 360 for a while now obviously and we are fast building up an overwhelming number of decent homebrew games!
I'll compile a shortlist of the best ones later on, fee free to chip in and say what your favourites are.
The one game I'm enjoying at the moment is The Deep Cave. It's a platformer similar to Super Meat Boy or VVVVVV, it's incredibly tough but so fun trying to get through the screens. It also has an outstanding chiptune soundtrack, some of the best I've ever heard. It's only 80 points too making it a total steal.
I'll compile a shortlist of the best ones later on, fee free to chip in and say what your favourites are.
The one game I'm enjoying at the moment is The Deep Cave. It's a platformer similar to Super Meat Boy or VVVVVV, it's incredibly tough but so fun trying to get through the screens. It also has an outstanding chiptune soundtrack, some of the best I've ever heard. It's only 80 points too making it a total steal.
0
Comments
The one exception is Globe Clicker which I found a good challange until I went through all the questions.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1187960&highlight=indie+games
No offence but that thread is over a year old! We've had tons of great games since then.
Oh absolutely, Cthulhu Saves The World is exactly what you are looking for. I'm not a fan of RPG's and yet even I bought this one after the fantastic demo. Very funny game too.
Don't be too quick to judge them, though if you're not into retro then you won't enjoy any of it, but there are some great games hidden away that many large publications completely fail to cover in their top 10 lists or whatever features they run. In fact many of the games that I've seen recommended by the likes of IGN etc have been utter crap. There's a lot of very good shooters on XBLIG in particular.
I haven't looked through the Indie games for sometime now, so hopefully some little gems will get a mention.
There's a lot of Japanese developers creating shmups on it now and also some well known XBLA developers throwing out some quality titles too. MS done such a good thing allowing homebrew on their console! It's like the Amiga Public Domain days all over again, only much, much better.
OK so I'll start off with a shortlist of my favourites.
Score Rush - Insane bullet hell shmup, really acts as a trainer for you to get good at dodging bullets. This has perfect controls and while it's bare bones it's brilliant fun.
IonBall - The best "bat 'n ball" game I've played in years! In some ways I prefer it to Shatter. It has XP style levelling up and a very cool steampunk theme but it's the controls that's the stand out feature, they are perfect. It looks and sounds gorgeous too, very polished.
Final Rift - An "Elite" Clone and surprisingly in-depth. This only costs 80 points yet there is a lot of content. Good game.
Gravitron360 - A "Thrust" clone, but it's more like PS3's Gravity Crash. Very good game where you have to navigate caverns while fighting the force of gravity, shooting enemies and rescuing scientists before the planet blows up (yes it's as hard as it sounds lol). I much prefer to play with the controls set to rotate like "Thrust".
Apple Jack - A charming and clever little platformer. Quality title.
Leave Home - Very cool shmup that adapts as you play depending on how good you are. It's a great game but nails hard.
Explosionade - Mech based platformer, hard to explain but definitely worth a try! I love it.
Revolver360 - Perfect demonstration of how good XBLIG can be! A superb shmup with a very cool gameplay mechanic where you revolve your ship with the triggers which in turn alters the enemy bullet patterns for you to navigate though. Excellent.
Other's to check out:
Epic Dungeon
Solar
Kaleidoscope
The Deep Cave
Decimation X3
Biology Battle
Arkedo Series 03 Pixel
Ctuhulu Saves The World
Radiangames Crossfire 2
Radiangames Fluid
Radiangames Inferno
My mine goes to 1100. If any of you are deeper than that, let me know, because it's geting difficult at that depth:o
The first game released today is qrth-phyl, it's what prompted me to bump this thread as it's such a great game. It's a modern take on 'Snake', in 2D and 3D with REZ style graphics. The gameplay is fantastic and for 80 MSP you just cannot go wrong. I hope some of you try it and rate it as it all helps. Here's a small trailer
XBLIG has seen so many great games this past year, too many for me to list right now and there's probably not enough interest on this forum for me to warrant doing it. The service has only gotten better despite what some critics claim.
Here's what to expect form the rest of Indie Uprising 2012: preview
i just downloaded that
Yeah, well there's lot of gamers out there who aren't into retro, either they are too young to not have any experience with it or don't want to play games with poor graphics. I can certainly see how someone would be put off it they just randomly picked a few titles to play.
The way I view it is like a return to the old 8-bit days of the bedroom programmers, there's tons of experimental titles, not all of them work and unfortunately there's a lot of games created for the wrong reasons and are a complete shambles. But for every 50 games that are launched there's a gem among them, it's just about digging them out and having the knowledge to know what's good because there's no way you're going to find them by just randomly playing them.
I find Armless Octopus a valuable resource for Indie game news link and there's plenty of others out there and some good YT channels such as aaronthesplazer
Here's a great looking game that's coming out later this year, Windhaven. Perfect example of what is possible with talented programmers.
yea thats the way i've seen the indie games section. I like the fact that over the last few years its really gained momentum and is having its own spotlight. small development teams are more likely to take risks and try something new which can often result in unique gameplay.
Today is the third day of the Indie Uprising promotion as these games are releasing on a daily basis instead of weekly. The full site is here which will give you a indication of what's coming next along with some info on each game. Today's release is Diehard Dungeon, for only 80 MSP it looks well worth checking out vid
First up there's a new game just released called Blood and Bullets, it's effectively a indie version of L4D with pigs, quite a few people are talking about this game, it's exceptionally gory, unfortunately I cannot download it yet as there's a conflict with the beta dashboard so I've read but you might be able to. Here a trailer
Beat Hazzard Ultra has also finally made it's way to XBLIG. Great little twin stick shmup that uses your music to generate levels, in this sequel there's a lot more to the gameplay including power up's and perks, leveling up and unlocks. It can use your music from a playlist or even from your PC, shame it doesn't work for MP3's on USB. More expensive than most games but it's still a great game though.
Others:
Vintage Hero - Great little Megaman 2D platformer
Chronoblast - High quality vertical shmup, probably one of the best on XBLIG. It's getting an update soon too with tons of extra content.
Aqua Kitty - I believe this is a PSVita port, fun little defender type game with great music and cute gfx
Thunder Moon - Kind of similar to Minecraft only in space with more objectives. It's a fun game
Saturn 9 - A decent FPS survival horror, it;s very short but it's fun for duration and quite scary too
Dinora - A Terraria clone, it contains most of the things that's in that game with more emphasis on NPC's, huge game considering and only 69p meaning its well worth trying (when Terraria is £10).
Tatakai Tank Rush! - A 3D RTS game, it's a bit bare bones but still fun and really smooth gameplay
Write your own Music - A blatant copy of the old PS1's Music series. Not a bad thing at all, if you are familiar with Music 2000 then you will instantly recognise it. With lot's of samples and a riff creator, some potential to make some ok choons. Not nearly as powerful as Ezmuze 2.0+ but it's cheaper and easier to learn and doesn't munch Gb's of HDD space
Bad Caterpillar - A Centipede clone with extra powerups and different ships. It has near perfect gameplay, very addictive stuff, I highly recommend this one.
Rad Raygun - A 2D platformer made in Megaman style, everything (indluding the boxart) is designed to look and sound like a monochrome Gameboy title. It's fun
There we go, if you're at all interested in XBLIG but don't have time to check them out, I just saved you the trouble of sifting though a mountain of crap to find the good games.
Also another nice game is on the way very soon called "power up" a 2D side scroller shmup developed by Psychotic Psoftware. This was started from a Kickstarter campaign a few months back, he words in the industry as a graphic designer but recently was laid off I believe so in his spare time he's creating an indie game. It is also ported it to PC after XBLIG. The game is looking very nice and the dev has been posting regular weeklyprogress updates which you can follow HERE
You can see a trailer for Power Up HERE
Trailer
Another great game came out on the heels of Power Up called Valkryius, another 2D vertical shmup that takes more than a few cues from Strania. It must be a little bit sickening for Power Up dev as it's really good too! footage
With Unity support confirmed for next year for both X1 and 360 I think the Indie scene is yet to fully flourish on the console.
Microsoft might be a little behind Sony but they are now courting indie devs in preparation for the Indie assault of next gen.