Indie News Byte: New Purple Video

Purple is now 30% complete. It looks better and better with each new update.

Indie News Byte

DoctorM64 has been working on a Metroid 2 remake for quite some time now. Recently he changed the name of the planned demo to Metroid: Confrontation and announced that if everything goes as planned, then it should be released October 13th 2008. It looks lovely so.. fingers crossed.

Black and Blue

Black and Blue is kinda like Gunlimb mechanic-wise, where you use your ammunition to both kill things (in this case, walls of blocks) and propel yourself in the opposite direction. However, it is an arena shooter with graphical presentation that would be best described as simple, neat and clinical.

It is a highscore game and thus has very little in the way of variety, which is a shame because I think it probably would have worked rather well split into 'waves' with some challenging enemies and differing environments. In short: I got bored more quickly than I would have liked.

Underrated Indie Developer: Jonny Smeby

I always felt that Johnny Smeby was underrated. His games rarely get posted on other blogs. In fact, I don't think I ever recall seeing him receive any attention with the exception of his native community, The Daily Click.

Run Or Be Mechanically Separated (or ROBMS for short) Part 1 is his most recent effort and I must say that it is his best yet. It's a polished, rather quirky, platformer, involving a whole lot of spikes that must be avoided and it really shows Johnny's matured progression as an indie developer.

Part 2 is meant to be released at some point, hopefully in the near future, although whether this will be melded with the first part to become one game is unclear. The picture is some concept art for the game that he recently posted.

More Purple

Purple, a Mario-inspired game, which fortunately, rises far above 99% of the absolute rubbish that surfaces, is now 27% development complete with most of world 2 done.

Composition

Composition is a small, abstract exploration game, developed by Time Wraith. You are specifically limited to moving right and when an arrow indicates, moving in the specified direction. The occasional secret passage can be discovered. Graphically, the game is crisp with a minimalistic use of colours to show the differing environments. The soundtrack is short.

Although this was developed as an experiment, the limitations on your movement are annoying nonetheless. In fact, the movement is so limiting that it felt like there was no challenge and therefore, wasn't a proper game. I couldn't help feeling that this could have easily been expanded into a puzzle platformer, using its existing game mechanics and allowing a little more freedom.

Indie News

Frankie Smile Show development blog updated with screenshots and info on current projects.




















Happo games have finally posted some new screenshots of their in development project, Piccu Wiccu.

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This blog is about independent videogames, specifically of the free variety. You'll figure it out.