The crazy deal season that started in November shows no sign of slowing – it’s Indie Royale time again, and this pack is one of the best yet, weighing in at six games of generally excellent quality. Pay what you want (starting at a slowly rising minimum) for the fantastic Blackwell trilogy (remastered, apparently), The Oil Blue, Eets and Dino D-Day for Windows (and Mac/Linux where appropriate). Gameplay trailers and some thoughts after the break.

Top billing goes to the Blackwell Trilogy, remastered and (for the first time) available on Steam. Three excellent point-and-click adventures about a young writer/medium living in New York, and her adventures solving crimes both mundane and supernatural with the aid of Joey, an old-fashioned sorta guy that happens to be a little on the dead-and-incorporeal side. This pack doesn’t include the recently-released fourth game in the series, The Blackwell Deception – savvy business, as if you like adventure games at all, you may well be looking to buy that as soon as you finish up the first three.

Next, something smaller but well worth your attention. Eets is a slightly Lemmings-esque puzzle game about guiding a cute, hungry little critter through a maze of obstacles and aggressors by using a combination of environmental objects and mood-manipulating tools (which change how your critter interacts with other creatures) to keep it out of harm’s way. Simple, single-screen puzzling but with a lot of charm.

In all honesty, I can’t speak authoritatively about The Oil Blue, beyond the fact that I’ve heard nothing but glowing praise for it. A real-time, slightly arcade-oriented puzzle management game about rising from rags to riches in a world of oil-rigs and prospecting ships. I’m looking forward to giving it a spin now that this bundle has served it up on a digital platter.

Update: Had a bit of a spin at this one. Thoughts in the comments below.

Last – and possibly least – is Dino D-Day. While possibly the highest-budget game in this pack, it might be the weakest of the four offerings. The concept is great; a multiplayer shooter set in WW2 but with added dinosaurs – but the implementation isn’t so amazing. It plays a lot like Day of Defeat: Source, but the German team (and ONLY the Germans) get access to a variety of special dinosaur units that range from adorable to menacing. There’s a lot of multiplayer shooters on Steam, though, and there’s not much this one does to stand out for the crowd.

All in all, this is an impressive bundle, and if – like the bundles so far – there’s going to be bonuses thrown in later, the value is only going to go up. In all honesty, this pack is worth it just for the Blackwell games. Everything else is just icing on the cake. That’s a whole lot of icing – but isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Try not to overindulge, eh?

[Indie Royale]

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DIYGamer Holiday Give Away! For each and every article we post we’re giving away an indie game.

This article’s game is OIO: The Game for the PC (code is redeemable on the official site), by Uncanny Games!

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