Once again we’re invited to step into the Lands of Dream; Kyratzes’ most wonderful imaginarium in which time runs at a slower pace and pastoral delights are aplenty. The Sea Will Claim Everything is our longest stay yet and it proves to be the most rich and engaging one with no loss of attention to detail.

You make the trip to the Fortunate Isles through your monitor – this being referred to as your Window with the mouse acting as your way of interacting with this otherwise far-off world. To start things off you’ll have to flip on the graphics switch if you wish to see anything through your Window. Then, providing the Biotalkatron is enabled and the smell of the day is most likely lavender – you’re good to go. It’s an effective technique and an especially good use of the UI, almost like a post-Brechtian way of using your real world situation and making it part of the game itself, crossing the fourth wall and then re-building the bridge between fiction and reality.

Unfortunately this absorption takes a little while to stick. As you enter the biomechanical Underhome, greeted by The Mysterious-Druid (that’s his full name) and his well-dressed transvestite robot helper EDDIE, you may feel a slight disconnection setting in beyond the astounding welcome. The problem being cited here is that the beginning of the game is slightly overwhelming due to the quirky dialogue, fictional locations and charming characters, of which you are unfamiliar at this point, being referred to as if you have a thorough understanding. Combine that with being trapped in the confines of the six story Underhome for the game’s initiation and The Sea Will Claim Everything doesn’t seem quite as inviting as it should be at the very start.

Do not let these initial impressions put you off the game though, for as soon as you bust out of the Underhome the whole game opens up and you’ll soon have many scenic locations to scout out and the many inhabitants to partake in a most interesting dialogue. As that’s just been brought up it seems sensible to make this clear right now – this is a game that requires a lot of reading on your part. This should be perceived as a good thing, it being tailored by Kyratzes, but there are those that will resist a game that presents its players with a novel’s worth of text and no voice over to alleviate the eyeballs. Though it should be said that the soundtrack really helps to stimulate the mind – going to the the Antigone Tavern on The Isle of the Sun is highly recommended for the music alone. Needless to say, divulging in more reading than is necessary, by way of clicking on objects in the many hand-drawn scenes and even the little gizmos tucked away in the UI, is rewarded as the game’s more playful lines reveal themselves with such springy incongruity. Prepare to discover bashful mushrooms, frog soap, flowers called Harry and pumpkins with no personality. Many chortles will be had.

It’s these extra quips that really attest to the amount of character that permeates through the whole game. This is point and click after all, so giving the player plenty of things to perform this action upon and safe in the knowledge that they’re bound to get a little grin from whatever descriptive sentence pops up is just so pleasing. The ability to cram in so much delight as the game does so easily would be handy right now as there is so much to talk about regarding The Sea Will Claim Everything. For instance, the encounter with Medusa as she copes with the stress of being a celebrity, Stavros the intellectual tree whose ideas are substantially enlightening, or Dr. Crustem who is the ninth generation in a lineage of mouldy toast. Kyratzes really nails the serious silliness that he pursues, using fantasy to cater to juvenile giggles as well as deeper discussions of adult topics within the same breath.

To avoid making the game sound disparate, you should know that there is most certainly a main narrative thread that will drive your interest. This starts off in the Underhome as you know, which has just been ransacked and now faces foreclosure. Your first tasks will concern restoring life back into the home’s mainframes and to do that you’ll need the help of the creatures that inhabit and maintain this fascinating structure. It is within the Underhome that you’ll also find the ability to conduct alchemical experiments in order to make a number of potions required to progress at times. Fortunately you have your Scroll of Recipes that will automatically jot down the necessary formulas for you once you find them. This part of the game is only minor but it adds something quite fresh to the overall experience. Though it would have been more convenient if the recipes were on show and the ingredients labelled in the alchemy screens.

To find the many items needed to make the potions you’ll need to do a fair amount of travelling around the Fortunate Isles. The game’s areas really begin to multiply when you break out of the Underhome and even further when you can set sail from the Isle of the Moon and visit the other two main Isles and the other surrounding areas. Said items are usually found growing naturally around these locales, so you can just pick them and utilize the extensive inventory system to then use, sniff, consume or let your mouse interact with them. Yes, you read that right. Pretty much everything you do in The Sea Will Claim Everything involves a trade of some kind though, so expect to hear plenty of needs and problems that you are forced to attend to in order to get what you want. These all soon rack up and you’ll find there’s a lot to do on your checklist, which in turn makes sure that you don’t feel like you’re spending your time going back and forth across the same areas.

That’s probably one of the game’s biggest feats actually – giving the player freedom to explore most of its locations early on (once they have a boat) and to complete the tasks in pretty much any order they can. There’s plenty of scope, quirkiness and detail to make your trip around the Fortunate Isles last plenty of hours and never a dull moment will be had. It’s a fairly demanding game for those not accustomed to a game with such sentiments – all the reading, movement through clicking on arrows and the game’s biggest charms being hidden away in subtle corners. Nonetheless, providing the player is willing to invest into this fantasy, the game gives a lot back in the form of humor, intelligent discourse and a world in which the little details matter.

There are some moments when you may think the game is spiralling into a list of fetch quests, but then you’ll be treated with an intellectual discussion and reminded that your ultimate quest is to save the people of these beautiful lands of the evil clutches of Lord Urizen. You do this with the game’s tantalizing title in your head all the time, reminding you that your efforts may all be in vain if one of nature’s biggest wonders, the sea, were to claim everything in the end.

You can find out more information about The Sea Will Claim Everything over on the official website.

Indie games, in general, have a reputation to be small but charming games – something quirky that lasts with you. In other words, nothing too ambitious; especially if its a solo developer behind the wheel as a opposed to a small team. Sean Lindskog has entirely subverted that reputation his space-based action RPG/strategy game, Salvation Prophecy.

The game initially caught our eye with its announcement trailer which boasted huge space and terrestrial battles, strategy elements, a deep storyline, multiple factions and on and one. Our jaws dropped upon finding out that it was the work of just one man with the only other contribution coming from freelance artists. Naturally, we wanted to find out if Salvation Prophecy was anything to get excited about – as good as it looked, you can’t help but think that Sean may be a bit too ambitious.

IGM: First up, we’re very keen to know a little bit about your experience in game development, especially as Salvation Prophecy is such an ambitious project. So could you divulge some of your past for us?

SL: Sure. I started out working at EA. That was a weird gig for me because I came from coding text internet games called MUDs (“Multi-User Dungeons”). MUDs are the furthest thing away from flashy EA sports games. So it wasn’t really my scene. I was like, “What do you mean you can’t cast fireballs at the other soccer players?” But I learned from some smart coders, and they had an arcade in the lobby, so it wasn’t all bad.

I left after a year to go work on Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. That was pretty cool because I grew up playing D&D and reading Tolkien. Back then, if you wanted to know how many hit points a green slime or a giant octopus had, I was your guy.

From there, I went Indie to work on Salvation Prophecy. There’s so much cool stuff coming out of the indie scene these days. I wanted to be part of it. Plus, I figured why keep a stable job and paycheck when I can have the glamorous life of an indie game dev – near starvation, financial disaster, and an unending impossible workload.

IGM: Where did the desire to create such a vast game come from – did you ever think you had bitten off more than you could chew?

SL: It was a case of temporary insanity. Luckily, by the time I realized how ludicrous the idea was, I was already too deep and there was no turning back.

I guess Salvation Prophecy is a big project for an indie. But I really wanted to create a space epic. To make the game I wanted, I needed to borrow bits from different genres. I love space traders and pure space sims, but I always felt like these games only captured part of the magic of a sci-fi experience.

IGM: We’re curious as to how deep the lore of the game is. You’ve created races, planets, factions – a whole universe it seems. Is this something you’ve been creating for years in your head like George Lucas did with Star Wars, or was it put together when planning the game itself?

SL: I started with a blank slate. I wanted a break from fantasy. One of my favorite games growing up was a space game called Elite. If Salvation Prophecy gives anyone a tiny fraction of the wonder and enjoyment I had playing Elite, I’ll be happy.

I spent many late nights sitting outside, pen and paper in hand, working out the history and time-line for the game universe. For much of the development, I lived in a small cabin in central Canada. I couldn’t afford rent in the city. I got chased by a bear once. Last year I had some foxes who would come and visit me while I was outside writing. I think they wanted my sandwich. Being surrounded by such a beautiful and natural place brought out some of the mystical aspects of Salvation Prophecy.

Even though Salvation Prophecy is primarily an action game, I wanted to flesh out the history, the factions, why they’re at war, what their motivations are, and how they came into being. I think this adds a richness to everything.

IGM: Quite outstanding about Salvation Prophecy is the game’s many art assets which were created by freelancers. What kind of direction did you give them – was it specific or did you allow them creative freedom?

SL: What’s cool about my artists is that they’re from all around the world. I’ve never met most of them face to face. Sometimes on Skype we’d make fun of each other’s accents.

It was totally collaborative. I described what I wanted, and sometimes made some embarrassingly crude drawings. The artists made heroic efforts to not die laughing at my sketches, and then made everything look cool.

I remember working out the design of the Wyr faction, who are these crazy science robots. I sent a picture to my artist of some freaky steam-punk goggles, and said “the Wyr look like THAT!” Strangely enough, he knew exactly what I meant, and nailed the character artwork. Artists’ brains are strange and wonderful places.

Concept Art: Drone Unity colony buildings

IGM: We can see that the game is presented very well and it’s what ignited our attraction to it. Perhaps our biggest fear is the gameplay which is hard to grasp without having played the game. There’s such a vast amount of options so it seems so we’ll break this down. Firstly, what do the different playable characters offer in terms of playstyle variation? Does your selection vastly change the game or is it more subtle?

SL: So here’s the big picture on Salvation Prophecy. It’s a single player space epic, with a focus on action and big battles. You spend much of your time in frantic space and planet combat, with some exploration and a touch of strategy mixed in at the higher ranks.

The factions play very differently in planet battles. Take the Salvation character – they’re really finesse. They can die fast, but move quickly and can reflect bullets and drain energy from their enemies. On the other end of the spectrum are the Drone Unity, big hulking killer robots with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher and a big metal “shred claw” that can eviscerate anything that comes too close.

Space battles are mostly the same for all factions. I spent my time there on just making space combat fun and intense.

The game has some dialog, which is different for each faction. I had a lot of fun writing from the perspective of radically different characters – the fanatical Salvation, the angry, cold logic of the Drone Unity, the wacky insanity of the Wyr, and the rugged humour of the Free Nations marines.

Salvation, Drone Unity, Free Nations, and Wyr

IGM: Space battles seem to be a big component of the game. Can players build their own ship and pick their own battles? Is each battle all about firepower or are there more strategic options to victory perhaps?

SL: Your ship has a bunch of upgradeable components. These have a huge impact on how your ship handles in a fight. This is all gameplay stuff – there’s no graphical change on your ship. Ya gotta do what you can with an indie art budget. But there’s a detailed breakdown on the ship panel interface.

In combat, it’s all about ship power and pilot skill. Once you rank up to become faction commander, there are some strategic elements introduced, and you can pick your invasion targets.

Screenshot: Space combat

IGM: Moving to the various planets players can visit – are these scripted encounters or can a player land on any planet they see at any time. What kinds of objectives will players carry out while on foot?

SL: It’s an open world, so you can go anywhere at any time. But the game is mission driven, so you probably won’t spend much time aimlessly roaming around. The backdrop is a galaxy at war, and your presence in battle is essential to the victory (or defeat) of your faction.

I went for an open world approach because it makes the game world a live, chaotic, and dangerous place. Battles are raging across the galaxy at all times, even if you’re not part of them. You might fly into an enemy fleet on it’s way to attack a target. You might observe a battle between two AI-controlled enemy fleets. You can be docked in a station when it suddenly comes under attack. The battle plans are dynamically generated, based on what planets the factions control, and how they want to expand. You can lose the game if your faction is destroyed, so the danger is real.

On planets, you will be invading enemy colonies, and exploring in search of ancient runes. In the late game, you also need to defend your own colonies from attack, when a new menace bursts onto the scene.

Screenshot: Ship panel

IGM: On top of these more direct, combat focused aspects of the game, you have also included a more strategic part of the game by allowing players to build colonies and troops, as if an RTS it would seem. How does this feed into the rest of the game and what kinds of decisions will players have to make in these parts?

SL: As faction commander, when you choose an invasion target, this generates a mission. From there you launch with your fleet or troops as normal. So the strategy layer drives the missions and combat.

It’s not a hardcore strategy game. But you will need to make decisions on how to spend your resources, what units to build, and how to expand your faction’s reach. For example, you might try conquering the highest resource planets, or instead focus on eliminating a weakened enemy faction.

IGM: You’ve mentioned that a lot of the game is based around battles, either in space or on foot. However, is there a way to avoid all or some of these battles, or is the game entirely focused on these battle scenarios?

SL: It’s a combat-focused military game. You can skip the odd mission, say if you’re busy hunting down a bounty. But the game is about war, and you are a soldier and commander.

The only exception is when you go searching for the runes foretold by the prophecy. These are solo missions to alien planets. You’ll be dealing with alien monsters and ancient beings to recover these runes, which takes you away from the primary battlefields. But even this relates back to battle, as the prophecy foretells of an apocalyptic invasion that will devour all of Earth’s descendants.

IGM: We’ve noticed that you have badges for players to earn, do these have any other function to the game other than simply making the player feel good?

SL: The mission badges are pretty straight forward. You get them if you’re a serious bad-ass on the battlefield. They have names like “Turret Killer”, “Blade Master”, and “Pyromaniac”. They earn you extra cred. Cred can buy you better combat gear and ship components.

Plus, it makes the player feel good.

Screenshot: Mission badges

IGM: It seems that Salvation Prophecy could be overwhelming to new players so how do you plan on easing them into the game?

SL: I dislike long boring tutorials. I dislike reading game manuals even more. With Salvation Prophecy, you can just jump in and start playing. The game will teach you as you go along.

The military ranks of Salvation Prophecy helped with this. With each new rank, a little more of the game is revealed. So there’s no heavy learning curve at the beginning of the game. Instead, new gameplay elements are gradually introduced with each new rank.

At rank 1, you’re just a soldier grunt. At rank 2, you earn a fighter ship. At rank 3 and 4, you start getting new kinds of missions (bounties, alien planet exploration) which require you start navigating by yourself using the galaxy map.

Also, the space ship and character controls are mapped similarly, so it’s easier to switch between them. Example – you use the same button to fire or target select with either the space ship or character.

IGM: How much more of the game do you need to work on and do you have an estimate of when we might see it on our monitors?

SL: Salvation Prophecy is a fairly experimental game. It combines a lot of genres to create a space epic, rather than relying on a traditional game formula. It’s the kind of game you could keep working on forever. But I am going to release it very soon, learn from the players on what worked and what could be better, and hopefully build on this for a future game.

It’s been forged into a pretty interesting game experience, and I’d love to hear what people think.

Screenshot: Rune keepers puzzle

More information on Salvation Prophecy can be found over on the game’s official website.

Don’t be frightened! It’s not as bad as it looks – though I can’t promise that. Seriously though, you’ve probably seen some gameplay or a screenshot of Cloudberry Kingdom and either had to loosen your pants or shook your head with disapproval. Here’s some clarification regarding what this game is really about though: fun!

Now, you’ve probably read that and immediately decided that it could only be fun for gaming masochists, simply because of the screen-filling hazards that make this platformer stand out. This is a large part of the game, certainly, but it is by no means the only way to play and enjoy the game. Customization permeates through Cloudberry Kingdom; from making a character to adjusting its difficulty for you and even allowing players to set the parameters of a level in great detail. Many people have referred to it as a “bullet hell platformer”, in that you must learn the patterns of the dangers to find a safe path, and this could certainly take hours of practice. Again, this is there if you want to give it a go, if you don’t want that kind of experience then you can enjoy the many other ways to play the game.

The preview build I have been spending quite a while with lacks a few features: improved graphics and animations, the campaign mode, keyboard support, the extra obstacles and items and quite a few other additions that I anticipate will make the final version appealing to many more people. What I was able to really get a feel for was the game’s engine, which is really what gives the game its utter uniqueness. I imagine that some people will observe Cloudberry Kingdom and wonder why it’s taken the developers three years to get it to this state; upon playing the reason becomes very obvious. There is a lot of clever programming behind it.

This is a procedurally generated platfomer. That means that every level is articulated to be unique, at least in terms of how it’s laid out and what objects and dangers exist within it. What I was expecting at first was a fairly linear platformer which just got very bloody hard as it went on. Not the case. At least, not in the alpha version which I was playing. You see, the Campaign mode is being worked on so what I was left with was the Arcade and Free Play modes, which I usually associate with tacked on extras and was a little apprehensive, I guess. I need something to work towards that isn’t just a high score, or so I thought.

So okay, I went straight on in and tried out the various Arcade modes as that’s what I am supposed to do in order to give you my full impressions. Needless to say, I was actually a little intimidated by the screen which pops up before you actually enter the gameplay – level select, which includes 1, 50, 100 and 150. Brilliant, I’m adequate at platformers, in fact I’m pretty good but bugger if I was trying out anything above the first level to start off with.

It was dandy at first. My character was simply hopping along and it was very easy to avoid the hazards, perhaps too easy but it was almost meditative in a way. Especially with the ambient varied sountrack which can be flicked through with the shoulder buttons – ambient drum and bass, rocky anthems and vibrant electro describe the choices. I didn’t have to get used to the controls, merely because you only had to move and jump, as well as press X when reaching the Exit door on each level. The only advanced element of the controls is the jump button which can be held down for a higher and longer jump or just tapped for a little hop. This works very well in giving you an extra bit of control – not Super Meat Boy kind of control but more than most platformers. It’s a good job too because later on, when there’s swinging spiky balls, spinning fire sticks and laser beams to dodge, having that nuanced jump ability makes the difference between life and death.

Most surprising to me at this point was the brevity of the levels, some of them not far off being a single, static screen. But it’s the quantity and smooth increase in difficulty that gives at least the Arcade modes their challenge, which is why those ridiculous levels are able to exist. This gives the game a lot of speed and certainly a momentum too. Things do start off slow but your reactions and foresight has to become much keener after just a couple of minutes of gameplay because many levels can take literally 5 seconds to pass so things can get hard fairly quickly. Time Crisis is one of the modes and that only gives you 15 seconds on the clock with which to get through as many levels as possible and get the highest score – this time can be sustained for longer by collecting gems. This mode requires keen reactions and foresight from the player in order to build up a decent score. Due to the procedural generation, players cannot possibly memorize the levels either; it’s entirely based on player skill and reactions.

This was only one game mode though. Another is Escalation which has you worrying about lives rather than speed, so naturally I enjoyed this one a little more and progressed quite a bit further. It soon becomes apparent that the best way to get through the harder levels in Cloudberry Kingdom is to just keep moving. Seriously. If you hesitate for just a moment then you’ll come out of sync with the pattern necessary to get through them. This is where I find myself most impressed though. When you stop to consider that the game is putting these levels together as you go, really fast, and there’s always a way through (there is), you realize how much of a programming feat this is. If you need a little help to find that path then you can press Y and ask for an AI ghost to show you how it’s done. There are other ways of finding assistance too – slow motion and a safe path display – but these will cost you some of the gems you collect during the course of the game. If you’re wondering what else the gems are used for, the answer is gaining extra lives and they’re also used as currency to buy hats, faces and capes for your character.

By far my favorite game mode is the Hero Rush, which also has an even better follow up in Hero Rush 2. These are essentially the same as the other modes but your ‘hero’ will have a number of variations placed upon them with every level. One level you might be tiny and can double jump, the next you might be expanding and retracting in size while hopping inside a box with a jetpack attached, then you might be constantly bouncing and really fat. This is proper party game time and is going to be a hell of a laugh in local multiplayer with a few mates around. It’s just so hilarious. Speaking of which, up to four players can enter the fray and they open up even more modes, such as co-op bungee, wheelie and rocketbox; all of which I haven’t tried but can see will be great fun to attempt.

Little did I realize that I had only scratched the surface of this very early version of the game. The Free Play mode lives up to its name by allowing players to adjust a huge amount of parameters in order to tailor a level to what they want; tuning the algorithm to give the proper phrase. How many of each obstacle, what kind of level, how long it will go on for…you get the idea. You can even customize the hero, not just visually, but I mean how they move and fall.

It is due to the ability to customize so many things in Cloudberry Kingdom, and yet it still provides a cohesive experience, which tempts me to say it’s one of the best platformers ever made. I don’t think it’s quite there yet, but there’s never been anything quite like this in the genre and by the time it’s finished I think it’s going to be very special. Accessibility is probably most people’s biggest fear, and though it boasts being very hard, it’s actually the most easy platformer to get into because it will adjust to you and will allow you to alter it how you see fit. From hardcore platformer to hilarious party game, the game’s got you covered.

More information on Cloudberry Kingdom can be found over on the developer’s official website. You can also get early access by helping to fund the game over on Kickstarter.

We’ve been hard at work here at the Indie Game Magazine lately. We’ve launched great subdomains like IGM Mobile and IGM Retro, redesigned Game Tunnel, are preparing for an awesome free indie game challenge for Indie Games Day and seen an increase in traffic of over 500% since the end of 2011. Our next big announcement is that our magazine, which has been bi-monthly since its inception in 2008, will be going monthly starting this summer with issue 22. Great news right?

Of course, with all great news there’s also some bad. Because of this change and the cost of print, we will be discontinuing our print subscription. Lately, we’ve been withholding content from the magazine or trying to jam too much into our set page count. By eliminating the print subscription, we are able to create a magazine with as many pages as we want without having to worry about losing money by shipping issues to our print subscribers. For those of you who love the magazine in print, it will still be available via MagCloud for purchase on per issue basis. So, if you are one of those loyal people, I suggest that you follow us on Magcloud so that you’re notified when new issues become available.

We anticipate that there may be a lot of questions regarding this radical change, so please read our answers below and feel free to ask your question in the comments section if it is not here.

My print subscription has been cancelled in paypal, what happens now?

We have gone ahead and cancelled all of the International and National print subscription recurring payments that we have in Paypal. Print subscribers should receive an email notifying them of this cancellation. We will be offering all of our print subscribers free website Insider subscriptions so that they can continue to read the magazine. If you are a print subscriber, we ask that you open a support ticket so that we can set you up with a login to the website and address any concerns that you may have about this change.

I am a website Insider (or Insider Plus), do I have to worry about anything?

The only thing you have to worry about is setting aside more time to read more articles about indie games.

You’re doubling the content, are you going to double the price of your subscriptions?

NO! The individual pricing of our digital issues will remain the same ($4.99 for a PDF and $2.99 on the iPhone/iPad App). Individual Print issue pricing is based on the page count, so these prices will vary on an issue by issue basis. You should expect our subscription pricing to increase slightly over the next couple of months. We WILL NOT INCREASE the price to any of our current website subscribers/insiders, so now is a great time to purchase an Insider subscription since we will honor your sign-up price forever. Here’s a breakdown of our existing subscriptions and expected price changes (we will update as we know more).

Insider/Insider Plus Subscriptions

These will likely increase before the end of the year to $29.95 and $49.95 ($5 more each). As mentioned above, this price increase will only affect future subscribers. Existing subscribers will simply get more content so subscribe now to lock in your lower price.

iPhone App Subscriptions

These subscriptions have always been based on the number of issues that you get to download.  Pricing will remain the same, but the subscriptions will run out sooner now.  As an example, the old 6 month subscription (3 issues for $4.99) is now called a 3 month subscription, but still gives you 3 issues at the same price.

Zinio Subscriptions

We are still working with Zinio on this change. The current Zinio annual subscription (6 issues) is around $20 or $3.33 per issue. The new annual subscription will likely increase to around $30 for 12 issues or $2.50 per issue.

Why are you Increasing Prices? That is so NOT Indie!

The reality is that we have to increase prices. We will be doubling our work and there are very real costs associated with the Zinio and App subscriptions (and lag times to when we get paid). We have also hired a bunch of writers and want to fairly compensate them for their time/effort. We’re sorry for the price increases and have tried to keep them as low/reasonable as possible. We hope that you’ll support us and understand why it’s necessary.

If you have any other questions, please comment below and we will continue to update this post with answers.

I don’t care what anyone else says; Lego was the best toy ever, no contest. Well ok, I guess Transformers were pretty badass too, but come on man! Lego! It let you make whatever the hell you wanted to; your own creation, build with only love, care and your own two hands. And best of all, you could then watch that sucker crumble into teeny-tiny pieces after you ‘accidentally’ crashed it into something (surely I’m not the only kid that did this?).

While many games in the past have tried to capture the same sense of childish glee that Lego provides, I think Crashtastic is one of the few to hit it so squarely on the head. The game tasks you with using a simple yet robust creation tool and an assortment of bars, springs, wheels and rockets to build a vehicle of questionable structural integrity. Then, after deciding how much thrust you wanna give those rockets (you did cover it in rockets right?), you get to see how well your sweet new ride fairs in a series of small performance trials, which all inevitably end with “Deathtrap Mk3’s” individual components violently propelled across all corners of the map.

These mini-challenges range from simple tasks such as traveling a set distance or at a certain speed, all the way up to more advanced assignments like navigating an assault course or surviving a head on collision without your little mannequin pilot dude falling off his seat. The idea is that you’ll continue to tinker with your design for maximum performance at each individual task, or maybe even build a one-off that’s perfectly suited for one particular challenge (pro tip: for head-on collision ones, just build something that can move out of the way!).

While at first I was a little sceptical about playing what looked like yet another ‘physics based puzzle game’, I just can’t deny that the core concepts and mechanics of Crashtastic are incredibly strong. Despite my rather limited imagination, I still had an absolute whale of a time trying out all sorts of crazy abstract designs, and then watching on in a mixture of horror and morbid delight as my creation disintegrates into shattered fragments at the slightest provocation.

My only real gripe is how little feedback (i.e. none) the game gives you on how and/or why these (beautiful) disasters end up happening in the first place, which can make honing your design to be a bit less accident-prone rather difficult. Are there too many rockets*? Are there not enough rockets**? Is the undercarriage too close to the ground? Do I need to fashion some kind of quasi-shock absorbers? Should I not be building my designs around the idea of constantly placing the pilot in mortal danger?  There’s really no way to tell what the actual issue is most of the time, so you just end up tweaking until the problem finally goes away, often only to be replaced with yet another new indescifrable and/or catastrophic design flaw.

*Impossible.
** Always true.

But that stuff aside; the current direction of Crashtastic is very promising, and all it really lacks at the moment is more content to mess around with. Give it a bigger range of challenges and few extra types of building blocks, then this’ll be a game I can heartily recommend to any other Lego die hards out there without a moment’s hesitation. Sure, It might be a little limited right now, but I think Crashtastic will definitely be one worth revisiting further down the line!

You can currently pre-order Crashtastic for ~£5 ($7.99) on the official site, granting you instant access to the ongoing Alpha test (PC only).

Most would associate a fairytale with childish narratives that get carried away with fantasy, yet Cinders gives one of the classics an adult overhaul to explore many thought-provoking themes, if you want it to. This is realized through the form of a visual novel, which is a much underappreciated space in computer games; lying as a half breed between two separate media forms. True, the genre has been bludgeoned with shallow dating sims and shoddy fictions by aspiring authors, but Cinders and others of such quality really show the true potential within.
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You can find out more information about Cinders and grab yourself a pre-order over on the game’s official website.

Geeta Games appear to be offering something quite enchanting with their upcoming release, Lilly Looking Through. Having played through the publicly available demo, I can advise you that point-and-click puzzling is the order of the day, all undertaken within a unique fantasy world that is as compelling as it is dark and unsettling. The visuals are immediately arresting – the scenes, as we might expect from our indie adventures these days, are beautifully drawn and painted. The game presents a sweeping, ominous art style that seems at once at odds with the innocent playfulness of the characters that move through it.

Lilly is our protagonist, a young girl who we first meet engaging in an entertaining spot of frog-bothering. She mimics it, hopping alongside it as the creature watches uncertainly before eventually slipping away in fear. The frog may not be happy, but this initial encounter does a fine job of setting the tone and indicating the childlike, fairytale nature of the game.

Seize the stars – a grand edict, and a worthy goal for any wannabe space-emperor. This little surprise has been making waves lately. Developed by small French outfit Amplitude Studios, they’re reaching high with their first game, and seem to be almost there already. Endless Space is technically only in Alpha at the moment, but is already letting people buy in and play early via Steam. This is doubly unusual, because Alpha versions tend not to get onto Steam to begin with and, more importantly, the game almost feels complete already, offering more polish than many finished products released even in the same genre.

Perhaps one of the most insightful talks at Indie Connect was Douglas Wilson’s ‘Proteus, Johann Sebastian Joust And The Magic Of Low Process Intensity Games‘. Starting off, many of you may not know what Doug means by “low process intensity”, but you’re about to find out, if you haven’t already made a guess. It’s the kind of game that we’re seeing more and more of at the moment, one of the most famous examples from a few years ago being The Graveyard.

The tradition with games and software in general is that higher process intensity generally makes for better value. Developers and players are continuously looking for better graphics, more kinetic movements and action; constantly pushing technology forward. This has been going on for many years and it makes sense in a technology driven industry, but that’s something that can only really be achieved with the connections and budgets of AAA production in most cases.

Indie game developers, on the other hand, are given the freedom to experiment with game design and actually thrive in pushing the medium forward from a different direction. This is where low process intensity comes into hand, though not without resistance. How can The Graveyard, Dear Esther or Proteus even be called games? This is a question that has arisen a number of times and caused some people to look at the definition of a ‘game’, bringing up the necessity of “rules” for something to brandished as such. Doug, however, argues that those who look at these low process intensity games and deny them the “game” label are of an extreme stance which will probably never be won over, at least not for a while.

After playing Proteus not one person could deny that it is a game is what Doug argues on stage. This is a game in which you glide around a lo-fi but colorful island with no clear goal other than to soak in its wonder. Music drives the game primarily as it reacts to your exploration, lulling you into a relaxed state so easily. There is progression in Proteus though and there’s also an end to the game, so there are rules embedded somewhere under the haze. This isn’t the focus though.

Examples such as Dear Esther, Proteus, The Graveyard and even Journey, the game – Doug argues – is supported by multimedia rather than remaining as a vessel for it. The slight tragedy that Doug pointed out was that so many indie game developers are obsessed with innovating with mechanics. This often leads to them completely negating audio visual design, which could just as easily be innovated in and not just in the technology driven way that the AAA industry does.

Indeed, talking to Edge in Issue #240, Ed Key (developer of Proteus) admitted that he was worried that Dear Esther was going to be the same experience as Proteus as they share the same game mechanics. On inspection though, he found relief as the games were so different.

“It’s amazing what different spaces the two games occupy,” Ed said. “It shows what an unexplored space there is in the world of games that two games can sound the same, but really, they are just two points in this huge unexplored space.”

The only real mechanic in both of the games is the ability to walk, yet the audio and visuals were quite opposite from each other and are therefore able to provide two very different experiences. Doug brought up the necessity to commit to this low process intensity entirely to really find these relatively new and wondrous experiences in games. He brought up thatgamecompany’s Flower which would seem to fit into this emerging category of games, but it actually fails to fully meet the mark according to Doug.

You drift around controlling the wind in Flower, even the controls attest to low process intensity by just requiring a tilt of the gamepad. Unfortunately, as you progress through the game, more and more mechanics are added to make it more like a traditional game. You’re given goals such as collecting petals and later on things become more perilous and risky maneuvers give the player a challenge – the process intensity increases. Doug wants to see more games fully commit to the idea of low process intensity which aim to give the player an experience through the audio and visuals. There certainly seems to be plenty of space for these kinds of games.

Doug then pointed to his own game that he designed around the ideas, in a kind of practising what he preaches rendition. Johann Sebastian Joust has players holding a a PS Move controller each and facing each other rather than a screen, which remains entirely absent. The idea is to keep your own controller steady otherwise you’re out, while knocking your opponents. This is minimalistic game design, especially when looking at the game’s rule system. The idea is that this minimalism “deputizes” the players as they make up their own rules – can you put the controller in your pocket? On the floor? Can you hide in a crowd of people so that no one knows you’re even playing?

Joust, as far as a piece of software goes, is very low on process intensity. Instead it relies on players to create a more theatrical type of play – bowing to opponents and pointing your controller to the sky to announce your arrival to the game. It’s a simple game in reality but its openness to player interpretation means it can cater to many different types of experience – there are many variants of Joust and more emerge appear every time it is played.

These are the kinds of game design features that interests Doug as they focus on something else than just playing with new variants of recognisable game mechanics and instead create a unique kind of experience through other means. He finished up by claiming that games are part of the cultural scene and have a lot to offer the world, more than what they do at the moment – there are plenty of game experiences that haven’t been imagined yet. These low process intensity games are just a new way of approaching game design and the results are fascinating.

As the seats promptly filled in the auditorium, you could sense the anticipation for the development couple best known as Vlambeer to begin their talk on “Sensible Nonsense”. Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman have brought many of us simple hyperactive pleasures most famously in Radical Fishing and Super Crate Box, so to get a behind-the-scenes insight to their design practice was thrilling. Plus, they both knew how to engage an audience as showcased in their games, but in this case, upon a stage with a projector and a microphone each. This was going to be fun.

Once the unnecessary introduction was done with (of course we know who Vlambeer are!), the two developers moved on to highlighting a few games which they say use subtlety and implication to entice the player into its world. By this they meant that the game may not tell the player the back story directly, or reveal all of its secrets at first – the game designer lets the player soak it in subconsciously so that they may “feel” the game world.

There are different ways of doing this in a game as the examples showed. Metroid for example, uses its environment to indicate things to the player, but not with massive neon arrows but through subtle patterns, they also tell of the alien surroundings in a way that cutscenes or voice overs could not. The much more recent and prominent example of this technique is Fez – a game which designer Phil Fish, ached over for years to embed secrets and clues about its deeper meaning and story without shouting it via the megaphone which many other games resort to. The effect of such meticulous but hidden design is that new players won’t know the meaning contained in certain elements of the screenshot below:

The other example that Vlambeer gave is perhaps a more well-known one, or maybe it isn’t. Team Fortress 2 – on the surface a fun and highly popular multiplayer FPS. What many (or some?) people aren’t aware of is that it actually has a highly detailed back story. Each character and location has actual meaning behind it and feeds into the game’s overarching narrative, even the silly quips and banter between the characters all relates, either humorously and/or ironically, back to the game’s fiction. However, at no point is this ever explicitly revealed, told or otherwise shown to the player – only in Valve HQ, subtle hints and probably some fansites does this official narrative actually exist.

So what does this have to do with Vlambeer? Well, it’s something they’ve only recently discovered in themselves, but each of their games actually has a full fiction drawn up before the game even enters the development stage. They say they didn’t consciously set out to do this with all of their games, it’s just something that they inevitably end up doing and they now realise they they do they say it’s what shapes many of their games. People often refer to a “typical Vlambeer game” and they had no idea what this meant beforehand. Now they’re thinking that the one component that is common in all of their games is this idea of a ‘sensible nonsense’ – a fiction or narrative which they conjure up and base all of the game’s design and existence around. This ensures that their games are not completely random, though they may look like that to those not in the know, each game in fact has a very detailed backstory that Vlambeer argue and discuss a lot before and during development.

They feel that a game would just feel random and chucked together if that’s all it was, which is why they make a commitment to their ridiculous settings and stories, never veering off the canon they construct. Super Crate Box for example – where’s this so-called fiction in the game? Well, the game has three levels and in the background of each (as pointed out by Jan) there are some very loose connections. The construction level actually has a rocket silo in the background which you then actually use to reach the next level, the moon base. From there you then progress into the temple which is outlined in the background of the second level, and in the temple a statue rises up in the middle of the screen slowly but never actually does anything. It is this statue, this figure, that has caused all of these hostile critters to come at you – this thing is the mastermind behind the conflict in the game and why you are shooting the enemies. You’d never guess this though and Vlambeer don’t really want anyone to know because it doesn’t add anything to this “simple arcade game”; it all exists to benefit the game’s consistency during design.

While we’re at it, let’s take a look at Radical Fishing and it’s upcoming follow up – Ridiculous Fishing. The first game Vlambeer ever made (yes, they’ve been making up unknown fictions forever!), Radical Fishing has you blasting away fish in an over-the-top realisation of ‘redneck fishing’, complete with fish flinging followed by fish guts spewing everywhere as you shoot them in mid-air. Now, in the game, if you highlight the pistol it says “you stole this from your wife, afraid of the day she would kill you”. This is related to the narrative in which Billy ran away from home and is scared to go back in case his wife actually does murder him – he’s sat there fishing in his boat to pass the time.

There’s a little more to it than that but the more interesting side of this is how it affects Ridiculous Fishing. Rami sat down with us after the talk and showed us the menu for Ridiculous Fishing – it’s a cellphone. However, it isn’t as it’s actually a piece of wood and you can see that behind its screen. What has happened is that Billy has been out in that boat, in the sun, fearing his wife for so long, that he has begun to hallucinate. While the average player might think “why is this phone actually a plank of wood”, the informed (as you are now) actually knows why behind this otherwise random element. Taking this further, the player can communicate with other people via this in-game phone and Rami told us that they present this as Billy talking to real people (why would you question it?) but they’re all imaginary people being contacted through his imaginary phone.

Vlambeer, as insane as their games are, actually invest a lot of thought and time into their fictions and are very serious about them. There were no tongues pressed against cheeks or faint smiles as they recounted these ridiculous narratives and their characters, they were deadpan (sort of) and very serious about their creations. The reason for this, they said on the stage at Indie Connect, is that it’s all too easy to get lost in randomness. So, having something solid to refer back to will make your game more engaging and, even though they aren’t aware of it, players will “feel” the cohesion of a committed-to canon.

Upon learning this information I realise that I have indeed felt the Vlambeer touch elsewhere, as they have talked about their development process before and encouraged others to use it. I received an email from Rami a few weeks back after writing about Ostrich Bandito’s High Vaultage and mentioning that it had a Vlambeer vibe:

“[I]ts funny you mentioned that Ostrich Banditos reminds you of us! Ostrich Banditos is the result of a optional seminar about running a game studio we gave a month or two ago at our old school. The only way to pass the class was to create & sell a game in three weeks. They were the only ones that made it”.

There’s clearly something in this “sensible nonsense”. Vlambeer’s latest two games, Luftrauser and Gun Godz, also follows the rules they’ve laid down for themselves, as you would expect. They wanted to go mental with the WWII dogfighting world in Luftrauser but knew better to stick to what they had drawn up and remain to the more sensible backdrop they outlined for the game. The same could be said of Gun Godz which they made for Venus Patrol and has been released only to those who funded it. This is an old school FPS which has you blasting to a gangsta rap soundtrack while you ascend a hotel on Venus. Yes it’s crazy but still has a ‘serious’ backstory and the game’s end, which they showed during the talk, even caused Jan to admit that it was one of the most beautiful things he had made in a computer game, merely because of the story behind it which is only implied in places and never told to the player in any extended form.

For fear of even more repetition we’ll come to a close but now you have made it this far you can consider yourself in-the-know as to how Vlambeer work. They’re crazy as always, on the surface, but behind all of that is a very serious development philosophy that somehow ensures that all of that random, hyperactive goodness remains consistent and is true to at least itself through and through.