Remember the days before online multiplayer? Your group of friends would huddle around the television screen with wired controllers, trash talking and laughing while giving you the occasional, jovial shove. With online multiplayer changing how we play our games together, few games have been able to achieve the same level of comradery as the pre-internet console era did. But the Columbus-based start up Multivarious Games aims to change that with their game on Kickstarter, Dangerous.

Dangerous is a two-dimensional action platformer and shooter designed for local multiplayer on the Xbox 360. With an ancient island realized in watercolor as its landscape and local multiplayer as the vehicle, Dangerous is aiming to bring back the best in competitive gaming: with your friends in your living room.

Multivarious Games’ design sensibilities are inspired by the best competitive classics such as Worms, Goldeneye, Mario Kart, and Bomberman. With this competitive attitude in mind, development started in 2012 with the creation of a  physics engine that would support the amount of adaptability the developers wanted for the action. The environments feature destructible terrain to allow the unique world to play an important role in the game. If you’re trapped, you can channel water to push your enemies back. If you’re pinned by a sniper, you can shoot off a tree limb or cropping of rocks above them to take them out. By allowing so much freedom in each level and adding in other dynamic elements in the environment, the action is sure to keep you on your toes.

Dangerous also boasts a hand-drawn, watercolor art-style. The game is still running off of place holder assets at the moment so it’s hard to gauge what the final product will look like, but what the developers have shown so far in their videos looks promising. This visual style will make the set of customizable characters even more exciting. After choosing one of the two factions, either the outsiders or island natives, you build up this character’s strength through multiple fights. During battle, you can acquire new weapons, power-ups, and other character altering items which will alter your character over time as they become stronger, but also let you specialize in different abilities like the use of heavy weapons or lighter, quicker weaponry. At the same time, the character modifiers can be disabled so that everyone can join in the fun at the same level and enjoy a purer experience.

Cubemen 2 is a fast paced, action packed, original 3D Strategy game where you use your little Cubemen units to defend and attack enemies in a range of awesome game modes including CTF, Skirmish, Territory and more.

Cubemen 2
Steam

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About the Video:
Created by Zephyr Moore

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Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Let’s Try- ‘Cubemen 2′

Ecotone is a game from Sundae Factory which actively seeks to be different. Be it the unusual dark storybook visual style, the ambient, understated and unsettling nature of the soundtrack, or the dreamlike atmosphere, this is a game that doesn’t wish to run with the pack. For some of you, I am aware, simply knowing this fact is making you lose interest. Indeed, there are many gamers who are more puristic in their views of video games, and reject indie developers’ predilection for the avant-garde as nothing more than pretension. However, based on the playable alpha demo, Ecotone’s strengths are more than merely skin-deep.

The quality of the game’s artwork is immediately striking. As I touched upon earlier, the game world really does look like a storybook turned sinister, with the player character isolated against a starry backdrop in a world filled with peering eyes. In fact, with its dream-like quality, unique use of ambient sound and puzzle platforming gameplay, the game which Ecotone reminded me most of was Limbo. Both games excel at implying their stories rather than explicitly stating them, and for making you empathize with their protagonists despite their basic, largely faceless design.

Possibly the most effective and unique element of Ecotone is the way in which every new screen is introduced with a sentence. These sentences can relate to the introduction of a new mechanic, provide a snippet of insight into the mysterious protagonist, or often both. An early example is ‘I think I had a Brother…’ On this screen, your input controls not only the player character, but also his ghostly parallel who stands on a platform above. Your goal is to deliver both safely to the other side. This is a good example of how the system works, and it’s a novel way of introducing new mechanics and interspersing narrative elements into the game. Personally, I find this to be a really interesting hook for the game, and it makes you want to play on for the next drop of text-based character development.

Having greatly enjoyed Christopher Whitman’s Run, a primarily platform-based game with a heavy focus on narrative and poetic language, I welcome more conceptual platformers with open arms. After all, in a genre this saturated your game really does need to do something different, and find its voice to stand out. Refreshingly, Sundae Factory have proven themselves willing to go out on a limb with Ecotone, and to deliver a new experience to their players.

Ecotone is coming soon to PC and Mac, but in the meantime you can grab a taste of the playable alpha build in your browser. If you’re taken with Sundae Factory‘s intriguing vision, you can back them on Steam Greenlight, or follow the official Ecotone Twitter account for updates.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Unique Platformer ‘Ecotone’ Gets an In-Browser Demo

Today’s game is the very intriguing puzzle game No One Has To Die, and despite the title someone always does have to die. No One Has To Die has a gripping narrative that changes as you follow different situations involving the characters.

The idea behind the game is over several game plays you will start to unravel the mystery behind this shadowy organisation as more plot is divulged.

Each level involves a puzzle in which you must stop the fire from spreading and save as many people as you can, however someone always must die. Although the puzzles are quite simple the real meat of the game comes from playing out all the different scenarios and unlocking all the alternate endings.

Average play time – Less than an hour

No One Has To Die is a dark and deeply interesting puzzle game that works on a very simplistic basis. The game plays fantastically from start to finish and the story holds enough suspense and deception that it will keep you playing until you can piece all the sections together.

No One Has To Die can be played on Clay.io.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘No One Has To Die’ A Game About Hard Choices

Black Annex from Man Fight Dragon is an upcoming isometric espionage action game. Currently, the developers are seeking support through Greenlight, and developer Lance E. McDonald’s Twitter feed is always full of Black Annex media.

Black Annex official website

Announced last May, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has received a promotional “Pre-order and play the Beta” trailer, for the game’s impending May release. Neocore Games put The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing through a make-over last fall when they announced that the original concept of playing as young Van Helsing didn’t feel adequate. They allowed fans to choose from three new character-concepts (The Mysterious Stranger, The Chevalier, and The Veteran) and fans ultimately chose The Mysterious Stranger concept.

“Being indie is a great challenge and a very exciting experience with incredibly long working hours and plenty of difficulties,” Neocore says on their developer’s blog, “but it’s worth it! We consider it a gift that we can create something permanent and fun. Independence allowed us to keep you up to date during every phase of the development. Thanks to you, now we already have a very supportive and active community who are eagerly looking forward to the launch of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing.”

Visit the official website, where pre-orders are being taken. Pre-ordering gets access to the current Beta-build as well.

Gunpoint Gadget has been floating around for awhile now. For at least two years, Tom Francis has been developing this quaint spymaster game that relies on player’s cunning to successfully complete the missions presented. A recent trailer, narrated by Francis, demonstrates a number of the tools at the player’s disposal, to solve the various puzzles in each level. In the trailer, Francis also reveals that Gunpoint Gadget will be coming to Steam, when the game launches. Steam contacted him awhile ago, but now is the first time he’s been allowed to say anything about it, Francis explains in the video.

Visit the official website to learn more, and follow the game on Twitter.

After the success of their previous titles in the well-received Iron Grip universe, ISOTX has moved out of their elaborately created universe to make space for a new one in March of War. March of War is a free-to-play turn-based strategy set in an alternate universe during World War II. March of War calls itself dieselpunk, so expect some twists you wouldn’t normally see in a 1940s strategy game.

One of the most interesting aspects of ISOTX’s description of their cross-platform game is how the story will work in the game’s universe. The tagline goes “rewrite the twentieth century – join forces in March of War.” There is a lot of potential in this, and I am curious about how it will all come together with the game’s optional pay-to-play system. Playing games will earn the player gold and research points, but the player can “speed up some of the game elements” by using real world money to buy gems in the game.

Do you think this sort of system encourages a form of ‘cheating’ by letting players speed up, or even bypass the more tedious moments of the game? Or in a social game does this make things easier for those who do not have time to invest? Let us know in the forum thread here!

If you want to see the game in action, why not sign up for the recently released beta? All you need to do is sign up on the March of War website, and you are all set.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘March of War’ Enters Closed Beta

In today’s game you take control of a somewhat unheroic child caught out in a storm. It is your job to guide him away from all the rain and keep him dry for as long as possible in Don’t Rain On Me by Matthew38940.

Along with the basic movement controls you also get power-ups in the form of rain coats and umbrellas which will give you more chances to hit the rain before failing. Of course it will be important for you to get all the power-ups you can as after a short time out in the rain it will start to literally rain cats and dogs.

The added animal obstacles really make the game ramp up in difficulty as you must also jump over the frightened dogs and cats along with avoiding the rain falling from the sky.

Don’t Rain On Me is a delightfully simple game that offers a great distraction from you day as a fun arcade game with some simple yet fun mechanics.

Average play time – 5 minutes

If you are looking for a minor distraction from your day Don’t Rain On Me may very well be what you are looking for as it offers a short yet fun arcade game.

Don’t Rain On Me can be played on Kongregate.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘Don’t Rain On Me’ The Exploits Of The Least Heroic Child

Auroch Digital  has released a new relevant game, Cow Crushers, around the recent scandal about fast food beef tainted with horsemeat. I’ve written about GameTheNews’ previous titles, My Cotton-Picking Life and Endgame Syria, and mostly concluded that although I admired the motivation behind relevant games, both titles ultimately fell flat for me.

But Cow Crushers is exactly what relevant gaming should be.

The mechanic is clear and engaging, and never deviates from the message. At it’s most basic, Cow Crushers is a pattern matching game. Animals appear in front of the players, as if brought in a conveyor belt, and the player needs to tap a burger, steak or chop button to smash that cow into the assigned cut of meat. Blood splashes up as animals become meat, and it’s surprisingly gristly for a stylized 8-bit game. As the game progresses, horses come in with the cows, and the player’s goal is to makes as many cow-burgers as possible without tainting the meat with too much horseflesh by accidentally making horse steaks. The contrast of gristly blood splash and the cute burger icon is particularly effective.

An effective message game needs a solid, playable mechanic like Cow Crusher’s pattern matching. Players engage the game, and then Cow Crusher’s message, through the conveyer belt, the repetitive actions, and the scoring system that allows a certain percentage of horsemeat into the food. Hey, that’s just a simple mistake made by someone hitting buttons on a hurry to make steaks and burgers. The player is that “someone”, not some faceless baddie, and we’ve already seen how effective it can be to put the player in the role of the villain in many other serious games like Train and McVideogame.

Cow Crushers is available to play online, like Auroch Digital’s previous titles, but it’s also available for iOS, despite Apple’s policies against publishing serious games. The policy has been well discussed, but the crux is this passage from Apple’s developer guidelines.

We view apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.

(The full text is available here.)

LittleLoud’s Sweatshop game, Molleindustria’s Phone Story, silly border-crossing game Smuggle Truck, and even Auroch Digital’s Endgame:Syria have run into App Store trouble on this account. Endgame: Syria was renamed Endgame: Eurasia, the specific names were changed, and the game is now available on the App Store. Molleindustria’s Phone Story is a snarky satire about iPhone manufacturing, including sweatshop conditions and worker suicides, so it’s not entirely surprising that there would be some difficulty in getting it onto the App Store. Still, a policy against messages in games and serious games is distressing information for developers of serious indies and other devs experimenting with pushing the art form in new ways.

I’m glad that Cow Crushers made it onto the App Store to allow more potential players to check it out, and try such an engaging, and clever relevant game.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Cow Crushers’: A Message Game Done Right

They Came From The Sea is a well put together mini game that reminds me greatly of the early Nintendo Gameboy games such as Pokemon and Zelda.

This game however has you protecting a bunch of eggs from strange creatures that are coming from the sea, with your only task to prevent the eggs getting eaten by these creatures.

The game starts out quite easy with you just having to protect the eggs from a few of these sea creatures. However it is not long before you must protect the eggs from all manner of creatures that are coming from the sea.

The game mechanics are quite simple as you just have the arrow keys, space, and S which give you all the utility you need to defend these eggs. Space will use your sword to slash at these creatures and help you protect the eggs from these sea creatures, but don’t let them get too close or else your HP will take a beating.

Average play time – 10 minutes

They Came From The Sea is a fantastically simple game with some great retro graphics and great music. Everything comes together well in this  fantastic little arcade game.

They Came From The Sea was created by Omaromeir and can be played now on Newgrounds.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘They Came From The Sea’ A Great Little Arcade Game