Today’s game to blow away the Monday blues is Excitement by Loren Bednar. Loren Bednar is a developer I have featured hear time and time again here largely because his games are very interesting and always just a little different, and Excitement is no different.

Excitement is a procedurally generated  arcade game that feels like some kind of reverse breakout game and is very pretty. The whole idea in Excitement is to collect the stream of particles and prevent the falling stars from hitting the blue bar by dissipating their force with your collected particles.

It really is very different to most games I have came across and because of this it stands out rather well in a market filled with so many games. However don’t expect it to be easy as Excitement requires some serious skill in order to prevent 30 collisions that lead to your demise.

Average play time – 3 minutes

Excitement is anything but boring as in this fast paced arcade style game you will be fighting for you life to prevent these stars from colliding constantly. Its a great little distraction from your day and although  rather challenging it is somewhat relaxing at the same time.

Be sure to check out Excitement online now.

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!

Considering the saturated state of first person shooters today, it’s not too surprising that many of us are looking to the roots of the genre to remind ourselves why it was so enjoyable in the first place and to find where it all went wrong. Some are taking further action by actually releasing FPS’ with a distinctly old school style.

One of those is Brad Carney who was also the creator of the Doom source port Skulltag which makes the game much more playable for modern day computers. His game is called Wrack and it features the fast movement, multiple enemies and lack of corridors of FPS’ old. The setting is markedly different though so that it drops the dark undertones of Doom and Quake and settles with a more friendly and cel-shaded sci-fi backdrop.

You’ll be playing as Kain Sagar in the year 2050 during a war between humans and a whole war-load of hostile aliens. The reason for their attack on Earth is to steal the Hyperion Generator which brought peace to our blue and green planet as it could create matter out of energy. So literally anything could be created in a flash; thus poverty, war and suffering was largely abolished.

If you’ve never heard of Wrack before but want to give it a go, then you’re in luck as it’s now available to pre-order which gives you immediate access to the a playable version of the game. This includes the first three fully completed levels, access to the game’s level editor and mod tools so you can create your own levels as well as play other peoples’ creations. You’ll also get the first episode of the game as it becomes available.

You can now pre-order Wrack over on the official pre-order page and save 33% off the full price in doing so.

You can seek out more information on Wrack by trotting over to the official website.

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Orbs are funny things. They’re often used to imply a connection to the mind, as if a gateway – think of a crystal ball for instance. After playing Catch-22, which features a prominent red orb as the surface for its gameplay, I am pretty sure that they must have a way of wiggling under your skin, past your skull and into your brain. They just must.

The exhibition at Indie Connect laid out a single pew before a monitor for Catch-22. Upon said pew was an Xbox controller. Ushered over by my colleague who insisted that I “just have to try this game”, I shook hands with the developer and then assessed the game set-up as just described. Red. Orb. You couldn’t avoid that thing glaring at you. Making matters worse, the game is accompanied by a floaty, low-beat rhythm just willing you to play the game.

Having felt the naturally hypnotic pull of Catch-22, I looked back over at my colleague who had already spent at least 20 minutes with the game – was he possessed? It’s as if the game was capable of pulling people in and then refused to let them go, instead using them to bring in more players to spread the word, in a plot to (gasp) take over the world!

Brushing that nonsense aside, I sat down, picked up the controller and then faced the orb in alls its glowing glory. Atop of that was a simple message instructing me to press the A button to begin. In terms of game design, it doesn’t get any more simple than having a one button (to control them all!) interface and that is what Catch-22 rolls out with. On the controller, this was the A button, but the iOS version will transform this to just be a simple touch of the screen.

With a gulp, I squashed the A button with my thumb and we were off! Unfortunately it wasn’t long before I found out that I absolutely suck at Catch-22 (much to the amusement of the onlookers), but I couldn’t stop playing. Here’s why: you control a small blue orb to start off with which is constantly travelling around the bigger red orb. The idea is that you collect the even smaller white orbs that appear along your path – you’ll have to press the A button to jump on occasion. There’s another stationary orb at the bottom of the red orb that you’ll have to jump over too as touching it will reset the game.

That’s your first rotation at least. Once you’ve collected three white orbs, you’ll then switch to the aforementioned green orb during a bout of elegant slow motion. As the green orb, you’ll travel the opposite way around that hypnotic red sphere with the same task – collect three white orbs. The catch is that the blue orb is actually a ghost which performs the same movements as you did when controlling it before and contact with it means the whole game will restart and your score lost. Luckily, there is some help in dodging your previous self as the orbs leave traces of their movements behind them in a faint glow – they also double up as making the game look even prettier, I imagined I was outlining the petals of a flower to have it only make my task harder when switching orbs.

That’s all there is to Catch-22. It’s not a lot but the simplicity of constantly dodging yourself back and forth, combined with the games gentle, pulsing music and hazily colored visuals makes it very alluring. When you do collide and the game resets, it’s all to easy just to press the button and start all over again and you’ll keep doing this until a big enough distraction comes along to pull you away.

The version I played wasn’t the final version but I was entirely sunk into the game, so you can imagine my shock when the developer told me they’ll have proper leaderboards so friends can compete with each other. They’ll never be able to pull themselves away! Catch-22 is due for a release on iOS initially and will cost a dollar or two, but the developer also told me that they are looking at releasing the game on Facebook for free and with the leaderboards. It seems like a solid move to me as I don’t think many people would pay to play the game on PC, but once they do (and they will if it’s free) they will never be able to tear themselves away.

You can find out more information on Catch-22 over on the game’s official website.

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