Puzzlers and indie games have been one in the same for quite some time now as the puzzle genre allows for great creativity and innovation on very reasonable budgets. Narrow Monolith, a small indie studio from the UK has taken a leap of faith into the puzzle genre with Polarium an abstract minimalistic puzzler.

Polarium combines some rather intense and rapid gameplay mechanics with many of the classic mechanics of more cerebral puzzle games and from what I have played it works well. The game sets out the basic premise rather nicely and slowly begins to build on it adding new and interesting mechanics.

The difficulty curve seems in line with most puzzlers and although the mechanics to begin with seem rather basic. With some further development Polarium can indeed become a very interesting and unique puzzler.

Although the game is still in the early stages of development there is a great deal of potential here starting with a solid framework that holds some great ideas. Polarium is still in the early stages and because of this Narrow Monolith are looking to get further investment from the public to allow them to fully realise the potential of Polarium.

Narrow Monolith started a Kickstarter just the other day in the hope of raising £30,000 in funds to finish the project. Polarium can be played as an alpha via IndieDB which should give you a better understanding of the project and really it does speak for itself.

Be sure to check out the Kickstarter for additional information.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Polarium’ A Brand New Abstract Puzzler That Has You Play With Cubes

One of the most talked about indie games ever is finally making its way to PC after spending one year on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Fez the genre defining smash is at long last going to make the leap to the PC which will no doubt put a smile on many PC gamers face.

Fez is focused around the main character Gomez who appears to live in a two-dimensional world, this is the case until he comes across a mysterious artefact which grants him a magical fez allowing him to perceive a third dimension.

Fez is a puzzle platformer in which you must use your new power to navigate around the world in ways previously unbeknown to Gomez in this beautifully created three-dimensional world. Fez has won many awards in its history both after release and prior, and quite rightly so considering just how bigger impact this game has had on the community at large.

Fez will support controllers along with all the standard achievements for you all achievement hunters out there and will even include Steam cloud saving so you can take the game with you anywhere.

Fez will be available from Steam from May 1^st however the price point has not yet been announced. To find out more be sure to visit the Steam store or the official site.

One of the most talked about indie games ever is finally making its way to PC after spending one year on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Fez the genre defining smash is at long last going to make the leap to the PC which will no doubt put a smile on many PC gamers face.

Fez is focused around the main character Gomez who appears to live in a two-dimensional world, this is the case until he comes across a mysterious artefact which grants him a magical fez allowing him to perceive a third dimension.

Fez is a puzzle platformer in which you must use your new power to navigate around the world in ways previously unbeknown to Gomez in this beautifully created three-dimensional world. Fez has won many awards in its history both after release and prior, and quite rightly so considering just how bigger impact this game has had on the community at large.

Fez will support controllers along with all the standard achievements for you all achievement hunters out there and will even include Steam cloud saving so you can take the game with you anywhere.

Fez will be available from Steam from May 1^st however the price point has not yet been announced. To find out more be sure to visit the Steam store or the official site.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Fez’ Finally Makes The Leap To PC

Learn in today’s Developer Links why to use the Lua scripting language, what kind of social media policy to decide on, and how a developer raised money from pirates.

Mew-Genics Teaser Week 17, Cat Fight! (Team Meat Blog)
“As many of you might have guessed from the song “Cat Fight” in the Ridiculon video post, Cat fights are a large part of Mew-Genics. How will these fights go down?  How will the game actually play?  Why have i been using faked graphics for all the cats ive posted in the past 17 weeks of updates? find out next week! when we finally announce what this damn game is!”

The Video Game Kickstarter Report – Week of Feb 15 (Zeboyd Games)
“Not much this week in terms of new kickstarters to look out for, but I did spot two that I thought sounded interesting. The first is Throw Trucks With Your Mind – a multiplayer FPS where ‘you’ll fight entirely through NeuroSky’s MindWave headset peripheral that reads the electrical activity of your brain.’ It’s up to $11k of its $40k goal with 26 days left to go. The second is Genocide Dolphins. I have no clue why it’s called that, but it’s a FPS with a really trippy visual style. It’s only at £417 raised of its £5k goal with 12 days left to go, but the goal is modest enough that I could see a last-minute recovery.”

Democracy 3 Development Blog #1 (Cliffski.com)
“A short video with me going through the new stuff in Democracy 3:”

Why Lua? (AltDevBlogADay)
“A question that I get asked regularly is why we have chosen Lua as our engine scripting language. I guess as opposed to more well-known languages, such as JavaScript or C#. The short answer is that Lua is lighter and more elegant than both those languages. It is also faster than JavaScript and more dynamic than C#.”

Drafting A Social Media Handbook Policy For Developers (Gamasutra)
“Big companies have recently gotten into hot water by trying to govern employee social media use — but the right way to do this is even more complicated than you might expect, so Gamaustra presents this article, written by an attorney, to help put you on the right track.”

The Witness Audio: 1000 Subtle Layers (The Witness)
“I didn’t think Witness was going to be an easy project by any stretch, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be one of our biggest creative challenges. I’ve worked on nearly 80 projects spanning feature film, games, ads and other sorts, and my job as sound designer had always been to broaden the experience in every possible way. The Witness inverts this notion.”

Indie Dev Makes $12k Through Piracy Promotion (Develop)
“An indie developer has made more than $12,000 after advertising its game through the Pirate Bay. In a blog post, Sean Hogan wrote a post-mortem of the experiment to advertise action-adventure RPG Anodyne through piracy channels, and noted a significant upturn in website hits, Steam Greenlight votes and sales.”

Rocket Report #6 (Rocket Bear Games Blog)
“Last week was quite exciting, development-wise. Guess what?  Those helicopters that I added to the game last time can now do airstrikes.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Interest Groups

I hope by now everyone is fully aware of the fantastic FPS Natural Selection 2 (NS2). Released last year by Unknown Worlds NS2 was the long awaited sequel to the original mod and one of the best asymmetrical FPS of all time.

Unknown Worlds have been working tirelessly over the past year to develop NS2 continually post release along with fostering an e-sport community,  and considering it is an online only shooter this is vital. Amongst all of the new maps and updates that have come out over the past few months we now see the actual Decoda integrated development environment (IDE) being released to the public. Decoda was the IDE used to create NS2 with, no doubt many developers have eagerly anticipated this day.

Unknown Worlds co-founder Max McGurie stated the studio was now in a position to give something back to the community and felt Decoda would be a great open source asset for all. Unknown Worlds hope the community will now look to play around with NS2 and their own games using this powerful development platform to create something awesome.

This is great news for developers and modders looking to tinker with some of the tools in the IDE or to start developing their own projects using this powerful system. This should also encourage user mods for NS2 and in time maybe a whole new genre defining game itself.

It’s really great to see Unknown Worlds opening their IDE to all, who knows what next. You can always find out more about Decoda on the official Unknown Worlds site.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Unknown Worlds Release Decoda IDE Open Source

With the launch of the Ouya, there will there be a launch of new titles. The developers at Night Light Interactive are working closely with the Ouya team to produce a game for their console that will also play cross-platform with Mac, Linux, and PC. Whispering Willows is a horror puzzle adventure game across five chapters that follow Elena on her journey to find her father through the haunted halls of the Willow mansion.

With what we were able to play in this very early alpha-build, Whispering Willows definitely looks promising. It’s very rough around the edges at this early state, but it was comforting to see that the developer’s  art was well implemented and the finished project should have a very cohesive art direction.

The gameplay in the demo provided teased at some elements that will have interesting repercussions when combined with more mechanics later in the game. For example, by using Elena’s astral projection ability, she can squeeze through cracks in the walls and unlock doors that are preventing her progress, although the presence of light creates an impassable barrier for her and the other spirits.

For one puzzle I needed to get a key in the attic. The ladder was too high, but I could use my astral projection to slip through a crack in the ceiling. However, even though I had made it to the attic I was unable to reach the key because my projection couldn’t go through the bright light streaming through the window. Instead of using that ability I had to move a chest under the ladder and climb up to reach it.

In the environments the player will be able to find messages and documents that flesh out the lives of the now dead inhabitants and reveal the darker secrets of Willow manor and direct the player toward the next puzzle that will move them through the game. The structure is not anything revolutionary, but the puzzles are embedded into the environment in clever ways, and I can’t wait to see what the team pulls together in the end.

Night Light Interactive has just started their Kickstarter campaign, and you can help them make Whispering Willows into the complete experience it was meant to be. Visit the campaign page or their official website to learn more.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Hands-On First Look At Horror Puzzle Game ‘Whispering Willows’

Joe Danger Touch will make the death-defying leap onto iOS in just a scant few hours. Hello Games revealed as much on their Twitter feed, as well as on their development blog.

The updated mobile edition of the downloadable console hit will offer new adventures, over 30 characters, and multiplayer compatible between all applicable apple phones, tablets, and other devices. Word is it’s also more challenging than the PSN/XBLA versions, have a look at the trailer:

The game is to arrive on Android devices at some point as well, but no official word from the team on when at this time – which may mean tonight, alongside the iOS version, but I wouldn’t really count on it.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Joe Danger Touch’ Prepped For Midnight Launch On iOS

Gene Hunter Studios, an indie game company from Melbourne, Austrailia, has recently released their first prototype for Dr. Hex, a tower defense game with a tiny twist towards hex strategy games.  Instead of having the loose structure that typical tower defense games have, Dr. Hex adds a bit more puzzle and rigidity to the equation, allowing you to change the attack range of each one of your towers based around its hex placement system.

By using this hex placement system, where you decide to put your towers becomes ever more important since you have such limited space to place your towers when you compare it to a majority of other tower defense games.  The strategy part of the hex system makes it so that any towers within one of the blocked off hex areas can only affect enemies that are moving along a path that connects to its area, making placement a key part of Dr. Hex‘s gameplay.

Dr. Hex is only available as a prototype for now, so it doesn’t have the best graphics or any audio / music, but its gameplay is fairly solid already and it has plenty of room and time to grow and be refined.  If you want to try it out in its current state, you can check out the prototype (but be gentle!  its the first prototype of their first game!).  If you want to keep up with the development of Dr. Hex as it happens, you can check out Gene Hunter Studios’ official website.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Dr. Hex’ Preview – Tower Defense With A Twist