What makes Ludum Dare special, indie RPG combat mechanics and abandonware on today’s Indie Links.

Indie Corner (RPGamer)
“Greetings, and welcome to the newest RPGamer column, Indie Corner. This is not a weekly column, but will instead be a sporadic look at the indie RPG development scene. And again, it’s not a typical column. Instead of directly reporting about indie RPGs, we’ll be bringing in the actual creators to talk about development and other aspects of the RPG scene. Interviews, in-depth discussion, talk of inspiration, and other editorial content directly from indie devs will be highlighted here. To start things off, we’ve gotten a few RPG devs to share how they feel about combat and battle systems. We talk about the most important aspects of a battle system, their inspirations, and what combat pitfalls they most worry about falling into and how best to avoid them. Today, we talk with AckkStudios, Sinister Design, Breadbrothers Games, Muteki Corporation, Zeboyd Games, Eden Industries, and Experimental Gamer.”

Surgeon Simulator 2013: death in your hands (VG247)
“Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a strange, almost morbid game that proves VG247′s Dave Cook should never be trusted with a person’s life under any circumstances. Get disturbed here.”

Unfinished Business: Super Hexagon creator reveals his abandonware (Joystiq)
“This Vine represents eight of VVVVVV and Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh’s unfinished projects – the first of three like it recently posted to the game designer’s Twitter account.”

Thomas Was Alone review: Mastering the inverted fall (Joystiq)
“On the surface, Thomas Was Alone appears unremarkable. It breaks platforming mechanics down to their most basic levels, quite literally, replacing characters with colored rectangles and environments with precarious arrangements of black rectangles. To reiterate: Thomas Was Alone is a platformer starring a cast of little, colored blocks.”

Indie Pleas: Indie game crowd funding roundup for April 26, 2013 (IndiePub)
“This week’s Indie Pleas include: A.N.N.E., a metroidvania pixel art adventure; Rex Rocket, a retro sci-fi adventure; My Temple, a fun iOS fitness game; and Ghost of a Tale, where you play as a mouse in a medieval world.”

Andy Schatz talks Monaco’s delay and fan reactions (Edge)
“Last week, Andy Schatz, founder of Pocketwatch games, found a bug in the Xbox 360 build of his game Monaco that caused players to consistently get dropped from multiplayer matches. As a result, he decided to delay its release mere hours before it was slated to come out. We talked to him about the aftermath and how player reaction shapes his development process.”

Piracy or baiting? The thorny legal question of Game Dev Tycoon’s honeypot (Ars Technica)
“Earlier this week, the developers at Greenheart Games distributed a crippled version of its new game Game Dev Tycoon disguised as a “cracked” version of the full game. The little Internet experiment served as an ironic and humorous poke at software pirates and a smart way to call attention to the challenges indie developers face with piracy.”

Here’s what makes Ludum Dare so special (Gamasutra)
“Whether you’re an indie developer or not, you’ll likely have heard of the Ludum Dare 48-hour competition and game jam. Three times a year, hundreds of developers come together online to create games based on a set theme over a single weekend, and subsequently vote for a winner in the weeks after.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Grandfather Clock

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

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

Discord Games is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter for Chasm, a 2D action-RPG featuring procedurally generated Metroid-like dungeons and stylish pixel art. A demo is available for Windows/Mac/Linux on the Kickstarter campaign page, and Discord Games plans to release the game in early 2014, if the campaign is successful. Chasm is inspired by the 2D platformers of the past, and will utilize gamepad support to compliment the game’s retro art-style.

“…this game can not be made without your support,” Discord Games says on the campaign page. ” We’ve been waiting forever for a game like this, but game publishers today just aren’t interested in projects like this one. With your support, we will be able to finish the game ourselves and give you a truly amazing experience.”

For just $1 or more, you can get a DRM-Free copy of Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Air Forte, as well as Thirty Flights of Loving if you pay above the average.

Kachina was one of my favorite games that I played at the Media Indie Exchange Mixer during GDC.  The game is made by Ben Esposito, who helped with the visuals of Unfinished Swan.  He opted to leave Giant Sparrow after he put together the prototype for Kachina during Molyjam.  The game is described as a physics based toy drawing from Hopi Native American culture.

The game has a unique look that blends Katarmi Damacy’s bright 3D look with a flat minimalist 2D color palette.  Kachina can best be described as a sandbox puzzle game.  In the game, you control a hole.  That’s right you play as a magical hole in the ground.  You move the hole around with the mouse or by touching the screen and eat up objects in the play field.  As objects plummet into the pit, the hole increases in size.  The challenge of the game is figuring out how objects interact with one another and solving each scene’s puzzle.

Each level has its own unique objective. Sometimes it’s as easy as swallowing up everything in sight, but most are more complex. One puzzle required me to help the chickens cross the road.  In Kachina, this is achieved by sucking them down into your magical abyss and then spitting them out on the other side of the road.  Don’t let the simple mechanics fool you, Kachina does a good job of introducing new objects that keep things interesting and fun.  Frogs latch onto things or can eat flies with their tongue and later you can even fill your hole with water and spit it up to saturate a cloud.

Kachina is being developed for PC, Mac and iOS in Ben’s spare time.  Check out the official Kachina page to keep up to date on this game’s progress.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – GDC Preview: Kachina – Sandbox Physics where you’re the Hole

Knightmare Tower is a rather interesting vertical arcade game that is actually a surprising amount of fun. Designed by Juicy Beast you must progress up the tower by jumping (and cutting) the enemies below you in order to save all the princesses.

Yes that is right it is quite the typical plot, you are a knight moving through a tower killing enemies and rescuing princesses, although the overall gameplay is somewhat unconventional. Knightmare Tower has great visuals and fantastic art assets that do remind me a lot of Castle Crashers, which is always a positive thing.

Although the gameplay dynamic is rather simplistic there is a whole host of unlockables to add a bit of variety and the overall game mechanics work so well with very basic commands but tight controls making the game work very well.

Average play time - 20 minutes

After quite a successful time online Knightmare Tower is going to be heading towards the Ouya later this month in a bigger and more complete game model. However the online version is still great and well worth your time for some mindless fun!

Knightmare Tower can be played on Kongregate 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!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘Knightmare Tower’ Next Time We Take The Stairs

Currently in development by Discord Games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Chasm is a 2D action-RPG platformer featuring procedurally generated, Metroid-like dungeons for players to explore. Discord Games has a screenshot Tumblr blog for people to follow or browse through, something which other developers would be wise to emulate. Earlier in the week, the developers revealed the first gameplay trailer for Chasm, in anticipation of this year’s Game Developers Conference. Discord Games is in attendance, located at kiosk #7 in the play area.

Visit Chasm‘s official website to find out more about the game, and follow the developer on Twitter.

Today, Steam launched a nine day sale featuring indie games. The well-timed Indie Spring Sale will overlap both PAX East and the 2013 IGF awards.

The sale page is a little misleading, though. The page claims “hundreds of games” are on sale, though when you click through the banners and get into the sale page, there are only six games featured, and broken down into the PAX and IGF categories there are only twenty more total. I imagine Steam will shuffle through the entire list, daily, throughout the duration of the sale…but it is unlike Valve to make it difficult to find sales. Luckily you can search for “indie” in the store and it will aggregate all of Steams indie titles, for easy viewing.

Some of today’s featured titles include:

Guns of Icarus Online – 75% off – $4.99
Capsized – 70% off – $2.99
Awesomenauts – 50% off – $4.99
Gish – 75% off – $2.49
Samorost2 – 70% off – $1.49

Some other deals that caught my eye while browsing through the full list:

NightSky – 80% off – $1.99
Terraria – 75% off – $2.49
Dungeons of Dredmor – 50% off – $2.49
Trine – 75% off – $2.49

Visit the Steam Store Indie Spring Sale page, to see the featured titles (which can be speculated to rotate once a day), alternatively one can also view all of the games on sale by searching for the term “indie” in the store, or simply by clicking this link.

The Indie Spring Sale comes a day after the announcement that Steam would begin selling alpha builds of games, that people can get continually updated, as the developer furthers progress on completing the game. Some of the first titles included in Steam’s Early Access program include Gnomoria, Under the Ocean, and StarForge.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGF Finalists and PAX East Games Among Many Featured In The Indie Spring Sale