Well here’s an interesting one. Swarm Racer is a racing game by Lexaloffle where you race the clock to collect all of the gems on a maze-like map. Simple sounding game, but the interesting thing is that you control a whole swarm of bees, rather than a single space ship or something. The Z and X keys expand and contract your swarm, so in order to finish with Gold on each map, you have to use these skills to your advantage. I tried a few of the maps, but it seems I’m too inept to get anything better than Bronze medals. The levels look a hell of a lot like Bangai-O, one of the most fun, Japanesest shooters I’ve ever played. But here you’re racing instead of doing battle with a Robot controlled by a baby dinosaur.
This picture sums up Bangai-O’s story nicely:
Indie games have been getting a decent amount of press these days. I guess ever since Portal’s success last year, games like Audiosurf being distributed through Steam, and the hype surrounding games like Fez at the IGF festival, indie games are a lot easier to find and play through the interwebs. I just grabbed the demo of Noitu Love 2 earlier today and started kickin’ some ass.
Noitu Love 2 is developed in its entirety by Joakim Sandberg. A single person did all of the programming, level design, art, music, everything. This is exactly the kind of game that makes me look forward to everything the future could hold for the gaming industry. The fact that in this day and age, one young person can develop a game that’s better than games made by teams of dozens. NL2 is a side-scrolling action “platformer” that actually uses the mouse and keyboard to control your character. You use the WASD keys to move around, and to attack you just point and click. And it’s got an incredibly fun zoom-to-enemy-and-whoop-ass feature. When you point and click on any enemy, you fly over to them instantly and start pummeling them. The mechanics of NL2 also seem ripe for a Wii-Ware title. Sandberg also loves him some boss battles. Every level has at least 1 or 2 minibosses and a regular boss. Go buy this game and get ready to click really, really fast.
Here’s a little taste of the insanity:
Well here’s an interesting one. Swarm Racer is a racing game by Lexaloffle where you race the clock to collect all of the gems on a maze-like map. Simple sounding game, but the interesting thing is that you control a whole swarm of bees, rather than a single space ship or something. The Z and X keys expand and contract your swarm, so in order to finish with Gold on each map, you have to use these skills to your advantage. I tried a few of the maps, but it seems I’m too inept to get anything better than Bronze medals. The levels look a hell of a lot like Bangai-O, one of the most fun, Japanesest shooters I’ve ever played. But here you’re racing instead of doing battle with a Robot controlled by a baby dinosaur.
