Well, that’s not exactly fair. More like different games, not browser based, more ‘retro’ styled I guess. There are no criteria for inclusion in this post other than that the game must be available for download without charge. Oh, and that the games in question must have been produced by an independent source. This is especially important. Video games as a media have had a very short life, and as such are not usually considered in the same light as films, music and books. This is generally fair enough. Most videogames are pretty shit, to be honest. I would argue that this is so due to the way in which they have been created.
Making a videogame is an incredibly expensive endeavour normally, and there’s always a lot of money riding on any game you might go into a video game shop and pick up. The act of physically putting out a videogame is a risky and prohibitively costly one. As such, it is often hard to discern any creative freedom evident in commercially released videogames, Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule, and certain companies and directors can ‘work the system’ and produce a commercially viable game that pushes the medium of videogames forward. But it’s hard to label even these projects as being ‘independent’ in the same way that a record or a film could be seen as being an independently produced product. ‘Video Game Band’ Grasshopper Interactive’s 2005 masterpiece ‘Killer 7’ portrayed a truly post modern videogame experience, taking every classical convention that video games had to offer and turned them on its head. The plot was insanely complicated, tackling issues such as post colonial identify, institutional sexual abuse and the notion of the self, and it did so in perhaps the most brazen and user unfriendly yet seen in a videogame. In fact, it is such a fascinating game, it will no doubt be explored in a later blog post, ho ho. Returning to the point, however, the fact is that regardless of how bizarre Killer 7 was, it was still financed by Capcom, was released on two separate consoles and was sold as a stylish action game “from the twisted mind of… the creator of Resident Evil”. Thus, kudos for getting this masterpiece into the shops around the world, but the fact remains, not everyone could make a game like Killer 7.
When it comes to indie games, however, we return to the inclusionist aspect that this blog post is trying to instil. Here are games created by people with real day jobs, who, in a bid to get as many people as possible to enjoy their products, and so as not have to deal with any draconian publishing house looking simply to make a profit, are people who have made video games completely single-handedly, under extreme restrictions, and have still come out with something awesome to make people happy.
So here, I present to you some fun, free, independently produced games to play guilt free in these financially troubled times. In no particular order:
LA MULANA
La Mulana is a game produced in a decidedly self consciously ‘retro’ fashion. While it was build for Windows, in actuality it looks and sounds far more like a game made for Sony’s MSX console. An unashamed pastiche of the Indiana Jones series, La Mulana stars a whip cracking hero jumping around torturous terrain, solving (insanely hard) puzzles and beating the local wildlife to death. What makes La Mulana stand out is its thoroughly well realised game design. Coming across like an amalgamation between Metroid and Castlevania (nothing original there then), La Mulana sees you exploring the brightly coloured world in a non linear fashion. Get stuck in one area, and you can simply wonder off somewhere else to try your luck. One thing to bear in mind is the game’s extreme difficulty, requiring both quick reflexes, a heavy degree of memorisation, and a cerebral cortex the size of a Chinese River Dolphin. Still worth the download for the less gifted gamer just to sample the amazing theme tune.
DOWNLOAD (link to translation patch. You'll find a link to the actual game too)
OMGWTFOTL
As the name of the game suggests, OMGWTFOTL is a strange game. In fact, it’s absolutely bizarre. Belonging firmly in the ‘Visual Novel’ genre of video games, OMGWTFOTL is a game that deliberately sets out to alienate and beguile the player in pretty much every possible way. Naturally, to discuss the manner in which this is accomplished would inevitably detract from the nature of the gameplay. All I will disclose is that OMGWTFOTL has much in common with Bizarro fiction, with it’s strange, pop culture referencing and use of extreme violence. The plot of the game, influenced by the players choice will frequently travel down some unexpected routes, breaking boundaries of time and reality. Sometimes funny, sometimes upsetting, and always confusing, OMGWTFOTL is a perfect example of what can be accomplished with zero budget and a particularly nihilistic outlook. Just whatever you do, don’t genuflect.
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NOMLTEST
NOMLTEST is better than Geometry Wars. There, I said it. Well, in actuality, they are very different games. Geometry wars is basically Robotron 2048 with flashier colours and a more satisfying control scheme. NOMLTEST on the other hand has more in common with modern bullet hell shooters, with its tiny hitbox, insane bullet storms and the ability to ‘eat’ bullets by keeping them in close proximity, with your scoring affected by this risk/reward ethos. What makes NOMLTEST and Geometry Wars comparable is the infinite nature of both games: conceivably, you could play them forever without ever dying. This is hardly a facet that is unique to these games; Space Invaders, Galaga, Tatsujin and 1,000,000 other arcade games go on ‘forever’ if you’re enough, with only the ever increasing difficulty finally forcing you out into the harsh light of day. Nomltest just implements this system extremely well. With all its modern features combined with a ‘classic’ retro sensibility, NOMLTEST is addictive shooting action with lovely graphics and a fairly in depth scoring system. Another plus is that its low system requirements mean it could run on pretty much any computer (running windows).
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ICY TOWER
The only non Japanese game on this motley list, Icy Tower is very obviously an American product. The music, sound effects and character design are pretty bland and clichéd, but the game itself is something else altogether. Like Sonic, it is controlled with just left, right and jump. You make your guy jump up the platforms of the titular tower as the screen scrolls faster and faster. That’s it. Quickly you learn that the faster you’re going when you push jump, the higher you jump. It’s possible to ‘combo’ these jumps and build a huge score while ascending the tower even more quickly. Like all good, simple ideas, the games main draw is its addictiveness. Each game will only last a few minutes before your cheeky avatar plummets to his death, but each time, you’ll want to try again. The concept is so simple, yet so beguilingly hard you’ll marvel at the ways you can foolishly die, and each time it is your own fault, and your own fault alone.
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BLUE WISH RESSURECTION PLUS
Back to Japan, and we have one of the ‘fullest’ packages on offer here, the rather spiffing Blue Wish Resurrection Plus (hereby abbreviated to BWR+). BWR+ takes all it’s inspiration from shooters by Cave, a Japanese company that is perhaps the last surviving true innovator of the 2D shooting scene in Japan. In particular inspired by the proximity based scoring system of 2003’s Ketsui, BWR+ presents a rather less formidable challenge than it’s arcade based big brothers. The enemies bullets, though formidable in their number move relatively slowly. Your ship’s hitbox is tiny and clearly visible, to it is usually easy to avoid collisions with a bit of practice. And, above all, if you get hit by a bullet, you loose a bomb instead of a life. Without wanting to delve into the complex semantic of shooting games, this essentially means you have about, say 20 lives to complete the game, whilst in a game like Ketsui, you’d only have 3-7 to complete a Much Harder Game. None of this really matters; BWR+ succinctly describes exactly why modern shooting games are so awesome. The sheer spectacle of bullets and collectable items flying around the screen is a joy to behold, and it remains a perfect entry point into a most prohibitive of hobbies. One word of warning: BWR+ is fairly big at almost 50mb unpacked. While most of this is for the soundtrack, it is perhaps the only game that could cause some problems on shitter computers.
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CHO REN SHA 68K
Cho Ren Sha 68k is an indie remake of an indie game. Lolz, awesome. Interesting factoid out of the way, here’s another: Cho Ren Sha 68k is perhaps the most respected indie shooting game ever. Of course such talk is generally based on conjecture, hyperbole and general lies, but I would be willing to stand by such a statement. As shooting games go, Cho Ren Sha 68k is as conservative as they come. If you’ve played a shooting game, you’ll know how to play Cho Ren Sha 68k. One button shoots, one button bombs, kill stuff, dodge bullets and enemies. That’s pretty much it. So why all the love? First of all, unpacked, Cho Ren Sha 68k takes up less than 2mbs, which is roughly the same as a Mega Drive game. Any Windows running computer could run it (though the music is a bit stuttery in Vista; it fixes itself after a time though). Second, it looks gorgeous. Every sprite is a perfect homage to some other shooting game. Thirdly, it plays as good as it looks. Super smooth, with lenient collision detection, even a novice can get some fun out of it. Indeed, while it has more bullets than the average classically inspired shooter, it’s also comparatively easy. You won’t be finishing it first time, but a few weeks practice should set you straight. Finally, it also sounds brilliant, with the soundtrack album still selling well to this day. So really, Cho Ren Sha 68k is a simple game, zero originality, performed extremely well. And that, my friends, makes an awesome game.
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DOKUTSU MONOGATARI
Anyone who knows anything about indie games will have heard of this, and will be thinking “oh that’s so obvious but fair play man, fair play” or something else equally middle class. Dokutsu Monogatari is indeed the daddy of the indie videogame, and represents everything that is good about videogames in general. First of all, it must be acknowledged that Dokutsu Monogatari was created by one guy. This guy didn’t even do it full time. He didn’t even have any professional experience of making videogames. Instead, he’s a middle aged, overworked business man who coded Dokutsu Monogatari in the middle of the night when he really should have been sleeping. It took him five years to make. Dokutsu Monogatari (tr: Cave Story) is an almost perfect video game. The character design is cute, witty and completely unobtrusive. The story is sad, funny and expertly underplayed. The gameplay itself is absolutely delightful: a combination of Metroid style low gravity exploration and Gunstar Heroes blasting. The graphics are incredible, nostalgic yet heavily stylised. The music is mind blowing. All this puts to shame 99.9% of any game made in any situation. And it was made by one guy who had no formal video game making training, and no real spare time to finish it. Now that’s a game. Dokutsu Monogatari the perfect example of how story telling in a video game should be done. It is the very essence of what makes a video game great, and will elicit the same experience of when you used to boot up your Mega Drive as a snotty nosed child, except now you’re twenty-fucking-two and you’ve just realised that you’ve actually fallen in love with a game properly for the first time since you were 15. Here is a gorgeous game, with an expertly defined set of lovable heroes and villains that will have you grinning for its entire 5-10 hour play timeDokutsu Monogatari is so light a program any computer could run it. You really owe it to yourself to experience, if just for one more time before you die, that feeling of being totally engrossed in a narrative not through reams of dialogue, but the seldom used narrative tools of the videogame medium: the seamlessness between player character, the game’s setting and the player itself. Prepare to be amazed.
DOWNLOAD (Link to translation patch. Link also has link to the full (free) game)
*****EDIT
Cave Story is being released on Wii Ware :D:O:D
Thank you Michael, think I'll give the shooters a miss for now but hopefully get round to giving the others a go sometime soon!
ReplyDelete...and in the interest of diversity, here's an interesting Japanese webgame.
(Hoshi Saga's 1 & 2 are also linked to on that page)
Ah, but the beauty of shooters is that they are the easiest to get in to! And, conversely, the hardest. But like Chess, Shogi and Cluedo, they can be played on many different levels. Just don't feel daunted by the illusion of difficulty: the ones I have linked are piss easy. As are most modern shooters D:
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