At first glance, Shuggy doesn’t really look like a vampire. So why, in this ridiculous premise, has our main character recently inherited a mansion haunted by ghosts, ghouls and other undead? Apparently in The Adventures of Shuggy, touching any undead or any other assortment of critter will get Shuggy killed. Why would a vampire be killed by anything other than sunlight or fire, or the stuff you see on TV shows? Most puzzle platformers don’t even have a storyline — let alone a ridiculous one — and I’m not here to analyse vampires, so let’s move on.

InThe Adventures of Shuggy, players are supposed to collect the gems that are spread throughout the level while avoiding the nasties I mentioned earlier. Gathering up all the gems unlocks new levels, and there are five different areas in the mansion each containing about 20-plus levels.

The Adventures of Shuggy incorporates numerous platforming mechanics, some new and some familiar, but ultimately still keeps things fresh. Mechanisms inspired by other games include the different gravity pulls of VVVVVV to the making use of past-selves of Braid. Players can rotate stages, get help from Shuggy’s buddies, or swing their way around using ropes. My favourite element has to be the whimsical little creatures called Shmus, which normally just aimlessly roll around making cute little noises. You have to guide them to cages containing gems, which only the Shmus can release for you to collect.

Despite the many different puzzle and platforming elements, the game never tries to mix and match them into a single level. This is a pity, and not enough of a challenge for hardcore gamers. While I appreciate that  Smudged Cat Games tries to keep things simple, there are some repeated stages where that only add on to the difficulty from similar levels. There’s a missed opportunity where the game could teach players how to progress by having the first few levels with only one puzzle, and subsequent ones with a multiple puzzles. While some might call this holding the players’ hand, I believe there’s also a certain kind of satisfaction in successfully recreating lessons acquired beforehand.

Having more than 100 levels seems like a lot. Even though most of them still feel crisp, I know I’d prefer playing 50 levels with two or three mechanisms in them rather than having 100 levels each with only one. It just feels like the quantity has been artificially inflated.

Graphically, The Adventures of Shuggy looks like a typical Adobe Flash game, but with an added touch of cartoon vibrancy. Some of the special visual effects seem to slow the game down and you could do without them without  making much of a difference. The idle animation of Shuggy inviting players to interact adds a little charm, but overall I’d like to see Shuggy looking more like a vampire. At the moment, Shuggy looks kind of more like a dirty blue-buggy-eyed purple plastic bag with fangs.

The controls of the game are simple enough. Players use WASD for movement, the space bar for jump, and Enter for the action button. Before every level, there are one or two pop-ups that tell you what the action button is for. Tips and other information are also displayed within the interface. Controls can be a little trippy as movement along stairs feels more like you’re sliding up and down. It can also be hard to control the distance of your jump which can be crucial in a platformer.

The PC version of the game has a few modes not present in the XBLA version. The local co-op mode still remains and provides 36 extra cooperative stages. The simple controls and one dimensional levels are a good and a bad thing. Maybe it’s just me, but after playing Braid I now expect every puzzle platformer to be mind-bendingly difficult. I suspect more hardcore gamers will agree with me, while more casual players will be more appreciative of the simplistic and elegant puzzles of The Adventures of Shuggy.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The indie game boom over the last few years has thrust indie games to the forefront, especially in PC gaming. But while there’s a growing consumption of indie titles, it hadn’t necessarily translated to an increase in indie-devoted distribution platforms until last year, which also brought forth even more indie bundles.

It wasn’t until after the success of the Humble Indie Bundle that developers/publisher wannabes saw the commercial viability of an indie-only digital distribution service. Before that, we had only indie-mainstream hybrid platforms like Steam. But there are still many developers who still can’t get their games on Steam or even into the various indie bundles out there. That’s why I’ve compiled this list of indie-centric digital distribution sites for indie gamers and developers alike to explore their different options.

Note: I had the privilege of asking Francois Guibert from Frozax Games and Jay Margalus from Lunar Giant Studios – the guys of Delve Deeper fame — to give their experience on working with Desura and Little Indie. For Indievania and IndieCity, Anthony from Flaming Hammer Games and Ido Yehieli, maker of Cardinal Quest provided their inputs.   

Desura

Notable games: Serious Sam, Mount & Blade, Penumbra, Braid, Machinarium, Trine

The most established and well-known of all the services in this list, Desura is also the first to support all three major desktop operating systems in Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. After first riding on the coattails of the Humble Indie Bundle — by offering free keys for games in the bundle for anyone to augment their purchase with — it has since developed into a legitimate service that seeks to define itself by being DRM-agnostic and building a strong community around it.

Download Client needed: Yes/No – Desura provides direct download links for those who don’t take a fancy to unneeded bloat, something I wish Steam provided. For those who love their community features, fear not, the Desura client comes decked with almost the same tabs as Steam’s client and more. There’s also a developer tab that provides the tools that could be useful for game developers.

Supported OS Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux

Payment options: Credit card/Paypal

Gifting: Yes

Percentage cut: The traditional 30%. Also, they only let you withdraw your fund after you accumulate $500 in your account. Not a biggie, but notable.

Alpha Funding: Supported- subject to Desura’s approval

Getting developers’ games up: Games goes live after around a day and the general process of getting it up and running seems to be plain sailing–smooth and easy peezy was how Francois and Jay put it. Desura’s staff also provides lots of support for your game running on their service although developers still retain most of the control over content(pricing, upload screenshots, trailers..)

Tools/Functionalities for developers: Desura certainly appears to justify their share of the 30% by providing an array of tools, including auto patching, mods and beta testing. The big draw though, as pointed out by both Jay and Francois, is Desura’s integration with their sister sites, IndieDB and ModDB. It really speeds up the process of getting your game live since you can draw from the same pool of assets. Not only that, you can cross promote your game on those sites. Even if your game doesn’t get through the approval process, you can be assured it will find a place among IndieDB/ModDB.

Desura’s strength seems to lie in its community. “Their customers are, by and large, some of the best we have.  I’m not sure if that’s because people buying games on Desura are already used to the ‘rough edges’ that many indie games have, but I’ve really enjoyed interacting with folks who buy our game off their service”, mentioned Jay even though Delve Deeper focused more on their Steam fanbase. Francois on the other hand says, “They seemed to care about the developer and like the fact that they can talk to the developer directly.” Francois also pointed out that this interaction is not Desura-specific but more indie-specific. Nonetheless, who’s got a bigger indie user base in the first place?

Little Indie

Notable games: The Journey Down: Episode 1, Dark Scavenger, Telepath RPG

For a portal that’s been around for almost as long as Desura, the amount of titles on Little Indie is pitifully small; 18 to be exact. The fact that they don’t even bother to categorize their games should give you a clue about the variety of games on offer. Little Indie is powered by Jade:DS, a CMS platform developed by one of the three German game/software companies that are behind the running of Little Indie.

Download Client needed: Yes. A client is needed to download and play Little Indie games but similar to Desura, it’s up to developers to decide if they want DRM on their games. If developers choose to integrate their games with the Jade:DS system, players will get access to leaderboard and achievements.

Supported OS Platforms: Windows only

Payment options: PayPal

Gifting: No

Percentage cut: 20%

Alpha Funding: Supported

Getting developers’ games up: The duration of seeing your games go live depends on whether you wish to integrate with the Jade:DS system and the level of integration. It should typically take about a day without integration and up to three days if there’s integration, according to their site. Developers will get technical support through emails to help their games get incorporated into the Jade:DS system.

Tools/Functionalities for developers: Since Jade:DS is also a full CMS, perhaps the biggest plus point Little Indie can provide developers is having your own site with full support of the Jade:DS backend with no extra costs. Your game will be available on your own site and on Little Indie too.

IndieCity

Notable Games: Brand, A Valley Without Wind, Trauma, Project Black Sun

There was a lot of buzz when IndieCity was first announced. It was part of their announcement that a major feature would be a recommendation engine that gives each gamer a personalized homepage of titles that appeals to their interests. It was a soft launch though, and by the time they finally came out of private beta it had allowed Indievania to be launched before it. I recently got another buzz about IndieCity when I found out they were partnering with indie developers from my home country to bring our games to you guys. So go follow the link and play some awesome Singapore indie games for free guys!!

Download Client needed: Yes. As with Little Indie, IndieCity requires a client to download and play games, and again it’s up to developers if they want to use IndieCity’s ICELib wrapper. There’s your standard achievement and leaderboards, and since IndieCity is still in beta expect more features to come. Two unique things about their client is the fact that it uses P2P sharing if you turn it on and of course the much talked about recommendation engine. Turning on the P2P setting will also get your games auto-downloaded and installed. Demos that gamers might be interested in will also get auto-downloaded.

Supported OS Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux

Payment options: Credit card

Gifting: No

Percentage cut: 15% – if developers integrate with their wrapper
25% – if developers choose not to integrate with their wrapper

Alpha Funding: Supported

Getting developers’ games up: A panel of developers identified by IndieCity are responsible for approving any games that get sent through their way. Both Ido and Anthony indicated that the approval process can be a little tedious and take up to a few days, but there’s support. The FAQs are there as well which helped Ido and Anthony get their games running on there. There’s a lack of transparency about what it takes to be on that approval panel, but there’s a clear checklist of criteria at their forum which gives you an idea of what is needed to get your games approved.

Tools/Functionalities for developers: “They all suck in various degrees and are pretty cumbersome to use”, was how Ido thought of the tools and functionalities, while Anthony didn’t think too much of it as well. “For the most part things just seem like they were tossed together and don’t provide anything that’s useful to me.” To be fair, IndieCity is still in beta so that could be why their tools are still very basic ones like viewing stats (page views, downloads, etc).

Indievania

Notable games: Wizorb, Ichi, Blocks That Matter, Squids, Cthulhu Saves the World

Indievania was set up by the guys behind Capsized. What started out as a way for the two-man team to sell their own games, it has since evolved into a full-fledged distribution service for indie titles. Skepticism arose over two of their prominent designs for the site in which there is no screening process for games submission and the fact that all the profits go to the developers. One might be worried whether no screening might lead to having to trawl through lots of rough stones before finding the polished gems, but a quick glance over at Indievania indicate there’s still a certain quality about the games there — I’ve even managed to find one or two freeware gems. Since Indievania is entirely funded by optional donations each time someone buys a game — there’s not even ads on there — there’s good concern about the longevity of the service.

Download Client needed: No. A email with a one time download link for the game you purchased will be sent to you. To re-download a game, all you have to do is to visit the account section of the site.

Supported OS Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux

Payment options: PayPal

Gifting: No

Percentage cut: None. Indievania pays directly into developers’ PayPal accounts with no need to wait until developers accumulate a certain amount in their account before they can withdraw funds.

Alpha Funding: Supported

Getting developers’ games up: “Indievania’s process was more straightforward and intuitive to me.” Anthony was able to get his game, Collaptris, live on Indievania within 24 hours. Due to having no screening process, Indievania is the quickest option to get your game up and running on a distribution service and the process is pretty easy as well, as Ido told me. Developers get to put their Twitter feed, website, Facebook link, etc….on their game’s page and retain full control over how their games are sold.

Tools/Functionalities for developers: None

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

After criticisms coming in from the gaming community over Insane Zombie Carnage‘s similarity with Vlambeer’s Super Crate Box(SBC), last year’s surprise hit, developer Playberries has offered a cure to the invading horde of SBC fans by making Insane Zombie Carnage free. Much of the disapproval of this game has been towards Playberries seemingly cashing-in by simply copying SBC. So how much of a clone is this game?

First of all, I had to download SBC just to do a comparison – I’ve always wanted to take a look at SBC but haven’t had the time. Thanks to this review I’ve finally done it. Maybe that’s the advantage of clone games – it allows you to review two games in one. Alright to the point, Insane Zombie Carnage is almost a blatant rip-off of SBC. Apart from a few differences, everything else from the gameplay to the level design and right down to most of the weapons is identical.

Players have to dodge and shoot zombies that spawn at the top of the screen and head towards the fire pit at the bottom whereupon they become more powerful when they respawn. Collecting crate boxes unlocks new weapons and levels – there’s only three so far, same as SBC. Sound familiar? Well, the concept of SBC combining platforming with the endless nature and intensity of defend your base games isn’t taken to a new level here.

What Insane Zombie Carnage does add is having mystery boxes that can help or hinder players by doing everything from clearing the screen of zombies to making zombies move faster. It’s a nice touch, and you’ll hope that the developer came up with more features like this to separate itself from SBC. The rest of the changes are more cosmetic. The graphics are better, there’s a soft mode that gives you three lives instead of one. There’s a local co-op mode to play with a friend as well. Playberries promises more new things to come and when they do they’ll turn this back to being paid. We’ll have to see what they come up with then.

The following applies to Super Crate Box as well – see here’s where the two for one part comes in! Insane Zombie Carnage can be addictive but in a negative, frustrating way.  You constantly die and there are more useless weapons than there are useful ones. It’s deceptively simple and seems to pit you against your gamer pride. “Come on, It can’t be that difficult to collect ten crate boxes!!”.  But it is that difficult. Sure the gameplay is intense, but it’s just too much when you keep dying while you’re just one crate box away from unlocking the next level. Maybe I do suck at games requiring fast reflexes, but this game doesn’t do anything at all to ease you into the intensity of it.

I’m just hiding here because I’m a coward

The game is also unbalanced. It just throws too much against you. Depending on the type of weapon you have, zombies may take several hits to kill while it only takes one hit for you to die. Each weapon has its own quirks to use, for example the bazooka has area damage but it takes too long to reload, making you a sitting duck for the onrushing zombies. There’s nothing like a ‘super weapon’, which you can overwhelm the zombies with and have no disadvantages to using it. You do move faster than the zombies, but only slightly.

Insane Zombie Carnage has an XBLIG version as well although really you’re better off downloading Super Crate Box. Apart from the mystery boxes and slightly better graphics, Super Crate Box is just superior in every other way. Better controls and a much smoother gameplay experience overall. It will be interesting to see what new concepts the developer might bring in the future though.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

My favourite match-three game has to be Zookeeper. What sets it apart from Bejeweled and all the other clones is the ability to switch the animal tiles while another move is being formed. This quickens the pace of the game and creates more chains. In the same way Zookeeper brought innovation to the saturated match-three genre, Collaptris mixes that style of play with the classic Tetris puzzle game.

Developed by Flaming Hammer Games, Collaptris lets you choose from three difficulty levels and among three to five colour tiles/icons – and off you go, watching and waiting for the tiles to fall automatically into place as you try to match three coloured tiles. Click on the group to make them disappear, and make sure the tiles don’t accumulate to the top of the screen or else it’s game over. The speed of the falling tiles increases as the levels progresses.

I discovered midway through playing that matching two tiles would do, so maybe I should correct the premise in that it’s match-two and not too much of Tetris.

Players can allow the tiles build up in a large group before clicking on them, for higher scores and bigger satisfaction. Anyone who has played match-three games before will tell you that the real satisfaction lies in matching a big line of seven or eight tiles, or linking as many chains as possible. Another special element to this manoeuvre  is the spawning of bonus tiles, which is a function more of the Tetris part of the game. ‘Plus’ tiles remove the row and column they’re in, while the ‘minus’ tiles remove only the row they’re in. I’ve never managed to trigger the ‘plus’ tiles no matter how huge a group of tiles I removed. The downside of amassing tiles like that is you’ll likely have many ‘Did it already reach the top?’ moments.

Galaga/Space Invader Art

There’s nothing much to mention about graphics for a game like this, since basically it’s just coloured dots on a scrolling black background. This is otherwise known as ‘Galaga/Space invader art’. Granted, there’s some sort of cloud effect… or is it the Milky Way? The chippy tune that loops over and over again while you play is annoying as hell, but the audio and video effects shouldn’t matter much in a casual game like this.

At one point in this review, I wondered whether I was over-analysing or under-analysing this title. This is what the game can do to you, causing you to underestimate the difficulty and become too confident of your ability. Just when I thought I was ready to tackle the four-colour mode, I was left overwhelmed. I still find the lowest three-colour difficulty a constant challenge, and I can’t get past level 10 at all!

Collaptris should be a better experience on mobile devices as opposed to how I experienced playing it on the PC. The developers seem to see it that way as well, and have released only the Android version free. It’s one of those games where you play while waiting for the bus or waiting in a line, and then realise that it has taken too much off your lunch break.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

This review was completed using a copy of the game provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.