Space isn’t a friendly place, and if my years spent consuming sci-fi media has taught me anything then it’s fair to say the chances of you encountering an evil chest bursting Xenomorph is 99.99% assured. Infinity Runner lacks such a creature, but it makes up for this deficit with its own collection of strange denizens and futuristic quirks, like how you spend the entire game naked.

The game is best described as an endless runner akin to popular mobile titles like Temple Run, only with a storyline that’s broken down into several levels. You assume command of an amnesiac unfortunate enough to be at the epicentre of a calamity on a ship where everything is blowing up. A disembodied voice informs you that there’s no time to talk and that you must run for your life. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, shortly after escaping you also find out that you’re a werewolf. Yup.

Gameplay consists of an on-the-rails sprint through the bowels of the ship, with you taking control of our naked protagonist’s positioning. As you progress you’ll have to manoeuvre around the oncoming hazards by dodging or jumping over them, and any contact with a danger zone will cause you to fail and kick you back to your last checkpoint. You’re given a set number of lives to use up on each level, and once they’re all gone you have to start from the very beginning of the mission. The checkpoint system alleviates a lot of the stress that comes from an accidental death, and for the most part there are sufficient lives given to get through a level without having to restart much.

That is until you approach the final level, which has you engage in combat with an unsavoury individual. The game handles combat with a series of quick time events which aren’t too intense and can be completed fairly easily. The last fight, however, consists of a string of these sequences one after another. With such a small time frame to hit each key, there’s a good chance you’ll fail. The big issue with this segment is that once you’ve played through your extra lives, the game takes you back to the very beginning of the level, requiring you to sprint through a number of hazards to get back to the boss fight. It was infuriating, even on a normal difficulty level which rendered the rest of the game at a reasonable difficulty.

As a werewolf, you’re undoubtedly going to want to make use of your inhuman speed and strength, and the game is happy to oblige. There are sections dotted around some of the levels which will transform you into your wolf form, making you run much faster along the rails of the level. Whilst this may seem like a good thing, it soon became clear that speeding up your movement in a game that requires you to spot incoming dangers and react to them isn’t necessarily a positive. Hurtling towards a sharp turn already requires a good amount of focus and fast fingers when running in your human form, so when you’re supercharged things become more difficult. The very option of becoming this powerful beast becomes more of a burden than a gift, and as a result it feels like this power up flies in the face of what it was supposed to be.

What’s more, being a werewolf also changes the way the camera moves as you start to run on all fours. Naturally the camera follows the movement of a bounding were-man and bobs up and down to compliment the movement. It’s a nice touch, but the bounding feels excessive, sometimes to the point where you lose vision of any incoming hazards mid bounce. Again this becomes more of a hindrance to the player rather than a boost, making the werewolf form more of a curse than a blessing.

Infinity Runner does a great job in maintaining its momentum as the game progresses, feeding you new hazards regularly to keep you on your toes when you least expect them. There are enough explosions, neon strip lights, and sleek chrome surfaces present to make the futuristic space ship feel authentic despite never hanging around long enough to look at the finer details. The story of werewolves in space is weird enough to work well in the setting. Despite the heavily flawed werewolf controls, the game remains intense enough to keep you engaged throughout the story. However, people with slower reactions or a low tolerance to failure should tread carefully as there’s enough room for error to cause fits of rage worthy of a werewolf.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

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

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Who would have thought that millions of years from now, there might be a galactic space opera where one determined four-headed space lizard would be brokering trade routes and managing the political stage of the solar system.

Fortunately The Last Federation lets you do just that, as you assume control of the last living Hydral. A great war breaks out and you are forced to spend a millennia trapped on a technologically inferior planet. That is until the savage citizens finally manage to produce a spaceship, crafted in part from the designs of your own crashed ship. Being the underhanded quadruple-headed reptile that you are, the opportunity to blast free from the shackles of this world were too great, and so you ‘liberate’ them of their hard work and sail towards the stars. Your journey commences, and first on the ‘to-do’ list is making a unified galactic federation of planets.

After escaping, the game hands the reins over and lets you do your own thing. Do you want to be a peaceful Hydral dignitary, carefully brokering trade deals and negotiating peaceful terms between hive-mind insectoids and subversive boar folk? Perhaps causing a pandemic amongst the owl people is more your style, forcing them to join with you out of desperation for the medicine they sorely need before the space flu wipes them out entirely. The choice is entirely yours, although not everything turns out the way you plan.

Take my first game in which I chose to ally with the bloodthirsty Burlust, a savage war-like race of soldiers and chieftains. After challenging and defeating the head chieftain, I had earned their respect. I was a proven warrior, and the next in line to the Burlust seat of power had come to respect me. They were my allies now, and forever. This was a mistake.

Cast forward one or two space years, and I had put the Burlust to the back of my mind. I had won them over, and it was time to convince the rest of the races to join up with me. My only issue was that every time I tried to make nice with one of the seven races, my dearly beloved Burlust friends would march on in and murder their faces off. This particular game ended with a federation of two races: The Burlust – who numbered into the billions and had spread across the known solar system like an epidemic of axes and hellfire – and one solitude four-headed lizard coated in the dried blood of several races.

The game isn’t just about clicking on menu options and watching the events unfold. Alongside the tactical diplomacy that you manage via the overworld solar map, there will be occasions when talking just won’t cut it. Luckily you still have your nifty stolen spaceship and a complete arsenal of laser beams to point at those you wish to get rid of.

Combat is handled in a semi turn-based fashion. You spawn into a miniature space arena and are given control of a single ship, yours. After picking out your combat stance, ranging from auto attack to direct control over the target, you plot your course and then the actions are carried out in real time. A few seconds pass and you take your next turn, simultaneously with every other unit on the map.

It’s a great addition to help mix things up for a game that heavily focuses on reading through scores of menu dialogue, and for the most part the combat does alleviate the pressure on your eyes. However, a few hours into the game and you’ll start to notice the flaws in the enemy AI. You’re given three bars to control the amount of power going your weapons, your shield, and your engines, and whilst this at first seemed like an interesting way to make the combat more dynamic, I found nearly all situations could be handled by simply forgetting about the engine power and pouring everything into shields and weapons. After two or three turns, the opposing forces were usually dead and my shields would barely have been depleted. Tougher enemies were scarcely seen, and dealing with them was simply a case of turning the engine power to match their speed, then using your long range rounds to pelt them as they foolishly chased you.

The Last Federation is a game with a very specific focus. It doesn’t get lost in a sprawling procedural sandbox world; it doesn’t assume that you want to be trawling across the stars in search of something to do. Instead it gives you one goal, and asks you how you would like to achieve it. Using that as a starting point the game then builds several paths for you to take, each one boasting something unique or interesting.

That’s not to say that everyone will enjoy the game though. There is a heavy focus on tactics and diplomacy, and a general amount of intelligent thought is required throughout if you want to win. If you like blowing things up and soaring through the skies as a top gun maverick, this probably isn’t the game for you. If, however, you enjoy weaving a sordid plan of conspiracy and subterfuge as you set a war-mongering race of savages against a helpless bunch of owl people, then this game is probably going to appeal to your inner politician.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

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

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

I can’t claim to have ever kicked a door down. It sounds like something only the toughest of grizzled superheroes would do, and if we slip back into reality for a second I’m almost certain it would hurt. Luckily you can supplement any physical pain for virtual satisfaction in Door Kickers, a game that really seems to have a vendetta against doors.

You assume command of a SWAT team, controlling each member simultaneously from a top down perspective. As each level starts, you’ll have the freedom to pick which of your guys you deploy, what gear they use, and where on the map they will spawn. There are a few notable differences on each gear load-out – lock picks and silenced weapons that allow stealth entry and shotgun wielding breach masters to name a few – but for the most part I never really had cause to dive into this feature. Because you’re given a set of predefined soldiers to pick from at the start of each level, I never felt the need to go in and play around with the gear of my pre-existing units. The ones I started with seemed to work just fine, and I would never have any issues coping without my stealth guys for a round of two if they had been killed in a previous mission.

Losing one of your own during an engagement is treated as little more than a minor inconvenience, which dampens the sense of risk as you plan out your path through each level. After a unit dies in a mission, their ‘slot’ is considered out of action for the duration of the next mission before being filled with a randomly generated new squad member. By doing this, the game makes you feel like the units at your disposal become expendable commodities rather than prized members of the team, and by having no incentives to keep your favourite soldiers alive, it becomes too easy to condemn a squad member to die for the sake of an easier outcome.

Controlling your squad is intuitive, and all but the most advanced actions are simple to execute by drawing out a path for each unit to take. To accompany this, the game sports a useful pause mechanic that allows you to freeze the live events of each level, giving you time to assess the situation and draw out your plan before the bullets fly. Along with controlling your positioning, you must also manage each unit’s line of sight, which becomes important in the later levels as a fog of war obscures any parts of the map that aren’t currently in your team’s cone of view. The way Door Kickers handles this is by allowing you to set a focus direction for your units, so they can strafe past corners and doorways whilst still being able to watch for incoming threats. It’s a simple mechanic that adds more depth to the proceedings, as an unaware squad member can easily be reduced to a chalk outline if they aren’t looking in the right direction.

Being a tactical game about putting your foot through various doors, I’d be remised if I didn’t talk about this mechanic. You will encounter a lot of doors, usually with a generous helping of armed thugs just waiting for someone to pay them a visit. When approaching a door you’re offered several options, and whilst I’ve yet to find one that simply lets me open the door with the handle, the choices are all tactically sound. The flash bang, for example, can be used to pacify any goons hiding around in the next room, allowing your guys to rush in and murder them before the tinnitus wears off.

The levels can come in a variety of flavours, from bomb disposal engagements to hostage rescue. It’s a good mix of objectives that you’d imagine the average SWAT team would be handling regularly, but after playing each objective type in succession only the bomb disposal and hostage execution missions seem to have you doing something other than murdering every bad guy in the building.

A good example of this are the hostage rescue missions which have you raid each level in search of a number of vulnerable civilians. Whilst there is an option to secure them and lead them outside to safety, the mission doesn’t end there. It doesn’t stop until you seek out and kill every last armed unit in the building, which just seems petty. Not content with foiling their plans of capturing innocents for ransom money, you then have to return to the house and make sure that they know you won by delivering a final burst of justice to their face.

Door Kickers is an honourable attempt to recapture the spirit of those old tactical squad games, so much so that I would be inclined to describe it as the illicit lovechild of the classic S.W.A.T games and the Commandos series. The controls are easy to grasp and offer the potential to set up an elaborate plan of attack when taking on each mission. Unfortunately, in its current state the individual units hold little worth, and the game doesn’t necessarily punish mistakes as much as it should. The AI does a good job in keeping you on your toes during each level, but there’s little incentive to craft a master plan and then execute it like a well oiled machine.

Note: Door Kickers is an Early Access title, and in its current state it is not feature complete. This review is of the game at the time dated, and both content and quality are subject to change.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

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

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

I’ve deleted this sentence several times now, and I’ll be surprised if this one makes it in. it’s near impossible to describe Jazzpunk to someone without losing something in translation. I’ve tried for several days now to pin down exactly what makes it such an oddity, but aside from a few scribbled notes and a doodle of a geisha-fly hybrid, I’ve got nothing.

Let’s start with what we know to be factually true. Jazzpunk is a story-driven adventure set in the first person perspective. You play the part of a secret agent called Polyblank, tasked with completing assignments given to you by a strange man in a repurposed train car. Your missions will have you travelling across the world to appease your handler, stealing objects of interest and throwing spiders at people as you go.

From this point on, things are going to get a little bizarre.

My first steps into the world, and I find myself greeted with a long tunnel full of clutter. A rudimentary search of my surroundings provides the first clue that this game isn’t your average adventure, as performing my mandatory “let’s click action on everything until I activate a secret” spree sparks a conversation between me and, well… a cardboard box. As the sentient box gargles and groans aloud in an incoherent ramble, its words become projected across its surface. Not only is this piece of litter alive, it’s begging me to leave it alone because it’s “just a box”. Prodding, staring intently, and eventually climbing on top of the box failed to persuade it to say anything else so I pressed on to the first level, slightly bewildered from my encounter with a cardboard entity.

I find myself continuously drawing comparisons between Jazzpunk and the old point & click adventure games like Monkey Island. There’s a certain charm factor that exudes from every piece of dialogue, every obscure scenario that plays out, and every sexual liaison with the roaming robot prostitutes in the streets. Each interaction is set up like a witty one liner, and for the most part they land on target, leaving you either grinning from ear to ear or scratching your head in a daze of bemusement.

Jazzpunk is set up in a way that encourages exploration over progression, and by not fully searching the outer reaches of each zone you’ll be missing out on the essence of the game. Take the first mission, in which you’re plopped right in front of a Soviet office that holds your goal. You could just stroll right in and get down to business, but a closer inspection of the surrounding buildings will yield a whole host of side activities to draw focus from the main plot.

Whilst searching through the game’s different levels, you’re likely to stumble across one of the many mini-games scattered around. Whether it’s beating up a car with your fists, slaying pizza zombies, or racing across a busy street as a frog, you’re likely to crack a smile as you play out these fun homages to old school classics. Perhaps the best of these, Wedding Qake is a like-for-like copy of the old Quake FPS arena shooter. You’ll swap heavy firepower and monsters for matrimony and cake shaped mini-guns in this satisfying distraction that I may have spent more time in than I should have.

Numerous hidden paths and secrets go a long way towards breaking apart the different sections of the game. and whilst the constant quick-fire of gags starts off great, the constant barrage of jokes tallying up against you at later levels can leave you somewhat exhausted by the torrent of humour. While it’s disappointing to see Jazzpunk diminish in the later sections, it’s to be expected from something that relies on comedy to be the focal point of the gameplay.

Jazzpunk is a breath of fresh air for adventure games, and by flaunting its own flamboyant take of a number of well known gaming tropes it pulls off an excellent parody of this culture that is both unique and entertaining. While the game does start to wind down in its final moments, there’s no reason why fans of the absurd shouldn’t jump right in and face the brain melting weirdness just waiting to be discovered.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using the PC version.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Being a dad isn’t easy. With a loving wife and two rowdy children to care for, there’s little time for relaxing. “Mow the lawn” they say, “I want chocolate milk!” they scream. A normal dad might have issues juggling so many responsibilities at once. Fortunately, this is no ordinary dad. This is Octodad.

Masquerading as a doting father, you assume the role of an octopus deep undercover amongst human kind for reasons unknown. It is your first and foremost duty to remain covertly placed amongst the clever guise of your suburban family, which is harder said than done when you’re moustache is formed from two of your 8 tentacles.

Dadliest Catch picks up with our super sleuth of a hero preparing for his big day. He’s getting married to the woman of his dreams, and the game uses this special occasion to introduce you to one of the biggest features in the game. You’re given full control of Octodad’s arms and legs, toggling between controlling each set to move around or interact with the environment. If you’ve ever played the old Flash game QWOP you’ll understand instantly what kind of mayhem is waiting to ensue here, but for those who haven’t the only way I could draw a comparison would to describe it as like watching a drunk trying to wait tables. Expect everything to be broken and everyone involved to look confused or covered in questionable substances.

And that’s the magic of Octodad. You’re put into the mundane world of suburban life and asked to complete menial daily tasks most wouldn’t even think twice about, all the while having such a huge handicap that comes from having tentacles instead of opposable thumbs. Take the morning routine for example, where your fatherly responsibilities include fixing yourself and your family their morning beverages. Sounds simple enough, right? Well that soon escalates when you accidentally slap your daughter with the milk carton, and any attempts made to apologise see you wipe out every table and bookstand in tentacles reach. Breakfast is ruined, but your loving family are none the wiser to your espionage.

The game progresses, placing you in familiarly sterile environments that are just waiting to feel the squishy embrace of your flailing limbs and for the first half of Octodad things feel great. It’s entertaining beyond all reason to watch someone be so destructive whilst attempting to mow the lawn or navigate a grocery store’s narrow aisles.

However, an hour or two into the later sequences and things seem to start slipping. The levels start to become more bizarre, and considering you’re playing a game about an octopus pretending to be a man, that’s saying something. And it’s at this point where the game loses some of its momentum. Whereas before you were laughably failing to pour coffee before, later goals have you sneaking past fishermen and marine biologists in a number of stealth-based sections. It feels like an unnecessary attempt to shake things up and give the player extra content, when I’d wager having more ‘familiar’ environments and generic locales would have been enough to keep me more that satisfied with my cephalopodan antics.

Octodad isn’t a huge game by any means, and your average player will likely clear the story in two or three hours. This might be enough to put some off getting it, but with the addition of the Steam workshop, there’s plenty of scope for user-made levels to increase the longevity of the game. Already, we’re seeing faithful remakes of classic levels to wiggle through with your gelatinous limbs in tow, and with the community usually being the creative buggers that they are, it’s only a matter of time before there’s a whole host of content to keep you occupied.

There’s a great deal of humour to be found in Octodad, whether it’s a chuckle because you just climbed into the trolley of an unsuspecting grocery shopper, or from the casual complaints from your wife as you accidentally mow down her precious flower bed. Its appeal rests solely in its absurdity, and despite its decline near the end of the game, Octodad’s humour and gameplay are spot on making this a solid entry to the ‘Octopus Simulation Game’ market.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using the PC version.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

We receive a lot of review requests at The Indie Mine. While I would love to be able to support every indie dev out there with coverage of their game, that’s simply not possible. This also means that occasionally a gem or two will slip through the cracks. Thankfully, every so often one of them turns up again. In the case of Rise of the Ravager, I finally had a chance to play it at a recent indie expo after not being able to squeeze it into my schedule when the game launched earlier this year. How’d it turn out? It’s an impressive blend of many classic game design conventions within one addictive package. To get a sense of what Rise of the Ravager is like, imagine if Missile Command, Ikaruga, and Zuma had a digital baby.

An ancient god is awakening in the cosmos and raining its minions down from the skies.  It’s up to the player to use a cannon and sharp reflexes to destroy the underlings before they can reach the planet’s surface. The twist is that combat is based on a color-matching system. Red enemies can only be destroyed by red cannonfire, blue by blue, and so on. The game was originally designed, in part, for the Xbox 360, so naturally enemies can appear in each of the four face-button colors. Swapping between the artillery is instantaneous and accomplished by pressing one of those buttons or the keyboard should the player opt for that on the PC version. Thankfully the PC version also offers gamepad support.

You and up to 3 friends can challenge the gods themselves.

Not that the challenge ever lets up, but the player is given a helping hand with an upgrade system. Boosts to attributes like firing speed or new abilities like a screen-clearing bomb can be slotted using skill points earned during each stage. Simply surviving will net a few points, but extras are rewarded for taking no damage or destroying the occasional spy machine. After each round, points can be unslotted to be placed elsewhere. This certainly helped when I found out I went for the big boosts too early, or when I needed to refocus on damage for a boss level. Not all of the abilities are exactly clear on how they function or why they should continue to have extra points dropped into them, so the ability to undo mistakes is almost a necessary feature. It also brings just the slightest bit of an RPG element to the table and can help diversify the gameplay depending on the player’s choices.

The upgrade systems allows you to spend – and later undo – points on powerful abilities.

If there’s an area where the game especially shines, it’s that the developers have done a fine job of pacing the difficulty. Enemies of increasing varieties of color are slowly introduced over the first half a dozen stages, giving the player a chance to mentally adjust to the increasing complexity. Eventually the opposition also brings new tricks like firing their own projectiles or releasing smaller minions, all of which also have to be destroyed. RotR nails that feeling of “just barely made it” that is the hallmark of a good shoot-em-up. Rarely did I ever feel overpowered because of the upgrades, and even though I failed a handful of times, I never felt cheated. That was even the case when playing through the game plus mode which is unlocked by beating the campaign.

The thematic presentation of the game takes a lot of its inspiration from ancient Central American influences. The colorful sprites and backdrops reminded me a lot of Zuma, another game that relies heavily on a quick-paced color matching system. The developers have also incorporated a remarkably deep mythology to the world of RotR. Between each stage, the history of the titular Ravager is revealed through brief, almost scripture-like story fragments. Although the core of the game is simple and arcade-like, it feels like a more fleshed-out game by placing it in within this framework.

For those who don’t want to play alone, Rise of the Ravager does include a multiplayer component. Up to three buddies can join in on the campaign at the start of any stage, and having them there adds a lot of fun and strategy to the experience. Boss fights tend to be trials that involve alternating between going on the offensive and the defensive, but having one or more friends means that responsibilities can be divvied up. It’s not all about being a good teammate. Even though it’s a cooperative experience, bragging rights are at stake because the game totals each individual player’s score on every stage. The winner gets to determine how to spend the hard-earned upgrade points. Although the Xbox version is a perfect fit for a living room gaming session with friends, it would’ve been nice if the PC version included an online multiplayer component rather than just the single-screen view.

Rise of the Ravager is simple done right. The developers have taken the best elements of shmups and retro arcade titles and created a polished game of their own. While an extra mode or some unlockables would help to keep players coming back, there’s enough there in the game plus campaign and multiplayer to keep gamers coming back for at least a little while.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a PC copy provided by the developer for that purpose. Version 1.0.2 was used in this review. Rise of the Ravager is available on PC, Linux, and Xbox, and information on all versions can be found on the game’s official website. 

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Combat Cats’ story is pretty basic. Kitty Island is a peaceful haven, plentiful with catnip. That is, until one day when all the catnip disappears. Seems the local aquatic life has a bone to pick with catkind, so its up to Kitty Island Homeland Security and its brave fighter pilot squad to defeat this bubbling menace and get back the catnip. Leave it to cats to have a war for drugs.

While Combat Cats is fairly typical, it does change up a few things. For once, it’s a match-four game, not three. Plus, there is far more flexibility in matching than the typical puzzle game. A myriad of shapes are allowed, so long as at least four similar blocks are connected in some way. Everything happens very quickly in each level. While tempting to go full-out with a barrage of weaponry, it’s important to keep track of your health in later levels as things become increasingly harder. The aquatic alliance has a few tricks up its sleeves, including bubbles that will sometimes appear on top of your blocks, obscuring them and keeping them from matching from with others until you pop them.

While primarily a block puzzler, the game has action/rpg elements to it that increase the stakes. Your kitty pilot has a life meter, and all the blocks have different effects, such as repairing your ship (healing you) or dishing out different kinds of damage to your enemy (shooting rockets, poisoning them, etc). There’s even an occasional nuclear bomb block that blows out an entire row of either horizontal or vertical blocks and deals out massive damage to your fishy foes. All of this serves to fight and hold off enemies until you can reach the end of the level, at which point you will be awarded up to three stars depending on how quickly you finished.

The stars are not just a way to rate your play, however. Each subsequent level requires a higher number of stars in order to access it. If you don’t have enough, you’ll have to go back to previous levels and try to do better to earn more stars. While this does give the game a bit of replay value, this is where its mobile trappings become apparent. Besides stars, you get cash and catnip after each level which you can use to upgrade your blocks/health and buy different ships. While not terribly hard to get more currency with which to upgrade, it is slow enough that without dishing out some real world cash, it becomes easy to lose interest after a while unless you’re really dedicated. Luckily, if you don’t mind this, the prices are pretty fair.

Control-wise, the game is satisfyingly smooth. The mobile version features standard one-finger tap controls, while the desktop version only requires a mouse to play. Both are quick and responsive, however I personally found the desktop version easier and visually clearer to play since there’s so much going on during the game.

The pixel-style art is cute. If you like cats, it’ll be quite adorable, and there’s several familiar feline faces to be seen in the bunch. The music itself, is, unfortunately, nothing to write home about. It’s fairly forgettable, but at least in the mobile version it’s always present. A few levels in on the desktop PC version, the music straight up stopped. I eventually had to restart the game to end the eery quiet. Luckily, this is the only performance issue I found while playing.

Overall, though, despite adding a few twists to the traditional block puzzler, Combat Cats is just too typical to really stand out amongst the rest. After playing through it, I asked myself, “Did I have fun?” Well, no, not that much. The smooth controls are really the highlight of an otherwise standard and somewhat bland game. Unless you really really like cats and are in desperate need of another match-three block puzzler, honestly there’s not much of a draw. It’s just okay.

Combat Cats will be available on the Google Play store for Android and the App Store for iOS on September 9th. PC/Mac/Linux versions are still in development, though there is a version for Windows 8 already available. The game is also up for voting on Steam Greenlight.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose. The Windows and Android versions were used.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Wyv & Keep is a puzzle/platformer game created by A Jolly Corpse, a three-person indie development team that are – in their words – from the hellish underworld. The game’s core puzzle mechanic is focused around the cooperation of both characters to climb up walls, push boxes across and/or down, and reach the end goal of each level. Every level has a final score, and it’s one of the things about the game that doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t give you a reason to care. You’re scored on how many times you die or restart. The problem is that while there are a lot of levels which can be planned out meticulously ahead of time, it’s more likely you’ll go by trial and error. If you end the level with a bad rating, you can go back to achieve a higher score. There’s no real fun in this, though, as repeating levels in puzzle games doesn’t work as well for replay value as other genres do. The game would potentially end up with a poor sense of pacing playing this way. When it’s clear the high score doesn’t account for much, it’s quickly thrown by the wayside.

Fortunately, the puzzles are put together well, the difficulty is set at a reasonable, gradually-increasing pace, and there is a good deal of logic and thinking that is needed throughout. Each level takes place on a single screen, and it never overwhelms you with too much information at once. The trial-and-error approach mentioned above also helps in figuring out tricks the game has hidden up its sleeve – I’ll leave it to you to go and figure them out. The one instance where pacing is an issue comes from the lack of an instant restart button, which seems like a small issue. However, it’s becoming a standard function for games of this type instead of having to pause every time to admit defeat.

Still, even playing by yourself there is a wonderful connection you develop between yourself and the two characters. It’s about teamwork, figuring out where Wyv or Keep needs to be at any point of the level. You can swap between characters at any moment, and the game – at times – feels like a simplified version of Thomas Was Alone, except while you only have two characters to go between, their uses are exponentially bigger. There is the option of playing online or local co-op, and local works with either both players using the keyboard or the keyboard and a wired controller. It lends itself to a co-op game, having two minds to solve a problem is always better than one, of course.

The game looks like many 16-bit retro titles that are becoming the norm lately, but it still looks beautiful and holds up against the best that are currently on offer. Both characters have charming facial features and react when the other ends up in a sticky situation. That’s the best way to describe Wyv & Keep: it’s a charming puzzle game, and is the sort of experience that could be easily introduced to a non-gamer for the first time.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

The Windows version of this game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

 Made by Przemyslaw ‘rezoner’ Sikorski in HTML5, QbQbQb tasks the player with matching triplicates of differently coloured blocks around small planets with either the keyboard arrows or a gamepad. Each complete set adds points to the total score, and a new planet is unlocked once one thousand points are achieved. Gameplay starts out slow and fairly easy, matching the initially and similarly smooth, relaxing music. Inevitably as the player succeeds in completing sets and stacking combos, the music and rate of blocks increases. The size and length of the blocks also changes, leaving less space for other blocks. It’s a subtle change, almost unnoticeable until the player starts messing up. Similarly to Tetris Attack (and thusly, the Pokemon Puzzle games), unconnected blocks start adding up, penalizing the player when the stacks break through the planet’s atmosphere (the white halo surrounding the planet). Do this a certain number of times, and it’s game over.

QbQbQb Single-Player Mode

Like many of the games in the genre, QbQbQb is deceptively simple. It’s a pure challenge, addictive both due to its mechanics and aesthetic. I mean, oh boy, it’s a pretty game. The color palette is mild and unsaturated yet blooms and explodes across the screen. The more triplicates a player completes, the more starts happening, with butterflies and fireworks and flourishes like flowers in a strong breeze. The game accomplishes all this while still maintaining a relatively minimalistic art style. In conjunction with the game’s music which transitions from smooth to energetic beats, QbQbQb has simultaneously a calm and frenzied atmosphere. It’s very easy to fall into a trance-like state while playing, simply taking the opportunity to absorb the sights and sounds of it. That fact works great to transform game overs not into an irritation, but rather just another chance to enjoy the scenery all over again.

As a very neat addition, QbQbQb also has a two player mode that can be played with a single keyboard (one player using the WASD keys and the other using the arrow keys) or two gamepads. It’s pretty much the same game with two planets instead of one on the screen. It would be nice to have online play to compete against friends that don’t live locally, but that’s a rather minor complaint. The only other thing I can say disappointed me about the game is that it’s just too short! I would’ve loved even more planets with many more additions.

QbQbQb Two-Player Mode

For four dollars however, QbQbQb is a pretty great value, as the soundtrack containing all the wonderful upbeat electronic music is included with the purchase. The game is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux at rezoner’s website through a Humble Widget and will eventually arrive on Android and iOS. There’s also a playable in-browser demo available on the website.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose. The review was based on the Windows version.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Failure arrives in many forms when you play Kerbal Space Program, surprising you when you least expect it. You can run out of fuel, land too fast, or simply build a rocket that is inherently doomed to rip itself apart. Watching rockets crash into things at high speeds is fun, but it’s heartbreaking to have your flight end in disaster after committing time to the rest of the journey.

Luckily the ship building system is easy to use so you should be able to put together something which is vaguely flyable. Parts clip neatly together, and there are a range of fuel tanks, thrusters, and cockpits from which to choose. The two main types of vehicle are space planes and rockets, but you can also build wheeled vehicles, space stations, and satellites. You build rockets in stages, so that you can jettison fuel containers as they are emptied. Carrying dead weight into orbit is likely to doom your mission, so you’ll need to design your stages carefully.

Kerbal Space Program is still in development, but already there are a variety of scenarios and training missions. The training is useful to give you an understanding of the less self-explanatory parts of the game, such as adjusting orbits. The scenarios put you into difficult situations and let you try and get out of them, and this is good practice for when you get to your own missions.

Eventually the game will contain a mode where you need to create your own space program. The costs of building rockets will presumably be offset by making money from missions, and this should make the game feel more directed. Crashing ships might be fun, but it does grow dull, and the real substance of the game is found in building efficient spacecraft and attempting to reach other planets.

Kerbal Space Program isn’t just for people who are interested in spacecraft. It’s a simulation, but it’s rarely restrictive and dull. You have the freedom to create your own designs, and when they fall apart you can laugh and try again. The game brings a sense of humor to the world of scientific simulation. Kerbal Space Program can be bought right now, and it’s recently been made available on Steam and Linux (I played the gabber on Ubuntu). There’s even a free demo. It’s still in development, but it’s already very playable, and I’d recommend that you give it a try.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this rating mean?

A review copy of this game was provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.