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.

In an industry where every successful indie title requires a powerful story or a unique art style to achieve media attention equal to that of blockbuster studios, Knightmare Tower is a breath of fresh air. This is a game purely focused on having fun by being incredibly addicting. Knightmare Tower by Juicy Beast brings players back to a time where it was common practice to sneak into the high school library and play on the (likely outdated) computers, and it is absolutely perfect.

It is difficult to describe why Knightmare Tower is so great, but you play as a knight and you get to pummel dragons in the face. The player’s primary goal is to save ten princesses who have been kidnapped and locked in a massive tower. Instead of simply taking the stairs, our hero launches himself from a barrel and gains speed by slaying each monster along the way. Failing to hit a monster results in losing friction, and if you miss too many times, the risk of falling into lava becomes greater.

The simple mechanics are reminiscent of the flash games of yore in a sense that Juicy Beast fixates on the “Less Is More” ideology. It works wonderfully, of course. The music is over the top and the art style is aesthetically similar to that of Behemoth’s Castle Crashers. The developers acknowledge that this is a very silly experience, but the bells and whistles are part of what makes Knightmare Tower so much fun. It all blends together seamlessly, and nothing feels out of place in this gravity-defying adventure.

More importantly, Knightmare Tower is addicting. The player earns gold for each turn, and depending on the performance, a better score means more gold. Gold can purchase any number of items including armor that can take more damage, or boots that increase the player’s overall speed. By the end of the journey, your roughshod knight will look like a valiant warrior. This is not to say that the game is without challenges, however. Knightmare Tower is very easy to pick up but it can be difficult to master. Certain levels of skill and timing are required to beat the game’s later levels, but it is a steady stream of progression that anyone can jump into without feeling overburdened. Not only that, but it is quite rewarding to beat your previous score with each turn.

Knightmare Tower succeeds at everything it attempts. While the journey to the top is not without its fair share of challenges, the smooth gameplay and silly artistic landscape make the climb a much more enjoyable experience. Plus, Knightmare Tower is cheap. It is on Steam for $3.99, and it is available on iOS, Android, and OUYA as well. Juicy Beast gives players a great product at an affordable price, and I can not give it enough of the praise it deserves. The bottom line? Knightmare Tower provides hours of fun and is easily one of the best indie games available right now.

To purchase Knightmare Tower and check out more from Juicy Beast, feel free to check them out here.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Truffle Saga puts you in control of a dog named Truffle who must destroy mushrooms by throwing acorns at them. You throw acorns the same way you slingshot fowl in Angry Birds, except you don’t control how hard you throw them. You even get a white dotted line showing the path of your most recent throw. Unlike Angry Birds, which gives you multiple airborne critters to shoot your enemies into green bacon, Truffle Saga only gives you one acorn per level.

With all the weird stuff in this game, it shouldn’t be surprising that acorns are an effective anti-fungal agent.

At first the only obstacles are sticks and leaves, so all you need to make your shot count is good aim. After a few easy levels bouncing nuts off leaves, you’ll have to learn more tricks. There are flowers that eat your acorn and spit it out, bees that act as trampolines, and monsters that swallow your acorn, ending the level. Those of you who want games to make sense are not going to have a good time. These challenges add depth to the game, but unfortunately they also cause it to fall apart. Some of these extra elements require you to use awkward touch controls, especially the bouncy bees. To make matters worse, Truffle Saga suffers from a common AAA game trap and forgets what kind of game it is. There are a few levels that are solved by moving a bouncy bee around the bottom of the screen like in Breakout. Fortunately, you can skip levels by tapping an onion icon in the corner of the screen.

My other major problem with Truffle Saga is that its ads are really annoying. Paid versions on other platforms may not have them, but I played the Android version on my Droid Razr HD. There were many times when a new level had just loaded and I tapped the screen to throw my acorn, only to be thwarted by an ad that popped up just before I touched the screen. I eventually got sick of this and turned off my WiFi, but then the game kindly informed me that it had also fallen into the AAA trap of requiring a constant Internet connection.

Like most mobile games, Truffle Saga has a three-star ranking system to increase its replay value but with an interesting twist. Each level has three gems to collect in addition to the mushrooms, but after finishing the game you’ll be challenged to play each level four times, collecting a different number of gems each time for a crown. It’s a great design choice because avoiding gems is often trickier than collecting them.

Truffle Saga has some interesting puzzles and a clever way to add replay value, but I can’t recommend it because of its awkward controls, intrusive ads, and genre amnesia. If you can live with those things, you can get it on Steam, Google Play or the App Store.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

© 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.

Its TD aspect shines through as an efficient method of crowd control, defense, and at times even allows for players to be that much more aggressive. The goal for each level is to go from alien base to alien base, disabling and capturing them, so that you may move on to the next, while defending all previous bases. Towers greatly help with this effort, especially in later levels where things become frantic.

In general, there is a ton of strategy involved in the game. You must manage your resources appropriately so that you have the units, structures, and upgrades you need to beat every level. After the first couple of levels you are also forced to spread out your units and decide which alien bases to attack first. Units also have effective counters, weaknesses and strengths. Altogether this leads to interesting strategic gameplay for each level.

Because Infested Planet is an indie game, some part of it had to suffer due to budget. I would definitely say that the graphics did in this case. While the graphics do serve their purpose they are far from nice. I don’t think that the standard argument of “stylized graphics” can be applied here either since the textures themselves aren’t even good quality. But the graphics don’t get in the way of the highly enjoyable gameplay, so they can and should be forgiven.

Story was another blip in this game’s perfection. However, I really don’t think the developers ever meant for it to be anything more than a reason/setting for players to kill a bunch of aliens. The story basically just serves as a way for the game to explain why all the gameplay is developing the way it is (new enemy types coming in, objectives, and new units to make use of).

Overall, Infested planet has surprisingly fun gameplay filled with varying enemy types, plenty of options for killing said enemies, an okay filler story and graphics that serve their purpose. I had a lot of fun with this game and I think you can too if you can get over its mediocre graphics and story. Rocket Bear Games have made the game available for PC and Mac now at the fair price of $14.99.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

10 Second Ninja will make your heart race, your palms will be constantly soaked in the sweat of stress, and your sense of time will be reduced to intervals of ten seconds. Why? Because Dan Pearce, a BAFTA award winning developer no less, has deemed it necessary to condense the best parts of break-neck platforming down to the rigid constraints of a stopwatch.

And it’s bloody brilliant.

The game has you take control of a ninja on a quest to destroy Robot Hitler and his army. Being the unpleasant fellow that he is, Robot Hitler has banned all ninjas, and so begins your swift journey of vengeance as you cleave your way through his army of Nazi robots, and eventually even Robot Hitler himself.

Everything that makes 10 Second Ninja great can be traced back to that damned ten second timer. Your time is everything, down to the millisecond. It’s tense, perhaps more than it should be, but there’s something almost inexplicably compelling about trying to shave your best scores by even a fraction of a second. Figuring out the fastest path will have you returning to each level time and time again like a twisted drug addiction, adding buckets of replay value to what could have otherwise been a one-time experience.

In an effort to help you achieve the best scores possible, your arsenal includes a sword with a deceptively large arc of attack, a double jump that can help you change course mid-flight, and three shurikens that can help you skip sections all together with a bit of timely precision. Learning to master these three simple mechanics can help you knock seconds off your time.

And then there’s the leaderboard. If 10 Second Ninja’s timer is the drug, then being able to see everyone else’s score on a worldwide leaderboard is undoubtedly the dealer of this score-obsessed addiction. Never before have I been so compelled to try, time and time again, to beat the scores of other players as obsessively as I did in this game.  To say that achieving a high slot on the leaderboard is fulfilling would be an understatement, but perhaps more importantly your time on there will be fleeting as everyone else attempts to vie for the top spots, turning the rush for domination into a finely tuned arena for only the most dexterous.

10 Second Ninja doesn’t complicate things. The gameplay is simple enough to pick up and play without much guidance, and yet at the same time allows for more experienced and score-hungry players to experiment within the confines of each level in an effort to minimise their completion time. With the added drive of leaderboard dominance and fluid animations all around, this is one addiction I will struggle to shake for a long time.

Oh and I’m currently third place worldwide on Canyon, so if you could just not beat that score, that’d be great.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

What does this score mean?

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

10 Second Ninja was released March 5^TH on PC & Mac.

© 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.

This was part of my experience with Quest of Dungeons, a 16-bit, turn-based RPG which tasks players with navigating through multiple levels of a ruined mansion to find a magical lantern that has been used by a powerful sorcerer to steal the light from the world. The artistic styling is everything you’d expect from a roguelike game, the controls are smooth, and I didn’t encounter any bugs or glitches (which is hard to say about a lot of indie games). However, the repetitiveness of both combat and level progression dragged down an otherwise entertaining experience as I kept waiting for another element to emerge and provide a new challenge.

Players can choose between four characters: The Warrior, The Wizard, The Shaman, and The Assassin. The Warrior relies solely on melee combat to defeat enemies, while The Assassin is able to take out enemies from afar with his bow. Both characters are able to implement a variety of special abilities to do area damage, increase stats, and deal extra damage for a time, but these abilities are rarely more effective than their standard attacks. The Wizard and the Shaman both rely on magic and spells to defeat their enemies, but they do so in different ways. The Wizard’s abilities focus on direct damage, while The Shaman uses black magic to weaken and disorient his foes before moving in to finish them off. The enemies all rely on melee attacks and aren’t much of a challenge on the two lower difficulties. On the hardest difficulty, you’ll need to rely on both skill and luck to survive as the enemies take more hits to kill and large groups will surround you if you’re not smart.

As I progressed through the procedurally generated levels, some enemies would taunt me and my character would occasionally remark on his surroundings, but there wasn’t much of a storyline or plot to follow. I know first-hand the difficulty in programming a linear story in an otherwise non-linear environment, but the lack of a cohesive story outside of the singular main objective didn’t provide much incentive to explore the entirety of a level. The occasional quest and boss would pop up, but the quests simply tasked me with finding and killing a “special” enemy, and the boss battles lacked the formality required to be considered a true “Boss Battle”. If it wasn’t for my loot-happy, “completionist” OCD, I would have descended through the mansion with reckless abandon, defeated the sorcerer, and grabbed that lantern in an hour or two.

If you’re looking for game that’s fun, easy to jump into, and offers plenty of incentive to replay the adventure using each character, Quest of Dungeons is perfect for you. Quest of Dungeons provides a great, retro-style gaming experience that will bring back fond memories of past eras, but some repetitiveness in its combat and lack of story prevent it from living up to it’s full potential.

Quest of Dungeons has been Greenlit by the Steam community and is tentatively scheduled for a February 2014 release on PC, Mac, and iOS. To see the game in action, check out the website or watch the trailer below.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a pre-release build provided by the developer for that purpose.

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