In the world of Entropy, there’s not much in the way of hand-holding when it comes to figuring out what is supposed to be done and how it’s supposed to be accomplished. Because the story begins with the limited explanation that something ‘strange’ happened, it’s no surprise that the character’s identity, purpose, and abilities are also kept a mystery. The first-person view helps further that mystery by obscuring the view of what sort of entity the player is. I don’t always enjoy games that leave the player to figure out what the hell’s going on, but the dark and mysterious atmosphere made it seem like a good fit in this instance. A shining amoeba-like creature casually draws the player in the direction they must go, but the path is typically blocked. By unlocking the opening to the next area, the game fairly literally leads the player further down the rabbit hole as he/she drops down a shaft to continue. It’s enough to make one feel claustrophobic and there’s no way to tell whether the player is ultimately making their way into or out of the unknown structure.

The puzzles get tougher as you head further down the rabbit hole

In order to gain access to the next area, the solution generally involves powering up energy conduits that line the walls. How this is accomplished is through orbs found throughout the levels. These orbs might be made of water, fire, and other basic elements. The non-lethal variety can be moved by making contact with them. The deadly ones can be moved through use of a gravity bubble gun that pulls all orbs within its reach to the center of the field. Sometimes the conduits are powered up by piling orbs onto a massive scale that measures weight, pH levels, or temperature. In some instances, the player simply has to figure out a way to draw electricity from an active conduit towards one that’s inactive. The most help players will typically get is an occasional image projected onto the walls that gives a subtle hint about which direction to go or if there’s a nearby danger. It’s refreshing to see a game not give away the most basic of  solutions. It’s through experimentation that lessons are learned about the effects when the elemental orbs come into contact with one another. For example, douse a fire orb with enough water orbs and it turns to stone. Where Portal is generally considered a physics sandbox, Entropy combines physics with a dose of chemistry.

Strong enough for a man…

While discovery of both purpose and means is arguably the strongest facet of Entropy, the graphical prowess is also worth a mention. While I’m not a fan of throwing down the “for an XBLIG” caveat, Entropy really does look great for an XBLIG title. While the engine can chug a bit now and then, the dark environments contrast well with the vibrant, elemental orbs with all of it looking sharp. It’s a true rarity to see an Xbox indie studio successfully pull off a great-looking 3D environment, so kudos to Autotivity.

While Entropy does a decent job of introducing new gameplay twists every once in awhile, it’s not the kind of game that’s going to be fun for long play sessions. Many of the puzzles require precision in how you direct the orbs around hazards as well as some timing in instances where you’re suspending them over pits or open space. That level of exactness can wear on the player over time. As with a number of the puzzle games we’ve reviewed, Entropy is best enjoyed in small doses. Thankfully it’s also the kind of game that’s easy to come back to without having to get reacclimated. In fact, I took almost a month off from playing the game and had zero issues jumping right back in.

Entropy is another worthy entry in the lineup of XBLIG puzzle titles. While comparisons to Portal are inescapable, fans of that series are likely to enjoy the physics and chemistry-based fun that’s to be had. Although the game lacks the humor and character of its mainstream brother, the shrouded atmosphere is certainly worthy of a look. The puzzles themselves run the gamut from easy to pretty difficult, and only once or twice did I find myself getting really frustrated. The ever present ability to rewind time is a tool that will get a lot of use and certainly helps keep that irritation level down. Players can even skip levels if they want to. It’s inclusions like these that give the game a bit of polish, elevating it above many of its peers on the XBLIG service. Entropy is currently available in the Xbox Marketplace for 80 MSP ($1).

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on Clearance Bin Review

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

Welcome to space, where no-one can hear you scream. That is, welcome to Xenominer, a game by the folks at Gristmill Studios introduced during the Indie Uprising III event on Xbox Live Arcade. Xenominer is a voxel-style base building game that tests your survival in an alien world. Before continuing, this is another voxel game where you can dig and build any structure you can imagine. But if you are expecting another Minecraft clone, you are missing out on a lot if you dismiss it as such.

When Xenominer begins you wake up on an alien world, the lone survivor of a crash. With nothing but your survival suit, a small tank of oxygen, and the messages from an A.I. named DAI-SE you journey into a strange unknown world. A far-out landscape filled bizarre “trees”, floating landscapes, and the odd alien structure or two, there is the possibility of riches buried deep within.

That is all fine and dandy until the local star begins to rise, then you must secrete yourself away into the nearest cave lest you be burnt to an irradiated crisp. While Xenominer does not have hostile mobs in a traditional sense, the dangerous radiation of space will cut short your future plans of galactic conquest if you don’t seek shelter regularly. Hope you like digging, because you will spend the majority of your journey underneath the surface, away from the harmful rays and radiation in your cramped and claustrophobia-inducing underground quarters. At least until you upgrade your gear.

Speaking of upgrades, you have access to a plethora of building options and equipment. You can raise your chances of survival, assuming you have the materials to create them of course. They include suit and oxygen tank upgrades, sturdy building materials, more powerful tools, and even gravity boots.  See a piece of iron or diamond on the ceiling? Simply use your gravity boots and walk up the walls, humming the theme song to Spiderman while you are at it.

One feature that stands out from the rest is the use of a robot to do your dirty work. Once you acquire it, the bot can lighten your work load immensely by doing many repetitive tasks for you. You can have it tunnel a mineshaft, build your new space castle, or whatever you want it to do. If you can figure out how to actually program the darn thing, since the interface for it is in alien language. The scripting interface uses a strange pictographic command language which can be a bit daunting to decipher.

You have any idea what’s going on here? For the longest time, neither did I

For the longest time, I could do nothing but scratch my head while trying to get my own script going. After many fruitless attempts and carefully examining the built-in scripts, I was able to figure out what the symbols meant and began building my own script. When I activated my custom mining script I was as giddy as a schoolgirl as I watched the little bot go about its duties. Soon my galactic headquarters will be complete, with my little bot to do my bidding.

I enjoy this title, and there is very little I have against it. While it does have a lack of ambient music or sound, that suits the outer space setting. Only the ominous tone announcing the rising of the sun or the hum of your mining pick break the silence.

The user interface text is rather difficult to read. I played on a standard definition TV and the majority of the interface was simply too small to be clear. HD users will have no problems, but people who still play on standard sets may have some difficulty reading the HUD.

This review took too long for me to write. I have been playing for the better part of three weeks, and since the Indie Uprising event Gristmill has been able to implement many welcome improvements to the title. I continuously had to revise my views on the game as each patch brought welcome improvements. If you liked it at launch, you will enjoy the game even more so now.

I heartily recommend this title, and at a low 80 Microsoft points you have absolutely no excuse not to pick it up. Go grab it now before Gristmill realize they can charge more.

Go buy it. GO NOW!

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Additional coverage:

Review on Clearance Bin Review

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on theXBLIG

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

In Pixel, players are challenged on each level to make it from the starting position to an end gate as fast as possible. In order to reach that destination, the platforms and columns around the player must be manipulated using a multi-purpose gun. Shooting some columns with your standard gun ability will cause those cubes to temporarily slide in one direction, giving the player a new path to travel down. Some paths are constantly moving,  but can be slowed down using a special gun attachment. Other areas serve as launch pads that send the player flying through the air towards doom or glory. Certain platforms will only start moving once the player connects two nodes using yet another gun attachment. There’s a lot of variety to what the player can accomplish using their Swiss Army gun, and the game does a great job in terms of pacing when doling out new abilities or platform types. Each of these is introduced just as the previous one has been fully explored. In all, there are a couple dozen levels with the latter ones requiring players to use more than one of the abilities at their disposal.

While playing Pixel I was reminded of my experiences playing T.E.C. 3001 during last year’s Indie Games Uprising even,t or the various titles in the Super Monkey Ball franchise. Even though they are games with completely different themes, all of them challenge players to find the quickest path to the end of the stage. While racing the clock, the urge to keep plowing forward has the ability to lure the player into a bad situation. Sometimes when trying to be fast, the best thing a person can do is slow down and get a better view of what he or she is speeding into. That being said, there’s nothing quite so exhilarating within a platformer as just squeaking past a moving obstacle or nailing an impromptu leap all at breakneck speed. A smart decision by the developer was making sure everyone can get right back into the action when dying by dropping the player back at the start of the level without the need to acknowledge a retry prompt.

Sadly, there are a number of issues that rear their ugly heads throughout the game. Jumping a gap will often look like it’s going to succeed only for you to clip through a column or seemingly bounce off to the side of your intended landing spot. Sometimes firing your cannon at a cube beside you will send you careening off to your death, while performing the same action on an identical formation elsewhere won’t have that undesired effect. Pixel ends up being as much a guessing game as it is a platformer. For players with the patience of a saint, some of the hiccups can be worked around once they’re learned. This repeated trial and error of working through the game’s bugginess isn’t a big deal on the shorter levels. There are a few levels, though, where painstakingly creeping towards the goal only to be undone by one of these issues will likely result in a steady stream of profanities. I know it did for me. It’s a shame because when it does work, it’s actually a really fun game.

The other issue with the game is the camera. The first-person view just doesn’t feel right. Other reviewers have complained about the gun taking up too much of the screen real estate, but my biggest beef with the camera is that it’s just too close to the action. Navigating on small ledges and around tight corners causes undue grief with the camera zoomed in. It’s much harder to tell where the player is going to land when jumping, and that problem is only compounded by the aforementioned clipping issues. I understand that pulling the view out into 3rd-person would make the shooting aspect more difficult, but there has to be some kind of happy medium.

Players may find the first-person camera too close for comfort when navigating levels

It’s a shame that the execution fell through on Pixel, because there were a number of things that were done right. The cel-shaded art style is simplistic, but it fits. Using the gun to trigger changes in the levels is fun to play with, though I wish it had been taken further. The bugs can’t be overlooked, however, because even though this game combines multiple genre elements, it’s platforming that dominates. While changing the camera at this point might be too radical of a change, going forward I would hope that at least the clipping issues get fixed. That would certainly go a long way towards restoring the joy that is supposed to go hand-in-hand with playing a game. Unfortunately, Pixel as it exists right now is an unsatisfying platforming experience for the two to four hours it’ll likely take most players to complete it.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Additional Pixel coverage:

Review on Clearance Bin Review

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

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

By now much of the gaming world has experienced all of the wonder that the Portal series has brought to the industry. Developer David Johnson of Smudged Cat Games takes inspiration from those fun physics-based puzzles and quite literally turns them on their heads. SPOILER ALERT: Taking on the role of a scientist stuck trying to escape his own lab, players unlock additional guns that allow them to change their character’s size, repeatedly travel back and forth between time, and change the orientation of the game world. The first and last of those guns are fairly intuitive once experimented with a couple of times. On the flip side, the time travel gun really takes some getting used to. The same people who skip through EULAs and never read the fine print are the ones that are going to run into trouble.  With all of its nuances, time travel in Gateways is not the easiest concept to wrap one’s mind around. It took me reading the multi-page help menu explanation before it finally clicked. The application of this one gun alone probably make it worthy of its own game. When combined with the abilities of the other guns, there’s really an amazing amount of reality-bending power at the player’s disposal.

The game is structured in a Metroidvania style, with new powers and abilities helping the player open previously impassable doors. One of the niceties in Gateways is that shortcuts can be opened up within the lab that allow the player to quickly travel back to the earlier areas almost in a hub-like design. At times though, it’s easy to feel lost if you don’t know about the existence of the overworld map. I’d played through a good portion of the game before realizing it was there, which would have saved me a lot of time. Having that map at my disposal definitely changed my overall opinion of the game. Backtracking can get a little tedious, especially if you have to repeatedly perform the same series of death-defying feats to reach a particular room. But as long as players use the map to get a general feel for where to go next, they should easily avoid some of the headaches I ran into.

The difficulty of the puzzles later on can get a bit frustrating. Smudged Cat even released an update that allows players to select a ‘Normal’ mode to tone things down a bit. I never got to the point where I threw down the controller in disgust, but there were times where I certainly recognized that saving the game, walking away, and coming back with a fresh mind was the way to go. One of the smart design choices was to only allow a single gun to be used in solving the first 90% or so of the puzzles. Otherwise, it would’ve been far too daunting a task to figure out which guns to whip out and in what order. However, late in the game the rules change such that you’re going to need to use multiple guns in sequence to solve getting through some of the doors. Most of these really tough puzzles can be solved with patience and determination, but even I had to eventually throw in the towel and either search for a solution online or purchase the answer using orbs collected in-game. Difficulty is always a subjective quality to judge, but I honestly feel like Smudged Cat was trying a bit too hard to boggle our minds. As a reviewer, it was a bit stressful trying to hurry towards a solution, but gamers taking on the challenge at a more casual pace will likely appreciate the pacing and challenge more. Overall I felt like the quality of the puzzles is not only great for an indie game, but puts it right on par with the best to be found in the entire video game industry. With only a few exceptions, they’re that good and that fun and certainly elicit that ‘a-ha!’ moment when solved.

Gateways is not all about the puzzles. There is a light amount of platforming, but a good portion of it takes place in between unlocking doors to new areas, rather than being central to the puzzles themselves. There are, of course, exceptions particularly when dodging one’s own clones in a time-travel solution or when changing the orientation of the lab. I thought this aspect of the game was very well done, especially with the feel of jumping. The right flightiness of jumping is not something that every XBLIG manages to nail, but the developer was successful here.

As with all of the other Smudged Cat titles I’ve played, there’s a high level of refinement in the presentation. Yes, the visual quality is, for better or worse, decidedly retro. However, the music is atmospheric, the menu system intuitive, and the help very… helpful. I mentioned before that there’s a great series of instructions in the help system for how each of the guns work, and I would consider it a must-read. The visual effects produced by opening the different gateways provide that same wonder first experienced with Portal. Though lower-res, I think it is even more awe-inspiring here when you can see clones of yourself running around in different stages of time traveling.  It’s easy to tell from the way the whole package is put together that Smudged Cat has been down this road before and learned a thing or two about how to assemble a finished product. That’s something that’s usually lacking on the XBLIG service.

The effects seen by approaching open gateways provide a cool, visual treat

Gateways not a perfect game, but it really raises the bar for what puzzle games on XBLIG should aim for. I lost count of how many times I thought to myself “What a wonderfully crafted puzzle, you tricky bastard.” A lot of people are going to draw the obvious comparisons between Gateways and Portal including me in this very article. In its own indie way Gateways goes on to do so much more. Perhaps the best praise I can heap upon this title is to say that it wouldn’t surprise me to start seeing Gateways-inspired titles start to pop up in the near future. Despite some gripes about the difficulty, I can say with full confidence that I consider it a polished gem, and I believe most players will agree.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

Note: This review was conducted using version 1.11 of the game.

Additional Gateways coverage:

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on Clearance Bin Review
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© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

In City Tuesday, players take on the role of an unnamed citizen tasked with stopping the machinations of a bomb-crazy criminal element. There’s very little backstory for who these villains are, and there’s never an explanation for who the protagonist is or why he alone is responsible for saving the city. The goal is clear though: capture all of the bombs before time runs out.

The player does have one thing working in his or her favor: the ability to relive that same momentous day over and over again. At any time, players can rewind the clock to restart the day, though any bombs that have been captured don’t need to be obtained again. In true Bill Murray fashion, the day can be spent gathering information about the personalities and movement patterns of citizens of the city. This gives the player a timetable under which they can operate to ensure they’re in the right place at the right time. This implementation of time travel in video games is not a wholly unique concept, classics like Majora’s Mask immediately come to mind, and even though it’s not implemented as deeply here, it’s done reasonably well.

The complexity of the puzzles quickly ramps up, but never gets too difficult. City Tuesday begins with simple one-screen brainteasers to introduce players to the controls and shortly afterwards to the time reset concept. There’s a running timer and non-controllable events are set for specific times, because of this it’s impossible in the latter stages of the game to collect all of the bombs in a single run. Players will have to talk to citizens to learn passcodes or follow them as they move from one location to another as their actions set new events in play. Often movement to specific locations is restricted by security guards, so learning how and when to slip by takes some cunning and patience. There are plenty of red herring characters and events thrown in that serve to make sure the solutions aren’t too obvious and to make the city feel more alive. There’s also a good amount of humor to be found in the information about all of the people encountered along the way.

Coming into the 2012 Indie Games Uprising event, of which City Tuesday is a part, this game was at the top of my radar and it all started with a look at the visual style. The design was inspired by help signs seen in public transportation. All of the characters are drawn as stick figures and the settings involve a lot of train stations, parking lots, and other public transit-based themes. The game also opens up with an artistic opening cinematic that has to be seen to be appreciated. I came away very impressed with the aesthetics of this game.

The signage-based design is a visual treat

Unfortunately, there must be some inherent flaw with creating a mad bomber game. Much like last year’s SpeedRunner HD – also part of the last Indie Games Summer Uprising – City Tuesday is incredibly short. Less than an hour after sitting down to fire up the game for the first time, I reached the rather abrupt and ultimately unsatisfying ending. The game had just hit its stride with four or five bombs spread across a dozen or so screens, many of which had events cross over between them. Just like that, though, the game was over. There wasn’t even a closing cinematic to tie a ribbon on the story. Just a bland end screen that I wasn’t even sure at first was an end screen. It’s disappointing on a few levels. Having just pumped hour after hour into Smooth Operators, it was surprising that this game was over. Since there’s no variability in the way events play out, there’s no reason to play through the game again. Honestly, though, I think the biggest reason I was disappointed in the game was because for that one hour I saw a ton of promise as the game kept building up the puzzle sophistication. The puzzles were fun and there was personality. Sadly, in the end it felt more like a proof of concept than a full-fledged game. Hopefully the developers can take this solid framework and make a fleshed-out sequel.

I had no trouble with finding a voice for the things I loved and hated about City Tuesday. What was problematic was trying to assign it a review score. The content of the game is good, even bordering on great. But is there enough to justify a solid rating? The crushing disappointment of the game’s brevity is counterbalanced by the fun factor of the puzzles. In the end, it was the game’s visual style that gave it the slightest of nudges into recommendation territory. Buyers beware, though, as those expecting a full-length adventure will be the ones blowing up.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Review on The Indie Ocean

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Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Indie Theory

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

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Not only was it the motto of all Olympians from earlier this summer, it’s also the creed by which players will create their empire in Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos.

This indie Xbox strategy game from Andreas Heydeck Games challenges players to mold a lean, mean, support center machine. While it’s possible to achieve greatness after a handful of hours, at some point players may be questioning whether they’re ruling the game or the game is ruling them.

Smooth Operators builds upon a tried-and-true formula of micromanagement and patience. In this particular case, it’s building up a call center by creating a self-supporting ecosystem. In order to make money, it’s necessary to build operation rooms and hire call-takers, telemarketers, and fill other similar roles to help meet daily quotas for clients. In order to keep those employees happy and up-and-running, players need to create service rooms and hire janitors to clean their workstations, as well as hire IT staff to fix their absurdly fragile computers.

Creating a thriving business is not all about hiring grunt workers. In order to reach for the skies – quite literally – the solution is to bring in a variety of management staff to open up new opportunities over time. Of course it’s necessary to feed everyone and allow them a chance to use the restroom, so those types of buildings are important as well. It’s quite possible that the most crucial piece of the puzzle is developing an efficient transportation system within the building. Creating a logjam keeps employees from returning to their desk and earning money, and it can also upset them to the point they eventually quit. There’s a solid tutorial that introduces players to the roles and functions of each of these pieces. It doesn’t take too long to learn how these parts all work together, but it can take a bit of struggling and patience to learn how to balance everything out.

As with similar games like Nimblebit’s Tiny Tower and Pocket Planes, there’s almost always a business deficiency the player will need to overcome. Perhaps there’s not enough of a certain kind of call-maker on a particular contract, or the elevator system gets too crowded causing employees to miss their daily quotas. Maybe the player’s waiting on their Account Manager to land them a higher volume contract to start using some of the idle employees. The concept here is the same as seen in a lot of RPGs: the dangling carrot. The idea that once the player overcomes some obstacle, it’s going to be smooth sailing keeps them reaching for that goal. While that can allow the player to reach a new, higher plateau, it also produces an even newer, shinier carrot. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with this system. I absolutely love the two titles from Nimblebit and have been playing Sim games for years. I even continued playing Smooth Operators long after most players would’ve gotten their money’s worth and walked away. It’s the best one of these small studio micromanagement games I’ve played, and the addictive quality is second to none.

Smooth Operators: guaranteed to be your best experience ever with tech support.

I feel like Smooth Operators can be played in one of two ways, at least early on. Players can manage every bit of their business by keeping the clock slow and watching trends and inefficiences in their employees’ movement patterns and schedules. Or, in a very Rube Goldberg-esque manner players can set everything up, ramp up the clock, and watch how everything unfolds at hyper-speed. It’s really up to the player to determine how involved they want to get in the action. While I’m sure the former method provides successful results, I veered towards the latter, more hands-off method. I was able to achieve the desired results, though it may have taken longer. It’s nice that the game doesn’t require an extreme amount of vigilance, though some may point to that making the game too easy.

With no clearly definable end goal though, playing Smooth Operators will eventually lead to player fatigue. There are a number of reward-based objectives that also earn players extra money. These may offer an extra incentive for completionists to continue long after the objective money has ceased to be useful, but they only go so far. Although I have some gripes with the efficiency of the pathfinding logic for some of the characters – I’m looking at you, janitors – the biggest problem is certainly the endgame. The game just doesn’t scale well once players have put a healthy amount of time into it. There will inevitably come a point where all daily contracts are being fulfilled and no one’s quitting because everything has been made as efficient as possible through the purchase of better transportation methods and upgrading employees and buildings. The map has the potential for 40 floors of rooms with multiple columns, but players will likely never need more than a tenth of that to build an unstoppable juggernaut. I’m not sure what the point is for all that space since it’s not likely to ever get used. Up until players reach that point of continued success though, I think the game is a blast.

Incentive-based objectives may keep some players going after the game starts playing itself.

It’s difficult to say with any degree of conviction that every gamer should try Smooth Operators. I think it’s built for individuals who love a high degree of micromanagement or for casual gamers who get their kicks via similar games on Facebook or iOS devices. While it doesn’t quite reach the polished heights of a big budget SimTower, a game credited with inspiring this one, I think it matches or surpasses the best of the casual empire-building games currently available on the market. Its charming, cartoonish visual and audio presentation only lend to the appeal with some of the music feeling very Sim City-esque. It’s certainly a unique experience for the Xbox platform, and I think it’s a great choice to represent the indie development community as part of the Indie Games Uprising event. For 80 MSP ($1), I think most gamers would be hard-pressed to find a more addictive experience that they can play for a few minutes or for a few hours at a time.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Additional Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos coverage:

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Clearance Bin Review

Review on IndieGamerChick 

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

Old CAN be new again which is immediately evident when looking at the indie game qrth-phyl from studio hermitgames. This uniquely-named title was chosen to lead off the Indie Games Uprising III event and it’s certainly made a splash among the press sites covering this event. Matt James, the creative force behind qrth-phyl, was able to answer a few questions for us regarding where the inspiration for this arcade reimagination comes from.

Hello Matt. Thanks for agreeing to talk to us today. Can you tell us a bit about hermitgames and your role within the studio?

Hello. I started releasing stuff as hermitgames in 2002 ish, as a label for just my own stuff, that I was solely in control of. If I’ve made something I want to release to the public I’ll do it through hermitgames.

You have an interesting backlog of games you’ve created. One of the things I noticed is that unlike a lot of the other XBLIG developers taking part in the Uprising, your history seems to be very PC-centric. Is there a particular reason you’ve always targeted PC, and why go to XBLIG now?

I’ve not really actively chosen to concentrate on PC. It’s only recently there have been options to distribute on xbox or iPhone or whatever without signing to a publisher. My previous game Leave Home was on XBLIG before PC.

I stand corrected! What do you feel are the strengths of each platform, and do you have a preferred platform to develop for?

Mostly I want something with easy distribution, getting stuff ready for public release is a right pain so anything that makes it easier to give a game out to people and it work is good. That and lack of interference from the platform owner, or anyone else, is what I want.

Let’s jump back for a minute to the game we just mentioned, Leave Home which I recently had a chance to play. For a lot of indie developers, the side-scroller SHMUP seems to be a go-to genre for learning the ropes of development. However, you took something commonplace and made it unique. Leave Home rewards or punishes players depending on how well they’re doing. Stages not only scroll, they also rotate. It’s also an intentionally short game. What are some of the elements – design or otherwise – that you’re most proud of in Leave Home?

I’m pleased to have finished it. It ended up feeling how I wanted it to feel which is good.

What have you been able to take from your time and experience developing Leave Home that has helped you with qrth-phyl?

Loads of the algorithmic generation stuff was useful. qrth-phyl takes some of that a step further by mutating the generation algorithms themselves.

Let’s dig into qrth-phyl. In your words, tell us what this game is all about.

It’s an arcade game. It’s about BLOCKADE, the 1976 first snake/maze style game. It’s about what gets left behind. It’s about spacial navigation. It’s about old computers. It’s about progression. It’s a videogame.

qrth-phyl is taking Snake into three dimensions

Why BLOCKADE though? Was there something appealing about taking a classic game and putting a big twist on it?

Initially with the prototype I did in 2004 I didn’t even know about Blockade. I was just fiddling with the challenge of making a 3D snake type thing. It wasn’t until 2010 ish that I discovered the Blockade and Lane Hauck story and thought I could bring that and my prototype together.

What do you find to be the most interesting or enjoyable aspect of the game?

Feel/Atmosphere. The really difficult small 3d levels where it feels like everything is going off and you’re just surviving.

What’s been the most difficult part of development for you?

Just getting stuff finished for release, all the little edge polishing. Also it was quite tricky doing both PC and XBLIG versions for release at the same time.

Well, qrth-phyl is already garnering some positive attention. It was named one of the finalists for this year’s Dream.Build.Play competition. Are you surprised, excited, or some other response?

I try not to look at the response. I want it to do OK, mostly so I can make another game.

What’s next for hermitgames?

I have like 3 things on the go that might release next. A 2D arcade style game, a 3D game built from some of the same code as qrth-phyl and a slower PC type release. Depends which ones I lose interest in.

For our readers who are curious about qrth-phyl, can you give us a pitch on why they should try it?

It’ll do your head in.

For more information on hermitgames and the studio’s catalog of titles, be sure to check out their official site.

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

The puzzle element of the game is a genuinely interesting idea and the strong point of the game. Your protagonist must use their imagination to build a bridge, connecting each node with how many corresponding lines are needed depending on the markers on each node. This, however, has two major flaws. Firstly, the controls are fiddly and makes the most taxing affair of the puzzle actually getting between each node and selecting to build or delete the bridge; secondly, and this applies for the game in general, you are left to your own devices to some extent to figure out the mechanics, because the game does a poor job of explaining what needs to be achieved. The second issue coincides with the platforming side of the game and is one of many, many issues that turn a promising indie game into an infuriating experience.

You need to build bridges with your imagination to progress further.

Let’s turn to one of the worst games ever released for a major console; The Wizard of Oz (Snes 1993), which is an abhorrent game that highlights the two big no-no’s you must consider when making a platformer. Firstly, if you have a platform to jump towards and you land on the corner of said platform but fall through to your death – you have a bad platform game; secondly, if you fill the screen with small platforms but fail to tell the player that a number of areas to land on are actually fake traps – you have a bad platform game.

Now to Mega Man 2, which is an example of a good platforming game that highlights how to explain to your player that a potentially lethal trap is coming up ahead. It carefully shows, even with a subtle hint, that a trap is imminent. For example, in stage 3 of Dr Wily’s castle, the player will encounter invisible platforms like the ones found in Sententia, but the first one you fall through is only back to the floor below, meaning the player is not cheated out of a life and they now know to be careful. Now, in Sententia you have unlimited lives, so a cheap first death does not have as many potential issues that exist in Mega Man 2, but that only serves to purpose lazy game design and thus it is inexcusable.

Look easy? It isn’t.

In twenty years or so of playing any of the 2D side scrolling versions of the Super Mario Bros series have you ever felt that you died because of poor controls? It is probably only a handful of times, even if that, because the games give you full control over every jump. So death only comes at the hands of tricky platforming and well thought out game design. Sententia has neither of these things and death usually comes in the form of terrible controls or unfair enemy placement – which brings us onto combat.

There is only one mechanic for combat in the game, which comes in the form of projecting words from the avatar’s mouth towards an enemy, who in return fire back at you. It creates a unique visual that flows along nicely with the art style of the game as a whole, but the mechanic creates a level of annoyance by not giving you the ability to shoot while jumping in the air and the enemy placement at times demands the need for such ability – it just adds to the non-stop frustration. It does not even end there, because even when you kill an enemy the damn thing will respawn almost instantly, utterly defeating the purpose of having any form of combat in the first place. Getting through any screen on the game feels nothing short of a chore.

Ultimately there is small reward to be attained from playing Sententia; which is a shame, because the concept behind it is interesting. The art style is unique, albeit the animation needs refinement, and the puzzle mechanics have potential, but it is all hidden behind a mess of poor game design on even the most basic of levels.

Overall Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 

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

Additional Sententia coverage:

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Clearance Bin Review

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on Indie Theory

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

There’s not much in the way of an introduction to Diehard Dungeon when the main character wakes up within a dungeon cell. After a couple of minutes spent in two or three different rooms, players learn that they must travel from room to room to escape. To proceed, each room has a hidden key or goal that will open up the barred gate to the next area. The main character is accompanied by a sentient treasure chest that holds all money collected and can eventually attack the enemies that mill about. The action unfolds through an isometric view, only further leading to a Zelda-like feeling.

As the game progresses, players will rely heavily on their trusty sword and a few other obtainable weapons to defeat a variety of enemies and bash open about a million containers (some of which contain money or other items). In another likening to the Zelda series, a life meter sits atop the left corner of the screen and is represented by hearts. The life meter is extended by collecting hearts that appear within containers or by defeating enemies. In true roguelike fashion, when your life meter hits zero the game is over. There are no retries or continues, only permadeath, which seems to be getting increasingly more popular among the hardcore players. After a few attempts navigating the dungeon, players will likely be familiar enough with the enemy types, the traps, and the weapons that health will rarely be a concern. That’s not to say the game is easy, it’s just manageable with a bit of patience.

Diehard Dungeon has it all. Combat, treasure, and a million or so crates.

There are a couple of ways to beef up your character, which I really liked. For instance, treasure chests are periodically found that offer players a chance to win zero to three spins on a slot machine. Each spin on the slot machine has a completely random chance at earning the player a stat boost, a special combat or defense ability, extra loot, and more. Occasionally it can mean the difference between life and death when the player is low on health, or it can make a strong player powerful enough to wreak havoc. The chests are also spaced out enough during the game that it doesn’t make things too easy for the player. At one point in each level, the player is presented with a maze mini-game in which they play as the treasure chest. Players must collect 100 flames spread along the paths of the maze without being touched by one or more roving enemy treasure chests. The more flames the player collects, the faster the enemy chests move. Reaching the flame goal causes an item to appear on the map. If reached, it adds an extra ability to the sword attack. While not vital, obtaining one of the three possible abilities can make combat less of a slugfest for the player.

As with many roguelikes, randomness plays a key role in how Diehard Dungeon unfolds. The map layouts, enemy and object placement. and loot drops change with each playthrough. Because the game is relatively short, this dynamic is an absolute necessity to keep players coming back even if they’ve already made it through the dungeon alive. Branching paths offer up slightly different environments and boss encounters. There’s also a bonus goal of collecting 10 hidden golden keys in order to unlock a different ending. Completing the bonus goal also allows players to have an impact on the games played by other players, but I won’t ruin the surprise. There’s nothing really revolutionary in terms of the structure of the game, but it’s really well done. It never gets frustrating, the power-ups and weapon upgrades make the game even more fun, and it’s just long enough that players can get good at it without getting bored.

Branching Paths = Replayability Win. That’s math, people.

As enjoyable as the initial game is, tricktale has also included a second game mode: Mayhem. While tricktale admits this unlockable mode is a work in progress, I actually found it to be almost as engaging as the main adventure. In Mayhem mode, the player takes on the role of the treasure chest, fully packing an unlimited amount of spikes to shoot. Over the course of three minutes, the player needs to take out as many spawning enemies as he or she can while avoiding enemy attacks. The longer the player can keep the killing going without taking a hit, the higher the point values that will be earned for each kill. It plays very much like a twin-stick shooter with one analog stick for movement and the other for directional firing. The reward at the end of the three minutes is a chance to make it onto a global leaderboard. Thank you, tricktale, for including the leaderboard. It’s such a fantastic addition and has me itching to see if I can climb up the ranks. The guys from theXBLIG.com and Clearance Bin Review still have me beat! It’ll be interesting to see how this mode changes over time with updates, but I feel like it warrants the purchase price even by itself.

Diehard Dungeon is a downright fun time waiting to be had, even for players who aren’t necessarily fans of dungeon crawlers or roguelikes. The game is short enough that the combat doesn’t get repetative, but with a random factor that will likely entice players to give the game another go if they didn’t experience all of the potential endings. There’s even a secondary mode for the competitor in all of us that allows players to see how they stack up against friends and the rest of the world. Diehard Dungeon is a polished package, a fantastic flagbearer for the Indie Games Uprising event, and a must-buy for 80 MSP ($1). Check out our video review below, then go try it.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

Additional Diehard Dungeon coverage:

theXBLIG.com Diehard Dungeon review

Clearance Bin Review Diehard Dungeon review 

IndieGamerChick Diehard Dungeon review

Indie Theory Diehard Dungeon review

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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

For those unfamiliar with Snake, it had the player steering a snake around a 2D stage running over pellets to earn points, but caused the snake to grow longer. The snake never stopped moving and the player had to avoid running it into walls or itself. This game evolves from the long-standing classic by adding in a 3rd dimension. The game alternates between two different kind of stages. Half of the stages are cubes with 2 dimensional faces which players slide along the outside of. By collecting enough little cubes on the stage, a section of it opens up and allows players to pass inside to a 3D stage that allows complete freedom of movement. It is these areas where the game really shines. Players can weave in and out of tight turns and through their own growing snake tail in a tense race against time within an ever-shrinking environment.

One of the most interesting design choices of qrth-phyl also builds upon an older game. hermitgames’ previous title Leave Home had the difficulty automatically ramp up or down based on how the player performed. That design has been carried over meaning no two playthroughs of the game will be exactly alike. Players breezing through the stages will suddenly have tighter confines to work within as walls form and move, and placement of the collectible cubes gets sparser and closer to walls. I think this is a really solid decision by the developer. Although boosting the difficulty often shortens the length of the game, it also means players won’t have to play through dozens of levels to try to surpass their previous records.

Getting a handle on spacial recognition in terms of how far the snake is from a wall or obstacle is difficult. Eventually players can ‘get a feel’ for when to turn away, but ultimately it’s a guessing game. For a game with finite lives that rewards players for extending their current run, it can be a frustrating turn of events for a poor camera angle to cause the loss of a long snake chain or a last life. The same can be said during the stage transitions as the snake enters an outside area. Often I found myself aimed straight at a wall with too little time to react and save myself. The fact that the stages are randomized means that memorization isn’t even a possibility to save you in those situations.

The 3D areas of the game are a lot of fun, but the controls take some practice

This game really wants for a leaderboard. Although qrth-phyl  is a modernization of the classic Snake game, arcade classics were popular in large part because of high score rankings and the bragging rights that come with it. Though there’s something to be said for bettering oneself, it’s arguably more satisfying to topple a friend’s records. I did continually come back to the game to see if I could improve (which I did), but I really wanted to see how I was stacking up against other press reviewing the game and other early purchasers. Although many XBLIG developers complain about the difficulty of including leaderboards in their indie titles, some have done it including fellow Uprising developer Smudged Cat Games in their past title Growing Pains.

I really wanted to love qrth-phyl as not only a nod to gaming history, but as the first title out of the gate for an event aimed at reigniting interest in a gaming service woefully unappreciated. I know the game is fun because I kept coming back to try to better my performance. It’s also frustrating in that the camera can’t show the player everything they need to see in order to succeed. While it falls short of greatness because of a few design flaws, there’s enough solid gaming enjoyment here to recommend players pick it up for the 80MSP ($1) price tag.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Additional Coverage:

The Indie Ocean qrth-phyl review

Clearance Bin Review qrth-phyl review

Indie Theory qrth-phyl review

VVGTV’s Indie Spotlight of qrth-phyl

IndieGamerChick qrth-phyl review

the XBLIG qrth-phyl review

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