Created by Finnish developer Timi Koponen, using the ever-popular Unity engine, RYO is a color-based puzzle game available for iOS and Android that uses simple one-finger swipe mechanics to match red dots with red dots, yellow dots with other yellow dots… and so on. This simple premise is evolved upon by adding different shades of colors; therefore, asking the player to cross colors in order to change them to the correct shade needed. Against a plain black background, it has a simple visual style that is effective and quite calming. There is no music other than simple sound effects, so a nice piece of ambient/shoegaze/post-rock seems to do the trick (full on thrash metal also seems to work – don’t ask why).

Pretty self explanatory

As far as puzzle games go, RYO never straddles too far away from its comfort zone. The slightly more complex layout of colors that exist later in the game are entirely achievable to solve through trial-and-error, and the comforting lull the game presents soon becomes a mad-dash swipe of fingers, as thought and a need for logical problem solving are thrown out the window. It’s a shame, as for about the first fifty of the game’s eighty levels there’s a nice groove of adding layers of difficulty that suit the limitations of the game’s mechanics. But without any sense of risk/reward, and with only a few times where it feels necessary to think about which colors to swipe across, the last third of the game does start to drag.

Also – and it is a minor thing in all honesty – if you swipe across but halfway decide that you’ve made an incorrect move, you can swipe back to the starting point, but the screen will still shake, thinking that you’ve swiped across to an incorrect color. It’s more of an irritation than anything else, but no one likes to be told they’re done something wrong when it isn’t valid!

Swiping through different colors will, unsurprisingly, change colors

The game is very short: around ninety minutes is more than enough time to see it through to the end. But for the asking price of $0.99/£0.69, it’s the smallest of gripes to have about an otherwise enjoyable slice of touch gaming. There is certainly room for improvement; obstacles, extra colors, variables – there is a multitude of things that could be done, but for a first attempt, RYO is a great concept that is worth checking out.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed on an iOS device using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose. 

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Game jams are wonderful. Some of these quick-fire projects have even gone on to become super popular indie games like the frantic Surgeon Simulator 2013. It’s no surprise then that there is currently one such event happening right now,

The Walking Dead: All Out War Game Jam is one such event, and hopeful candidates have spent the better part of this year building their entries for the occasion. Unlike the frantic 24 hour blitz some jams go for, this one has allowed the developers more time to flesh out their ideas before the final cut off date earlier this month.

So what was the theme? All out war of course! Games weren’t necessarily restricted to zombies either, despite the host’s main theme. 10 winners will be chosen in the coming days, each earning a full Unity Pro license (That’s $1500 by the way), a Steam Greenlight key, special The Walking Dead goodies and featured spots on both TheWalkingDead.com & Eurogamer. The number one pick will also receive the official endorsement of Robert Kirkman, creator of the The Walking Dead series.

In light of the event, I trawled through a number of entries to pick out my 5 favourite hopeful submissions, some were impressive displays of indie talent, and others were just so crazy I couldn’t stop myself from including them.

5.  The Narrow Path

I can’t quite make out what these things are, spewing from the camper van. If they’re zombies that learned to drive, then all hope is lost. The developer lists this as a roguelike, and the art style was just fancy enough to warrant a closer look. Plus, there’s a dog that goes around eating up all the corpses.

4. Remember The Fallen

Remember the Fallen has a slick minimalist aesthetic, and the subject matter takes a more serious and emotional look at ‘All out war’. The player must search the ruined homes in the area to find several flowers, which need to be placed on the graves of fallen soldiers.

3. Dog In A Mech

It’s a dog. It has to drive a mech. I don’t need to say anything else. Seriously.

2. Don’t Make Me Turn This Car Around

This is a genius take on ‘All out war’. Here you test your patience as you wage war on the increasingly aggravating children sitting in the backseat of your car. This seems to be a strange blend of Desert Bus and Oregon Trail, where staving off monotony meets micromanaging the resources (or in this case, snacks and bladder capacity of your passengers) play key elements in the gameplay.

1. Black Death

Sword, crossbows and the medieval time period combine to make this action packed zombie slasher catch my eye. There are even explosive barrels!

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The personalities of each shape shine through wonderfully.

The indie gaming scene has gone through a transformation over the last couple of years, and the ‘quirky platformer’ has wedged itself firmly at the forefront of the scene. Between its simplistic visual design and narration courtesy of Danny Wallace (who may have played Portal 2 once or twice), Thomas Was Alone could easily fall victim to such a tag. Its key to making it different is in the way the characters are developed throughout the game, made all the more incredible due to the avatars being nothing more than quadrilaterals. Each one has its own personality and ability. The great thing is as you progress through the game, you start to develop a picture of what each shape might look like in human form. Chris’ clearly suffers from a case of short-man syndrome and his inferiority complex shines through amusingly. As you progress further, this tiny little orange square turns into a short, stubby little man in your imagination.

The controls are fluid for the most part, although I found on a number of occasions my character of choice would fall into the water and respawn flying straight back into the water, because I was still holding left or right – It’s a minor foible and might just say more about my inabilities to use a keyboard for gaming.

The soundtrack is gorgeous and slick with its arrangements, and there are flickers of 8-bit blips to round everything out.  It complements the visual design of the game perfectly and full credit should be given to David Housden for adding another layer to the presentation.

Downsides? It’s too easy. The game can be finished in around two hours and is an acceptable length that coincides with the story, but it is simply not challenging enough. It does not fall into the ‘style over substance’ category, but for all the praise that can be heaped onto our rectangular friends and their personalities their trials and tribulations end up not counting for much. There are only several levels in the game where you ever truly need to stop and think of what might need to be done, and only several levels have any form of environment that limits you to the time you have to complete it. It’s all of this that stops Thomas from being a true indie classic. Nonetheless, Thomas Was Alone is still unique and charming enough that if you have any interest in indie games you should invest your time and money into it, as you will be rewarded.

Thomas Was Alone is available through either IndieCity or Desura.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

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