Before I talk too much about the game, I should mention that Episode 4 picks up directly where the third episode left off, and while the game does provide you with a recap of Episode 3, I would definitely recommend grabbing the previous installment in addition to this one. (It’s only a few bucks extra for the bundle on Steam.) The first two episodes are completely different in style and enjoyable in their own right, but for the sake of these games you won’t miss much by skipping them.

In Rain-Slick Episode 4, our heroes find themselves in “Underhell” which is separated into two groups of two. Each group quickly discovers that the bad guys of Underhell vastly overpower them, so in order to survive they must send creatures out to battle for them. So, basically a goofy, demonic version of Pokemon. At first I was a little dismayed to discover that the battle system would work this way. I felt like the main characters might take a backseat to the creatures and that the story would suffer because of it. Luckily, my fears turned out to be unfounded, and the change to the battle system actually adds more strategy compared to the previous game. Creatures all possess different move sets and you can alter your party before each battle (and during, once you unlock a certain item), which you’ll want to do based on your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. In Episode 3 losing a battle only means that you must try again – the game bestows no lasting punishment for death. If you fail, you simply begin the battle again armed with the knowledge you gained from the previous attempt. This allows the player to experiment with different creatures and moves without worrying about making a wrong choice.

You control each estranged group separately, which allows the game to meander into completely different directions at the same time. While I quite like Episode 3, I do think it plays in somewhat of a straight line, and splitting up the main characters works perfectly as a solution to that problem. You get to explore more of a variety of environments because of the split, so you never get bored of your locale. You’ll get to check out a haunted train, a crazy zoo with weird animal hybrids, a jungle, and more. Having two stories run parallel to one another also makes the writing feel sharper and more interesting. While playing, you’ll find yourself wondering how what you do with one group will affect the other, and when and how your groups will manage to meet up. Splitting up the party makes the game feel much bigger than its predecessor.

Scope and writing aren’t the only improvements from Episode 3, though – the music deserves special mention. Like the gameplay itself, the music manages to feel classic and contemporary at the same time. It’s “chip” music sounding without feeling overly simple. The title screen song reminds me of something you might hear at the beginning of one of the SNES Final Fantasy games, which is obviously a high compliment. Sometimes with RPGs, I prefer to turn down the volume in game and listen to my own selection, but that thought never crossed my mind while I played Rain-Slick.

Every time I play a game by Zeboyd, I’m impressed with how much better it is than its predecessor. Rain-Slick Episode 3 was a wonderfully enjoyable old school style RPG with a sharp tongue and a great battle system. Episode 4 takes everything good about Episode 3 and improves it in just about every way. It’s much bigger in scope, the combat offers more opportunity for strategy, the environments are more varied and interesting, and there is more to do and see outside of the of the primary storyline. I would have been completely satisfied if the game was simply the last half of the story that started in Episode 3, but it ended up being much more than that. If you enjoy classic RPGs and you’ve got a sense of humor, I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want to pick this one up. And go ahead and grab Episode 3 while you’re at it.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

What does this score mean?

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 4 is currently available on Steam for $4.99, or bundled with Episode 3 for $7.99. It is also available on Xbox Live Arcade.

This review was conducted using a copy of the PC version provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

King Swing is a platformer that functions more like an endless runner (aka autorunner) as the goal is linear and control is limited. Taking on the role of an ape of presumably high social status, players must swing from one rock outcropping to another in a 2D setting. Rather than grab vines, the player shoots them in his or her direction of choice hoping to latch onto the rocks. When successful, the ape travels through a pendulous swing and the player presses a button to release. Success is all about building and keeping momentum, so aiming for a suitable rock face and releasing at the appropriate point in the swing are both paramount. While it is possible to get the monkey going again if the player messes up, coming to a dead stop is generally a fatal situation. Even with some success. the player will eventually succumb to the piranhas waiting patiently at the course’s bottom.

As clinical as that description is, the game actually IS fun to play once the player gets a feel for the mechanics. When everything’s going right, building that momentum up can create that wonderful “in the zone” feeling. I say ‘can’ because there are some design issues with the game that make this more difficult than it should be. Aiming the vines feels like an inexact science where it’s difficult to be certain what part of the rock face the vine will hit or if it will even hit at all. Should the player send the monkey hurtling too high, he disappears off the top of the screen with the camera following part of the way. Because of the change in view, it becomes really difficult to anticipate where he’s going to come down. This means players will have to guess if there are any rocks to grab onto when the camera shifts back into its regular position. The fact that the ape hurtles downward faster than normal gives players very little time to react. There’s a difference between edge-of-your-seat, intense action and putting players into a situation where they’re riding on a hope and a prayer. Far too often this game falls into the latter category.

Try as you might, you’ll eventually end up in the drink.

King Swing does have some other good features going for it, though even these have their limitations. I’m a sucker for a leaderboard system and thankfully this game includes global leaderboards, a rarity for XBLIG titles. There are separate rankings for each of the three game modes: Endless (the default mode), Ropes, and Time Attack, with the latter two being shorter variations on the main mechanic. Ropes challenges players to see how far they can get with only ten ropes in their arsenal. Time Attack gives players one minute to travel as far as possible. While these are both fun in their own right, they’re not different enough from the default mode to breathe new life into the game for very long. With the touted inclusion of ragdoll physics and painful deaths, early on I had hopes that the experience of playing and failing at the game would be as entertaining as Trials HD or Trials Evolution. Here, though, there aren’t a lot of laughs to be had, so it would’ve been nice to have seen this taken further.

King Swing is a bit of an odd egg. It has potential, but there’s just something missing. At times it almost seems like it would be a better fit on a different platform, and I think my fellow XBLIG reviewers agree. For those on the fence, the developers are aware of the issues and are working on an update to fix some of the flaws. With a modified camera, fixes to the targeting system, and inclusion of an extra mode/feature or two, this would be a highly recommendable game for the casual crowd.  As it exists right now, the game’s a bit shallow but still worth giving the trial a go.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Despite it’s title, Arcadecraft is not yet another Minecraft clone available through the Xbox Live Indies Games market. Instead, it’s a game that puts players in the role of an arcade manager in that scene’s heyday of the early 1980s. Arcadecraft plays on actual history by including events like the video game crash of 1983 and ending with a nod to the release of the NES in 1985. Through it all, it’s up to the player to ensure that their arcade is remaining popular with the crowds and racking in enough money to pay the bills.

Shown from an isometric perspective, the empty arcade is the player’s canvas for creating a gaming hotspot. As the ever-running calendar moves from month to month, game publishers release new arcade cabinets available for purchase by the player. These cabinets vary in initial cost, genre, control method, number of floor spaces occupied, power consumption, and a few other characteristics. Once purchased and placed on the floor, each cabinet will begin drawing in money based on a few factors including the arcade’s current popularity rate and the popularity of the individual machine. The newer a machine is, the quicker it makes money. That money must be repeatedly collected from the machine by the player, otherwise the game stops raking in coins.

I give credit to the developers for trying to add strategic depth through individual game cabinet settings. However, I found that the game suffers from a pacing problem that interferes with the use of that level of customization. The early portion of Arcadecraft speeds by too quickly to really get a grasp of how or when the settings will affect that cabinet’s money-making ability. Early on there’s not much incentive to fiddle with the defaults because of the risk of failure, and later in the game there’s simply too much money-collecting taking place to do anything else. It was only once I hit the final year of the simulation – when no new arcade cabinets are available for purchase – that I really started toying around. There are lessons to be learned from the first full play-through of the game, but it’s doubtful most players are going to go back and repeat the exact same sequence of events using that newly-gained knowledge. I think if the developers had decided to include a controllable speed setting, just like in Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos, it would give players a chance to run their arcade at a pace that allows for experimentation.

Individual machines can have their pricing and difficulty settings modified.

One of the best aspects of the game has to be the homage to the gaming industry of three decades ago. It’s an interesting look back at the evolution of technology as newer games offer varying cabinet styles and control methods. There’s also a bit of a nostalgia factor as a number of the games in Arcadecraft are parodies of classics like Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. Some of the game publishers even release sequels to their titles ala Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man. If the player manages to hold onto the original and can seat the sequel(s) next to it, each machine gets a popularity boost.

There are a number of other interesting strategical decisions that the player must make during the lifespan of the arcade. Periodically a pro-gamer will stop by and want to try one of the most popular machines. If he manages to beat the high score, a popularity boost will temporarily be placed on that machine. The trade-off is that while he’s hogging the machine it’s not earning any money. From time to time, a vendor will stop by and offer to buy one of the player’s classic gaming arcade cabinets for a high ticket price. However, to keep a machine around long enough for it qualify as a classic generally means its old and far less popular (read: cost-ineffective) than the latest and greatest cabinets.

Succeed by creating a customer-friendly layout and buying a wide variety of cabinets.

As with many simulation games, Arcadecraft suffers in its endgame. Once the player has reached the two-year mark and paid off their debt, most of the challenge is gone. Truth be told, I failed to pay off that debt during my first go-round, but that experience was an education in the keys to winning: start slow and continue to replace old, unpopular machines as soon as you can buy new ones. Once the player figures that lesson out, the challenge changes from mental strategy to menial labor as he/she has to repeatedly run around in a frenzy emptying coin boxes. It becomes tedious very fast, and the ability to hire an automated helper does little to relieve the effort of maintaining a large number of cabinets. At this point, the goal becomes simply trying to collect as much money as possible before the simulation ends. Unfortunately the lather-rinse-repeat process happens earlier in this title than some of the similar games I’ve played on XBLIG. Ultimately I would have liked to have seen a slower-paced game with more to do during that time than collect money and fix broken machines.

Arcadecraft‘s premise and early execution show so much promise that I was doubly disappointed when I became bored by the end. One or two design choices made differently would have been the difference between this being a decent game and a great one. It’s obvious that the developers put a lot of work into the presentation. I fear, though, that the 240 Microsoft Point price tag in a typically 80-Point market may keep even the most curious of players away. I think it’s still worth a look for those who enjoy simulation/strategy games and those who can still remember the golden age of arcades.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

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

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

While Squadron Scramble offers a myriad of game options, the standard mode pits the player against a customizable number of opponents. Each player by default starts with four pilots, but only one pilot is in the air while the rest remain in the hanger. There are exceptions to those rules depending on game settings. Each stage consists of a base and a hanger. Pilots emerge from the base and must run to the hanger to board a plane and start racking up points. Each opponent shot down earns that individual pilot a point which goes towards the team total. When a player is shot down and survives, he/she has the option of running back to base to switch pilots, or return to the hanger to grab another plane. The player with most team points when the timer runs out wins the round.

While the trial doesn’t convey the fun factor of the game, the full version doesn’t do the best job in terms of immediately hooking players either. While every fresh startup of the game displays the basic rules to live or die by, it’s on the player to figure out how to really play the game. There are hints provided between rounds that clue players in to the layers of strategy hidden just under the surface of the fly-and-shoot theme. At first, most players will simply be flying around trying not to get shot down while erratically firing off their own armaments.  However, once the player realizes how the scoring works, that’s likely to change. Each pilot on a team has their own score, and if that pilot dies while on the ground, he remains out for the round and his score goes to zero. Scores also carry across rounds or “sorties” when playing a multi-round match.

Using cloud cover to hide is a useful, learned tactic.

After learning the ruleset by playing the game a handful of times, I was able to use better defensive strategies like keeping high-score pilots in the barracks as much as possible. Going on the offensive became more focused as I began trying to gun down the opponent’s vulnerable pilots as they tried to run to the hangar. Team-based dogfights have their own strategies to learn as well when dealing with a partner. There are even considerations when flying the plane. Doing too many loops will slow the plane down, and flying straight upward can stall the plane. The simplistic graphics really belie what’s under the hood. The game has a lot of depth that’s not apparent when firing it up for the first time, or even after a few rounds.

Squadron Scramble is a multiplayer-centric game, and the developers have gone to great lengths to tout the support for up to eight players at one time. In the event you can actually round up seven other human beings, two players can reportedly play on one controller, though I have to imagine that’d be an uncomfortable arrangement. Regardless of how many people are playing, all players can be divided up into at most four teams. With roughly a quarter to a third of the screen being taken up by the score counter, I assumed that trying to play with eight planes flying around the screen would simply not work. That’s not the way it plays out though, as at any given point half the players are likely to be on the ground racing for the base or hanger, or they’re parachuting down from their destroyed plane. The skies never get too crowded, so kudos to the Depth Charge Software developers for keeping the game balanced even with all of that pandemonium.

As a party game, Squadron Scramble is insanely fun. Having acquainted myself with the subtleties of the game, I brought in three friends who – with a little guidance – were able to play competitively almost immediately. Squadron Scramble includes that essential “screw over your friend” element that makes local multiplayer so enjoyable. Alliances are forged one minute and dissolved shortly after when the tables have turned. It reminded me a lot of playing Bomberman 64 back in the day. Any game that can elicit cackles, squeals, and cries of lament from a room full of grown men deserves some lavish praise.

Thankfully the developers remembered that  not everyone has an entourage at their beck and call, so they’ve included AI opponents to fill in whenever necessary. Everyone’s experience may be different playing the game, but I found the challenge level of the AI to be pretty well-balanced. I won most matches, but very rarely swept every round. The enemy planes were also smart enough to fire at the pilots running for cover on the ground. There are no difficulty settings to play around with, so it’s a good thing the developers nailed it right the first time.

Player assignment isn’t the only variance in the game. There are a few additional modes included that shake up the rules in terms of how many pilots are on each team or how many shots can be fired in a burst. And for a truly tailored experience, there’s a custom mode that allows modification of just about every setting including number of rounds, timer duration, and stage selection. The stages have their own quirks like environmental and man-made hazards that some players may like or dislike. Providing the option to jump immediately to or stay away from any of the five stages is a nice feature.

As an intended party game, Squadron Scramble soars, but not before having a little trouble getting off the runway. There’s a bit of a learning curve that must be overcome through simply playing the game. I really struggled with what review score to settle on. However, the fact that this now sits along with SpeedRunner HD and Hidden in Plain Sight in the echelon of must-play XBLIG party games, settled the matter for me: 5/5. Grab a buck, some buds, and some brews and have a blast.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

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

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

And it’s a shame to start the review off in such a negative way, because the execution works well and offers some level of fun gameplay. The tower defense section is your standard fare, but it’s executed solidly. Problem is, it can all get a little overwhelming when combined with the action shooting sections. If you compare it to something like FTLgame’s Faster Than Light, which blends tactical play with the general housekeeping of your ship, Straco simply doesn’t hold up as well when merging its two separate elements together.

The heads-up display (HUD) in Straco is an explosion of information that would have benefited from being trimmed down. Perhaps it’s just a personal preference, but the cluttered screen during gameplay is just an eyesore. And between the HUD and the chaos of the general gameplay, you have no idea where to look half the time.

Graphically Straco doesn’t stand out, but ironically that is what makes it different from other similar games. Many games on the XBLA Indie Marketplace try to go way above their level, which means either the gameplay suffers or the artwork looks out of place. Here, the sprites are clean and functional and the background is a patchwork of colours that represent sea, ground, forest and so on. The only shame is that the environment has no effect on your movement or abilities, whether you’re on foot or in the giant mechanical machine. This renders the change of colours more or less useless, but at least it’s better than a 100×100 grid of grey.

It’s understandable that games created by small teams, one or two people will multitask between programming, art, and audio. But that doesn’t excuse how poor and misplaced the soundtrack for this game is. It honestly might have been better to avoid using music altogether and take the Desert Strike route – especially with the helicopter sections.

Straco is by no means a bad game, but it just suffers from trying to spin too many plates at once. The minefield that is the tutorials and controls will turn off many players before they even get halfway through the first mission. And with Straco planned as the first of a series of episodic games, it will be difficult to see each episode garnering any new players. Straco has potential, it just needs major fine-tuning to realise any of that potential.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

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

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Aeternum‘s plot involves a young demon girl in search of her best friend. Her journey takes her through the academy she attends as she meets a wide variety of classmates and other creatures. The character design and setting are both very Japanese-inspired, and while it’s not my cup of tea, I’m sure there’s an audience out there for it. Thankfully, the dialogue is well written, fairly humorous at times, and much more likely to appeal to a wider audience than the actual characters themselves.

I’ve never really been a fan of shmups. I enjoy overcoming adversity, but when a game is designed to frustrate the person playing it,  it seems counter to the concept of entertainment. However, journalistic integrity includes keeping an open mind, which is how I approached Aeternum. What separates this game from other shmups is how the shield system is implemented. Defeating enemies earns the player ‘power’, and 50 ‘power’ can be spent to purchase a shield that lasts for a few seconds. The player starts with and can earn ‘Panics’ which automatically create a shield in the event the player’s going to get hit and doesn’t realize it. These are available in short supply, and even moreso on the higher difficulty settings, so there’s a strategy involved with making sure they’re held in reserve. Getting hit with no shields, no power, and no panics available results in the player’s death.

Projectiles. Lots and lots of projectiles.

Taking down the game’s standard flying cat and dog enemies is an assailable challenge, but the boss fights are another matter. Each of the four stages includes multiple bosses, each with multiple phases. As with most shmups, the key is pattern recognition through trial and error. After a few missteps (and sometimes many more), I found that the shooting and dodging while swapping between an offensive and defensive mindset became almost dance-like in a thoroughly enjoyable way. The game never lets up, though, and attention must be focused at all times between cutscenes. Aeternum embodies the term “bullet hell” as the game tries its damnedest to overwhelm the player with a deluge of projectiles to avoid. Thankfully the player’s avatar can be controlled in an alternate mode that makes only a small area of the player a vulnerable hit box. While that option can also earn scoring boosts from near-misses, the tradeoff is that player movement is slowed down.

One of the biggest complaints I have about Aeternum is the pacing of the game in terms of standard enemies versus boss fights. Sometimes there’s not enough easier kills in between bosses in order for the player to earn back “power” that’s been spent. The second stage is particularly awful for this. Another minor gripe is the lack of a save system. While the game is only four stages long, they all have to be played in one sitting. And as much as I struggled with the game, I played it on the “easiest” level. I don’t even want to think about how painfully tough the other difficulties are, but they’re there for the most hardcore of shmup fans. If developers are going to offer a handful of difficulty levels, the easiest one should still be easy. Thankfully a retry stage option was added in the first patch that made it at least somewhat possible for gamers to make it through to the end.

Aeternum is an interesting animal. There are so many things that I shouldn’t like about it, but I enjoyed playing it anyway. Most of what I could consider drawbacks or failings tend to fall into the personal tastes category, as the game itself really doesn’t have any inexcusable issues. The biggest concern I have about whether or not it’s going to be a success lies in the fact that the genre and character design place it in a niche within a niche, potentially alienating some gamers before they’ve even tried it. Those that take the risk are going to find a better-than-average shmup. Be forewarned, though, that despite the cutesy facade, this is a game that wants to take your lunch money and have you thank it for doing so. Aeternum is currently selling for 80 MSP ($1) in the Xbox Live marketplace.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

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

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.

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.

Brimstone is a pleasurable gaming experience that combines action/adventure and dungeon crawling gameplay with distinct RPG features, played from a top down point of view. It molds all these varied aspects into one very enjoyable experience that provides very addictive gameplay and keeps players coming back for more.

The controls are simple to use. As just one example, traversing inventory contents and character statistics are pretty straightforward and feel standard.

The dungeons you’ll explore are dark and particularly eerie, which perfectly fits the tone of play. The background music in each level is the same uncanny mixture of cacophonous noises that leave you feeling on edge, never sure what’s going to happen next. At times it even goes silent, which further invokes a sense of dread. The music works extremely well with the game and leaves for nothing to be desired in the way of a soundtrack.

Brimstone uses randomly-generated dungeons. Each level has a different floor plan, and this system of random generation adds variety which ultimately increases replay value. In spite of this, if you are a gamer big on story, you will be replaying the same short tale repeatedly. Every time a player starts the game your character’s stats and attributes will remain the same but the “story” begins anew. However, the game has four different difficulty levels (including the recently-added “Heroes Might” content) which increases the level of the monsters you face throughout the dungeon-rummaging quest.

Brimstone battle

There are a considerable number of different foes for you to face and by no means will you take them on one at a time. Enemies in a room will swarm you immediately if that is their normal attack pattern. Trapping yourself in a corner and being easily overwhelmed is a sure fire way to die. Enemies vary in the manner in which they attack. There are short range attacking enemies and long range, with both physical and magical damage to deal out at your character. I took the Spartan approach and stood in the doorway when it was a mass of enemies I couldn’t run in and easily handle. They’ll come at you but cannot surround you, rendering their numbers useless. From there it’s all hack n’ slash satisfaction.

The game primarily consists of leveling up your character. This includes upgrading their stats and outfitting them with multiple armor pieces, weapons and charms. Therein is where the true addictive nature of the game resides. Punchbag Entertainment strategically formed the game where character development is completely your own. Each character is essentially a blank slate and you are free to upgrade them exactly how you see fit. You have the opportunity to upgrade Strength, Toughness, Dexterity and Magic. Each attribute has a different affect and your added and accumulated points in these attributes will dictate what weapons you can wield and the particular types of armor you can wear as well. So if being a mage is an uncontrollable fetish, you have total control of how many magic points you’ll bestow upon your character whenever you level up. The ability to mold your character into whatever you see fit creates a feel of intense immersion, which kept bringing me back to play.

Brimstone Inventory Screen

The weapon system seemed to be  randomized, with thousands of different weapons to choose from. This makes the process of looting incredibly fun. Continuously searching for that next weapon or piece of armor that may only be slightly improving upon what you currently wield is every RPG fan’s obsession and provides an additional sense of enthusiasm while playing. The attributes provided by weapons also help character development in that they may add extra points to your attributes on top of what the base points are set at.

In the end, Brimstone: Heroes’ Might is a hybrid game of welded pieces that mesh together pleasantly by providing hours of character developing addictive gameplay and a large amount of content to boot. Not only can you embark on your heroes tale solo, but you can also link up with others on Xbox Live or direct link. Although the gameplay can eventually get a bit repetitive, I believe Punchbag Entertainment ultimately reached their goal of producing a solid action RPG that can be hard to put down. You can download the trial version of the game or purchase the full version on the Xbox Live marketplace.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

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

© 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.