Support NeoGAF

[OnPoint]

May. 2012 is flying by. I'd like to point out again: May. It's a bit of a shocker. Luckily, there's a crop of games in last month's 45 releases that was actually pretty OK.

You can buy any of these games via xbox.com by clicking the link associated with each game, or on the Games Marketplace on your Xbox 360. Simply enter the marketplace and scroll up to Indie Games, where you can check the top rated titles, the games that have just come out, or “browse” to find the games mentioned in this thread. Indie Game trials last eight minutes, which is often enough to establish what you think about it. Even if you don’t buy any of these games, at least trial them, tell people what you think, get more people trying them.

Go. Play. Enjoy. Tell us what you think! Tell all your friends! Get them to tell all their friends…​

• HELP! Xbox LIVE Indie Games aren’t available in my country!

Yes they are! Xbox LIVE Indie Games are available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. If you’re outside those countries you can still play these games by setting up a Gamertag for free for one of those countries. It’s incredibly simple, and absolutely worth doing.​

The Gold award, for the absolute best game that came out last month.​

Color me surprised that I'm placing Crystal Hunters in the top spot. This is a game that many will probably overlook due to the awful, awful cover art. I didn't even want to continue past the title screen. But I did. And I discovered that this is definitely a well-developed little puzzler.

Crystal Hunters is a top-down room-based puzzler in the vein of the NES classic series The Adventures of Lolo. The object is to get to the stairs in each room and continue on to the next, while collecting the crystals hidden throughout them. Blue crystals are simple pick-ups, while red crystals give you a handful of bullets to shoot at enemies. Some enemies can be turned into boxes to be pushed onto switches, or into the vision of projectile-firing enemies who would otherwise burn you to a crisp.

There are mirrors that can be pushed to redirect laser beams, as well as enemies to run from. The game rates your performance based on time and amount of deaths at the end of each level. It's graphically sound and aurally pleasing. It's the best game released in April.

The Silver award, for games that are great, but hey, only one game can be the Gold award winner.​

Apparently MegaCity has been available on the iPhone for some time. I'm not much of a smartphone gamer, so it escaped my radar. However, it's a pretty fun game on the XBLIG service in its own right.

You're job is to layout a city using the pieces given to you on the left side of the screen. The placement of your pieces will determine how well you're doing. Blue squares will give you a positive score, while red squares will detract from it. For instance, a landfill sits in the center of a 3x3 block of red squares, negatively affecting everything around it. You can offset this by placing blue squares on the affected areas, counteracting it.

Getting a certain amount of points will allow the board to scroll and open up new areas for you to sprawl your metropolis onto. It's a lot of fun, if a little simple once you reason out the base concept.

=================​

Septipus has seen quite the mixed reaction on NeoGAF. I'll admit, I didn't have nearly as strong a reaction to it as everyone else here seemed to. I thought it was alright.

This game puts you up against the evil Septipus, stealer of follicles and mustache creator extraordinaire. You'll spend the game exploring caves with floaty controls, avoiding spikes and collecting keys. It's clearly not for everyone, as evidenced by last month's thread, but it warrants a look if for the sleek presentation alone.

=================​

I'm having a huge problem with my feelings for Retribution. On one hand, it's easily one of the single most impressive games to ever grace the XBLIG neck of the woods. On the other, it's a complete and total ripoff. I settled on giving it a Silver for being so well developed, despite it's entire lack of originality.

It's Super Stardust HD on XBLIG. It's a twin-stick shooter set on a globe where you blow asteroids and enemies up. There's several selectable weapons and a boost function. Get the PS3 version if you can instead, but if you can't, this will fill the void nicely. You know, if there's a void of twin-stick shooters on the XBLIG service I'm somehow unaware of.

Bronze Award winners don’t represent the best games out this month, but every one of these has some really unique aspect to it that more than makes it worth trying, or is more than good enough to warrant a trial. It’s for games that are worth talking about.​

• Quiet, Please! is a point-and-click adventure game in simple, 8-bit-esque platforming clothes. Take an object from one area, interact with it in another and unlock more stuff to move around and explore.

• Vidiot Game is a game of weird. Seriously, there's no other way to describe it. One scene I'm a frog falling down a chute toward a computer. Another has me scratching off lotto tickets. Wondering how you'd react to a dead horse or rabid dog? Pick an option and see what happens.

• Fish Bait is a brick-breaker with stupid graphics and cool design ideas. The enemies come down like in Galaga and stick to your ship, slowing you down. Crowded genre, but not a bad entry.

• Cylinder could run a bit smoother, but it's not bad. It's a match-3 or more puzzle game set on a Cylinder. The graphics evoke Tron. The music is thumping techno.

• Firing Range 2 is another stationary shooter where you fire at targets for points. The outdoor environment is nicer than the first game's boring concrete room.

• Insane Zombie Carnage might be pretty good, but I couldn't really figure out how to play. I kept killing enemies but nothing happened. It controls pretty well but I just couldn't reason it out.

• Honey Badger - Slayer of Memes is a Punch Out!! style game where you throw down with internet-famous folks like Star Wars kid and the Leave Brittany Alone thing. It's not amazing, but definitely worth a laugh.

Some games are bad. Really bad. So bad that they don’t even deserve a functioning link to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Seriously. No links. There are a lot of bad games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, but this section is reserved only for games so atrocious or fundamentally flawed that they actually anger me.​

• I feel like Gingerbread Holiday gave me diabetes. Not because it's so damned sweet. Because it's that damned bad for you.

• Watch out world! The developer of Skyfish II: Eat Your Peas has figured out parallax scrolling!

• Bricks is a brick-breaking game with no music. The internet does this better every day for free.

• Learn Basic Italian? È stupefacente che un mucchio di merda questa grande è ritenuto opportuno rilasciare. Non preoccupatevi di questo. Non potevano nemmeno fare la bandiera italiana al corretto proporzioni in Microsoft Paint.

A small section for games that have been updated somehow, either with new content or with a brand new price! This section will only bother with games that are worth buying, so if it’s in here, assume that it’s excellent and that you should own it.

I haven't picked up on any, but if anyone wants me to add stuff in here, please PM me or post it below so I can edit it in.

Did you skip out on Chaosoft's EvilQuest? For shame! The game was really quite good.

Here's what Dark Octave said about EvilQuest back in February, when it won the Gold award:

This month the gold award goes to Evil Quest, an RPG by Chaosoft Games. This is a story of evil and revenge. It isn't the prettiest or best sounding game this month, but it has a charm about it that shouldn't be glossed over by anyone into RPGs. It's classic gameplay takes me back to the days of Soul Blazer and Legend of Gaia. There's a deep inventory system, an arsenal of magic spells and huge boss battles to test them with. Then there is the fact that you play as the bad guy without the option or pressures of being good. Feels nice for a change.

===========================

Have fun, and if you’re playing an Indie Game you love, don’t forget to tell people about it, because it’s only through you that the service thrives.​

Previous threads, where all the older stuff lives:

The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of March 2012 | Super Ninja Warrior Extreme
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of February 2012 | Picbox
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of January 2012 | EvilQuest
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of December 2011 | Orbitron Revolution
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of November 2011 | Volchaos
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of October 2011 | No GotM
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of September 2011 | The Fall of Gods
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of August 2011 | Train Frontier Express
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of July 2011 | Protect Me Knight
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of June 2011 | Rainbow Runner
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of May 2011 | Sequence
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of April 2011 | LaserCat
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of March 2011 | Solve It - Pack 1
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of February 2011 | Ninja360°
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of January 2011 | Bonded Realities
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of December 2010 | Score Rush
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of November 2010 | The TEMPURA of the DEAD
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of October 2010 | radiangames Fluid
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of September 2010 | Hypership Out of Control
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of August 2010 | Gravitron 360
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of July 2010 | PLATFORMANCE: Castle Pain
The best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of June 2010 | Old School Racer
The (old) XNA Indie Games Official Thread

 

[SAB CA]

Interesting to see Crystal Hunters make that top spot, I was planning on checking it out too, but hadn't got around to it yet.

The cover isn't COMPLETLY awful, either! The staging is a bit sloppy, and the art could use another refinement pass, but man, is it a lot better than some of those "Plaster an unfitting JPG" covers other games show...

Anywho, hoping for some solid games in May. It's always plesane to see some quality surprised pop up onto the XBLIG list, and such things are some of the best value games on XBL.

 

[toythatkills]

Septipus, controversial! =P

I thought Crystal Hunters was okay, but it could *really* do with being grid based.

Retribution was brilliantly made, but it felt soooo slow, is that what SSHD is like?

And since I made it into the end of the other thread I'll post here too:

MANIC MINER IS IN PEER REVIEW!

APPLE JACK 2 IS NEARLY IN PEER REVIEW! May is gonna WIN.

 

[OnPoint]

Septipus, controversial! =P

I thought Crystal Hunters was okay, but it could *really* do with being grid based.

Retribution was brilliantly made, but it felt soooo slow, is that what SSHD is like?

And since I made it into the end of the other thread I'll post here too:

MANIC MINER IS IN PEER REVIEW!

APPLE JACK 2 IS NEARLY IN PEER REVIEW! May is gonna WIN.

Retribution is definitely smaller and slower than SSDHD. The enemies in SSDHD are also much easier to see, the weapon system works better, and it's all-round more fun. If there's a demo for that, give it a shot. I'd recommend it over Retribution 10 out of 10 times if a person had access to both systems.

 

[toythatkills]

Retribution is definitely smaller and slower than SSDHD. The enemies in SSDHD are also much easier to see, the weapon system works better, and it's all-round more fun. If there's a demo for that, give it a shot. I'd recommend it over Retribution 10 out of 10 times if a person had access to both systems.

I do actually already have it, got it from the hacking episode. I tried to play it once and I just couldn't though, the analogue sticks on my PS3 controller are terrible and I couldn't keep my thumbs from constantly sliding off them, which made the game somewhat difficult to play and I just got sick of it very quickly

 

[Trumpets]

MANIC MINER IS IN PEER REVIEW!

This would have made a great 400 point XBLA release. Can you imagine such a beloved Japanese or US retro game ending up on XBLIG?

I hope Matthew Smith gets a cut, anyway.

 

[Gaspode_T]

There is a press release for Manic Miner and confirms it is official
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/169550/Xbox_Live_Indy_Game_lsquoMANIC_MINER_360rsquo.php

Any Spectrum fans should check out already released Earth Shaker which i think is by the original author

 

[Galdelico]

Learn Basic Italian? È stupefacente che un mucchio di merda questa grande è ritenuto opportuno rilasciare. Non preoccupatevi di questo. Non potevano nemmeno fare la bandiera italiana al corretto proporzioni in Microsoft Paint.

Bahahahaha XD

Let me make it even clearer:

E' incredibile che qualcuno abbia ritenuto anche solo opportuno pubblicare una tale montagna di sterco. Lasciatelo perdere: neppure son riusciti a disegnare - chiaramente in MS Paint - la bandiera italiana con le dovute proporzioni.

Man, when I saw this game I was so completely lolwut??? I mean... Imparare Base Italiana? Really? As in... All your bases are belong to us? What a disgrace.

 

[KDR_11k]

I guess I gotta catch up on XBLIG some day, I lapsed maybe a year ago and haven't really looked at the channel since then. A really old XBLIG I liked was Unrevolutionary, doesn't look like much but the class system and varied levels provide a lot of variety even on repeat playthroughs (because class skills matter so much most levels play out very different with a different class). Unfortunately there's a nasty save glitch that seems to reset saves to a much earlier state occasionally, exiting the game through the menu seems to avoid that for the current save but when I played through it for a second time it reset my first save to near the start of the game, real WTF there.

 

[OnPoint]

I guess I gotta catch up on XBLIG some day, I lapsed maybe a year ago and haven't really looked at the channel since then. A really old XBLIG I liked was Unrevolutionary, doesn't look like much but the class system and varied levels provide a lot of variety even on repeat playthroughs (because class skills matter so much most levels play out very different with a different class). Unfortunately there's a nasty save glitch that seems to reset saves to a much earlier state occasionally, exiting the game through the menu seems to avoid that for the current save but when I played through it for a second time it reset my first save to near the start of the game, real WTF there.

You should contact the dev and give them the details about that. They'd probably like to fix that.

 

[DaveVoyles]

I see people still write "Indy" instead of indie.

May is generally a slow month for XBLIG, as many devs are too busy finishing up their Dream.Build.Play entries to peer review other games or hop on the forum.

 

[OnPoint]

Eyestorm is currently on sale for 80 points for a limited time.

- Marketplace link
- Trailer

 

[toythatkills]

Eyestorm is currently on sale for 80 points for a limited time.

I thought Eyestorm was awful. I'm happy to accept I probably just didn't "get" it though. Fly around for a few seconds aimlessly, get sucked into a hurricane. Fly around another way, get sucked into a hurricane. Try the first way again, get sucked into...

I had no idea what I was doing and, IIRC, it was because the game really didn't make it clear.

 

[OnPoint]

I wasn't a big fan either, but then again, I don't really like flight or helicopter sims.

My site-mate played it too, though, and liked it a LOT.

I think he's different than us.

Burn him! Burn the witch!

 

[KDR_11k]

You should contact the dev and give them the details about that. They'd probably like to fix that.

I think it was one of the first games on the service, no way that's gonna get switched over to XNA 4. I don't think it's possible to patch XNA 3 games anymore.

 

[DaveVoyles]

I think it was one of the first games on the service, no way that's gonna get switched over to XNA 4. I don't think it's possible to patch XNA 3 games anymore.

I'm not sure. That's a good point though, I'd like to know if you can patch those still or not.

 

[Ranger X]

Thumbs up for Crystal Hunters.

I love "lolo-style" games.

 

[Slightly Live]

You can try a Flash version of Megacity on PC/Mac/whatever for free right now, here.

 

[Gaspode_T]

Crystal Hunters needs a donation of some fancy box art, I admit to skipping over it on that reason so find me guilty for judging book by a cover

Pretty interesting topic at indiegamerchicks guest dev column http://indiegamerchick.com/2012/04/28/tales-from-the-dev-side-why-is-conflict-fun-by-adam-spragg/

Most xblig have either too much or too little, the devs should spend 10 days of doing nothing but kneeling down to an altar of Miyamoto

I played JoyJoy last night and I really wish those Radiangames would have been converted to xbla titles, I prefer them to iOS versions by far...but no leader boards etc is killer

 

[HadesGigas]

played JoyJoy last night and I really wish those Radiangames would have been converted to xbla titles, I prefer them to iOS versions by far...but no leader boards etc is killer

Get the PC versions instead? Though I think JoyJoy is the one that didn't come to PC?

 

[toythatkills]

Thumbs up for Crystal Hunters.

I love "lolo-style" games.

Aesop's Garden is a better Lolo.

As I said, I can see the potential in Crystal Hunters but the fact that it's not grid based broke the game more than once. For example, at one point you have to use a box to block off an enemy which is travelling up and down a path. I pushed the box and blocked it in, but the box wasn't snapped to a grid so I was trapped on one side of it, I couldn't go above it because the gap was too small, and it was the same on the bottom (but the enemy was there anyway). I died, and it restarted me exactly where I was with the box still in the wrong place, and the Undo feature didn't work, presumably because I'd just come back to life. I had to restart the whole level, which was a little annoying.

 

[Gaspode_T]

I forgot about the PC versions, hmmm...maybe he should have done like Xona Games and release web games...Score Rush is free to play at Turbulenz

Picks suggested some War of Words game, looks interesting..my picks section is almost 100% xblig

 

[Ranger X]

Aesop's Garden is a better Lolo.

As I said, I can see the potential in Crystal Hunters but the fact that it's not grid based broke the game more than once. For example, at one point you have to use a box to block off an enemy which is travelling up and down a path. I pushed the box and blocked it in, but the box wasn't snapped to a grid so I was trapped on one side of it, I couldn't go above it because the gap was too small, and it was the same on the bottom (but the enemy was there anyway). I died, and it restarted me exactly where I was with the box still in the wrong place, and the Undo feature didn't work, presumably because I'd just come back to life. I had to restart the whole level, which was a little annoying.

Aesop's Garden is awesome indeed. Might buy Crystal Hunters anyways.

 

[FunInfusedGames]

I'm not sure. That's a good point though, I'd like to know if you can patch those still or not.

You can only release 4.0 games on the service. So if you need to do an update, you have to update the app to 4.0.

I had to do this 4-5 times. Depending on how your game is built, it can be a couple of hours work to something way, way more painful. The reason why I did Hypership Still Out of Control rather than updating Hypership Out of Control was because upgrading the online high scores to 4 would going to be a massive amount of work. I never want to remove features so you get HSSOOC w/o online scores but with better graphics and updated levels. And original Hypership still has online high scores. Though it'll never be updated.

 

[DaveVoyles]

Thanks for clearing that up, Kris.

 

[toythatkills]

Snakester is out from Eyehook (Cursed Loot). It's Snake, but not as you know it...

 

[Neuromancer]

Snakester is out from Eyehook (Cursed Loot). It's Snake, but not as you know it...

Very good game for $1. Haven't tried the crazy 2 player mode yet, where you share a snake with two heads.

 

[Eiji]

Any good websites out there listing the best indie games for the 360?

 

[Gaspode_T]

Any good websites out there listing the best indie games for the 360?

These threads linked above

http://xblig.co
http://www.grcade.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11888
http://www.indiegamerchick.com

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Still the best game on the service IMO:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/P...士/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585504f8

 

[MikeHaggar]

Snakester is out from Eyehook (Cursed Loot). It's Snake, but not as you know it...

this looks kind of interesting. i'm more interested now that i know it's from eyehook. i'm going to check it out shortly!

 

[DaveVoyles]

Any good websites out there listing the best indie games for the 360?

*cough*http://www.armlessoctopus.com*cough*

Also, Snakster looks pretty. I'll have to give it a go tonight.

 

[OnPoint]

Might be time to start adding links to websites that cover XBLIG into the OP.

 

[DaveVoyles]

I played Snakester last night. A nice little twist on Snake, and very pleasing on the eyes.

I also played Dot Dash: episode 1. You control a rotating cog on screen by maneuvering it around with the left thumbstick, within a squared off 2d environment. There are also spheres which appear at random that you acquire, and upon running them over, you are turned into one of four colors: red, blue, green, or yellow. Your job is to collide with blocks of a matching color as they move vertically or horizontally across your screen. The presentation is solid, and I actually found this to be quite entertaining.

and Memory Freak
This is a package of three simple games. Matching cards by turning them over, 2 at a time, a copy of the the visual / aural game Simon, and another which has numbers randomly flashing on screen. This looks to be a student / hobbyist project, so for entertainment purposes I would suggest skipping it.

 

[HadesGigas]

I just won Snakester on twitter by getting a high score in the trial!

https://twitter.com/#!/eyehookgames/statuses/200810373715206144

 

[fernoca]

Bought 'Retribution' because of how similar it looked to Super Stardust HD (which I really liked on PS3 and PSP). To my surprise, aside the visuals the actual gameplay is quite different. In SSHD your ship auto-upgrades as you play, so the weapons, shields, etc. are auto-applied to it and you only have to worry about destroying everything and evading stuff. In Retribution as you destroy things, you earn experience this experience is turned intro credits as you level up which you use to upgrade the ship's shield, bombs, lasers, etc.; which add some extra difficulty to the chaos going on screen since you have to worry about on what to spend the credits.

Progression is similar, as you play the campaign to unlock planets and then you can play the planets individually on the other modes to beat scores.

Also unlike SSHD, there's a storyline of sorts and voice-acted exchanges between the main character and the computer (ship?) which kinda sounds like Glados from Portal.


I also got (not so new):
-DLC Quest: Finished and got all "achievements" in one sitting, but was well worth it. Really liked hte overall look and sense of humor regarding the DLC, preorder extras, etc...good to see the Horse Armor been the overpriced item it was at least was put to good use.
-I,Zombie: Looked cute and liked the overall concept. simple, fast and fun.

Trying later today (got it too but didn't had time to play):
-Orbitron Revolution; which I know was made by Warm Machine and always looked great.

Also got the 2 Angry Fish games, since I liked Fishcraft. I guess I'm part to blame, but I like Angry Birds so...kinda surprised as there are no more games similar to it. At least the 'Fish-games' look good too.

 

[DaveVoyles]

Ok some random things I saw on twitter this morning:

CSR Studios @CSR_Studios
Dead Pixels now has over 40,00

DjArcas @Fortress_Craft
After Minecraft selling a huge number of sales in the first day.... FortressCraft sold about 10% more than the previous day.

Both are equally interesting, and a strong indication that there is still some life left on XBLIG.

Also, Dream.Build.Play stuff: Registration ends Tuesday, and games have to be submitted by June 12.

 

[toythatkills]

Blocks That Matter is 80pts

All the radiangames are 80pts.

GET ON IT RIGHT NOW.

 

[KDR_11k]

Don't the PC versions of those games offer more content?

 

[DaveVoyles]

James Pertruzzi (@DiscordJames) who worked on Take Arms wrote an excellent article on Indie Gamer Chick's site about the perils of creating a multiplayer game on XBLIG.

It's written in a way so that both gamers and developers can appreciate the work that goes into building a networkable game, without being too far over/under anyone's heads. Certainly worth a read.

 

[Gaspode_T]

Don't the PC versions of those games offer more content?

They are also more expensive now...and the Xbox versions run super smooth ...

The iOS version of Crossfire was a big disappointment to me. I wish these games would have been picked up for XBL somehow but I guess whoever is in charge of that doesn't t realize the size of GeoWars fan base

 

[toythatkills]

 

[Ranger X]

Blocks That Matter is 80pts

All the radiangames are 80pts.

GET ON IT RIGHT NOW.

Radiangames?

 

[Gaspode_T]

Wow that shirt is awesome...and you look exactly like your avatar, or the other way around

I hope the next cover game for indies section is something out there like Escape Goat

 

[toythatkills]

Radiangames?

Yeah, JoyJoy, Inferno, Fireball, Crossfire, Ballistic and Fluid. They're all great.

Wow that shirt is awesome...and you look exactly like your avatar, or the other way around

I hope the next cover game for indies section is something out there like Escape Goat

They have been pretty safe choices to date. One of them was right up there in Top Rated anyway and the other just happened to coincide with Microsoft Flight.

And yeah, shirt's lovely

 

[Gaspode_T]

The 1 Dollar Zombie game was featured in some sort of games spotlight section and it was kind of amusing seeing the dev post at the dev forums ' I can't figure out why the sales of my game have suddenly spiked up'..

 

[DaveVoyles]

There he is!

 

[OnPoint]

Got my Escape Goat and Soulcaster shirts today as well. So awesome

 

[djtiesto]

So, I remember hearing something about XNA being gradually phased out... what will this mean for XBLIG and indie development? I really love XNA as a platform to create simple stuff, and was hoping that XBLIG would continue into next gen.

Will there be a problem in the future where one is unable to play XBLIG because MS shut down the servers and you need authentication to play?

 

[Gaspode_T]

So, I remember hearing something about XNA being gradually phased out... what will this mean for XBLIG and indie development? I really love XNA as a platform to create simple stuff, and was hoping that XBLIG would continue into next gen.

Will there be a problem in the future where one is unable to play XBLIG because MS shut down the servers and you need authentication to play?

SharpDX has already made that worry go away, it has very similar APIs, more flexibility to harness deep graphics techniques, and is open source.

Xblig will stay how it is and ppl can try their luck for the near future, but smart devs would look into SharpDX Unity etc to cover their bases

Windows 8 app store will make the Xbox indie marketplace look outdated , it could even eclipse xbla...