The continuation of the selection of small indie projects, which once found themselves in the shadow of large-caliber games, but themselves were very good and definitely deserve attention. At the same time, let's look at the fact that an indie developers in the near future prepare us fresh.
The Cat Lady
In the eight of the eighth generation of consoles, when classic quests turned into interactive films, and 4K is about to become a generally accepted standard, the right to tell a truly original story remains only in independent studios. A modest budget is pushing experiments. For example, you can plant a player to sort out the papers in Papers, Please , turning the Point-And-Click mechanics into a causing torture.
Harvester Games Let's go along the other path. Gloomy quest The Cat Lady introduces us to the heroes completely not typical of video games and shows the darkest nooks for the human soul.
Susan Eshford, a lonely woman for a little forty, has been tormented by depression for several years. Having succumbed to minute weakness, she dares to go into another world and swallows a whole bubble of pills of sleeping pills. An overdose of the medicine (and maybe mystical forces) cause Susen strange visions. Instead of heavenly heaps or sulfur springs, she finds herself in the middle of the endless field with a lonely house, where a smiling old woman is waiting for her. Death in human form?
It's more and more complicated: the stranger leaves questions and sends Susan back to the world of the living – so that she ends with five “parasites”, unworthy and vile people. The fact that Susan is tired of life and wants to die, only makes her laugh.
If you thought that an ordinary story begins further – we find a villain, introduce the old woman, repeat four times – you are mistaken. There are maniacs and psychopaths in the game, but they are only a background for the genuine searches of the heroine, the search for the meaning of life.
The real world and psychedelics are mixed in The Cat Lady in equal proportions. In the reception department of the hospital, the web of the web was a huge spider, every second neighbor in the porch has skeletons in the closet, including literally. Seven chapters of history push Susan to a difficult choice, make you choose between their life and the salvation of random acquaintances, sow doubts about the soul of a tired woman. Maybe this world is not so bad?
Puzzles in the game are simple; scissors will cut the cable, and the brick will break the glass. The Cat Lady is truly revealed in the dialogs of the two main characters: Susan and her tenant Mitsi. The student turns out to be the exact opposite of the cat widow, feeds her pancakes and teaches to use social networks. Dialogs for twenty minutes do not want to rewind, girls convincingly play unexpected joy, despair and nervous determination.
By the intensity of passions and the psychological depth of The Cat Lady – not a game, but a French detective novel. There is a criminal, a villain who should be done justice. But can you raise your hand?
Floppy Heroes
Floppy Heroes – A real cartoon, where revived pictures try to hurt each other by all means. At the same time, it will not turn its cruel language, but cheerful – very!
The prototype for Floppy Heroes was the ancient Ragdoll Masters , Where our task was in the role of sticmen (men, like a two -year -old child), knock the nonsense from his friend in a local multiplayer or passing levels, fighting a computer. The key feature was zero gravity around, provoking unexpected situations.
Floppy Heroes is on the same pillars. But the case is in the nuances!
► Arena for the battles.
First of all, you need to create your own warrior and choose the uniforms and weapons to him. Everything picked up on the hero will affect his mobility and resistance in battle.
Each part of the reservation is something, and the degree of protection varies and the degree of protection. And the weapon beats enemies with different power, so equip your warrior with all care. Weapons here, by the way, order. There are two -handed heavy, but large damage to hammers, swords and spears. And there are one -handed instruments of killing, captivating https://yummy-wins-casino.co.uk/. There are also long -range specimens like bows, guns and wands – grab in both hands on the gun, and forward, arrange a natural meat grinder.
Having gathered your martial artist in zero gravity, start by mastering a single regime. On the one hand, the essence of the campaign is simple to the devils: you pass the level – you move to the next one, some more enemies, or they are stronger and larger. But in practice, the first time you do not understand what is happening here at all: the hero flies helplessly in level, crashes into the edges of the arena and waves an ineffectively with a huge hammer that you dried him.
And then you understand that the ball is ruled by a physicist. The preparatory stage – the assembly of the hero – is almost more important than the battles themselves. If you put on a brave warrior in the most difficult armor, get ready for the fact that he will be slow and only once he will go in a heavy lamber boot on someone else's face. And if the fighter was dressed in the lightest armor, and put a heavy sword in his hands, then this fool will highly drag the hero down, like a stone in an ice hole.
► set a small army on a giant? Easily!
It won’t work to give someone to the cuffs, but you can play at the same computer with your friends (up to eight people are supported). Before starting, the developers will allow to personally twist the gravity, the speed of the characters, the amount of health and the slowdown in the time. As a result, no battle will be the same as others.
There are several command modes, but the most remarkable of them is the “Battle of Titan”. In it you will feel like a crumb David Supply Goliath. For balancing forces, it is allowed to collect a mini-Armia up to six people, again, having selected equipment and weapons to each. And you can be a titan itself, scattering meel with one wave.
In a word, the good killing of time for several evenings.
Bound
Leave on PC coffee, depression and torn wallpaper. Indie games are on consoles. Under sensitive guidance Sony Santa Monica Independent studio Plastic I prepared for us … a simulator of rhythmic gymnastics.
Technically Bound – just another platformer, but obsessive melodies, strange sounds, the environment and visual style of this short short story not about brothers in the genre, but about psychedelic musical clips. The bright red staircase rotates with steps to the beat of classical music, golden grass, similar to fries, bends slightly when the heroine, tirelessly dancing, runs along the lawn.
Dance is the only way to interact the character with the outside world. Even remaining in place, your princess rhythmically leads his hands and hips, ready to stop expressive at the next universal evil. Squeezed Shift, several successful buttons, and the heroine sets on a dance, bending blue ribbons with incredible patterns.
Dance always helps. It doesn’t matter whether you need to jump onto a flying platform, run through a thin rope or drive a flock of black paper aircraft. It will not work to lose in principle, after falling into the abyss of raging pixels, the princess is immediately in the same place above the edge of the abyss.
Where you need to perform active actions, tips are placed: for example, the wall that should be pushed to the boss is marked with traces of the palms.
The plot of Bound is served in short inserts in small portions, which at first is difficult to tie into a single whole. The woman comes to the sea and, peering into the waves, recalls youth. Father, little brother, she herself and children's fears in her mind become characters of a strange fairy tale. Flying the pages of the album with drawings, we force her to recall more and more fragments of history in order to ultimately cope with the huge monster who declared his rights to a magical country.
All the way from start to end it will take two to three hours, even if you get to the end with rare back streets. The game is of some interest for speedranners, although there are little ways to reduce the road to Bound. The rest is enough and one passage.
Behind the beauty of the game, time will pass unnoticed. The landscapes from the subconscious of the princess resemble a candy country from the cartoon at the same time "Ralph" and watercolor east from Prince of Persia 2008. If you like walking simulators and you want to pass the evening to good music, Bound will do, but do not expect revelations from it.
Duskers
If Advents about cats, dancing and depression seem boring to you, pay attention to Duskers. This "horned" offers a decent test to a real hardcore.
After the next hyper jump, your ship emerges into a once inhabited system, and you understand with horror that all ships, stations and other inhabited objects in it are silent. Computers are damaged by an unknown virus, the remnants of records and personal diaries, stammering, talk about enraged robots, aliens and gray mucus. There is no one to ask for advice, there will be necessary to get grains of information yourself. First of all – cunning.
Let the plot similarity with Dead Space It doesn't bother you. Duskers is not a militant, but a puzzle connected to a survival simulator. You will not see a protagonist who has survived a person in inhospitable space, he will never stick out of the pilot cutting in the entire game. Your eyes and hands will become droids controlled remotely.
Sad robots can do everything: to move along the compartments with a characteristic buzz, collect garbage and fuel, pull the broken comrades in the tow, connect to the terminals and hack the ship’s control … but in the fight these circles with numbers are almost useless.
In the battle, the droid lives an average of three seconds. You can stock up on mines and lure the enemies on them, but it will be more reliable not to face enemies at all. The motion sensor will help to calculate dangerous rooms, the droid with the generator will bury the right doors and drives out an unknown threat to an unnecessary impasse. You can open the gateways into space, but the flow of air will take away and useful items too.
You can’t relax in Duskers. In dark corridors, the sensors of droids work with interference, even the most reliable upgrades are bought. A living crystal can hide in an “empty” room and cut down your best minister in two jumps. "Beeshouses" are able to take out a locked door in half a minute. You can not have time to take it to a safe place, it takes time for the necessary commands.
Here Duskers shows itself in all its glory: the program of programming is built into the game. The mouse is not needed at all, all actions are performed using a console and keyboard. You can connect to four droids yourself, as well as through the command line in the "View".
You can set the sequence of actions and your own macros. For example, Stealth 1; Navigate 1 R2; Gather All will force the first droid to turn on the camouflage field, and then advance to the second room and collect all the useful things there. To brave one droid will not come out, there will not be enough slots for upgrades. For a successful operation, the help of the entire iron team will be needed.
There are many other nuances outside the viewing scope: the upgrades of the ship, the management of resources between flights … but to study their influence on the game is more interesting than yourself. Having once went to a distant station, you can wander in space for a whole weekend.
And now a little about the games that are still in development, but have already managed to attract our attention. By the way, in some of them we played the past Gamescom.
The Exiled
Das tal, and now The Exiled , – This is a social mmorpg with elements of the sandbox and the combat system like standard mova. The main character falls into the universal universe inhabited by monsters and other not too friendly creatures, and must learn to survive in this world with the help of magic and military skills.
When pumping a character, a player can combine skills to create his own class. Ultimately, a warrior, magician, archer or healer-leader can be obtained, but the player’s choice still affects the outcome. As in any MMORPG, your character is free to join clans and communities so that it is easier to develop. Friendly Fire is actively involved in the combat system, so you always have to aim carefully, so as not to get into your own.
The Exiled has an interesting feature: the time of the player in the universe is limited. However, you will be quite enough from one to three months from the start of the game to have time to pump the character before his path ends on one of the global plot events, and you can start again with a new avatar and new skills. Developers from an independent studio Fairytale Distillery They promise to calibrate each next series of games according to the desires of the players so that it is radically different from the previous one.
The game is currently on alpha testing, and the release is scheduled for 2017.
Nova nukers!
Multiplayer game, during which we have to play several rounds against other users or against AI on balloon -like arenas, slightly reminiscent of the main menu Psychonauts from Double Fine.
The purpose of the match, respectively, is to win with the help of weapons scattered in the arena. This is not so difficult, given that most obstacles can be discouraged by finding, thus, your enemies. The game pleases the eye with bright colors and funny characters in the form of a wolf and a penguin with various skins. At the moment, she is in Steam Greenlight, the release is scheduled for 2017.
Cubiverse
A puzzle that will probably appeal to lovers of a Rubik cube, as well as those who could not collect it: all levels are built precisely by its principle. The purpose of the game is to find a crystal at each level, using the mechanics of a real chubby cube. That is, if you are stuck at a level of level, you can simply turn the other side of the cube where the character is to move on. Very convenient mechanics for passing complex obstacles like burning objects. You can turn the cube an endless number of times.
U Cubiverse pleasant graphics, and, according to the creators, they strive to make each level special to create the feeling that you are traveling according to different planets. The game will be released on tablets at the beginning of next year.
Monster Boy 2
Monster Boy 2 – classic platformer, in many ways inspired by the game Monster World and paying tribute to the famous Mangak Akira Thoria, the creator of manga Dragon Ball and designer of the characters of the series Dragon Quest.
Gameplay classic: you need to jump on the platforms, collect objects and kill enemies. The main character can find and use objects important for the plot: for example, boots to walk under water. The story will probably seem familiar to those who have at least once visited a holiday with relatives: the main character is trying to find and calm his grandfather – he got drunk and arranges a brawl.
In the course of the plot, it becomes possible to turn into other characters. For example, turning into a pig, the hero can with the help of a snuff find a secret move, which will advance further. And having found yourself in the skin of a snake, you can crawl along the walls and other obstacles.
This is the charm of the game: it looks slightly old -fashioned, but the picture pleases the eye, and funny opportunities diversify the gameplay. The release is scheduled for January 2017.
Subsiege
The project in the Mova genre, the plot of which is this: after the global disaster, most of the planet found under water, and players need to go down to the abysses to get the last resources for their people. The struggle for resources between the players is planned serious. Do not forget about all sorts of sea creatures: you are a tidbine appetizer for them.
In order to further tickle your nerves, the game insists that you replenish the reserves of oxygen, located in cylinders that fall out of the killed enemies. Therefore, Subsiege does not need to build a base – you simply will not have time for this, you need to have time to repel the attacks of enemies and take their oxygen. In addition, there is the opportunity to distribute the abilities between the members of their team: someone can treat, and someone of the theft of oxygen, while trying to remain unnoticed.
The game will appear on the RS, but the developers are thinking about the port on the console. The release is scheduled for the first months of next year.