#independant game

[guillothyme]

Listen, sometimes it's hard

[fridge-reviews]

Baba is You

Developer: Hempuli Oy Publisher: Hempuli Oy Rrp: £11.39 Released: 13th March 2019 Available on: Steam and Humblebundle Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard Approximate game length: 8 hours

Baba is You is a really strange puzzle game, where you manipulate the world around you by moving words. I know that sounds strange and its a little hard to explain clearly but I'll do my best. Perhaps you need to touch a flag to pass a level but the only flag is trapped in a small space with walls on all sides making it impossible for you to get. However if you find the sentence 'Wall is Stop' and move part of it so that one part is not longer touching then suddenly the walls surrounding the flag will be passable because they are no longer 'Stop'. I hope that made sense, because I truly can't think of an easier way of explaining that without recording a video (oh would you look at that, I did record a video).

I would love to tell you more about this game but I can't without basically giving the answers to several of the puzzles away. What I can tell you is that the puzzles start to ramp up in difficulty in short order. Generally I'm fairly good with puzzles, oh I know there are plenty of people out there who are vastly superior to me in that regard of course (hell, I have a friend of mine who buys increasingly difficult Rubic Cubes on a regular basis and completes them within minutes while I take ages to match up a single side). But I'm no slouch, and I've had to walk away from these a few times only to return later and try a new tactic.

Much like with Wilmots Warehouse the general design is kept simple, child like even. Then again a game like this doesn't need fancy graphics, if anything they'd likely detract from the range of puzzles that can be performed in this style.

This game definitely gets a recommendation from me, there is hours of enjoyment to be had here. Sure the game can be 'completed' within a few hours if you only do the bare minimum to allow you to get to the end. However to really complete this game will take days, weeks even.

[fridge-reviews]

Katana Zero

Developer: Askiisoft Publisher: Devolver Digital Rrp: £11.39 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam) Release: 18th April 2019 Available on: Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam Played Using: Xbox 360 Control Pad Approximate game length: 6 hours

How many times have you died? Can you really say? There's a school of thought that says that you die every second but are reborn so quickly you don't notice. Personally I think that idea is a load of old bunk but there's not way to prove or disprove such an idea. There is a reason I bring up this concept, but you'll have to play this game to understand.

Katana Zero is a pixel art action platformer where every combat is one part puzzle and one part test of skill, all of which is wrapped up in a dark sci-fi story. You play as an samurai who has the special ability to accurately predict the outcome of any given combat. This might seem overpowered, and it is, but you get to play out each of his thought experiments.

As I just mentioned you get to play as this samurai's thought experiments meaning that when you die that it wasn't the right action to take and therefore is discarded and you get to try again, and again and again. This part is called the 'planning' stage and once you manage to complete a room you get to watch a successful video of your run, just without any time slowdown effects etc.

That's right I did say you could slow down time, its only for a short period and recharges slowly but it allows you to time your strikes to the point that you can deflect bullets. This is increadibly useful as you die in a single hit (as do all the enemies apart from the bosses).

The warning on this game are right, this isn't a game anyone who is epileptic should play, not without changing the settings anyway. This will greatly reduce the effects that might trigger it.

Annoyingly this game is actually only part one of the story, apparently there are going to be some free DLC's coming that will complete it. I have to say I certainly hope so as I have so many questions that remain unanswered.

This a great game with tight controls and a wonderful soundtrack, I eagerly await the DLC's so that I can find out the whole story.

If this appeals to you perhaps try;

Dead Cells ICEY Hotline Miami

[fridge-reviews]

Train Valley - Blast Review

Developer: Alexey Davydov, Sergey Dvoynik and Timofey Shargorodskly Rrp: £6.99 (Steam and Humblebundle)

There’s something to be said for games with simple gameplay mechanics, I enjoy playing grandiose games with oodles of complexities but it feels good to go back to something more… basic.

Train Valley is exactly that a game that is mechanically simple, but don't mistake that for meaning that the game is easy.

The aim of the game is straightforward, get all the trains that arrive to the stations they wish to go to and don't go bankrupt. However that's harder than it sounds as multiple trains will want to go at once and you have to manually control the tracks. It can become quite hectic very quickly.

I've enjoyed my time with this game but it's definitely one that I could only do in short stints.

[fridge-reviews]

My Friend Pedro - Blast Review

Developer: DeadToast Entertainment Rrp: £15.49 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)

This is one of the strangest and most fun games I've played in a long time. Granted it's short (lasting about four or five hours) but at every moment I felt like a complete badass because of all the insane moves that I pulled off. There's just something thrilling about gunning down two people on opposite sides of the screen while twirling in the air like a aerial silk acrobat. Make no mistake though, I am not good at this game, like... at all. At the end of each level you get given a score rating and I very very very rarely got over a 'C' grade.

Coming second to the action is the writing. I can't be certain of this but I get the feeling that the developers are either from the UK or have spent a lot of time there. I only say this because the humour (and some of the word choices) felt very British, almost Monty Python-esq in some places. Then again I knew this game would be for lack of a better word, zany, from the moment I saw the talking banana.

[fridge-reviews]

Victor Vran - Blast Review

Developer: Haemimont Games Rrp: £15.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)

Personally, I don't think that every game needs to be the video game equivalent of War and Peace or Citizen Kane. I'm not saying that gaming shouldn't try and attain such a level of cultural significance (arguably we already have a few times over), but for every masterwork there has be a base of many lesser titles and Victor Vran is one such title.

In this isometric ARPG (Action Roleplaying Game) you hack, shoot, smash, slash and fry your way through hordes of enemies, challenging bosses and terrible jokes. So what makes it different from the likes of Torchlight or Diablo? The lack of class system, your style of play is determined by what weapons and peripherals you equip. Perhaps shooting at range isn't working so well for you then you can switch out for the sword, the hammer, the rapier or the scythe. Each weapon type has their own move set that work well in different situations. Of course, this wouldn't be an RPG if their weren't stats but again with this game it works differently, the stats are tied to the weapon not the character. You upgrade your weapons over and over, but don't get too attached a new and better one is likely around the corner.

Honestly this game was a lot of fun, sure it suffers from the many of the same issues that most 'mid tier' games do, invisible walls, the odd bit of AI strangeness etc. But if you can get past all that you'll find a decent game with lots of content.

[misacearovii]

Another day, another discovery : This game is simply beautiful. I want to see more. :3 Get the game on Itch.io, link in the video's description!