Games Featured:
- • Beret
- • One and Light
- • Mythology
3D games? 2D games? Can't we all just be games and get along and have happy times together? What? Nobody's debating this and there's no contention in the gaming community over the game types? Then, why am I still writing interrogative sentences?!
Rosslyn: The Templar Mystery is a captivating first person adventure game that is packed so densely with riddles, a dozen of them are staring you in the face from the very beginning and you'll barely even realize it. Taking place inside the Rosslyn Chapel (made popular by The Da Vinci Code), you have nothing but your grandfather's cryptic notes to leaf through as you wander around the chamber looking for clues. It's a challenging experience perfect for anyone who likes a good riddle!
Games Featured:
- • WG Realms 2: Siege Breaker
- • Wyv and Keep: The Temple of the Lost Idol
- • Crab Blaster
Two words for you this weekend: Wyv and Keep. Well, actually, that "and" should be included, so it's really three words. You don't really have to pay attention to the third word, but it really helps establishing the relationship between the two nouns surrounding it. Stop reading, go play!
Robots, man. They're the worst. Always pulling you out of your workplace and forcing you to battle them in a series of psychedelic levels, blowing you up, killing your cows. It's ridiculous. Luckily, we have Deepak, representing the everyman in the daily struggle against robo-baddies. Deepak Fights Robots, from Run-Man: Race Around the World creator Tom Sennett, is loaded with mind-bending levels, quick arcade action, more colors than a rainbow drowning in a crayon factory.
Games Featured:
- • The Cat and the Coup
- • AFROFARG
- • Splash
Political game starring a cat? Got that! Game with a really big title? Got that, too. How about a game made out of letters? Got that! A game that dispenses pie? Aww, not got that. Fail. Maybe next Weekend Download?
You like Dino Run SE, right? And Nanotube? Well, imagine a game that's nothing like either of those games but co-created by the makers of each. Imagining that? Now stop and check out Super Space Rubbish, a game that satisfies the wildest fantasies you've had since starting this review, and does so with a fantastic retro style. Super Space Rubbish looks a lot like the classic Asteroids game on the surface, but really it's a mining/upgrading sort of experience where you customize your ship using materials extracted from asteroids smashed with your turret.
Games Featured:
- • Nikki and the Robots
- • Vexed Hedgehogs
- • The Adventures of Box Guy
Just because a game isn't technically finished doesn't mean you can't play it. Or that it isn't fun! This edition of Weekend Download features two games that are still works in progress. They may have some rough edges, dusty corners, and missing bits and pieces here and there, but you can still experience the core of what is shaping up to be a great game. And just think: when the games are officially released, you'll feel all cool and stuff because you already knew about it!
Serve the Pact, serve Avadon, serve Redbeard. So it goes for you, a new recruit to the fabled Black Fortress, eager to make a name for yourself and help uphold the ideals of your land. But all is not as it seems; Redbeard, Avadon's commander, seems to inspire as much fear as he does loyalty in his followers, and murmurs of dissent ripple through the ranks while rumours of traitors both unnerve and intrigue you. Decide for yourself what path you will follow in this massive, engrossing turn-based fantasy RPG from Spiderweb Software. Just remember to watch your back so someone doesn't stick a dagger into it. Who can you trust?
Games Featured:
- • Australopithecus
- • They're Going to Blow up the Train!
- • Questling
If you follow world news events, the weekend is a good time to catch up on what's been going on around our planet. That's pretty boring, however, whereas a 2D platformer, a Lemmings-like action game, and a game where you carry coal to feed a chugging train is much more exciting!
Games Featured:
- • OpenClonk
- • Intense Staring Simulator
- • Pilot Crash Course
What's that? You want games to play? Games that let you climb around in caves or smash into pixel orc dudes? Well... we'll have to think about it. Ok, we thought about it, and we decided we'll think about it some more. In the meantime, play some games where you can climb around in caves and smash into pixel orc dudes.
Terraria, a new action/adventure/creativity game from Re-Logic, is perfect for a sand emperor like myself. It offers the thrill of discovery mixed with the chance to meticulously construct your own little village, city or empire. And before you think it: yes, it's a lot like Minecraft, only in 2D!
Games Featured:
- • Myrktorch
- • Singlehandedly
- • Have You Considered the Benefits of Life Insurance
Another Ludum Dare competition is about to end, and the resulting slew of games are, as usual, numerous, creative, and wacky. The three day event encourages solo game creators to dream up and craft a game in just 48 hours. The only other constraint is that entries must adhere to the chosen theme, which was pretty unusual this time around: It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take this! See the full release list of all 352 Ludum Dare 20 games, then vote on your picks on the Ludum Dare website. And then, check out some of our favorites below!
Lume is a new puzzle adventure game from State of Play, creators of a few browser games you might know, such as A Short History of the World and A Break in the Road. The visual style is by far the game's most standout feature, as everything you see was created out of paper and cardboard before getting filmed in high definition. The awesomeness doesn't end with the graphics, though. Lume features some solidly challenging point-and-click puzzles that will cause even seasoned room escape veterans to stop and think on more than one occasion.
Games Featured:
- • Pon
- • Rework the Dead: Evil
- • One Day Outside of Time
Part of what makes Weekend Download so fun is sharing games that aren't yet complete, are just concepts, are experimental, or are just plain weird. They aren't epic journeys that will consume entire days of play time. Instead, each little nugget of freeware gold does one thing particularly well. And even if it isn't perfect, we still like to share, allowing more people to play crazier games and giving the creative game developers a little more attention!
Ready for a rhythm game that will make you feel like a musical mastermind while potentially sending your synapses into a frenzy? Pulse: Volume One has that power, and this iPad-exclusive from Cipher Prime, creator of Fractal and Auditorium, has both the visual package and musical variety to lull you into a brilliant trance of dot tapping and circle watching.
When Amanita Design's Samorost or Machinarium meets a smart, non-formulatic hidden object game, The Tiny Bang Story is the beautiful result. A point-and-click puzzle game at heart, this charming release from Colibri Games will hook you from the start, keeping your eyes busy and your cursor mobile from the opening screen all the way to the very end. It's a stunning and very memorable game that will make you wish more games followed its careful design concepts.
Games Featured:
- • Quaintbrush
- • Contourmind
- • One Curious Nightfall
More games need to be abstract. Just about every art movement comes with its own brand of creators putting their minds to their respective canvases and creating things that don't quite make sense. Games, on the other hand, tend to be more logical, linear, and easy to understand. Why not break down a few barriers and twist the user's experience around a bit, like this week's feature Contourmind does?
A space ship. An explosion. An escape pod. A crash. It's just you and an alien planet replete with jungle creatures who aggressively attack you, lone guy in a well-equipped spacesuit. Capsized drops you in an unfamiliar world and gives you just a few tools to survive. Fortunately, a grappling hook and a number of guns happens to be amongst these tools, the former of which is handy not only for swinging around and pulling yourself up ledges, but for grabbing and moving obstacles. Other than that, you really have to rely on your wits in this gorgeously-illustrated but challenging physics/action game.
Games Featured:
- • Hubby the Clay Cube
- • Little
- • Cold Blooded (Cold 2)
Hello, traveller! Did you know it's possible to have protagonists made out of clay? How about protagonists that are really tiny due to radiation? These facts and more on this edition of Weekend Download!
Games Featured:
- • Grief
- • Mecha Spider Island
- • Terra: Legend of the Geochine
This happy weekend time, we are proud to present: fun games! Really, really fun games. It's like, if you wanted to get a bunch of games together that were just plain fun, not so much challenging, not so much brain-taxing, just awesome fun, then you'd assemble something like what we have below. And then you would go play them and have some of that fun everybody's always talking about!
As the name would suggest, Digital: A Love Story by Don't Take it Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story author Christine Love, is a downloadable romance/mystery set against the backdrop of 1980s online technology. Part interactive fiction, part Uplink-style hacker game, and part nostalgic pastiche of a time of low-res graphics and crackling dial-ups that many current gamers never got to experience (which, for the record, this includes me, and, presumably, the author herself!). Digital: A Love Story offers a short, sweet and occasionally heart-wrenching trip back in time.
Games Featured:
- • Mushrooms Hate Kaya
- • Masjin
- • 0Space
- • En-Garde!
Got some pals over and want to engage in some retro-styled multiplayer fight-a-thons? TIGSource has your answer! The recently-concluded TIGSource Versus Competition inspired a community of game creators to craft 81 multiplayer games, each one focused on combat. Some are playable online, others are confined to meatspace multiplayer, but they're all unique in that awesome indie sort of way. Below are a few of the top games as voted on by the TIGSource community!
John's got problems of his own, but those will have to wait while he tackles his job as a new 11th grade English Literature teacher at a school conducting a very unusual experiment. In this smart visual novel, you'll watch the lives of your students unfold through personal and private conversations you're not meant to see, and have to decide how to help them when they come to you for advice. A surprisingly fun, funny, and touching story that deals with everything from sex and sexuality to self-confidence, love, and, of course, privacy.
Games Featured:
- • 1916 - The War You Never Knew
- • Ranger
- • Tottenham
Games. Fresh games. Newly minted from game presses built before the turn of the century. Which, come to think of it, wasn't that long ago, was it? But it sounds like it's ancient. Classic. Time-tested. You keep thinking that while you play the gems below!
Don't be replaced by a robot! Just learn to program robots! Then send them on tasks involving crates, bombs, explosions and junk food in this free logic/programming puzzle game. Pragmatica is a smart game in the vein of SpaceChem and The Codex of Alchemical Engineering.
Games Featured:
- • PathFind Mania
- • Iconoclasts
- • Viriax
Even in the small-ish indie world, there are superstar game creators whose releases always turn a head or two. Two of our games this weekend are from some designers who have released heavy-hitting titles before. Check out the goods below!
The first time I saw my velociraptor avatar trying desperately to outrun the scary wall of doom, I was completely sold. Three years have passed since the release of that Pixeljam racing platformer, and I find myself returning to its charms again and again. However, with time comes change, modification, upgrading, evolution. So is the potent rationale for the release of Dino Run: SE... And from what I've seen so far, it won't be going extinct from my hard drive any time soon.
Games Featured:
- • Brutally Unfair Knytt
- • John Cube
- • heART
If you were to play one kind of game for the rest of your life, what would it be? Puzzle? Platform? Racing? If you said "awesome", you win the prize! The same prize everybody who said anything but awesome gets! Free games to play!
BIT.TRIP RUNNER is the latest in a series of loosely-related retro-styled arcade games from Gaijin. You take on the role of CommanderVideo, a blocky little guy who can run, slide, and kick like nobody's business. Work your way through over 50 stages, using rhythm-based platforming as you nail every jump, grab every pile of gold, and avoid every obstacle in your path. Because you're just that awesome.
Games Featured:
- • Fire with a Riot
- • BlockShooter
- • Futurebike
Futuristic things abound in this edition of Weekend Download! One game explicitly states it takes place in the future, while the other two you pretty much just assume they do, as squares/circles aren't self-aware enough to hate each other in the present, and flamethrower technology has some decades to go before it matches Fire with a Riot.
The world is in your hands in Red Redemption's sequel to 2007's Climate Challenge. Assume control of the newly formed GEO in this complex and challenging strategy simulation game that forces you to cope with the needs of not only the environment but the people who live in it in order to change the future, dealing with the issues afflicting each country throughout the world as you try to bring about change. Real science and research guides your decisions, and Fate of the World offers up a challenging, complex experience that might get you thinking in more ways than one.
Games Featured:
- • Monica
- • Candles
- • Bun-Dun
It's time to make with the games! Or, to play the games that have been made for playing! Several fun little diversions below, and if you ignore hyphens (which, let's face it, we all do), each one has a one-word title. Isn't that... neat?
Games Featured:
- • Hindsight
- • Delta One
- • Everclimb
This edition of Weekend Download wants to look back to previous editions for inspiration. Problem is, can you really trust your hindsight? After Weekend Download played Hindsight, Weekend Download is not so sure! *bites nails*
Life in the Gemini galaxy isn't easy; war has left its mark on the lives of the people within it, but most of them are more concerned with the all-seeing eyes of the Boryokuden, a crime syndicate that seems to operate outside the law and swiftly deals with any opposition. In this top-notch adventure game, you play as Azriel Odin, a detective on the streets of New Pittsburgh, and Delta-Six, an amnesiac test subject stuck in a sinister training facility, and attempt to stay alive while you uncover a conspiracy that might hit closer to home than you suspect.
Games Featured:
- • Airwave: I Fought the Law, and the Law One
- • Another Day in the Life of Bob
- • Trials
From life sims to indie music to painfully difficult 3D games, we've got your weekend in gaming covered! Covered like your morning piece of toast! Covered like the wagon you rode in to reach Oregon! Covered like... something else that's covered!
You Don't Know Jack, the "irreverent party trivia game", features hundreds of hilarious questions in a fast-paced game show format, complete with cash and prizes, a wise-cracking host, and ample carpentry hardware. While released on multiple platforms last week, we're taking a look at the Steam release.
Games Featured:
- • Balloon Diaspora
- • Bennu
- • Wroom
A definite "physics" theme for this edition of Weekend Download, featuring two games that bank their entire existence on force, momentum, gravity, friction, and all that sciencey stuff. Do they have what it takes to impress you, master of real world physics? Find out below!
It's more than an action game meeting a role playing game. It's more than an amazing co-op experience. It's more than a collection of hilarious dialogue and geek culture references. It's Magicka, and it's the next game that will claim hours of your life. From Arrowhead Game Studios comes a hybrid title that emphasizes teamwork, alchemy-like spellcasting, and gaining an invincible knowledge of how elements work in relation to each other and the environment. Oh, and there are moose. Lots of moose.
Games Featured:
- • Incertitude
- • Technobabylon Part 1
Hello there, weekend gamer! Tired of the rest of the week sapping time that could be spent playing games? We know how you feel! Make the most of your weekend by playing a few free games. They won't demand your entire afternoon, leaving you free to kick back and play even more games!!!
Atom Zombie Smasher is a game about zombies. It is not, however, your typical game about zombies. Where other games about zombies might have you playing as the heroic survivor who somehow escaped infection via genetic anomaly or dumb luck, Blendo Games' latest release does not. Instead, this ridiculously innovative tower defense-like real-time strategy game will put you in the role of faceless commander charged with the evacuation of his fellow citizens. This time, you get to be the one who orders the orbital nukes!
Following in the tradition of the classic sandbox games (Sand Sand Sand and Powder Game), The Powder Toy by HardWIRED is a small download which stretches the boundaries of what is possible with a few simple elements. In fact, you can do almost anything with it, the only limit is your imagination.
Games Featured:
- • Spring - King of the Jungle
- • The Island of a God
- • YoYo
- • Greenhead
Time to invent a new word! Or, phrase, rather. Ready? "Platform Adventure Paloozathonvania"! You like? Hope so. It took hours of intense research to come up with that particular combination of letters, not to mention the trademark hoops we had to jump through to print it. But now it's there, and it describes the bulk of this week's downloadable games quite accurately.
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda is a new platform shooter from Extend Studio that's heavy on the fantastic sci-fi art as well as the action. Its gameplay is reminiscent of classic sidescrolling arcade shooters mixed with a little modern-knowhow and Metroidvania-style level design and progression. While it may feel old school in concept, the game is anything but outdated, and the heavy dose of action and exploration you'll receive will keep you in a trance for many hours.
Games Featured:
- • Tiny Barbarian
- • Dimension Jump
- • Ammo Roar
Baby barbarians, guns with serious kickback, and a little guy who can travel between dimensions as easily as we eat pancakes. That can only mean one thing: somebody switched out my Flintstone vitamins with an off-brand replacement!!!
In spite of my overwhelming lack of talent for the platform genre, I'm completely smitten with Nyxquest: Kindred Spirits, a side-scrolling platformer by Over the Top Games that proves lovely visuals do not always have to come with over-the-top full-motion videos.
Games Featured:
- • Pixel Force: Halo
- • Anyman
- • Kruunu
Another weekend, another round of games! This edition features an accidental theme of retro-style games. Oops! Hope you're not mad at Weekend Download. Because if you are, you only get one hug from Weekend Download instead of two.
At long, long last, Jordan Mechner's (creator of the original Prince of Persia game) adventure gaming masterpiece The Last Express is available as a digital download! The game was first released in 1997 where, despite being an amazing interactive experience, it failed to gain much commercial traction. Its cult status survived the turn of the century largely due to the unique nature of the gameplay, the incredible writing, and a visual style that's more like an animated television show than a video game. No more tracking down rate copies of the original CD-ROM. Just download, install, and enjoy!
Being born to a destiny of studying at the local Aztec temple isn't the most exciting of fates. But when a sacred artifact is stolen, a grand adventure quickly ensues. Our hero Huitzilo is up for the job in Aztaka, an indie action/RPG platform game from Citeremis.
Games Featured:
- • Darkfate
- • Super Smash Land
- • Jigsaw
Demakes are the new remakes, and remakes used to be the new... makes? Whatever. Anyway, as gamers, we're eating up these indie projects that come along and remake our favorite games as if they existed on older hardware. Something about those blocky pixels and simplified music makes the blood flow.
Games Featured:
- • FRACT
- • Cities of Day and Night
- • City of Doom
- • How
So many games about cities, so little time! Whether you want a city that can't decide whether it's light or dark outside, a city that's infested with bugs, a city made out of colorful polygons, or, um, a city that's... not a city at all with blocks that change color... you're pretty much covered for the weekend!
Ready for another game of ambiance and intrigue from Nifflas? NightSky is the latest release from the designer/artist known for creating enchanting atmospheric settings in his games, and this one certainly doesn't disappoint. It's simpler and more streamlined than Knytt Stories, but there's no shortage of challenge or variety to be had!
The creator of The Codex of Alchemical Engineering and Bureau of Steam Engineering (not to mention the grandaddy of Minecraft, Infiniminer) is back with a full-fledged indie game ready to provide a serious logic puzzle challenge. SpaceChem is anything but simple, anything but easy, and one of the most satisfying puzzle games released. If you can solve its challenges, that is. SpaceChem is a game you'll spend a few minutes learning but weeks trying to master, and its 50+ levels are more than enough to strain your poor brain matter more than it's been strained in quite some time.
Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers is a brilliant addition to the genre and ramps up everything that is fun about the series. The puzzles are tougher as are the challenges, which is a good thing for those who love this series of village sims. The story has a darker, more sinister edge as you explore what the destruction and grief have done to the original inhabitants of Isola. There's much to love and recommend in this fantastic new adventure. Go explore!
Games Featured:
- • Ninja Senki
- • Survivor: The Living Dead
- • suteF
It's the first Weekend Download of the new year! We should celebrate or something, shouldn't we? How about with showers of gold, rainbows and candy? Mmm, tempting, but difficult. Our airship is in the shop. What about with a bunch of games that celebrate retro gaming mechanics?! Perfect!
Immortal Souls puts you in the role of John Turner, a street racer-turned vampire who out to protect New Haven from the forces of darkness. This comic-book like, turn-based RPG has detailed art and animation to go with its numerous epic battles. Can you help the forces of light overcome the forces of darkness?
Games Featured:
- • Brogue
- • Smart Kobold
- • LEDom
Roguelikes seem to be a lost love amongst most modern gamers. "Give me simplicity!" they cry, "Give me pretty pictures!", "Let me play without reading a manual or memorizing commands!". Well, while they sit in the corner and play FarmVille, we'll settle down with our deliciously intriguing dungeon crawling RPGs of yore. Even though the glory days of Nethack are gone, the roguelike is alive and very well today, and there are a number of great projects that aim to bridge the gap between fans and non-fans so that everyone can enjoy the deep satisfaction of exploring the unknown.
Puzzle Dimension is a great-looking and extremely well-made 3D puzzle game from Doctor Entertainment. Your goal is to collect the sunflowers on each level. Roll the satisfyingly-solid stone block across the floating tiles, leaping over single-spaced gaps when necessary, and touch each flower to nab it. Now, factor in ice, vanishing blocks, and loads of other ingenious puzzle contraptions and you've got a satisfying and challenging game that never seems to get old!
Games Featured:
- • Gravity Garden
- • Dacey in the Dark
- • Stargirl and the Thief from the Exploded Moon
It's the last weekend before Christmas, so a lot of people are out shopping for presents and such. Not us. We're sitting inside playing games. All. Weekend. Long! Take that, thinly-veiled incentives to buy gifts!
It's bundle time again! Following the massive success of the original Humble Indie Bundle as well as The Indie Love Bundle(s), The Humble Indie Bundle #2 comes along with five great indie games, each available for Mac, Windows and Linux, with no DRM and a price tag of whatever you want to pay. Yay!
Lylian Episode One: Paranoid Friendship is a new horror-themed platform adventure from Pixelpickle Games. You play as the titular Lylian, a girl who may or may not be completely unhinged, as she tries to escape the mental institution she's being held in. Unfortunately for her, it seems like something much more sinister is going on, as nurses, other patients, and even the janitor are working to thwart her moves. Using Lylian's "imagination", you can change the scenery to make your way through the dark and disturbing passageways in and around the twisted hospital.
Games Featured:
- • Steel Storm
- • They Come out at Night
- • Rocky Memphis and the Temple of Ophuxoff
Helpful tip for humans: if you ever find yourself in inclement weather, such as the rare steel storm that only comes out at night, seek shelter in the nearest building. If you can, find the Temple of Leemeealeaun, as it offers the best protection from these dangerous conditions.
Meat Boy is back in his first commercial release! When the evil Dr Fetus absconds with Meat Boy's beloved Bandage Girl, he leaps to the rescue across more than 300 levels, braving saw blades, syringes, mutant blood clots, toxic waste, and much, much more. As twisted as it is charming and devious, Super Meat Boy is a fantastic and fantastically hard platformer that is tremendous fun.
The Journey Down: Over the Edge is a classic-style point and click adventure game released by SkyGoblin. Bwana and Kito, longtime friends and mechanics in Kingsport Bay, are having a bit of a cash problem. The all-powerful and evil electric company is demanding massive payments from everyone, and to top it off, they've made it a punishable offense to visit the area known as "The Edge". Couple that with a woman loaded with cash who's asking questions about Bwana's missing friend, and you've got a great start to what is guaranteed to be a strange and intriguing adventure!
Games Featured:
- • BatMan
- • Walk with Jack
- • The Sense of Connectedness
Here's a bit of a blast from the past for you: BatMan. Not Christopher Nolan's dark, brooding Batman, not even Tim Burton's interpretation of the caped crusader. This is old-school Batman with old-school gameplay, and you'll love every minute of it! Where does he get those wonderful toys, anyway?
Mark your calendars and set your bookmarks, Mission in Snowdriftland is back to entertain us once again with its joy-inducing classic-style platforming gameplay set against the backdrop of a cheerful holiday advent calendar. Beginning today and continuing right up through Christmas Eve, a new level will be unlocked to play each day as we march closer to that most joyous of holidays filled with presents, friends and family gatherings.
A shoot-em-up game without guns is like a library without books, or an office chair without wheels. Sure they might have some other purpose, but what fun are they without these essential little elements? Fortunately, Super Crate Box is a retro-styled platform shooter that has more guns than you can shake a stick at in the time it takes to play. (Or a katana.)
Games Featured:
- • Cave of No Return
- • A Walk in the Forest
- • Factorium
And we have returned! After this author experienced a little lumbar calamity, Weekend Download is back and more weekendey than ever! So, what are your plans for the weekend? A light hoverboard ride through the forest? A teensy jog through a cave? A plain and simple walk through the forest? Or, just maybe, if you're feeling wacky, all of the above?!
In The Ball, a first person 3D adventure/puzzle game, you play an unnamed archaeologist who accidentally falls into an ancient system of ruins during a dig. You discover a gigantic metallic orb that you must use to solve puzzles and destroy underworld enemies, all while working through ancient temples trying to find a way out!
The Machine is a simple-looking but intricate building puzzle game created by Bumpkin Brothers. Just like The Incredible Machine, The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, Armadillo Run and countless other "assembly line" titles, The Machine charges you with fulfilling certain orders using machinery, moving parts, and bits and bobs that change the size or color of the product being manufactured. Things start off simple enough, but as any great puzzle game, before long you'll have plenty to contend with.
Games Featured:
- • Octodad
- • Snakes of Avalon
- • Maze of Space
Confession: every writer behind the scenes at JIG is secretly some kind of mollusc. We hide it quite well, wearing suits and blazers and little thingies in our hair. But when you watch us walk, you start to wonder if something's a bit off. When you see us dance, you're sure of it.
Escape from the Underworld is a short exploration platformer that shares some design elements with some of the most successful indie games in recent history: Knytt, Iji, Seiklus, Cave Story, and, well, we could probably go on. In short, Escape from Underworld is a Metroidvania and it's really, really good.
Games Featured:
- • Light Arrow
- • A House in California
- • Great Migrations
Time for stuff! With the notable exception of Great Migrations, the games in this edition of Weekend Download seem to be dominated by white on black landscapes. Old school throwback or conscious atmospheric design choice? To that question I answer: yes!
Oh, brains. You are as delicious (to zombies) as you are useful (to anyone running from zombies). You're also apparently quite explodable, as evidenced in this colorful cartoon-like physics game BrainSplode!. Created by Rust Red Games, all you've got is a cannon, some highly-useful missiles, and a few mid-air power-ups that help you control things. Oh, and an inexplicable hatred of squishy pink brains.
Games Featured:
- • Sp.A.I.
- • Dear Agent
- • Eternal Dusk
- • Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Hey, you, weekend gamer. You want I should share games with you? You want they should be uh, fun? Good. Because I have games that are fun. RPG fun. Puzzle fun. Lasers fun. Lantern fun. What? You think lanterns are no fun? You think "flashlight.app" is more fun? Hmm. You need to play with lanterns more often, I think...
Winter Voices: Avalanche is a quiet, slow-paced, and very different kind of tactical role playing game. You play a young girl living in a snowy village whose father has just passed away. Dealing with the emotions that follow is difficult, and the mysteries surrounding her father's past makes it even more challenging. Avalanche is the first in a series of episodes telling the story of Winter Voices, and if you're looking for a game that's heavy on emotion, character, and storytelling, this one won't disappoint.
Games Featured:
- • Magnesian
- • Super Crate Box
- • Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch
- • Dustforce!
What's the most entertaining household object you can think of? Did you say "wooden crate"? Or, perhaps, "magnet"? "Broom"? You probably did, and since you did, you are rewarded with games that use said entertaining objects to provide even more entertainment in a digital, computerized form.
For some reason, everyone loves collecting things that are smaller than they are. We're not so much interesting in gathering buildings as we are looking at them, but if buildings were pint-sized, you can bet they'd fill our pockets like lint-covered jellybeans. Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds plays on this compulsion and puts you in control of a blob of gray goo that can eat anything smaller than it is. As you can guess, this is a dangerous thing to let loose on the Earth, but give it a time machine and all of the past and future could be in quite a pickle.
Games Featured:
- • Inside Job
- • Sanctum
- • Remaddening
Fooling around with the titles of this week's selection of games, I discovered something unusual. If you rearrange the letters, you can create the phrase "a decarbonised djinn met musing". Now, that may seem a bit random on the surface, but if you think about it (especially if you're a djinn who has had his carbon removed), you'll either go mad or realize it's kind of a funny thing. But, whatever... GAMES!
What Makes You Tick: A Stitch in Time is a handsome, evocative adventure game from Lassie Games. It features an excellent presentation, puzzles that are solid and never illogical, and a rich storyline. I continue to be entranced by the world of Ravenhallow and vicinity. One novel feature of A Stitch in Time is the ability to play every scene in both day and night. The differences between Ravenhallow in the day and nighttime are not only crucial to solving certain puzzles, but give you nearly twice as much game to explore. Ravenhallow becomes an entirely different world at night.
Games Featured:
- • Space Funeral
- • Cell.Protect
- • Streemerz 2
Video games have existed for so long, game parodies have begun to take hold. Those parodies have been around for so long, they're morphing into full, respectable games. Those full, respectable games are aging quite nicely, producing subtle bits of gaming candy like Space Funeral below!
And Yet It Moves, the simple but marvelous indie release from Broken Rules, will reignite your love for video games. That, or it will cause you to shake with anger as you replay the same part of the game for the tenth time. It might even do both! The physics-centric platform adventure employs the familiar "world tilting" mechanic that allows you to rotate the entire game environment in 90 degree increments. And Yet It Moves then proceeds to do crazy and wonderful things with this, allowing you to explore a universe as strange as it is satisfying.
Games Featured:
- • Gobber Assault
- • Zymo
- • Pheon
We've got three very special games for you this weekend! Special because they're all retro in style, but also special because they're really good and can be played over and over and over again and still provide loads of fun.
It's contest time! Want a free Indie Love Bundle? 'Course you do! Come up with your own creative kind of "bundle" and leave it in our comments. We'll choose ten winners to receive a load of free indie games!
Games Featured:
- • The Hive
- • The Myth of Sisyphus
- • TimeStill 2
- • Cenfinity
More games to help your weekend be more weekend-ey than ever! The first item on the list will keep you occupied for several hours, a somewhat rare thing with games of its quality. The rest are great for short spurts or long marathons, whatever helps you get the best score!
Two years after your victory in the first game, Eschalon Book II finds you living a quiet life... perhaps too quiet, since your skills are beginning to erode, and you find yourself forgetting important details, but troubled by strange dreams. When you awake to find a note on your doorstep from a stranger who claims to know who you really are, you find that the adventure has only just begun in this turn-based isometric RPG featuring open world gameplay.
Games Featured:
- • Fail-Deadly
- • Unarmed and Dangerous
- • The Lair of Fungal Wonder
- • Isolation
Another Ludum Dare, another bunch of cool experimental games to play! This competition's theme was "enemies as weapons", and each entry did something slightly different with the concept.
Instead of playing the usual part of "hero who saves the world", Recettear fits you in behind the scenes as shopkeeper, the thankless job of providing an endless supply of items. You'll haggle with customers, make smart purchases as the guild, and even hire adventurers to strike out on your own, looting dungeons in true action/RPG form!
Daniel wakes up on the floor of an ancient castle, unable to remember anything but his name... unfortunate for him since his past might be out to get them. Frictional Games delivers one of the most tense and frightening horror titles in a long time, using superb atmosphere and physics controls to plunge you into a story you won't soon forget... assuming you survive.
Games Featured:
- • Jables's Adventures
- • L'Abbaye des Morts
- • PlasmaPig
We've been fortunate enough to receive a number of big indie releases these last weeks, but the "even more indie" small devs aren't sitting on their hands, as evidenced by the games below. Behold, free awesomeness!
The road to magical greatness is difficult, littered with dragons, enchantments, adventure... not to mention test scores, rival students, detentions, and trying to keep your ghostly familiar in check. This incredibly ambitious text adventure from Black Chicken Studios is one part life simulator, one part fantasy RPG, and a whole lot of fun if you have the patience to let yourself become immersed in the tale of the making of the greatest mage of all time... you.
Sam and Max cap off the final episode of their new season of adventure games with The City That Dares Not Sleep.
Games Featured:
- • MADRIS
- • Infinity Bit
- • Tales of Unspoken World
- • Under the Garden
A Game By Its Cover competition has ended, all the votes are in, and the games are ready to play! The competition asked artists to craft cover art for imaginary games, then the programmers stepped in and made games based on the art. We've already featured a few of the contenders in the competition (Cat Poke, 8:Capsule, Dot Order Tie, and Love Letter), so below we'll highlight a few other favorites from the competition.
Games Featured:
- • Sugar Cube
- • Mr. Blocko: Super Tournament Edition
- • Alex Adventure
CUUUUTE games this week. So unabashedly cute. Sugar cubes and tiny block guys. Squeaking mushrooms and elevators that play elevator music. Ohhhh, I'm gonna burst with sugary sweetness.
Games Featured:
- • Momodora
- • Nudo
- • Cat Poke
- • 8:capsule
Pop quiz! The fact that there is now a game about poking cats is: A) Awesome or B) AWEsome. Your answer will greatly influence your future. Think carefully.
With his egg-bound siblings scattered all over the level, Toki Tori has to harness the powers of bridge building, block drops, ghost traps freeze rays, teleportation and waddling to rescue them all in the return of this brilliant puzzle/platform game.
Games Featured:
- • Typomagia!
- • Chawp!
- • Liquisity 2
- • Warlock Bentspine
The exclamation mark. It is thought to have originated from the Latin word for joy, lo, and made an appearance in printed English literature in the 1400s. Now, developers can append it to the end of their game titles to denote happiness, excitement or, indeed, to encourage you to exclaim the name outloud.
Today, Carrion is struggling to hold off an enemy attack long enough to allow civilians to escape while his country burns around him. But how did he get there? As a respected soldier, Carrion has lived in his father's shadow his entire life, and keeps butting heads with the new regent. When he and his adopted brother Maric are assigned a task by the prince, Carrion has no idea it will start him on a long path that will threaten the fate of the realm and cause him to question not only those closest to him, but himself. Will he make it out alive? Find out in this high quality retro RPG that will keep you adventuring for a long time.
Games Featured:
- • D.O.T.: Dot Order Tie
- • The Moonkeeper
- • Mind Jolt
- • Tricky Truck
A lot of indie games have rolled off the presses in the past week, including several as entries in the TIGSource "A Game By Its Cover" competition (which ends today). We've featured one of these games below, but look for more in the weeks to come!
Originally released in Japan back in 2007, Recettear is the story of an item shop, a girl, and a fairy. Recette's father took out a loan and then skipped town, leaving her to pay off the debt. Soon, she meets Tear, a fairy who is as persistent as she is... well, persistent. She teaches Recette to run an item shop out of her house, purchasing stock for adventurers who head out into the world to slay monsters. Buy and sell swords, shields, food products and more, haggling with each customer and placing items in ideal locations to attract business.
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