Crumbling World: Well, There Goes The Fantasy Neighborhood

Posted on May 28, 2020 by geelw

It’s been out for a few days now (wait, what day IS it?), but I’m backlogged and brain-soaked here, so the news is late. Dume Arts’ intriguing looking Crumbling World is on Steam and itch.io and it’s on the (very) long list of games I need to give a shot. Take a gander at the trailer and description below while go I put on a pot of half coffee half chicory, please (yeah, I overslept again):

Set in a sinister, slowly decomposing land where humanity has been driven to corruption, aligning with dark forces for survival, players must traverse gorgeous diorama-like levels in an attempt to bring back the age of light – before the world literally crumbles away entirely beneath their feet.

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Boreal Tales: Bargain Indie Scares Up The Past

Posted on May 22, 2020 by geelw

With a game developer name like Snot Bubbles Productions, one would imagine the Vancouver-based team to have a first game straight out of the gate that’s going to be pretty darn interesting. Or kind of damp and sticky, ewww.

Welcome to Boreal Tales, folks.

The game is out now and it’s a paltry $3.00 or Steam or itch.io and that makes it for me, an automatic purchase even though I was offered a free code to review. Small developers with a great looking game such as this need a boost with any sales they can get and I really like these offbeat games, so it’s on my BUY IT! list as we speak. Anyway, “What’s the game about?” you may be asking right about now. Well, I’ll duck quickly into show and tell mode here (quack, quack!):

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INFINI: Pardonnez mon français, mais ce jeu est bizarre (et doit être joué!)

Posted on March 2, 2020 by geelw

Well, to be honest, my French is perfectly awful, but Montreal-based art team/development studio Barnaque has me completely intrigued with its new title, so It’s making me feel inspired enough to drag out the Google Translate language mangler thing. INFINI, set to release on PC for Steam and itch.io March 4, and on Switch a bit later this year. Here’s a video and screenshots along with a description of the game from the developers, David Martin and Émeric Morin:

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inbento: When Life Gives You Lemons, You Have A Mom Cat Make Sushi For Lunch

Posted on February 27, 2020 by geelw

I bet you’re hungry right about meow.

Indie developer 7Levels and Afterburn Games (or Łukasz Spierewka, who created the brilliant Golf Peaks) newest title, inbento automatically made me smile today, which is a really good thing in this otherwise crazy week and world we’re in. All I’ll say about this upcoming Nintendo Switch-bound puzzle game ported from mobile is take a look at this trailer. The Android and iOS version is up now, while the new Switch version will be available March 12, so go wishlist it if that’s a thing you do.

Er, don’t mind the cat hair in your meal, either, meow!:

Some screenshots, as you now want sushi, I bet:

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I’m going to shut up here, go ask for a review code and do my thing. This looks like a keeper for sure.

-GW

Review: Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (PC)

Posted on December 18, 2019 by geelw

Got five bucks and about an hour to spare? Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (also available here) will have you letting out a few much needed laughs as you solve the aforementioned case but good. It’s the first game I’ve played from Worm Club (@gracebruxner and @thomasbowker) and it won’t be the last, as I see Grace has an itch.io page and this is a good thing. Anyway, the game is short and simple, charming and droll, two tastes that taste great together, as it were. Oh, and it has LOBSTER COP in it, but don’t tell the Detective this, as he’s the real star. Don’t tell him that either (he’ll figure it out, as he’s a detective).

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Frog Detective 2: “All The Animals Come Out At Night”, Indeed (3)

Posted on December 11, 2019 by geelw

Hop to it, you have a case to solve!

“Wait, there’s a Frog Detective 1?” He thought, as the press release hopped out of his inbox with a loud croak, knocking over a cup full of pencils of assorted size in the process. “Huh, so there is… interesting” he noted, looking at the Steam page, a grin spreading across his face. Those pencils were a bit annoyed, as they had been napping, but oddly enough, now that they were laid out, they dozed right off without a second thought.

“Well, that’s cool because I think I need to play it as well”, he said out loud (but quietly enough to not disturb the pencils). The frog was gone, but he was probably in the living room, as the TV was now on and there was the sound of channels being changed.

Here’s the trailer to the sequel, which just so happens to be called Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard, is now on Steam and itch.io, for $4.99, so go get it. I guess I now need to play it too at some point, right?

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FAITH: The Unholy Trinity – A Reflex Test For The Senses

Posted on October 31, 2019 by geelw

Creepy is coming a third time (and to consoles at some point, too).

I was jumping under the furniture a while back when I first played indie developer Airdorf Games’ Faith, a very frightening game that blended old-school visuals and the sheer shock of horror and jump scares plus some clever use of synthesized voices, all in the service of terrifying the player. Let’s just say it worked, as I’ve had the second game here for a while on my laptop, but haven’t touched it since I downloaded it. My excuse of having too many games to play in my backlog keeps me hiding from that sequel, but it’s now the case where there’s a third game in the series coming soon that’s probably goijg to get me to play all three in one shot.

Or, say hell-o to FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, coming to PC and eventually, consoles:

As you can see, it’s pretty unsettling stuff when you get hit with the blending of old and new here. There’s a nice layer of crazy here when the game comes at you and you don’t know what to expect next, but this is good in a game that’s a mix of horror, adventure and a few abstract elements that will have you hooked in and trying to run away simultaneously. Go wishlist this this one if you’re into the horror stuff – it should run on most Windows 7 and up (64-bit) PC’s with zero issues. I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue that this is coming to consoles sooner than later (starts holding breath).

Appropriately Halloween color scheme? CHECK.

-GW

Puppet Combo Has A Few Scares To Share

Posted on October 13, 2019 by geelw

This PC games set from Puppet Combo will set you back a mere $6.66 total (you can pay more if you like), but the scares here are worth a million bones, especially it you have a yen for intentionally crafted PlayStation 1-era visuals, grainy VHS filters for that extra layer of authenticity, like crazy and relentless to slow-burning horror games and can get used to the controls being so old school. Take a look at the game page (some imagery is a bit jarring, but you’re expecting it to be, right?) here. Or, you can go all out and get the bundle that includes this collection and much more here.

I want to see Puppet Combo a console dev kit of some sort, as these intentionally low-poly fright-filled short games would be perfect on whichever system they choose to port them over to. Hey, PC and Mac users shouldn’t have ALL the fun, I say.

Yeah, I’d watch this if it were a film, Horror Blanket and all.

-GW

Review: Golf Peaks (Nintendo Switch)

Posted on May 23, 2019 by geelw

The great thing about Golf Peaks ($4.99) is you don’t have to even like golf or miniature golf to enjoy this game immensely. Indie dev Afterburn Games has taken the popular sport, melded it with a card-based putting system and wrapped it all up neatly in an art style that recalls Marble Madness, a teeny bit of M.C. Escher, and an isometric perspective that has (a much more colorful) De Stijil vibe. Oh, and the pleasant music from Rafal Samborski is as appropriately stress-free as it gets. Eh, don’t worry too much about my brain making those references you may or may not get – the more important thing is how much fun this one is to play.

What’s great about the game is its deceptive initial simplicity from dipping a toe into those initial levels where you’ll learn basic shots and make par without fail until the game slides a tricky level or three under your nose that requires some creative thought in your shot decisions. On each map you get a set of cards that have a number or series of numbers and an arrow or arrows that denote the direction(s) the ball will travel when the card is used. As the maps get more complex, you’ll need to think outside the box and pull off a few shots that might seem impossible because you haven’t figured out that sometimes an obvious looking shot is an incorrect one.

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Lost in Vivo: The Walls, Close-in For Catastrophic Claustrophobia

Posted on October 21, 2018 by geelw

(Thanks, Akuma Kira!)

Back in 2016, I pledged a few bucks to Akuma Kira’s Kickstarter for a new game he was working on called Lost in Vivo all because of the free and superbly devious Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion (Formerly Spooky’s House of Jump Scares), a game I recommend to anyone into horror because it will creep up on them in a surprising manner. In other words, don’t let the initially quite stupidly cute visuals and the rather simplistic but twisty corridors found in the first chunk of floors lull you into a false sense of security. Things get quite bizarre and eventually quite horrific as you descend into the darker, more hellish maps.

Anyway, fast forward to earlier Saturday morning when I got a download link to he completed build of Lost in Vivo from the developer via Game Jolt (an excellent indie site I VERY highly recommend along with itch.io (the game can be found here) if you love to pore over dozens and dozens of great indies of all genres, many free or quite affordable). You’ll also see this one pop up on Steam soon (well, November 5th, thanks to Steam’s verification process taking longer), but if you need this faster, feel free to grab it from one of the other sites noted above for a measly ten bucks.

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