An important message to developers

Can't believe I actually have to write this, but if you receive an email from a person named "Qadees", using the email blackpearl8012@yahoo.com, claiming that he writes for my blog, please be aware that I did not send those emails. This person does not write for Indie Game Enthusiast. So far he's been asking IOS devs for promo codes; thankfully those developers have reached out to me for confirmation.

Any emails from me will be sent from the same email listed on the Contact Me page here (cvbxsta@gmail.com), introducing myself as Christian and stating the goal of my site. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused if you have received an email from this individual.

IOS Review #92: Dark Echo

Title: Dark Echo
Developer: RAC7 Games
Platforms: IOS Universal
Price: $1.99
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What do you envision when you think "horror game"? The jump scares of Five Nights and Slender? The otherworldly dread of Silent Hill? Or perhaps the nightmarish monstrosities of Dead Space and The Evil Within? The recently released Dark Echo boasts the most minimalist of visuals, instead conjuring horror from the unknown and unseen and an atmospheric soundscape.

Massively expanded and improved from the developer's Ludum Dare entry You Must Escape, Dark Echo is a sound-based horror game. While that may sound similar to other IOS games like Papa Sangre and The Nightjar, Dark Echo is very much a visual experience while those were audio-only. A black screen, with your white footprints the only color amid the surrounding dark. Every level in Dark Echo begins this way. Move forward and lines emanate in all directions, the sound of your footsteps visualized, bouncing off the walls and revealing the environment. Without sound, you are blind. Your goal is simply to find the exit. However, that task is easier said than done, because you are not alone in these passages. Things lurk in the darkness, drawn by the sound of your movement. Hunting you. 

What's most impressive about Dark Echo is how it builds on its core mechanic of seeing through sound. The beginning levels lay the foundation: walk around to reveal the surrounding, stomp to send out a larger wave of sound that lets you see more of the level. Soon you're introduced to the creatures that are attracted by sound, followed by the fact that you can tap slowly to take soft silent steps and throw stones as distractions, turning Dark Echo into a tense game of cat and mouse where sound is your only means of sight. Water that amplifies your footsteps and slows your movement, switches, crushing walls, deadly terrain, and more add to the challenge and complexity of later levels.

Dark Echo is a masterful execution of minimalist design. Each step is tense, drawing you forward through the necessity of sight and the need to explore. The visuals, stark lines contrasting against black, are simplistic yet work so well, reminiscent of splattering paint to reveal the world in The Unfinished Swan. But it's the sound design that truly sells the game's atmosphere. Your footsteps, hollow against stone and squishing against undergrowth. The guttural growls of those things lurking in the dark. Water splashing and sloshing, or dripping overhead. Flies buzzing in agitated swarms, croaking frogs. Heavy locks and groaning doors. 

Listen to the game's advice and play this with headphones, in the dark, alone.

You can purchase Dark Echo for $1.99.

No Money, No Problem: Nested

Title: Nested
Developer: Orteil
Platforms: Browser
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Nested isn't a game. It's hard to even call it a text adventure. At first glance, Nested seems to pale in comparison to developer Orteil's other notable creation, Cookie Clicker. But with each click, diving into another sub folder, digging ever deeper, you realize that the game's simple description - "A Simulation of Everything" - couldn't be more accurate. Nested is exploration distilled to its purest, most minimalist form in a simple text format. An infinite amount of things to discover, from the grandness of multiverses and space to the abstract plane of thoughts and memories.

Nested is randomly generated, so one could browse through its endless worlds forever. It's quite literally an endlessly fascinsting experience. Descend through ever-more-detailed folders, from space, to planet, to continent. Forgotten lands, ecosystems bustling with life, civilizations from the primitive to the futuristic and the outright bizarre. Dig further still, into the memories of a village chieftain or the thoughts of individual nanomachines. Venture deeper, into the chemical make-up of individuals and landscapes and objects and you'll find even more subatomic universes to explore, an endless nesting doll of life.

Nested can be played here.

The Watchlist: Splasher

Title: Splasher

Developer: SplashTeam

Platforms: PC

Releasing late 2015/early 2016

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Splasher is a 2D Platformer in which you are tasked with unleashing the power of paints to rescue your brothers. These little fellows, called the splashers, are prisoners in a giant paint manufacture : INKORP.  While water is your primary weapon to defeat weak enemies and activate mechanisms, paint is where your true powers come from. Thank to the differing colors and their properties, you will stick to walls and roofs, bounce high in the air, trick your opponents and do many more to reach Inkorp’s top levels !

You've probably seen Splasher's central mechanic in other games before, perhaps the DigiPen game Tag: Power of Paint or more recently Portal 2. This colorful platformer takes that spray mechanic and mixes it with the fast-paced precision gameplay of Super Meat Boy. Equipped with his nozzle-pack, the titular Splasher uses an array of various colored paints to traverse gaps and evade the myriad hazards within the INKORP facility. Paint proves to be a versatile tool, allowing you to defy gravity and scramble along any surface or bounce to great heights and off walls. This isn't a game of careful planning and puzzles; in fact, aiming and movement are all done with the left stick (trust me, use a controller). Splasher is all about speed and movement, spraying on the go, mid-air or running across the ceiling.

Your paint arsenal is more than just a means of traversal; when faced with enemies, either while running or when locked in quick arena battles, each spray type reveals alternate offensive uses: your default water damaging foes, sticky red trapping enemies temporarily, and bouncy yellow knocking them back. Combining these abilities along with environment hazards like lasers and saw blades allows you to deal with the demo's foes and furthermore, hints at the kind of unique challenges that Splasher could deliver with more paint types, enemies, and hazards. 

Splasher is still early in development, with a release planned for late this year or early 2016. But even at this early stage, the game impresses with its colorful style, fluid animations, and challenging gameplay. You can download the three-level demo from the game's site and follow Splasher's progress on Twitter and Facebook.

PC Review #113: Besiege

Title: Besiege

Developer: Spiderling Games

Platforms: PC

Price: $6.99

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Destruction is fun. Anyone who played Red Faction: Guerrilla surely remembers the joy of driving trucks through buildings or collapsing towers with a few swings of your sledgehammer. Besiege takes the vehicle construction you love from games like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and injects it with a dose of physics, blood, and medieval destruction, as you build powerful siege engines to level castles and lay waste to armies.

From the moment you start Besiege, the polish put in the game is evident. The two-man team behind Spiderling Games have been working on Besiege since late 2013 and it shows in every aspect of the game, from the slick menu designs to the building UI that makes constructing vehicles effortless. It's the little details that stand out: wood beams snap in half when broken, blood stains your blades and the ground, your structure collapses and falls apart realistically when aflame, buildings crumble under the might of your cannon fire or swinging maces.

The current version of Besiege offers fifteen levels, with more to come in future updates. While your objectives are not that complex (ranging from destroying a specific building, destroying a certain amount of enemies, to transporting resources), building something that can steer effectively, withstand damage, and attack without breaking apart from recoil or movement can be tough. Half the fun in this game is experimenting and learning from your failures and tweaking your designs. Blocks at your disposal include everything from armor plating, pistons, Kerbal Space Program-style detachers, wings, and propellers to an arsenal of maces, cannons, and devastating saw blades. This toolset allows you to create all kinds of unstoppable killing machines. A mace-armed behemoth. A rolling windmill of death. A spring-loaded scorpion tail ending in a flamethrower. The variety of silly and creative builds you can create in Besiege is vast.

Besiege is currently only at the 0.01 alpha stage, but honestly, the game doesn't feel like an alpha. It's an easy-to-play, polished experience, both in terms of visuals and gameplay and in performance. It's fun and enjoyable, and you can spend hours messing around and building new and more ludicrous ways to complete your objectives. Besiege was Greenlit recently, and the devs plan to have the game on Steam Early Access "very soon". You can purchase the game through Humble, and learn more about Besiege and its development on the developer's site.

An update on IGE and some interesting indies to start off 2015

So it's been a while, huh? Don't worry, this blog hasn't been forgotten. Late December till now has just been a busy trying time, first with finishing up school and my senior project, then the weeks of Christmas and New Years, than job hunting, and a death in the family. Suffice to say, I didn't really have the time to play as much as I wanted or sit down and work on article drafts.

But that's not to say I haven't been keeping up with indie releases. Things have settled down now, so I plan to start posting articles again by this weekend. I've been hooked on the IOS Match-3 RPG Hero Emblems and I picked up Zachtronics' latest release Infinifactory, so expect impressions of those, as well as some thoughts of the Rain World alpha.

Anyway, here are some recent releases and Kickstarters that are worth checking out:

Besiege

Hero Emblems

Children of Morta

STRAFE

Quick Fix: Screenshot Saturday 11/29

A Quiver of Crows
Developer: Sheado.net
A Twin-stick Shooter Set in a Grim World Cursed by Demons and Ghouls
Learn more here

Urban Galaxy
Developer: Urban Galaxy team
Sci-fi MMO in an urban theme
Choose your path and conquer this Megapolis of opportunities! Develop your skills and your career as alliances and hatred dynamics constantly change.
Learn more and play here

Star Command Galaxies
Developer: Warballoon
The next chapter in the Star Command saga
Real time lighting, crew desires and planets
A more open, dynamic and exciting Galaxy to explore.
Learn more here

Robots Ate My City
Developer: Andrew Morrish
Destroy robots with your camera and use their parts to upgrade, from the developer of Super Puzzle Platformer
Learn more here

Skytorn
Developer: Skytorn team
Centuries after a mysterious cataclysm tore the world apart, humans have taken to the skies - ferrying their kin in airships, searching the remains for artifacts and survivors. Explorer Nevoa ventures out across uncharted islands, left floating in the sky. Alone and armed only with a shovel, she is determined to carve her own path. Skytorn is a procedurally generated action adventure game, set in the ruins of a fallen world.
Learn more here

Life Was Hard Back Then
Developer: Tristan Dahl
A roguelike strategy game where the player manages a small village through many generations. The villagers must struggle to protect themselves and their children against wild animals, cruel bandits and an unforgiving climate. As time passes, the children grow up and are able to fend for themselves and eventually, their children. Below is the first iteration of the female villages at various ages.
Learn more here

Gearend
Developer: SolarLune Games
A 2D Metroidvania about a little robot that explores the ruins of a long forgotten facility in search of the other members of his small robot family.
Learn more here

Hypt

Developer: EmpI Studios
Hypt is a game that uses reflection as its primary game mechanic. You use it to defend yourself and reflect projectiles back on attackers.

Learn more and download the demo here

Jobchanger Brigade

Developer: Pidroh
A fusion of boss battle oriented 2D platforming with classical RPG jobs
Action RPG + Dynamic Jobchange + Hard Boss Fights + Crafting + Online Multiplayer

Learn more and play here