Title: Infested Planet Developer: Rocket Bear Games Platforms: PC, Mac Price: $14.99 ---
Between the previews, impressions, research on what's out and what's in the works, and just life in general, occasionally there are games I'd intended to write about that slip through the cracks. Infested Planet is one of those games, so I'll rectify that now and tell you why this sci-fi tactical strategy is such a fun experience.
300 meets Starship Troopers is probably the most succinct way to describe Infested Planet. Like the Spartans standing against the massive Persian forces, here you control a small squad of space marines facing overwhelming alien hordes. The extraterrestrial menace spawns in waves of hundreds from hives across the map and your tactical prowess and advanced weaponry are the only advantages against such odds. Flamethrowers, mini-guns, powerful turrets and mines, airstrikes, buffed troopers, and more allow you to bolster your squad and adapt your defenses. But your enemy is just as reactive, able to mutate new forms and abilities to counter your own tactics.
Every battle is a desperate push and pull across the map, as you destroy hives and build bases, spreading out your men and defenses to hold back the encroaching hordes. However the tide can turn at any moment; perhaps the horde mutates heavier armor, or poisonous projectiles, or creates an organic minefield. Perhaps the hive spawns alien clones of your troopers or becomes resistant to your turret fire. Suddenly your frontline is breached, and there's a panicked rush to assess and adjust your strategy. Can you sacrifice a turret maintaining a critical chokepoint to call down an airstrike? Can you manage one front while sending marines to hold back a new horde? This fluid moment-to-moment action makes Infested Planet a thrilling strategy game, forcing you to plan and reshape your tactics on the fly.
Aside from the main campaign, Infested Planet also offers a Skirmish mode, with a customizable options for added replayability, and daily challenges. A recent DLC pack added new abilities, such as teleporting and a horde-freezing Stasis Field, and an Ironman mode. You can purchase Infested Planet on Steam and directly through the developer's site.
Title: Yonder Developer: Venturous Games Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux In development ---
Yonder is a two-dimensional adventure game with emphasis on cooperative interaction.
Two children on an arduous journey home fraught with danger and discovery. They must rely on each other to overcome the challenges that await them on an alien world. This is Yonder, a co-op adventure currently in development.
Even at a glance, it's easy to see Yonder's most impressive element. The game's hand-painted art and fluid animations brings its colorful world and young duo to life, as well as tell the game's dialogue-free narrative. Yonder is focused on cooperation (it will be possible to play solo) as you work to together to climb platforms, solve puzzles, interact with strange creatures, and unravel the mysteries of this world and find a way home.
Yonder is still relatively early in development; you can learn more on its site and follow the game's development on TIGForum.
Ludum Dare 32 ended last month and voting results were posted recently, revealing the best rated games in this "unconventional weapon"-themed jam. Here are some of more interesting and fun entries I played: A Knife Made Of Whispers
A new platformer from Daniel Linssen (HopSlide, Javel-ein, The Sun & The Moon, etc.). Reach the exit, defeat enemies, but be sure to stay within the light of your lantern.
A short tribute to Blade Runner, Another World & Flashback. As a skilled assassin, you must take out your target in an unconventional way.
Copycat
A roguelike from Terry Cavanagh, of Super Hexagon and VVVVVV fame. Kill your enemies to gain their abilities, and adapt to each new skill to survive.
Mable: The Journey
An pixel art vertical slice of this in-development game's interesting mechanics. Drop your sword and then recall it to slice enemies in half, evading enemies and projectiles in the interim
Out of Mind
A top-down horror game. Looking at enemies hurts you, so flee and find the exit before losing your sanity in the dark passages.
Photophobia
An atmospheric horror game with a unique art style. Defend against encroaching creatures with your holy light and find the key to escape.
Udom Nebdon
An "Alone in the Dark"-inspired game; utilize a magic mirror to survive and escape
Transmission is an action adventure game set on a mysterious alien world
You awaken, lost, alone, confused, stranded on an unknown world. With nothing but your ship's central computer for guidance, you set out into a landscape teeming with secrets and hostile inhabitants. This is the world of Transmission, an upcoming isometric action-adventure title with a focus on exploration and discovery.
Perhaps the first aspect that stands out is the game's style, an aesthetic with the goal of mirroring hand-painted art and making the world feel like a piece of concept art brought to life. But Transmission will offer more than just a mysterious landscape to explore; armed with suit enhancements, special equipment and defenses, and upgradable weaponry, you'll face dangerous robotic enemies and native lifeforms, as well as solve environmental puzzles and traverse hazardous areas. Similar to a classic Resident Evil or adventure game, you'll need to collect items to activate alien machinery and unlock new sections of Transmission's world
Transmission is still relatively early in development; you can follow its progress on its TIGForum devlog and Twitter page, as well as the game's main site.
Title: Tetrapulse Developer: The Amiable Coordinate, combine, and conquer in this high-action co-op game for two to four friends. Explore the vast reaches of your world eliminating invaders along the way. Play as one of four classes in this Spelunky meets Diablo style cooperative brawler.
Title: Luman Developer: LifeAndDev Games Luman is a stylised, fast-paced platformer about an irritatingly cheerful, luminous lad and a bad, broken bayonet bulb. In the game you will play as Luman, a jovial light bulb who unwittingly ends up with the difficult task of bringing the once proud Uncandescent to justice. You will meet amazingly deep two-dimensional characters and sentient light emitting objects, you will face psychotic broken bulbs, troubled celebrities and the most fearsome obstacle of all – the ordinary wall (seriously you will die if you run into walls. You are made of glass).
Title: Starship Command Developer: evgLabs Starship Command is a persistent-world, massively single-player, real-time tactical starship simulator wrapped in an AI-driven 4X game. Starting with a lowly shuttle, you will trade and battle your way to victory, amassing a gigantic fleet customized to your liking!
Gerty is a top-down rogue-like shooter game. It features action packed combat and fully destructible environments mixed together with a time-limit. With this unique blend of time and resource management, Gerty forces players to think on their feet and make snap judgements if they are to survive the countless monsters and traps lying in wait for them.
Baby is a metroidvania platforming game. You play as Baby, a creature on a quest to find her missing mother. Work your way through a dangerous maze-like world inhabited by vicious creatures looking for their next meal. Dodge the hazardous environments and face the many bosses that this game has to offer.
MegaSphere is a sci-fi themed action platformer with a big shiny gun, mad battle robots and unpredictable world that is different each time you play. Fight enemies, search for loot, hack AI's, upgrade weapons and your suit. No hand holding, no tutorials — play like a grown-up!
Pixel art games are often labeled as cheap, outdated, retro, but games like Rain World, with its advanced AI and procedural animations, or Slain's atmospheric Gothic style, have shown that combining the aesthetic with modern technology can produce visually stunning worlds. MegaSphere is another game to add to that list, mixing fast-paced action platforming with detailed pixel art.
MegaSphere drops you into procedurally generated levels where dangerous robotic foes await. An array of customizable weapons are at your disposal, from a ricocheting laser rifle to powerful rocket launchers, grenades, and a gravity gun. Power-ups collected throughout the levels make you faster, stronger, and more resilient; secondary firing modes and hacking lets you turn the tide in your favor against enemy swarms and powerful bosses.
While the core run-and-gun gameplay looks hectic and challenging, it's the game's use of dynamic lighting, spatial audio, physics, vivid particle effects, and other technical elements that truly stands out. Grabbers rush you atop spindly tentacles, while drones are armed with spinning blades that glow red-hot as they drag along the ground. Explosions and bullets tear through destructible environments, flames cause the air to tremble; sparks and embers subtly illuminate the textured backgrounds
MegaSphere is still early in development; an alpha demo is set to release during the summer. You can follow the game's development on its main site, Tumblr devlog and Twitter page.
Title: Typoman Developer: Brainseed Factory Trapped in a world built from words and towers of letters, you reach to the dark and reeky sky. Direful creatures march across the devastated land. You are small, you are weak, you don't have any means to survive. But... the letters that seemed to be so threatening at first hold powers you yet cannot imagine. But you try. You know your destiny because you have been there a long time before. You struggle to remember. The future has yet to be written.
Title: Nantucket Developer: Picaresque Studio Nantucket is a strategy seafaring game set into the golden age of American whaling, during the first half of the 19th century. The story is set a few years after the disaster of the Pequod where Captain Ahab and his crew lost their lives to Moby Dick. In the role of Ishmael, the only survivor of the Pequod, you will have to chase again after the White Whale for redemption
Galaxy Heist is an open world online game that takes place in space. It aims to bring the world of skilled FPS matches and open world space simulation together so that players can fly in space and run around on each others ships in the most seamless way possible. Not only that but players are able to board other players ships as well, for fun, or by force if the other players ship has been disabled. Once on board players can take what they want, steal data from the computers, or just kill the opposing crew members for a bit of extra cash.
You play the character of Phoenix - a young girl with extraordinary abilities. Her story will take you on a emotional journey about an unspeakable evil tearing her world a part. Armed with only a wand and a limited knowledge of how to use her powers - she sets off on a journey that will take her far from home. An adventure that will forever change the young sorceress and her companions.
