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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Invader Zurp
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Spencer Nielsen describes the benefits of simple mechanics with his iOS title Invader Zurp, a simple tap game with a deep, visually appealing strategy. What's your game called and what's it about?The game is a physics-based shooter called Invader Zurp. You play as Zurp (or formally "Zurp: Destroyer of Worlds"), a little alien critter tasked with raining down mighty destruction from planet to planet on his spaceship. You fly on a rail in first person toward structures made of blocks. By touching the screen you fire super-intelligent smart bombs that home in on buildings, defense turrets and incoming missiles. The "touch to shoot" mechanic is dead simple to pick up but there is a deeper strategy in balancing offense, defense and taking measured risks.Why develop independently, rather than work for an established company?The freedom to work on ideas I find interesting and be the person that calls the shots is the reason I left Apple after five years to work on my own projects. Being one part of a large team working on large projects was satisfying and rewarding in its own way but I would always get these crazy ideas that I wanted to explore. The ability to see my own vision through and ship these "crazy ideas" has a reward and personal fulfillment that I value more than a steady paycheck.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Orbitron: Revolution
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Matthew Leigh of Canada's Firebase Industries details the details behind Orbitron: Revolution, a gorgeous space shmup for XBLIG and PC. What's your game called and what's it about?Orbitron: Revolution. Originally it was called Orbital, but looking online it seemed as though 10 other games were called that. Orbitron was settled on because it sounded like something you would find in a smoky 1980s arcade. Then two days before the Dream Build Play 2011 competition we thought we would add a second title and for about three minutes it was going to be called Orbitron: Combat Revolved.The game has the player in the role of a defense fighter, fending off an invasion of angry robots who are bent on destroying the Orbitron Power Station. Guardian Mode is really the core of the game and is a bit of a action/shmup/tower-defense mashup. You have to stop evil laser-drilling robots from attacking and destroying the four sector ports located around the ring. When three of the four ports are destroyed the ring explodes!Orbitron: Revolution was a semi-finalist in the Dream Build Play 2011 competition -- how encouraging was that for Firebase Industries?The first trailer we did as a requirement to get into Dream Build Play 2011 really exploded on Youtube. We got 25,000 views or something in only a couple days which is rare for an XBLIG title. So after that we were feeling pretty good about that game and where it could go. Getting the semi-finalist spot was fantastic as well and I hope it helped get the awareness of the game up!
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: DB42
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Tim Scott explains what happens when the robots get sick and tired of picking up your garbage with his Android title, DB42. What's your game called and what's it about?My game is called DB42 and is available for Android phones and tablets. It's about a little service droid named Deeby that knows there's more to life than sorting through trash. He begs and pleads and is finally given permission to show his true worth in the Cynobotic Army's Advanced Robotic Training grounds. There's a catch though! He starts off with his gear stripped and his articulated arm completely disabled. Along the way he picks up upgrades to help him out.These upgrades allow him to scope out his environment, levitate objects, push objects away and teleport between two points. With these abilities, he's then got to use his wits to reach the exit on each level.The game itself is a platformer that takes the form of level challenges. Levels include obstacles like zero-gravity fields, object field suppressors, water hazards, spatial constraints and physics-related puzzles. The lite version of the game has a single stage with 20 training levels and over 20 achievements the player can earn. The full, paid version of the game has five stages, 100 levels and nearly 60 achievements to earn. Some levels are extremely casual. Other levels can be real head scratchers.Sell DB42 in one sentence:If you've never used the words "kick-ass" and "puzzle" in the same sentence, you've never played DB42.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Burst!
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Josh Hughes of Team Kaizen delves into the fun side of education, and the educational side of fun with Burst!, a PC/Android title that mixes explosions with science. What's your game called and what's it about?Our game is called Burst! and it's meant to be the indie rhythm game for indie musicians! In Burst!, players queue up and detonate fireworks to the beat of music. We've also integrated a tad bit of STEM design (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) into Burst!: Players unlock different elements off of the Periodic Table as they advance, which enables them to make new colors of fireworks -- this is how real fireworks get colors.Burst! is currently in a limited-functionality Flash-powered beta on the Android Market and it is available to play online.How can video games help students learn more about science and technology? What advantages does gaming offer teachers?Games naturally offer a "safe to fail" environment. Meaning, if you're testing out a physics-related problem, if something goes wrong you can asses it, start the problem over again and tackle it with the newfound knowledge from the failed attempt. This means users are engaged to solve problems instead of being presented with the fallacy that they are "too stupid" to solve them. I believe that, in true-blue educational settings, some of the most powerful game tools come from these user-generated-content games. This is because they not only can be used to teach information, but they directly engage users to go into create mode and experiment with the knowledge.It isn't something you regurgitate on a test anymore; it becomes key information in solving a problem within a game you care about. This relates directly to the test group of kids we are working with at a local grade school. These kids (eight of them, four boys and four girls from grades fourth to sixth) are learning STEM one meeting a week and learning LittleBigPlanet and game design two meetings a week. Within a very short period, they were asking their teachers if they could stay after school to learn, coming in on vacations and skipping class parties so they could engage in learning more.On their own accord, without teacher prodding, they asked if they could use school computers to build a shared-knowledge database on the school's network so their levels are as historically and scientifically accurate as possible. They've commandeered white boards and begun drawing out details of their levels, including time periods they need to research to make them perfect. And this is only a test group!I believe that these kinds of games will have an increasingly important role to play in education because of this kind of engagement; the learned knowledge means something and directly plays into self-empowerment and self-expression, so retention goes through the roof.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Curio
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Rube Rubenstein from BrainBlast Games shows us the crazy side of 2D sidescrollers with Curio. What's your game called and what's it about? The Game is Curio and it's about Ron Templeton III's plight. Everything that happens in the back story, which you unlock as your progress, will lead up to where gamers first meet Ron, though it doesn't stop there. This battle that fans undertake in Curio is, has been and will be lifelong for Ron.What inspired you to make Curio? 2D side-scrollers are age-old and a genre we are crazy about. They are not always easy, but we wanted players to focus intently on keeping Ron sane, while always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Also, I was born in a mental asylum and Victor Radar down the hall from me, so it just seemed like a natural and familiar backdrop. Sometime creative juices flow easiest when the subject matter is personal.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Process
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Denis Tambovcev of Russian developer TrainYard Interactive asks for 20 minutes of your time with his free game, Process, and all you have to do is step foot on a speeding train bound for certain disaster. Interested? What's your game called and what's it about?The game is called Process. It's a game project in the adventure genre; its story takes place in several subway train cars. In 20 minutes a disaster will happen -- the train will jump the tracks at full speed. The gameplay takes exactly the time designated before the crash. During this period in grim, dimly lit interiors, combining cyberpunk and industrial aesthetics, the player is to figure out the situation, try all possible means of rescue and in the end take a brand new look at the portrayed events. It's a game about predetermination of events and the subjectiveness of perception of the surrounding world.Technologically it's a classic first-person adventure: panoramic locations with the capability of free, 360-degree view and discreet movement between the panoramas through a point-and-click interface.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: The Secret Castle
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, John Francis of Platronic Games is way too humble when discussing the outstanding 3D graphics of his hidden-object title, The Secret Castle. Seriously, watch both of the included videos for a full run-down of the truly amazing tilt-3D mechanics. What's your game called and what's it about? The Secret Castle is a 3D hidden-object and puzzle game that follows Jonas Lyons, a young boy who begins to have strange dreams about a mysterious castle after moving into a new home. How exactly is The Secret Castle "reinventing the genre" of hidden-object games? I can't say I exactly planned this but a lot of things happened when we instituted the 3D system. There's not really any easy way to spam the screen just hoping to find things, which is one way to play traditional hidden-object games. Also, the 3D really makes the player engage in a whole new way because the game is constantly giving feedback as the player looks for stuff. Also, it's the only hidden object game I know of with a boss fight.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Catball Eats It All
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Tyson and Matt Anderson of Broken Compass Studios share the artistic influences of their Kickstarter-funded mobile title, Catball Eats It All. Yes, it stars a cat shaped like a ball. You know you're intrigued. What's your game called and what's it about?Tyson Anderson: Our game is Catball Eats It All. From a story standpoint, it's about a voracious little furball that eats everything in sight, and... that's it! Short and sweet. From a gameplay perspective, it's an action-puzzle game based around navigating and optimizing paths through levels and mastering responsive play controls.As a graffiti artist, how did NoseGo get involved with Broken Compass?Matt Anderson: We all met through a mutual friend Jeff, who is now our very talented producer. Yis Goodwin -- aka NoseGo -- had expressed a desire to make a game featuring his work, and Tyson and I have been working in games for a while. Jeff, in true producer-ly fashion, put the people together, and the magic was there. We clicked, and our visions, both as creators and as a business, quickly solidified.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: EvilQuest
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, the founders of Chaosoft Games, Forrest McCorkle and Josh Ferguson, discuss the goodness in going evil with their classically inspired title, EvilQuest. What's your game called and what's it about?Forrest McCorkle: Our game is called EvilQuest and it's about an extremely sadistic evil knight named Galvis that is trying to destroy the world. At the start, the character is merely trying to conquer the world, but fails to do so when he is defeated and captured by the dominant kingdom in the game world. In prison, he switches his goal from conquering the world to annihilating it, and also learns a possible means of accomplishing this goal. Of course, he eventually finds a way to escape and from there it's up to the player to see this quest to fruition.How important was it to have original artwork, animation and music in EvilQuest?Josh Ferguson: It was of critical importance -- it was never an option to consider using someone else's material. Quality graphics draw people into a game, while quality gameplay keeps them there. We tried using our individual talents to create both. We wanted an original look and feel while staying true to the sprite-based JRPG style of the early Squaresoft games. As for music, that was a part of the project that we just had some fun with.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Against the Wall
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Michael Consoli helps players grasp the concepts of infinity, vulnerability and self-reliance with his Kickstarter-funded title, Against the Wall. What's your game called and what's it about?I'm working on a puzzle platformer called Against the Wall. The point of the game is to explore a world that is one infinite, flat vertical surface. Players use a device that lets them pull bricks out of the wall and form ledges, letting them hop from place to place without falling off the side.You raised more than $8,000 for Against the Wall in your Kickstarter campaign -- more than your goal. What do you think made your campaign so successful?I had a playable demo of the game available. Most of the people on Kickstarter seek funding with only the germ of an idea rather than anything concrete. My message was that I have this great thing, and it works, but I need the resources to expand it and make something extraordinary. I didn't need to offer t-shirts or other rewards, I just let the game speak for itself.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Forbidden Island
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Sean Wilson of international indie studio Button Mash Games explains how his iPad title, Forbidden Island, is contributing to the tabletop game's renaissance. What's your game called and what's it about? Forbidden Island is an iPad board game where one to four adventurers cooperate to capture the four ancient treasures hidden on a sinking island. As the game progresses, parts of the island sink into the ocean, making it more difficult to collect the treasures. The game is based on the award-winning board game designed by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright. How were you able to create a licensed game as a brand new indie company? This was really a combination of confidence and luck. We reached out to Matt Leacock, the original game designer, and expressed our interest in making the game. We created a small gameplay demo and explained our passion for the project and Matt put us in touch with Gamewright. They believed in our enthusiasm and plans for the game so they agreed to work with us. They gave us the freedom to take the game design in the directions we believed were best, but pushed us to reach further than we would have if we didn't have any outside feedback. The game has tons of improvements directly because of their ideas.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: DLC Quest
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Ben Kane of Going Loud Studios shows us the satirical side of indie gaming with DLC Quest. Bet you can't guess what it's making fun of. What's your game called and what's it about?It's called DLC Quest, and it's about a quest for DLC. No, really! It's a satirical look at what happens when DLC goes too far, forcing the player to "buy" DLC (using in-game coins) to unlock core features like animation, pausing and moving to the left.What inspired you to make DLC Quest?DLC practices throughout the gaming industry have been rubbing consumers the wrong way for a while now and seem to be getting worse. I wanted to make a dig at some of the worst offenders but by the time I got around to it, there was enough material to make a whole game about the topic.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: QUBE Adventures
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Klaus Silveira stretches our imaginations with a slingshottable, lovable cube named Qube, in the iOS title QUBE Adventures. What's your game called and what's it about?QUBE Adventures is a simple physics game that has QUBE, a small rubber cube with an intriguing wish for adventure, as the protagonist. The main objective of the game is to help QUBE get through the doors of the world beyond the clouds by throwing him around dozens of platforms, jumpers and more.What inspired you to make QUBE Adventures?I always enjoyed physics-based games and the gameplay possibilities that physics provides. As an indie game developer, I wanted to create a game that had an interesting mechanic, with addicting gameplay. I came up with QUBE, which reinvents the slingshot mechanic and mixes it with traditional platforming elements. It's meant to be a difficult game, easy to pick up yet impossible to master. I always disliked casual games and how they build their relation with the player: praising his small acts, congratulating the player for nothing, being a boring flatterer. I wanted to create a relationship just like old NES games did: put the player on his knees, make him beg.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Platagolf
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, (Pirate Captain) Javier Abud combines the challenge of mini-golf with classic platforming with Platagolf. What's your game called and what's it about?The name of the game is Platagolf. It centers around a golf ball trying to find its home, except the world changes each time it gets home.Platagolf is deceptively difficult, much like mini-golf -- do you ever get complaints that it's too hard for a casual title?All the time. Even when I show it to people at the bar or to my friends they keep saying that the par is too hard to match. I guess I have a bit of a handicap since I know the layout of the levels, but I like to think that games are just too easy nowadays. What happened to games that are NES hard? Those games take real skill!
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Defender's Quest
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Lars Doucet and Level Up Labs make a beautiful RPG/tower-defense baby with Defender's Quest. During the rest of January, Defender's Quest is $1 off for Joystiq readers; just enter the coupon code "JOYSTIQ" right here! What's your game called and what's it about? It's called Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. It's a hybrid tower defense/RPG about a young woman who's dumped unceremoniously into a plague colony who then sets off to escape by gathering survivors to fight off the minions of a crazed necromancer hot on her trail.How important was a compelling story to you while developing Defender's Quest? Three of us previously worked on CellCraft, an educational biology game, which had a fun and silly story to help tie it together. While people like the characters, the story and dialogue was written by us programmers. For Defender's Quest, we wanted a proper story, so we deliberately sought out a writer.We wanted a narrative that matched our mechanics. Why do you have "defenders," and why are they defending this person? Why can't everyone just run away? So our setting was created to explain all that. You can't escape -- you're trapped in a plague colony. People want to help defend you because you're the only ticket out of there. We gave our characters real motivations for what they do in the story and in the mechanics.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Captain Jameson
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Farbs steers us into the Captain Forever universe in its new RPG-esque installment, Captain Forever. What's your game called and what's it about? The game is called Captain Jameson, and you can win bonus nerd cred by figuring out why I called it that. (Post your answers in the comments!) Captain Jameson is a retro-futuristic parable about the cascading benefits of capitalism. I think. What I built was an awesome spaceship exploration/shooter game where you build your ship entirely out of modular parts, but what people read into it is up to them. Captain Jameson is part of the Captain Forever series, and you can check it out -- and play the first game for free -- at Captain Forever. What Jameson adds to the series is exploration and persistence, so instead of playing standalone 10-minute games in an arena the size of your monitor, you now explore a vast starscape for hours. Captain Forever has been called "Lego Asteroids," so I guess Captain Jameson would be "Legoland Asteroids." What's the coolest aspect of Captain Jameson? The spaceship construction and simulation is cool, and I think it embodies the coolest aspect of the game. That is, everything in the game has function, and you can use those functions however you want. You can wedge a tiny fighter into the side of a dreadnought and attack it from the inside. You can push other ships into fiery magma asteroids. You can build a collection scoop out of girders and use it to collect the remnants of your enemies. Exploring the world of Jameson isn't about strolling through a procession of pretty backdrops; it's about finding your own path through the landscape, using the stations and ships and other things that you find to help you progress.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Baams Away
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Colin Krausnick started a mobile-gaming company called Bearded Eye with his brother, Zach, and together they made Baams Away, a game about blowing up sheep. Because that's what the brothers Krausnick do. What's your game called and what's it about? Baams Away! Our game is about blowing up an assortment of sheep in the most bombastic ways possible. Big bombs, little bombs, rocket sheep, explosive sheep, firework sheep, airstrikes, napalm, we got it all. There are 15 unique sheep in the game right now with plans to add more. We also have 45 levels that last from 30 seconds to a minute, plus randomized arcade modes that continually get more difficult. Our latest addition was the upgrade shop which allows you to spend your hard earned Woolians (in-game currency) on a smattering of enhancements, for example, bigger and more powerful airstrikes, throwing more shurikens, increased size of your primary Baam, and more. We are, of course, planning on adding a few more items to the shop, such as more unlockable secondary bombs. Why sheep? Birds are so 2010.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, developer Ryan Vandendyck describes the beauty of a sine wave in an innovative wavelength platformer, titled Waveform. A Kickstarter for Waveform is counting down rapidly -- if you like math, space, or fun indie games, give it a look and donate to the cause! What's your game called and what's it about? The game is called Waveform, and you control a wave of light transmitting through space. By adjusting the wave's amplitude and wavelength, you line it up to collect objectives, avoid obstacles, and interact with a whole bunch of objects that affect the path of your wave, and the world around you, in interesting ways. It's a simple and strange concept, but a ton of fun to play. It's designed to be effortless for anyone to jump into and enjoy, but the gameplay hearkens back to old-school action games. We like to think of it as fast-paced fun distilled down to its purest form so it's fun for everybody -- those looking for a unique and interesting game to experience and those looking for a challenge. How did the idea to play with light and dark matter come about? Back when I started this game in 2009, I had an idea to make a game that focused around one core gameplay mechanic. And, coming from a mathematical background, I ended up thinking of what it would be like to play a game as a sine wave. I prototyped that within a few days and found, a bit to my surprise, that it was fun manipulating a wave in a game! But I didn't really know what else I wanted the game to be about. So I started thinking about waves and figured I could either make the game about sound waves or light waves. At the time I had no musician working with me, so I didn't want to go with a highly audio-dependent design -- so I decided on light waves. From there I just started adding features and mechanics that had to do with light, and a lot of things flowed pretty easily from that decision, like adding mirrors to reflect off of, particle accelerators to boost through, and the dark matter to sap your light away. What started out as a simple doodle on a piece of paper emerged as a fun game all about wave manipulation.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Unity of Command
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, we figure nothing gets people into the holiday spirit like recreating World War II's Easter Front -- and 2x2 Games agrees. Their game, Unity of Command, recreates historical battles from 1942-1943, but more fun, as explained by the team, and developers Tomislav Uzelac and Nenad Jalšovec. What's your game called and what's it about? 2x2: Unity of Command is a turn-based strategy game about some of the biggest Eastern Front battles in World War II. It's a game that tries to capture the essentials of traditional, hex-based wargaming without being excessively complex. On the surface, it's your regular strategy fare complete with cute little toy soldiers and tanks. The UI is friendly, the information is clearly presented and the strategic challenge is plain enough: Take your objectives, fast. As you go deeper, however, you will find there's a substantial historical and simulation component underneath. Hopefully by the time you master the game you'll have learned something new about the grim rules of war and/or the stern lessons of history.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Elfsquad7
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, we feature a super-special (and sparkly) Christmas title from Scott Tykoski and Stardock, titled Elfsquad7. What's your game called and what's it about? Elfsquad7 is a frantic, fun, 1-4-player holiday game about wrapping toys, grabbing gifts and saving Christmas. Despite its overly saccharine holiday theme, it's designed so that even the most hardcore gamer can enjoy playing it, and it's available now on XBLIG. What's the coolest aspect of Elfsquad7? I really like that the end boss resembles Lavos from Chrono Trigger. Only his name is Kevin. I'm also really happy with how the item shop plays into gameplay, especially on the harder-difficulty levels. There are some real strategic choices that the player has to make, and the game design is considerably stronger for it. Oh, and items are delivered by a fat pink cat strapped to a hot-air balloon. I can proudly boast that is a first in the world of gaming.
