A cracking week for Indie bundles if you haven’t heard about them. We have the Indie Royale Spring Bundle which includes the Unstoppable Gorg title, a tower defence game influenced by outer space and circles. The great thing about this is that Unstoppable Gorg is only a few months old but what’s even better is the Humble Botanicula Bundle which strangely includes Botanicula, not only in the name but in the list of games too. This is the first time I’ve seen a newly released title in an Indie bundle. Nearly as shocking as a pastry making cannibal but long may it continue.
Indie Past – Machinarium
The first title I’m going to briefly talk about was influenced by this week’s Indie Present title, Botanicula, and that’s Machinarium by Amanita Design who are an indie developer based out of the Czech Republic. Machinarium is included in the Humble Botanicula Debut bundle.
Machinarium is based in what appears to be a futuristic post apocalyptic wasteland and you play the part of a robot who can stretch his body like Mr Fantastic to reach items that would otherwise be out of reach. It’s a point and click adventure puzzle game where you have to manipulate your environment to reach your goals and move on.
Mystical and metallic sounds that interact with you make the game most enjoyable and once you add some excellent animation you are onto a winner. Machinarium was highly acclaimed and if you look back to 2009 then you’ll soon discover that as well as being loved by critics such as Rock Paper Shotgun and Gamespot it also won an award in the Indie Games Festival for Excellence in Visual Art.
If you search the Google real hard >cough<by typing in Machinarium>cough< you can get a demo in your browser.
Indie Present – Botanicula
Kicking up a stink that’s worse than a skunk on vindaloo is Botanicula. This game was available for $10 on GoG and GamersGate but within a couple of days you could get it on the Humble Botanicula Debut bundle and pay whatever you want for it. This has a massive QQ going out from the people who paid full whack for it.
Anyway, less about the controversy and more about the game!
It’s taken the Excellence in Audio award at this year’s Independent Games Festival which is truly well deserved and it was only just beaten in the visual category by the game that isn’t really a game, Dear Esther. Personally I think Botanicula should’ve received that award too because it’s quirky and nothing like anything else I’ve seen in games.
Your goal is to lead a band of pretty yet cowardly specimens through caverns, plants and trees, solving puzzles to try a beat down some colour draining parasites and eventually save the last seed from their home tree.
A point and click adventure that had my wife, son and me figuring out the puzzles and admiring all the idiosyncratic insects and plant life.
Indie Future – Stasis
John Maracheck, the protagonist, regains consciousness and finds himself in an abandoned research facility and not only does he not have a clue where he is, he doesn’t know where his wife and daughter are. OK, so Stasis isn’t going to win any awards for a compelling background story but it is beginning to shape up to be a really nifty futuristic, but old school, isometric adventure game.
Another point and click adventure game that carries an inkling of Dead Space so if you’re a fan or sci-fi survival horror then Stasis is a game to keep an eye on.
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