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High time our site started having a regular feature corner covering particular areas of gaming intrigue. And what better way to start by talking about independent gaming! Ah, the joys of not having to hurdle through hyped launches and fanboy commentary. The joys of not having to know what the hell terms like “Parallax Mapping” and “Blend Shaders” mean. The joys of feeling glad that you don’t need a high-end configuration to enjoy a solid game or two programmed by enthusiasts that probably have even shittier real-life jobs than we do. Goodness gracious, someone throw me a tissue box already!
In our first fiery episodic expose, we’ll talk about Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! and Axel City. Double-team, hooha!
Remember our little rant on Secret Agent Doritos? Well, the Doritos brand finally announced that five lucky guys have been selected from over two thousand submissions to the Unlock Xbox challenge to have their own game made for the Xbox LIVE Arcade. Announcing the five finalists:
1. Doritos Dinosaur Dash by Mike Borland of Sewickley, PA
2. Doritos Presents UDC: Ultimate Dodgeball Champions by Devan Moore of Panama City, FL
3. Monkeys from Mt. Dorito by Juanito Lagasco, III of Algonquin, IL
4. PB’s Quest for Flavor by Jeremy Mattsen of Colorado Springs, CO
5. Rythum Racing by Kenneth Parker of Warner Robins, GA
What’s more, you will be able to head over to the contest’s website soon enough and participate in promotions to net some cool goodies including Xbox 360 consoles, Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions and more, as well as getting to play the beta versions of these games sometime in October. Now a lot of people seem to be quite pissed off already with this selection, but I think I’ll actually reserve judgment until I can actually get my hands on them games later.
The winners for UK’s computer games design festival, Dare to be Digital, as well as nominees for a brand-new BAFTA, have been announced at a special event in Dundee. The Dare to be Digital contest, now running on 8 years, is supposed to be the “‘perfect pathway’ for young talent in the games industry”, with prizes worth £2,500 having been snatched up by Phoenix Seed with Bear Go Home, for ‘Innovation and Creativity’; Carebox with ClimbActic, for ‘Use of Technology’; and Voodoo Boogy with Ragnarawk, for ‘Commercial Potential’. They will now be the only nominees for the BAFTA Ones to Watch awards that will be announced later in October.
With students designing games ranging from cute and cuddly (Bear Go Home), to extreme adventuring (Climbactic) and the obligatory fantasy RPG where you battle enemies, not with swords, not with staffs, but the awesome power of an ancient and powerful electric guitar (Ragnarawk), the 12 teams that participated in the event were subjected to a plethora of poking and prodding by game industry macho-men, including Geoff Heath of NCSoft, Chairman of the judges, who said:
“The judges were incredibly impressed by the quality of the work they saw. All the teams have demonstrated an extremely high level of achievement in the 10 weeks and have clearly benefited from testing their games at Dare ProtoPlay.”
Hit the jump for the official press release, while we await even more goodness at the next upcoming indie game festival.
Does anyone remember that game-making competition held by Doritos? I’m gonna guess here a big fat “uh, what?” Not surprising as it’s a brand-name for a potato-chip style snack not readily available in India. But even if you didn’t, you’d have to agree that making a functioning game based upon a popular food product sounds borderline bananas. Not necessarily so, says Nate Bradley! His entry, Secret Agent Dorito, combines several commonly known forms of gaming pop-culture for those downing, disdainful dukes and/or damsels. And that’s two-dimensions, a cornball story, and an arsenal of guns and melee weapons.
Where would I be without the Indy Gaming Community? One lost, sad puppy with way too much free time on my hands if I had to guess. They’re conveniently small enough to download from anywhere and make for great time-pass on those long weekends away from work (sick/rainy days notwithstanding). Props to the well-informed blogwriters of Independent Gaming for giving upto date info on the latest happenings.
Anyway! Last week I got to check out Poke53280’s Hurrican. To be brief: it’s a really well-done retro remake, in the spirit of the Turrican series (more about those here). The core gameplay is mainly composed of 2D shooting mixed in with some platformer elements. Levels are littered with power-ups, like that green energy ball thingy that breaks up into smaller pieces on impact (I’m sure it has a name; I just can’t arsed to check it). Oh, it’s also one of those games that begs to be played with a joypad. My dinky Rs. 300 PS1-ripoff one made all the difference. Kinda wish the game would at least allow me to shoot downwards in mid-air, but that’s like asking Megaman if he can go on one knee and duck an enemy pellet for a fucking change. I kid though, honestly! There’s even 2-player support, though I can guarantee you’ll run into some serious slowdown issues if your system doesn’t meet the recommended requirements. Best you’d turn down the level of detail in the preference menu, hmm.
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