Nickles in the Toilet: Mini Followup

I just discovered XNPlay. It's an entire review site dedicated to XBL Indie games and is definitely worth visiting if you want some assistance in sifting through the pile.

Nickles in the Toilet: Vol 1

Here's a quick smattering of Xbox Live Indie games I've played recently and enjoyed. I was originally going to go with the tired cliche' "Diamonds in the Rough" for the title, but I think what I've currently selected is:

1. more amusing
   and
   
2. more indicative of the XBL Indie experience at present

There are some pretty cool experiences to be had if you're willing to fish around with your hands in the filth for a while. Just don't forget to wash up afterward. If I've left anything off it's because I either haven't played it yet or haven't gotten to it yet, hence the volume number in the title.

Miner Dig Deep

This is a fun little grind that has you sending your avatar deeper and deeper down a 2d mine shaft. You mine resources by time limited lantern light to get money for better tools and lanterns so you can stay down longer and dig deeper for better tools and lanterns. Nice relaxing guitar riffs and pretty addicting mechanics.

Arkedo Series 3: Pixel

I've only played a bit of the demo for this one, but it's won me over. Super slick polished visuals, tight platforming controls and a unique gameplay feature where you "zoom in" to sprites to explore them are the highlights of this one.

Gerbil Physics

Pretty short 2d physics game akin to Boom Blox. You have a set number of bombs you can place anywhere on the screen, and you have to use them to knock all the blocks down. The added enjoyment comes from the gerbil sprites that sort of live in each block, and their reactions to being buffeted about by explosives.

Pixel Boarder

Another one of the 2d "physics thing sliding on ramps" games, but the presentation is pretty cool, featuring chunky pixelated visuals and a pretty rad chiptune soundtrack. The interface is a little different as well, with each stick on the gamepad controlling one of the snowboarders arms, with weight shifting and other physical ramifications emerging from pose changes.

Solar

This one was my first actual XBLI purchase. In this game you play a star. Your objective is to attract planets through a pretty intuitive and relaxing gravitational sim. You can also smash the crap out of other solar systems by flinging heavenly bodies into them.

Weapon of Choice

This is a really polished 2d shooter along the lines of Contra, with some really quirky and interesting weapons and giant boss battles. You can tell a lot of love and time went into it.

Fishing Girl

Relaxing fishing grind that spawned from Danc's blog, Lost Garden. Fish to make money to get better rods to catch bigger fish, etc. Simple yet pretty effective.

Kodu

I haven't really scratched the surface of this thing, but it appears to be a pretty robust and powerful visual coding system. It's severely hampered by the limited code sharing abilities and has received very little fanfare. Like RPG Maker and other similar entities, I've avoided it mostly because I could spend that learning curve with real programming. The cubey landscapes are super cool looking though.

Surfacing for Air

Finally back from an extended stay in Rapture. This is mostly a scattershot attempt at recollecting my thoughs and stoking the coals of this thing once more.

Just finished Bioshock 2 with a great team of designers and other devs. Got back from a holiday break and have begun to ramp up on another project that looks promising.

Darksiders shipped recently. I was on the project for a year and a half, and I'm curious to see it after being absent from its development for a couple of years. It's a talented team, and I know they've busted ass to see this thing from concept to physical manifestation.

Currently rifling through my myriad side project ideas trying to find something that grabs my attention and is feasible. Trying to choose between the following:

• Sim/adventure game where you are in control of a family line of monster hunters. Manage relationships to develop the family as well as the research and development. Use the resources you develop to fuel dungeon expeditions and gradually rid the land of monsters after generations of hard work.
  
• 2d platformer where you can occupy different scales by inhabiting and controlling larger creatures that also serve as parts of the exploratory landscape.
• Exploratory adventure game that primarily consists of traveling across massive landscapes from A to B. Mechanics emphasize methods of travel, morale maintenance, route planning, adversary avoidance and engagement.
• Figure out a direction to take the internal/external identity prototype I developed recently.
• Finish a couple of simpler XBLA style games. One is an acrobatic arena combat game involving grappling hooks. The other is an action/puzzley game where you control 2 nodes connected by a string and try to collect moving objects of one color while avoiding moving objects of another color.
• Co-op cyberpunk mod using the Unreal Development Kit

These all vary in scope, technical complexity and design weirdity, but hopefully I'll nail something down soon and start posting my travails as they come up. Maybe more design related stuff soon as well.