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.