You play as Victor and Alicia, a couple who’ve just moved into a new apartment. While trying to get settled in, they soon discover that all is not as it seems in the quiet, unassuming apartment building…

What We Think

Among the dozens of interesting games I saw at IndieCade 2011, I happened to stumble upon one of the finalists in a quiet back corner room where a few computers were tucked away, though their screens were being washed out by the sun blasting through a window in the later part of the afternoon.

Liking stories that explore the landscape of the subconscious and dream-states, and a long time fan of “Psychonauts,” naturally, I was immediately intrigued by the name “The Dream Machine” and then subsequently delighted by its unique look. The graphics you see, comprise hand-made stop-motion animation of clay, Popsicle sticks and other found items handled with painstaking care that would make the Quay Brothers blush.

To quote the developers:

“In order to differentiate it from most other games out there we decided to steer as far away from all things polygonal/vectoral, and are actually building all the environments, props and characters out of materials like clay and cardboard.”

The amount of creativity, and time that went into this is unlike any other I have yet seen. Whereas Telltale adapted the famous claymation franchise Wallace and Gromit for the PC with 3D graphics resembling clay, Dream Machine is literally to claymation what Dragon’s Lair was to Saturday Morning cartoons, except that it has much greater interactivity than the cut-scene style of Bluth’s standup arcade title. But I felt the same sense of awe as I did then.

Gameplay

Once I got to play a few minutes of the game I knew I was in trouble. The creepy vibe and fascinatingly mysterious story had me hooked. It wasn’t until tonight I was finally given the chance to play the first three chapters, and I can tell you that what worked in the first only gets better with the following chapters.

Beginning on a deserted island, you are taken on a journey through a surreal dream-like world, trying to solve a mystery that gets ever stranger and dire. The creepy vibe of the characters, are only made ever more captivating by the taut, but pensive ambient soundtrack that plays behind it. The music deserves a second mention; it really helps put you in the vibe of being in the dream world, that subtly and gradually becomes a nightmare.

The game is quite challenging, but not impossible, and with a little time, (and verbal brainstorming I had to do aloud), I pushed my way through the puzzles that appear within the narrative progression and often require surprising and imaginative solutions.

I want to give nothing away about the plot so I won’t delve into story points, but I believe it took me a total of three hours to finish the first three chapters, and those three hours had me at the edge of my seat and exclaiming aloud in angst when I arrived at the words TO BE CONTINUED that finally appeared across my screen.

Again bear in mind that I only played the first three chapters which are all that has been released thus far. More chapters are in production.

The HUD is clean, modern and nicely executed. Everything from my inventory to dialogue was well placed, easy to read, and never got in the way. From a mere design perspective, Dream Machine was a pleasure to navigate and interact with.

My score

This game gets 5 out of 5 stars for me: one for the plot line, brilliant, interesting, smart, captivating. One for the one-of-a-kind animation that is a character all its own – for the fact that it is so refreshing to see true art in motion in an indie game – true artisty in playable form. One for the whimsically mysterious, and sometimes hypnotic music that helps teleport you to the world of the Dream Machine and maintain the texture and tone of the game even as you migrate from daydreams to nightmares. One for the clever and challenging goals you must accomplish, that get increasingly difficult, but never so frustrating as to make you want to quit.

In other words, they were very balanced with a nice progression. One for the fact it kept me hanging, entertained, captivated and left me excited thinking about the world and characters long after it was over, just like a great bedtime fable.

To get a sense of the work, craftsmanship and thought that went into this title, I recommend visiting the developers blog for behind-the-scenes photos, musings about the game logic and their workflow.

The Dream Machine can be purchased for 5 Euros per chapter or the first 5 chapters can be purchased as an “Early Bird Bundle” for 14 Euros direct from the official site which is a 20% discount (in case you suck at math).

This should be on the top of everyone’s list in 2012. Even if you aren’t a fan of Point and Click adventures (a generic category that encompasses anything from Gemini Rue to Machinarium), I can assure you “The Dream Machine” is an amazing game experience worth your hard-earned bucks.

As a special bonus, you can play the entire chapter absolutely free within your browser at the site below. (Flash 8 or higher support required).

The Dream Machine – Official Site

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Red Eclipse is a single-player and multi-player first-person ego-shooter, built as a total conversion of Cube Engine 2, which lends itself toward a balanced gameplay, completely at the control of map makers, while maintaining a general theme of agility in a variety of environments.

What We Think

I have used Linux as well as FreeBSD for the last five years, usually as servers to make my life easier, but I have also had a good amount of experience with an open source desktop. I have played a lot of open source games and, in fact, some of my favorite games have been ones that were open source: Urban Terror and Tremulous among them.

As I played Red Eclipse I was reminded more and more of Quake or even Unreal Tournament. It’s a rather simple fast-paced shooter at its core that offers a nice range of play modes and modifiers. The gameplay is nothing short of stupendous, allowing the player to run on walls, double jump and turn jumps into flying kicks that usually translate into instant kills.

Glowing swords are always a good thing.

In modes like Medieval, wherein the player only gets a sword with insta-gib mode, (which is usually turned on in most of the communities servers), one hit of a sword instantly kills, requiring that you have a fast reaction to get close, make the kill and get out before anyone slices you up in kind. Another unique mode is Bomber-Ball which is very much like soccer except with weapons. The Capture-The-Flag mode brought a lot of fun and reminded me of my old days on Half-Life maps that provided the same experience without the same graphics or game-play capabilities.

A face full of rasberry jam brings me back to the good ol' days.

Of course I could go on forever about the mix-and-match style of the game. Mixing Bomber-Ball with expert means that only headshots kill, making a difficult but exciting game of Bomber-Ball and so on. The one interesting mode that really popped out at me was the single-player campaign mode. It was only a run and gun through a few city blocks which seem big but are, in fact, rather small and short-lived. It provided a quick and easy entertainment but the online action really provided the real thrill.

The rendering engine is the open sourced “Cube 2″ engine which was originally created for “Cube 2: Sauerbraten” but as far as I remember it never looked as good as it has in Red Eclipse. They really brought out the engine using the fluid lighting and shadowing all to their advantage, if your PC can keep up with it. The shots off the laser guns provide a glow that not only help locate the shooter in the fast-paced frenzy but allow the game to look amazing.

The weapons are very unique and consist of a pistol, shotgun, sword, flamethrower, submachine gun, plasma gun, rocket launcher, grenade, and rifle. All of these guns have secondary abilities which are more powerful but have their own drawbacks. The weapons are very much like the Unreal Tournament weapons and resemble them in action as well.

If I have gripes, they include the fact that presently the game is only on Desura, whereas I would love to see it on Steam under the free games section. Additionally, I would love to see more player models as opposed to simply having different colors to represent teams; there is presently no model differentiation. When all is said and done, however, Red Eclipse is worth your time to download and try for yourself.

Get Red Eclipse free from the official site

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Have a barking good time in the addicting casual Card game, Best in Show Solitaire! Adopt and Train 40 different breeds who all have different abilities and stats that affect each hand, as you strive to win the National Title of “Best in Show.”

What We Think

From indie game developer Graduate Games comes Best In Show Solitaire. If you liked Faerie Solitaire (which was one of my favorites on Steam last year) then you will be pretty familiar with the set up of “Best in Show” – the layout is essentially the same, (even the specific music cues when you get bonuses), minus the appeal of the storyline that so captivated and motivated me keep to continue playing “Faerie Solitaire”

In this game you are vying to become the best in show, and if you are a dog lover, perhaps this is the perfect niche game for you to wile the hours away, attempting nine grueling rounds to get to the next level.

After carefully selecting your dog from the pet store based on attributes like which will run out of stamina, loyalty and so on, you quickly discover you must go back to the pet store where you can purchase water, or treats, or trade up for a new dog. This can be considered fun, but I found it tedious and found it merely interrupted my flow as an avid player of Solitaire.

Different dogs have different traits and trained abilities that aid in gameplay. You can train your dogs’ abilities at the Dog Select screen or unlock more dogs as you get further along in the game. It may be an early-release bug, but I found it confusing that I would get a notice for a newly unlocked dog when there were still only three dogs unlocked in my dog selection page.

You also can collect coins and spare cards as you progress in levels, the spare “cards” are fun little icons shaped as dog bowls, or chew toys, or pet food.

As I mentioned above, each level consists of nine rounds which can become a bit tedious and redundant in that there are not many extra perks happening per level. You do have objectives you need to do before you can get a pass to be allowed to move forward in the game, but I found, even playing in EASY mode, that my cards were not being shuffled kindly and it would take me at least two tries to get through a whole level (that is – nine rounds at the minimun of two minutes each – times two, if you’re lucky – and not falling asleep by then, of your life wasted trying to get to the next level.) The perks are that you do get bonuses for combos and earn cash every level (thankfully it doesn’t reset), so if you have to repeat a level you are just building your bank to by more boosts for your pups.

The tutorial level feels a bit long as it too lasts a whole nine rounds, though I suppose it gives you the opportunity to earn some cash and bonuses, unlock some new dogs and get accquainted with the game before going full throttle.

The only major frustration I found in this game, is that while travelling level to level, you are really lacking real incentive, whereas in “Faerie Solitaire” you are releasing the faeries and being told a story in between levels…so it takes you on a bit of an adventure and gets you excited about getting the next destination, whereas BiS reserves few twists in the plot.

With Best in Show, I found myself getting bored at the mundane levels and really didn’t feel a sense of excitement towards what it may next introduce. The only payoff at the end of the level is a news article that really doesn’t alert you of anything substantial. It made me start to wonder where the three hours I had logged for the game was actually getting me, besides a hopefully inevitable top prize.

All told, it is a well-constructed game featuring cute, nicely illustrated dogs (if you are a dog lover); every aspect of all the levels are heavily dog-themed. I give it 2 1/2 out of 5 stars just for the lack of real adventure and storytelling. Without the sense of adventure, I really can’t justify the extra time required to get through the whole game, which is essentially, a game of Solitaire.

In conclusion, had I not first been so intrigued by the hybrid casual card-game/RPG nature of “Faerie Solitaire” I would have nothing to compare it too and give it a 3, but alas…I just wasn’t as excited while playing this game as I had hoped.

Get Best In Show Solitaire at Graduate Games

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Inside a Star-filled Sky is an infinite, recursive, tactical shooter by award-winning designer Jason Rohrer (Passage, Between). What if you could enter an object in a level and find a level inside of it? What if you could enter an object in that level and find another level inside of that?

What if you could change an enemy or a power-up from the inside? What if you could enter and change yourself? What if these levels inside levels inside levels went all the way down—and all the way up?

Inside a Star-filled Sky is a hard, procedurally-generated shmup built around this core concept.

What We Think

Jason Rohrer (creator of Sleep is Death, our pick for Indie Game of the Year 2010) is back with a brand new take on the shoot-em-up. Simply fighting waves of enemies is old hat. Inside a Star-filled Sky is all about fighting the enemies within an enemy within yourself (and you are inside yet another enemy). Confused yet?

4 Out of 5 Doctors Agree: Indigestion is caused by microscopic firefights in your stomach.

Complexity Through Simplicity

Players start as a basic life form capable of firing single shots. The arrow keys or W,A,S and D keys are used for movement, while a reticule controlled by the mouse aims the trajectory of the player’s projectiles. Levels can be wide open, or maze like in construction, and will house a finite level of enemies to thwart, as well as some useful power-up tokens. Up to 3 power-ups can be collected, and the results of the combined powers will not be seen until the player progresses to a higher level. Generally, higher levels will also yield more potent power-up tokens (indicated by the number appearing in the upper-right corner) though a few beginner tokens may also litter the play field, making a nimbly dodging a bullet-hell barrage riskier, lest your carefully-balanced blend of might and defense be disrupted by a level one projectile range token.

Graphics are music are both in short supply in the game, but neither element is intended to be a driving factor. The clunky feel of the sprites better allows for the ingenious level progression mechanic. In this regard, IaSFS plays a lot like Jenova Chen’s Fl0w. By flying over an up arrow icon, the character takes control of the life-form hosting the current level (a superior life form). Conversely, being defeated by an enemy will force the player to take control of a smaller and often weaker existence within the defeated character.

To clarify that statement, picture it like this: if at the beginning of the game, if the player were controlling a red blood cell in his body, leveling up would result in controlling the player. Leveling down from from being a red blood cell would cause the player to take the form of an atom within the blood cell, followed by a sub-atom, a quark, onwards and so forth. There is no limit to how large or how small a creature the player can control.

The first time paying the game can create the falste impression that this game is slow in pace, but don’t be fooled. IaSFS doesn’t take long to pick up in speed and difficulty. Each level upwards is tracked by the counter on the upper-right corner of the screen, and each will increase the difficulty and skill sets of the enemies that will be faced.

What turducken must feel like...

The Enemy Within

Clicking the Shift key while hovering the reticule over an enemy creature will cause the player to descend into its cellular structure. The sprite expands to form a new level, some of which are maze-like, and some with wide open spaces to move around it. Once inside, clear out the enemies within, find out what makes your foe tick, and steal it for your own power-up.

If that isn’t baffling enough, clicking Shift with the reticule over flag tokens and power-ups will send the player inside those as well. Dive down a few levels within a power-up token, stack the tokens within it to create a powerful mix, and emerge again. The token just got more powerful, and can be collected for use in the next level up.

Finding the right mix of tokens takes some trial and error, and a bit of luck. Spread and burst weapons do well in open areas, but falter in close quarters. Heat seeking and rebound shots work better in tight grid levels. Is it worth dropping the level 5 health bonus to pack on a sticky shot? It all depends on the player.

Screenshot lifted from the creator site. I sure as hell never reached level 1977.

The Sky is the Limit. Now, Become the Sky.

If there is one aspect that some gamers will love, and others will hate, it’s that there is no end point to achieve in the game, and other than reaching higher stages of existence, there is no defined reward. The player will float on through this infinite universe, seeking to control larger, more powerful enemies, and acquiring more amazing power-up tokens. While this may not sit well for gamers looking to “beat” a game, it offers a strangely compelling and highly challenging experience to gamers willing to lose themselves in the never-ending struggle to become more powerful, and flaunt it by stomping stronger enemies.

When enemies are polluting the screen with an unending hailstorm of projectiles of various sizes, IaSFS hits its stride. While there is nothing more frustrating than almost reaching a new high level, only to be busted back ten levels in rapid succession, getting that small taste of greatness will hook even the most hardened of shmup fans.

Inside a Star-filled Sky is available on Steam for USD $7.99

Rating: ★★★★½ 

“Construct and command your ground defences in a series of increasingly massive battles across the solar system, in our frenetic arcade mash-up of Real Time Strategy and Tower Defence!”

What We Think

To call Revenge of the Titans just another tower defense game wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it would fail to recognize the depth of play that has been wonderfully incorporated into this title.

If you played any of the myriad of free Flash tower defenders out there, you’ll feel right at home with RotT. Enemies wander toward your base, while you put weapon emplacements and other buildings in order to keep them from succeeding in destroying your stronghold. What makes this worth paying for is the length of the campaign and the RTS elements that have been blended in, almost seamlessly, by the developers.

Resource management is typically part of the genre, but often is just a matter of spending what’s available for any given level, or a slow crawl of incoming funds. Revenge of The Titans makes resources more physical by requiring you to drop factories down and process crystals on the surface. These often have to be defended from enemy forces as well.

While upgrading and purchasing new tower types is part of most tower defense games, RotT has a tech tree deeper than most full blown strategy games. You only gain one new element on the tree after every mission, so there is a lot of strategy in what you choose and when you choose it. Not only can you research bigger and badder weapons, but you can develop more efficient factories, shields, and other cool elements.

The visuals of Revenge of the Titans are rudimentary at best, though well polished simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing. Menu and story art appears to be done in Flash with the glow effect on everything and with limited animation. In-game graphics are 8-bit quality. Bases and turrets aren’t complicated and enemies look like the demented cousins of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde. I think this will be the make-or-break issue for most people. Either you will find the simple style charming, or you’ll see it as annoying.

The story is straightforward enough, as far as I could tell. Aliens are invading and you must defend the solar system. I have to admit, I skipped most of the dialog to avoid having to listen to the Charlie-Brown’s-teacher voice work.

If you’re a fan of tower defense games and like the retro-minimalist art style evident in the screenshots you’ll be in gamer heaven with Revenge of the Titans. The fact that Puppy Games was willing to include RotT in the Humble Indie Bundle #2, and was generous enough to release the source code when enough funds were generated by the project, is enough for me to continue support their efforts.

Download a free demo or purchase Revenge of the Titans at Puppy Games

Rating: ★★★½☆