In a world of multi-million dollar budgets in video games, independent video games are gaining ground.  And within that field holds some of the creative and inspiring games; one of which is Braid.  Braid is a puzzle/platformer, but so much more.

Gameplay is based on time manipulation, which is becoming fairly common within this generation of gaming; but Braid does it right.  It becomes part of the game rather than a simple gimmick.  Each stage has its own rules on how time can be controlled and what is affected by time; perhaps the most interesting of which is one that features a shadow of what you have done before you “rewinded” time.  It’s an odd feeling, trapping yourself and seeing your shadow image stare back at you, unable to get out.

The art and music is simply astounding.  Water-colored impressionistic art creates vibrant characters and backgrounds; while the music enrich the experience with a variety of music – going from tones of a music box to something you’d expect from Pirates of the Caribbean.  Perhaps the most impressive things of Braid is not what is seen, but what is felt.  Braid does one thing that multi-million dollar productions fail to even get a drop of: emotion.  If you can undo your mistakes and try to make everything right, would it really matter?  Even if you try to make everything right, does that erase the fact that you did it at all? Braid asks these questions without texts or direct implications towards it.  Without any question, that is the triumph of this game.

Braid
Official Site: http://braid-game.com/
Genre: Platformer
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360 Indie Games, Playstation 3 (Soon)…

Fortunately Steam has a short sale on Braid which normally goes for $14.99 but until this Sunday is only $5! Hurry and get it now before the deal ends.

Get Braid for $5 at Steam!

Anyone with even a minor interest with independent video games, or a lot of time to kill while sitting in their office cubicle has likely heard of PvZ by now – via Facebook, or Felicia Day (creator of popular Xbox 360 webisodic The Guild) twittering her obsession with it at regular ten-minute intervals.

Plants vs. Zombies is simply a Tower-Defense Game but just writing the game’s name makes me want to boot up the demo and play some more.

To play the game, you must grow different plants that shoot, eat, or blow up attacking zombies.  This game gives plenty of feral zombies to kill with peashooters.  Strategy changes depending on the type of zombie and the level exist.  The game has five different levels.  The complexity increases nicely, and even if you have never seen a Tower defense Game before, you will understand it very quickly.

It must feel easy for people who have played these sorts of games before, but there is still enough tension and diversity to keep it thrilling.  You earn new plants after the achieving of levels.  And you can also collect coins used to buy new plant cards.

There are special game modes also: in one of these modes you bowl down zombies with walnuts that were especially fun and a nice break from the typical.  Like most PopCap games, this Plants vs. Zombies is highly addictive.  My plan was to sit down just to play this game for only a few minutes before skipping off to something else.  But an hour later I was still setting up potato bombs to keep the zombies at bay.

The songs are memorable, and the graphics not only look great but the designs are laugh-out-loud funny.  It is taking a huge effort of will to keep my credit card locked away, otherwise I would not get any work done for a number of days.  Plants vs. Zombies is amazing.  I recommend everyone at least try it out once.

Plants vs. Zombies
Genre: Action – Tower Defense
Platforms: PC, Mac
Free Trial, Purchasable ($ 6.99)

I have been having fun playing with the free XNA Game Studio 3.1.  Although I have a moderate ability with programming C#, there are excellent tutorial videos available at the XNA Game Studio site that walk you through every line of code you need to program a basic game.

One of the best ways to learn coding is to be fearless and hack away / reverse engineer code and see what the results are.  So long as you understand how and why you break the code and get bugs, you are learning how to do it yourself.

I find there is a serious lack of RPG content on Xbox 360 Indie Game marketplace so I did a search and lo and behold there is a recently uploaded starter kit for an RPG!

Once you have installed the free Microsoft’s Visual Studio C# Express Starter Edition and XNA Game Studio 3.1 (also free), you need simply download and install the RPG Game Starter Kit and can open it as a template from the software.

There are some basic XML based tutorials for how to create your own quests, and if you are feeling brave you can start the time-consuming process of creating your own custom Sprites and background textures to make the game feel more like your own. If you want to make this a lot easier, consider using a free program like GraphicsGale to build, develop, animate and save your game sprites.

Because great RPGs are more about excellent storytelling and world-building than anything else, I encourage you to go and try this out.  I do caution that you may lose night after night of sleep as you descend into the limitless word of game building, but you will at least know that in the end you can submit your project for peer review and maybe ultimately turn a buck by selling your wares on Xbox Live.

Note: in order to test your game directly on your Xbox 360, get reviewed or put it up for sale, you will have to purchase a premium membership – $99.95 annually. However, you can still program games for Windows PCs that you can distribute to your friends – free.