Fallen City

Gaming Genres: Puzzle, RTS
Story Genres: Non-Fiction
Graphical Styles: 3D, Cartoon, Low Resolution
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X
Pricing Model: Free
Developer(s): Big Robot
Publisher(s): Channel 4
Initial Release Date: April 23, 2012
Website(s): Homepage pub., Homepage dev.
Description:
Cities are machines for making life liveable.

But when machines break down, they don't do what they are supposed to, and they can even be dangerous. So what happens when a city breaks down? Well, instead of making life better, it makes it worse. Don't just take our word for it - there's science behind it. Cities that aren't working properly make their inhabitants unhappy, and that's what Fallen City is all about.

The residents of these streets are definitely not happy, and the only way they'll ever get back to their normal cheery selves is by getting that machine running again.

So take to the streets with brooms and cups of tea to calm down the angry, find fancy hats in the rubble. We'll the get Fallen City back on its feet!

Key Features:

• Puzzle your way through six ruined districts of the city, fixing up vital buildings to progress.
• Work with the denizens of Fallen City to entertain the bored, repair ruined buildings, calm down raging angries.
• Discover the vital uses of strange buildings across Fallen City.
• Uncover collectible skills and items!
• Cities and Citizenship?

This is a game about what cities are for, and what can happen when they go wrong. It's got some fun ideas and important theories backing it up, but mostly it's about what happens when people work together to see what cities could be, and why they make life better when they're working as intended.

Opinion:
An interesting game with a great concept, but a rough implementation. Quite an anti capitalistic, and somewhat pro socialist, story; That has you working together with your other fellow citizens to clean up and repair your city, and inspire and reform other citizens.

The strategy and puzzles come in mostly in what order you do this in. You have to create skills in a specific order so that you can unlock the different areas of the map and get the right new citizens to join your cause and the right new special buildings at the correct time to get 100% completion  (which means that you have repaired every house, swept every street, and put every blade of grass in its right place). These challenges are not really very interesting, and far to shallow.

The main problem with the game is really the controls. You use a RTS style interface, but can only control one character at a time (which does not work at all). You have tons of little tasks you need done and tons of little guys, but no way to get more then one working constantly, and maybe another half of the time.

Images (+):

Related Media (+):

• Trailer

Indieness: Quintessentially Indie
Play:

FTL: Faster than Light

Gaming Genres: Roguelike, Space Sim, Exploration, RTS
Story Genres: Science Fiction
Graphical Styles: 2D, Cartoon
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Pricing Model: Pay $
Developer(s): FTL Team
Publisher(s): FTL Team
Initial Release Date: September 14, 2012.
Website(s): Homepage, Kickstarter, Wiki, GOG, Steam
Description:

FTL, Faster than Light, is a game made by Justin Ma and Matthew Davis. It features a blend of exploration, discovery, ship management and real time strategic combat that creates an experience quite unlike other games in its genre.

FTL has been described as “Firefly by way of Spelunky.” Many games have tackled the goal of recreating the feeling of space operas, but few have focused on the inner workings of a single ship. How does the crew react when their ship takes a heavy missile barrage and the shield batteries shut down? Do you reroute all power to the engines in an attempt to escape? Do you power up additional weapons to blow your enemy out of the sky before they can breach your hull? Or do you teleport a boarding party onto the enemy ship and take the fight to them directly? FTL allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.

• A setting of intergalactic war: The player is tasked with a mission vital to the survival of the Galactic Federation currently threatened by a nearly victorious rebellion.
• A story that engages, but does not dictate player experience: The setting provides direction but the real story of FTL is created by the player and it evolves organically during each play-through.
• An arms race: The locations and enemies grow increasingly dangerous over the course of the game. To survive you will need to find and purchase equipment; hire and level up crew; and upgrade the ship’s systems.
• Exploration is key: Every location you Faster-Than-Light travel to contains a text based event. This includes scenarios like attempting to help an infected space station pleading for help; slavers demanding your surrender; hunting pirates through a nebula; and surviving an uncharted asteroid field.
• A random galaxy: Each play-through will feature different encounters, events, choices, and results to your decisions.
• Permadeath is at the core of FTL: Knowing that your crew’s lives are in your hands and that each battle could mean the end of your trek fills the player with a sense of urgency and desperation that adds importance to every decision.
• Sleek and focused gameplay: FTL focuses on the development of your ship, recreating the atmosphere of space operas without the countless menus and confusing interface that frequently go hand in hand with ship management and galactic sim games. Currently each game lasts between 15 and 90 minutes.

Opinion:
Probably the best Star Trek style game ever created, a game every Trekky has been waiting for, although the similarities are far from perfect. There has been quite a lot of space trading sims and action adventure style Star Trek games but nothings has ever come even this close to duplicating the style of Star Trek, until possibly now. It is a game of ship micromanagement, with transferring power between systems, repairing, and repelling boarders.

FTL is a brutally hard, short, roguelike set on an adventuring ship. You must manage your crew and systems, as well as constantly upgrade and improve both. With multiple ways of doing pretty much everything, and many different possible ship laodouts, FTL is a game with much diversity in how you play. But it also does not have that much content, and the short length can turn some unlucky campaigns into impossible to win situations or boring repeats of past voyages. There is just so little room to maneuver in any given run-thought, that you are completely at the mercy of luck, and have very little control on how your ship will turn out.

It is a very unique roguelike, that still follows pretty much all of its genres ideas very closely. But I do not think it is very good at being roguelike, and I think it picked up more of the pitfalls of roguelikes then their charm. Still it is enjoyable, and very addicting.

Images (+):

Related Media (+):

• Trailer
• Pre-beta #5: Approaching Beta
• Pre-beta #4: May Update
• Pre-beta #3: Overview
• Pre-beta #2: Gameplay
• Pre-beta #1: Gameplay
• Alpha Trailer
• Pre-alpha Teaser
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun Text-through & Preview

Indieness: Quintessentially Indie
Play?:Should Play

Broken Brothers Pilgrimage

Broken Brothers Pilgrimage

Gaming Genres: RTS
Story Genres: Science Fiction, War
Graphical Styles: 2.5D, Cartoon, Minimalist
Series/World: Broken Brothers
Platforms: Windows
Pricing Model: Free
Developer(s): Spyeart
Publisher(s): Spyeart
Initial Release Date: July 12, 2010
Website(s): Games Page
Description:

A RTT game (Real Time Tactics) built at NoMoreSweden 2010.

Opinion:
More of a proof of concept then a real game. Interesting, but not really enough of a game to be enjoyable.

Images (+):

Indieness: Indie
Play?: