It’s time for part 2 of what’s looking like a six-part series covering the entrants in the competition category of the Independent Games Festival. Luckily we have until March, but I think I can get this done sometime in mid-December. Last week we covered entries 1 through 50. Aiming for consistency, I’ll sift through entries 50 through 100 this week.
Let me say again that the majority of these games are not playable for free. Games that require downloading or, God forbid, purchase are excluded from this roundup. I’m trying to keep things simple for you. Not to mention that if you’re wasting time at work with these games, downloading content tends to draw the attention of IT folks. No one wants our laziness paraded in front of coworkers.
But we still want to be lazy. So here are your options this week. And strangely enough, I’ve covered a lot of these games in previous blogs. I’m so cutting edge it’s silly.
Case in point, I covered Closure and Don’t Look Back in this column within the last few months. See my previous blog for these little nugget of spooky genius. Click here for Closure. Or for the lower-fi Don’t Look Back, click here.
I briefly mentioned Don’t Shit Your Pants in my blog covering text-based games but you should probably give this one a try. The title is also the aim of the game. Through trial and error you’ll find the right phrases that will save you from a pantload of trouble. This shouldn’t take up more than five minutes of your time.
In that same vein of inappropriateness comes Frogsport. This simple puzzle game has only three controls: left, right, and procreate. Don’t worry, the 8-bit copulation is censored (and brief). Find the right combination of controls to get a frog to the exit. This is apparently what Berkeley students do in their spare time. It takes a second to load on your browser. Be patient.
Ending on an up note, and my favorite of the bunch (not counting Closure, which I took out of the running since I covered it before), is fig. 8. The gameplay is simple but the design is so beautiful that any weaknesses are quickly forgotten. And those weaknesses are very few. You take control of a bicycle and must ride around a massive page of schematics avoiding all drawings of buildings and other various architectural plans. I always appreciate a game that can incorporate the instructions and scorekeeping into the gameplay itself.
fig. 8 is the winner this week. What does it win? My stamp of approval.
Enjoy.
This article appears in November 13 • 2009.
