Let's once again travel to the world of indie games, this time with a focus on the letter L. My search this week turned up quite a bit of variety, which I always appreciate, as well as mostly free games, which I'm sure all you appreciate. Let's jump right in.
L:
Little Rocket (Browser, free)
A cute game I found in Scott Sharkey’s 101 Free Games 2010 feature on 1UP, Little Rocket does a nice job of sidestepping obvious classification. Sharkey labels it as an RPG/adventure, which I find suspect. The game’s site (Animals!! Play!! Games!!) calls it an atmospheric game – I’m not even sure what that is. But who really cares about such issues?
What you need to know is that you use your mouse to control the direction and thrust of your ship as you explore a minigalaxy hunting stars. You need to nab 16 of them by locating them or interacting with objects on planetoids you can land on, which form simple puzzles.
It’s not a deep game, and the puzzles are never too challenging. All told, it should take you less than half an hour to complete Little Rocket. Do so, and it rewards you with a bizarrely awesome fin screen.
Little Wheel (Browser, free)
Fellow Bitmob editor James DeRosa pointed me in the direction of this Kongregate game. He did so enthusiastically. So it was with some disappointment that it didn’t grab me based on its merits as a game.
The interaction in Little Wheel is via easily distinguished white circles. If a screen has three white circles surrounding, say, a lever and a couple buttons, you know the solution will be some combination therein. In other words, you won’t find much challenge here or the need for quick reflexes.
While the strength may not be in the gameplay — which stings an action-game fan like myself — that’s obviously not its focus. Look at the screen below. Little Wheel has a striking art style. Its rich, dark silhouettes and accompanying smooth animation reminds me of the animated film Iron Giant. This style helps create a quaint fairy tale with light interactive elements.
Does it satisfy me as a game? Not really. But its picture-book story put a smile on my face. Who knew those robots could show such enthusiasm?
Leave Home (Xbox Live, $3)
I heard about this one from my friend Tyler Barber on the excellent Rebel FM podcast. He seemed to dig it but warned listeners of its difficulty. Before I could judge for myself, though, I had to wade through this description on the product page: “Abstract shooter with dynamic difficulty and metaphorical explosions.” Whoa, hipster alert! I’m actually fine with the first two descriptors. They are, in fact, quite appropriate. But what’s the metaphor of an explosion? Boom, boom, you’re dead.
Eventually, I found the strength to pull myself together and started playing what turns out to be an enjoyable shoot-em-up. Leave Home provides you with unlimited lives and five minutes to accrue a high score. The five stages change up the enemy severity depending on how well you’re doing, keeping the challenge intense.
Another aspect I like is your loadout. You have two guns that work in tandem. Do nothing and they fire forward. Hold down a button and they arc away from each other until they face almost 180 degrees the opposite way. It’s a nice way of handling the space above, below, and behind your ship.
Past that, it’s intense shooting action. I found myself weaving through enemy ships that were essentially parallel bars to destroy the core in the middle, and later accidentally fooling one boss ship to shoot and destroy the other – loved that move.
Finally, to add a little more value to this write-up, I’m going to express my feelings of each of the five stages the best way I know how: run-into-the-ground gaming clichés!
Stage 1: Starts off promising…
Stage 2: Fans of the genre will approve
Stage 3: Gaming goodness
Stage 4: Meh.
Stage 5: A visceral final showdown
You pumped yet? Better yet, play it yourself.
Love (PC, free)
Who knew 100 lives could go so fast? Love is a platforming gauntlet. I like it despite this; I can’t help but want to replay it. But it can be vicious. For that, (I think) I thank reader Nicholas Garboden for his recommendation.
From what I’ve gathered, the initial version of Love is notoriously buggy (and I ended up playing in a very small window since the larger setting overshot my screen). But once I got it working, it treated me to some incredible yet brutal level design.
On the ingenious side, Love grants you the ability to drop a shadowy restart marker nearly anywhere you want, even one step forward. On the infuriating side, this ability exists solely to maintain your sanity, since you will be dying by the bushel.
Take a look at the game. You get what you see: lots of jumping challenges, as well as spikes, moving and disappearing platforms, bottomless pits, and plenty other platforming staples. Again, your ass will be handed to you thoroughly on this one, yet I’ve come to appreciate that.
That wraps up the raucous L games. Coming up next week will be a familiar game and a little different format, both of which I hope you dig. Until then, here are some links to kill your time:
Previous entries:
A, B, C, D, E,
F, G, H, I, J,
K
The Indie Scene Interview: The Odd Gentlemen