Thanks to @games_we_care on Twitter, I discovered an unusual little… RPG? Adventure game? Treasure-hunt-thing?
Ramble Planet has extremely simple mechanics and a story that is so far out there that it can feel evocative while also being vague. You can pick from a few very different (strange) races, like cybernetic jellyfish, and then you wander the world looking for parts to fix your spaceship. There are monsters, which you defeat if your level is high enough; if it’s not, you just don’t fight them! So it’s really about finding sources of experience so you can start farming the monsters who are the next level up. Besides monsters, there are artifacts, signs, monuments, and… weird stuff that all may or may not have a purpose (I haven’t gotten terribly far.
But I love its laid-back but intriguing gameplay style, and I really admire the flat-saturated-color aesthetic, which might make some folks tear their eyes out, but manages to make terrain something you need to decode.
Oh: Besides PC, it’s apparently also free on OUYA and Android.
Letter Quest is a Bookworm-style game. It’s a very light RPG where you kill monsters by spelling words and then spend booty on various upgrades. Only played the first ten levels or so, but it’s looking pretty slick and addictive (if you like this sort of game).
A trilogy of titles today, although Rodina and Below might have been mentioned before in one of the indie game threads, still some new news is cool:
Below, from the SwordandSorcery devs:
RPS stuff:
Rodina, the guys first ‘commercial’ game i believe and it has a release now on Steam (hoping for GoG later on), although you can also get it direct from the dev, it’s currently in an early access stage/being developed:
I can personally vouch for Rodina. Fantastic stuff that should just get better. :) It’s really fun to zoom about, find a planet with some goodies, fight off the foes protecting that planet, then land on the planet, walk through your spaceship in order to walk out onto the planet. Fun fun stuff.
Has Runers been mentioned? If not, it needs to be mentioned, so I’ll mention it!
This is an amazing little roguelike twin-stick shooter thing wherein you combine runes to make different spells. It’s fast-paced and fun as fuck. They just added controller support too! Yay!
I’ve recommended them in other threads but they deserve a mention in here as well. If you’re a fan of old-school tile-based single-character RPGs then you should definitely check out the Eschalon Series.
The Eschalon games have popped up in numerous bundles lately since Eschalon : Book III was released back in February. While you can jump right into Book III, and it is certainly the prettiest of the trilogy, I recommend playing through Book I and Book II first as both are solid games with lots of detail that provide many hours of enjoyment. The trilogy features a well written storyline that spans all three games. Character progression is more than just upgrading loot, skills matter and building your character as your progress is nearly as much fun as killing monsters and exploring the dungeons.
The Eschalon series is great nostalgic RPG fun with solid game design, writing and production values so that the games don’t have to rely on nostalgia alone to keep you interested. They regularly go on sale and are featured in bundles, so if you’re into old-school RPGs you should check them out!
Just played chapter one of a free-on-the-web Lovecraftian adventure game called The Last Door, and it was pretty good. Pretty simple, straightforward puzzles, but that’s fine with me–much better than obscure/illogical ones. And there’s a moment about halfway through the first chapter that gave me a quite legitimate scare–both a startle and a few moments of dread about what might happen next.
You can donate toward the creation of the next chapter or just play through the previously funded chapters. And the first five chapters (part one of the story) are also available as a collector’s edition on Steam for $10.
Not exactly a little game, but apparently overlooked: Foul Play is a combo brawler starring a Victorian gentleman/demon hunter. The conceit is that the game is a stage play with Baron Dashforth narrating his story to the audience. Their excitement over his exploits (driven by how well you do in combat) charges a mood meter that acts as his health. The artwork is wonderfully done, the animations have a ton of personality–just what you’d expect from the guys who made Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess and Who’s That Flying (both lovely 2D arcade games that deserve to be in this thread). I’m usually terrible at combo brawlers, but this one is fairly generous; the challenge comes from completing particular achievements within each level.
It’s on Xbox 360, but I’ve been playing it on Steamafter buying it in the current sale. Less than $4! But you’ll want a controller (two if you want to play co-op).
