Little Indie Games Worth Knowing About (Probably)

[Giles_Habibula]

Anybody play this yet? Iron Lung by David Szymanski, the creator of Dusk, and it uses retro graphics.

A really neat idea for a horror experience. Played in first person, you’re at the bottom of a lake of blood, sealed into a tiny metal submarine. With the aid of a map, you navigate to different objectives and take photos of what you find there.

And that’s the thing: The only way to actually see anything visually is with that camera, and it only takes still shots in grainy black and white, and it takes a few seconds after you snap the shot for it to display on your screen.

Here’s a decent gameplay video. The guy gets a little excited from time to time, but it does a good job of presenting what the game has to offer in a short video. The video also spoils the somewhat predictable ending.

And that’s the only problem I have with this game, and the only reason I haven’t bought it yet. It feels like this idea has a ton of potential, and yet watching that edited video, I feel like I’ve already played it. Szymanski really needs to expand on this idea, because I love it.

Also, I think it didn’t need to be set in a lake of blood on an alien planet. It would have been just as frightening if it were set in the ocean.

Also, I have never actually played Fatal Frame, but didn’t that game use a similar gameplay mechanic as far as the use of the still camera?

Gameplay video. I didn’t embed the video because the damn thumbnail spoils the ending, I think. Also, if you watch it to the end, the ending is spoiled.
Another gameplay video.

[divedivedive]

I’m interested mainly to find out more about the premise. Why is there a lake of blood? Why am I plumbing it’s depths in a submarine? I’d be bummed if those are just background and not really addressed.

[tomchick]

@divedivedive

I’m interested mainly to find out more about the premise. Why is there a lake of blood? Why am I plumbing it’s depths in a submarine? I’d be bummed if those are just background and not really addressed.

Don’t worry, it’s all explained in the opening title card!

-Tom

[divedivedive]

Sweet, you saved me $5.99!

[Left_Empty]

I did a dream a few weeks ago that shares many aspects with the premise. I don’t like scary games but I will probably jump in, because fever makes the best dreams!

[Rock8man]

I think that title card sounds awesome. I have no idea if the game itself will live up to that awesome title card setup. Will you ever unravel the mystery of what happened to all the habitable planets? Does the answer actually lie on the blood planet?

[Alistair]

Insurmountable seems pretty fun for a low intensity game. The camera’s fine in my opinion. After the first climb you get some kind of mission choice map with some kind of plot. I haven’t gone that far.

[warrenac]

@Left_Empty

Have you been playing with a controller? I didn’t try one, but with the mouse my camera got stuck (after it told me I could move it holding the V key, ironically!) behind a wall with no way to do anything but quit the three games I started successively.
I have litterally no idea what the game is like, beyond its look and this terrible repeatable fumble on my end. I guess I’ll check the video you kindly linked and save myself some frustration!

Re: insurmountable - I was definitely playing with a mouse (which controls the camera) with a mousewheel for zoom (on PC as I had picked it up from the Epic giveaway that’s on till Thurs). The camera definitely does some weird things if you get behind a wall but with the mouse you can just force it to rotate through. Coming to think of it, that is probably why climbing down the mountain seems more awkward than going up.

[Mysterio]

Regarding Insurmountable, is everyone remembering to use V to pull the camera even further back than the furthest zoom level and pan the view? Viewing your surroundings, looking for points of interest, is meant to be challenging; it’s one of the game’s core mechanics, according to the devs (if I remember correctly from a Steam forum comment).

[Left_Empty]

That’s how my camera got stuck every time, using the V key, and unlike our other friends, I couldn’t rotate my camera out of it.

The single man climbing and the forced storyline mean this is not the game for me anyway!

[warrenac]

Aha, I never used the V key - must have missed the tutorial on that - but then again maybe that’s why I was only annoyed at the camera instead of actually getting bugged out? I’ll have to try it carefully next time…

I’ve only done one run but it was pretty relaxing overall. I took a couple levels of the “extra O2 capacity and O2 gain when walking” and a couple levels of “heat while walking” since I didn’t want to waste levels on short term buffs which ended up making the “Death Zone” pretty manageable - I ended up taking the buff that gave you bonuses for keeping your O2 high since that was barely ticking down.

[Left_Empty]

I tried it, and I was enjoying my time excepting for the gameplay itself (having to keep mouse button pressed is a big effort for me!) and the non stop collisions which were taking me out of it.
I guess I wasn’t enjoying my time that much!

[lordkosc]

This looks good enough to wishlist. ;)

[Giles_Habibula]

Screenies look like an isometric Thief game. I’m interested.

[lordkosc]

I think the people who made the game, watched the movie DARK MAN a few times, then said this is a great idea for a game!

[Therlun]

Peglin releases in a few days. It has a demo available right now.

Directly from the Steam page and describing it succinctly: “Peglin plays like a combination of Peggle and Slay the Spire.”

[Alistair]

Try out Seven. It was an isometric Thief game :)

[Matt_W]

@Alistair

Try out Seven. It was an isometric Thief game :)

W… what? There exists such a thing?

[Alistair]

It has its fans. And a demo :)

[Matt_W]

Thanks, I’ll check it out! Thief is an all-time favorite of mine.