- Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari)-

Cave story (doukutsu monogatari in Japanese) is a freeware 2d platform adventure game from 2004. It was made by one guy, Daisuke Amaya, in his free time, over a duration of 5 years. The game was intended as a homage to the games he played in his youth, such as Metroid and Castevania. 

The story starts when you wake up in a cave with no memory of how you came there. Eventually you find a village and are thrown in an very immercive storyline. I don't want to talk too much about the story without spoiling it, so i will keep it very vague. You will have to fight a lot of monsters and some great final bosses. Luckily most are actually hard to beat (you don't see that very often). The story has multiple endings, depending who you will rescue and the weapons you choose. Yes there are around 8 weapons to collect. There also is a leveling system, but it was very different than i was used to. Your character doesn't level up... but your weapons do! They start at level 1 and the maximum level is 3. This does not sound like much but every time you get hit the weapon you are holding looses experience and will eventually level down. The other characters you meet feel like real people with great personalities, and believe me, you will care when one of the characters dies (something i almost never have).

Pro's: Amazing story, great combat system, alot of replay value because of the different endings, and the characters are really convincing.

Con's: i can not find one, but if you don't like puzzle games where you have to collect stuff you might not have as much fun as i had ( still try i though).

Cost: Nothing! It is totaly free. You can get it here. (make sure to download the game AND the English translation patch) 

This is one of my favorite games and I will always start it up now and then. It never gets boring and it is a game you can start playing and than suddenly realize you just spend 5 hours playing it. Because of this i will give it an 9,4/10.

Happy gaming,

Alex

-The blob 1 and 2-

The blob is a game you could have heard of, but i'm almost certain you do not know the whole story behind this game, and its link with indie games. 

The blob 1 was made only for the Wii, The blob 2 is for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS 3. So if you payed attention you now know it is not available on PC. Well that is only half true, because there is another version of The blob.

This version is the original version, and it is a true indie title. It was made in 2006 by 9 Dutch game design students. Some people might know that i myself am dutch, so when the game came out i immediately heard about it. The 9 students got the assignment from the city of "Utrecht". The city would change some buildings and they wanted to let the public see how it would look when it was done. What they did was they made the entire city and your character had to color all the buildings, a very fun and interesting idea. So this is basicaly what you do, color the buildings of the city and get points for it, but watch out! There are "ink cops" and they paint you black if they catch you. You than have to find water to get the ink of. You get more point for coloring special buildings like museums. Eventually a publicer from THQ put some Australian programmers to work on the game and made a decent Wii game. I am not going to talk about The blob 2 just because it is not an indie title and also because i have not played it. You can click here to view the trailer of The blob 2 and decide for yourself. 

If you are interested in playing The blob you can! For free! Click here for the website with the download link. There is a Dutch and English version available.

Pro's: gets more fun the longer you play. Very colorful, can be very addictive and free.

Con's: You play only in one city so eventually you are done exploring new areas, the controls can be tricky to get used to.

I want to give The blob a very high score because of its history, but i can not. I give it a deserved 7,3/10. Try this game, you have nothing to lose.

Happy gaming,

Alex 

 

My first blog post -minecraft-

When starting a blog about indie gaming there is one game that towers over all the other games out there, you know the game i am talking about...this game is minecraft. Starting this blog i knew i had to talk about minecraft, it's not that i don't like the game (believe me, i have spend a good share of hours punching trees), i just feel everybody knows the game already and there is not that muchs to say that you do not already know. Oh, what do you say? You don't know minecraft.. well lets asume you dont, i will explain. 

 When you start the game you are alone.. it is morning and you have nothing on you. In the night there will be monsters who will try and kill you so you must defend yourself. Make armor or hide in a house. But you just started and you have nothing at all. Step one, get some wood by punching trees. Turn the wood into sticks, get coal and make some tourches. The night will probably come soon so you must hide fast, dig a hole in a wall, light it up with tourches (so there will be no monsters spawning), and wait the night out. You might think, what is the point of this game? Well... actually there isn't one. You can adventure to new worlds, discover huge caves, create amazing castles, or whatever you want. There is no goal, so you can really do what you want. If you look on the internet you will find people who made amazing structures, made only by their imagination and a lot of time. This is not all. There also is a multiplayer option. It is the same as before but with more people, and believe me this changes the game completely, and is muchs more fun. 

Pro's: There are no limits, only your imagination. Can be played with more people. The developer still makes updates ( and this will continue for a long time, i gues). 

Con's: After playing it for a while ( i'm talking a long time), it gets boring and it becomes very stale. There is no goal, and i know some people will not like this. 

Price: 15 euro's (it is still in beta now, it will cost 20 euro's whenn the alfa begins.)

I would say it is an 9,2/10 because i have had ALOT of fun with this game and i am pretty sure you will like it too.

Happy gaming, 

Alex