Edy Zahid Blog The Thoughts of One Game Developer

Indie Games Review

This is the list of some free indie games that I have downloaded, test and have fun with it. I try a lot of indie games but some of them didn't make it to the list because I didn't enjoy playing it or it has some serious technical limitation that prevent me from enjoying it.

For each of the game in the list, I will give my honest opinion about the game in terms of gameplay, graphics and to certain extent its playing value.

I'm creating this stuff as my small way to support the development of indie game. For indie developer, getting someone to review their game has been a major problem in order to get more exposure on the Internet. By providing this space, at least I can present good indie game that yourself can enjoy it. Some of indie games in the list are also quite well known but it does not necessarily stop me from testing and report it.

All of screenshots belong to their respective copyright owners.

Passage REVIEW

Passage is simply a weird game unlike the typical indie game I've ever played. The game was conceived by its developer, Jason Rohrer to convey the meaning of life and death. So almost every elements of the game has been carefully designed to convey this meaning throughout the game and I must say, he succesfully deliver it.

For a start, the game has a long rectangle view point which induces claustrophobic feel playing it. You are controlling a character and try to guide him over mazes of treasure chests. Along the way, you also have the chance to meet another character. If you decide to get close to her, both of you will fall in love and she will tag you along. Your objective is to go to treasure chests that earn yourself points. But only a few treasure chests give a lot of points so you have to keep looking.

But getting high score wasn't the objective of the game since it's almost pointless - the game advance rapidly that your characters will age and will become old in several minutes before they die. Yes, you can play the whole game in less than 5 minutes.

As much as weird as the gameplay is, it actually makes sense if you relate it to life metaphor. The game itself can be described as a condensed version of your character life so the long rectangle view points represent your character perspective of life. The objective of gathering as many points as possible through treasure chests is about earning wealth. The woman you meet represent your soul mate/wife. So as you can see, no matter how many points/wealth you accummulate, it does not really matter because both of you will eventually die.

This is a simple game in mechanics but deep in meaning. This shows what indie developer can achieve given enough inspiration which something mainstream game developer won't dare to do it. To be honest, I actually don't enjoy the game but I respect this game as a honest work of art.

Although the game runs in full screen, I find the highly pixelated arts is a little bit distracting. But do not let this limitation deter you from trying this game. It's free, comes in a small download size and playing this game might change your perspective of what a game can be. A game should not just contain mindless fun but it can convey deep meaning which can resonates deep within your soul. This game delivers that.

We need more game like this because I'm really tired of playing game that focus too much on mindless fun.

Pencuri REVIEW

Pencuri means thief in English so you can guess what the game is all about. The objective of the game is to collect ( or steal ) coins floating on the game world while killing the guards with laser gun. As much distasteful as the objective is, the game doesn't have any true portrayal of violence on them. No blood as guard seems to explode when they get killed.

The game run in third person 3D with keyboard shortcut to move the character and using mouse to change viewpoint. Left clicking fire the gun. So the control is pretty standard.

Level design is just basic maze which induce labyrinth feel to it so it's quite easy to get lost while hunting for the elusive last coin in order to move to the next level. If the developer put more attention to the level design by adding room, corridor or any other distinct object, this will make the game more enjoyable.

The character you are controlling is really ackward - more like Rayman with floating limbs and bag of coins behind the character. I think the developer should put emphasis on character modelling to create more believable character.

There are only 2 levels but its quite fun for a quick game session. To download the game from the website, you need to click on 3D games tag. Just by looking at his website you can guess he doesn't involved in games business anymore.

Vyrus REVIEW

Vyrus is a top down shooter game of which the objective of the game is to find the key that will open the door to the next level while shooting enemy that gets in the way. The game also has some power boaster which allow the player to shoot faster. The level design is pretty basic with some interactivity such as teleportation and acceleration spot. The game has scoring system which tracks the performance of player.

Interestingly the game was developed using Ogre 3D, an open source graphics engine instead of using typical Flash architecture. The only graphical option you can do is to be able to zoom in or zoom out. You can't scroll the game because the view is always locked to point to
the player entity.

The game is quite fun to be played for quick session but that was about it. There is no variety that keep player from playing the game to the end especially that the game use non linear levels. I think using non linear approach for the game such is this is not a good idea.

The game can become more enjoyable if the developer use linear approach and make the game progressively challenging as player progress through the game. The developer should also put more variety to the game such as more different enemies and different types of power boasters.

This is an open source game. You can download the game public release here.

Ben There Dan That REVIEW

Ben There Dan That is an old school 2D point and click adventure game which has some weird elements on it. The game revolves around a duo adventurers, Ben and Dan which has been teleported to a strange looking space alien and they need to solve puzzle in order to go back to their flat. This mean going to many dimensions talking to people, looking through object, picking up stuff, using objects and solving lots of puzzle that hinder their progress in the game.

Most of the puzzle in the game is easy to figure out if you pay attention to what has been said but there are some obscure puzzles that hard to solve. I think most of people who play this game will get stuck at the church location of which they need to light up certain candles to certain combination in order to venture below the altar.

Controlling the game is quite easy. Just move the cursor to any valid object in the game. It will change to open eye if the object can be manipulated. Then left click on it to examine it or right click to see other option you can do to the object. This is pretty standard stuff for this kind of game. Most of object is manipulated by Dan but there are some occassions you need Ben's help.

The game has loads of humour elements on it making fun of certain movies, other game characters, American football and morality stuff. There are some dirty jokes which can be found on museum location, the later part of the game. Overall the humour is not as good as what can be found on Monkey Island series but it can stand on its own.

Although I enjoy playing the game in term of its story and dialogue, I was kind of distracted by its weird graphics. I would not call it bad. It's just weird with some unruly lines which gives the impression the graphics are drawn by kids. I'm not making this up. Fortunately, the game are lushly coloured which gives some nice ambience to it.

The best part of the game is it is free and it comes in sleek 9 MB download. With the nicely written dialogue as its strongest point, I would say the developer deserve to charge this game instead of making it free. Oh, maybe the developer make this game free in order to build traffic to the game website so they can sell other games they made. If that is the case, then it's a good strategy.

John DeFoe Series REVIEW

John DeFoe series consists of 4 free short horror adventure games developed by Ben Crosshaw aka Yahtzee which starts from 5 Days A Stranger (2003), 7 Days A Skeptic (2004), Trilby's Notes (2006) and ends with 6 Days A Sacrifice (2007).

The story revolves around John DeFoe Manor Incident, Trilby (a master thief), demonic deity Chzo, Cabadath (The Tall Man) and the plan to create a bridge between realms. I must say that these are one of most complex plots I've ever seen in indie games as there are layers of plots on top of each others told in amazingly 4 short adventure games.

You must play the games in their order or else you are bound to be confused. In addition, because of the complexity of the plots, you might want to play these games multiple times to make sense of what is going especially on the third and final part of the series. This is quite different from typical adventure game as once you've finished playing adventure game, then you have no incentive to playing it again. Not for these games, I'm afraid.

Except for Trilby Notes, the games are typical 2D point and click adventure game. Trilby Notes is quite different because you are using keyboard to move your character and you interact the world using text parser. IMHO I never like this system because it makes navigating and solving puzzles much harder.

I am much more comfortable with point and click system. I don't know why Ben implement this kind of system because it makes the game much harder to play. While playing with Trilby Notes, I'm struggling with the interface. Because of that, I don't enjoy the story as much as if the game use point and click system.

Puzzles in the game isn't hard to solve if you pay attention of what's going on and read anything that you can find. But get this - you must have a strong guts to play these games because there are a few chilly moments that might spook you. I don't intend to spoil you but the scene of which bodies are stitched together, limbs hanging on double decker bed and bloods all over the floor is just plain freaky.

You might also need to save the game often because it is possible to get killed on certain phase of the games. Actually I don't mind Ben incorporating this feature because it adds tension factor but sometimes it can become silly. The classic example is when you are trying to get rid a possesed body who roam throughout the game world intent to kill you. I have no idea on how to get rid the body as the character only carry a stun gun. Turn out I have to smack him using towel rail so he drop and fall in reactor room. That is subtle.

The graphics are nothing to shout about. If you've played any adventure game made with Adventure Game Studio (AGS), you can expect certain quality here. I think this is not such a big issue because when you play adventure game, you are more concerned about the stories than about graphics. I am more tolerant about graphics but that might not be the same for younger generations who've get used to play 3D games or something.

I think these games has a big potential to be combined and remaked as a full 3D adventure game. All of the ingredients of good adventure games are there. If executed properly, this could give rebirth of adventure game renaissance which might attract younger generation.

Missing REVIEW

Missing is an old school short 2D horror point and click adventure game with the exception of it using first person perspective instead of typical third person perspective. So you are observing the game world from the perspective of the main character, Mervin Young. As the game title suggests, it is about Mervin try to investigate the disappearance of his wife and son who was last seen at an inn. The game world revolves the inn and its surrounding.

While searching for clues, Mervin stumble upon some encounter with the ghosts in the inn and I must say the ghost image is nicely done. It seems the developer has taken the advantage of the first person perspective to illustrate the spoky image of the ghost. I assume you can't achieve this effect vividly with typical third person perspective.

The gameplay is the typical adventure staple - going from places to places talking to people, picking up stuff, using objects and gathering clue that advance the plot. All of puzzles are derived on the quest to find the truth about Mervin's wife disappearance so there is no silly puzzle thrown in.

The best part is if you pay attention to the details, you don't have to depend on walkthrough to solve the puzzle. This is the first time I'm playing adventure game that I don't have to depend on any walkthrough. I think this can attributed to the tight plot and small game world which prevent you from wandering aimlesly in the game world. This tight design has been succesfully implemented by Yahtzee on his John DeFoe/Chzo Mythos series adventure games.

While playing the game, I noticed the dialogue writing looks a little bit formal for my taste although there are some heavy curses at the end of the game. The dialogue is nicely written but the formal touch seems a little bit distracting for my taste. This is just my opinion though so some people might not notice that.

The graphics looks retro with pixelated graphics which gives the impression of playing some sort of DOS game. The graphics presentation kinds of remind me of old school RPG called Daggerfall.

It takes about several hours to finish the game.

Out of Order REVIEW

Out of Order is an old school 2D point and click adventure game which has sci-fi elements on it. The game revolves around a guy named Hutford which has been teleported to a futuristic world. He need to figure out why he's been sent there. This mean going from places to places talking to people, looking through object, picking up stuff, using objects and solving lots of puzzle that hinder your progress in the game.

Puzzle looks intricate but can be solved if you have the patience to search any valid objects you can find to make sense of what you need to solve. For instance, you need to get into control room. You need a password but in order to retrieve it from computer, you need to a device which you can only know about it if you care to search cardboard box. To retrieve the device also is a puzzle of itself.

Yes, this kind of intricate puzzle is what makes adventure games a great game because you have to think real hard to solve it. However if you stuck, just google for Out of Order walkthrough if you can't be bothered to think too much ( myself included! )

Controlling the game is quite easy. Just move the cursor to any valid object in the game and left click on it to interact with it or you can right click to see other option you can do the object. This is pretty standard stuff for this kind of game.

Typical for the game of this genre is humour elements. There's lot of funny dialogues you can read and funny things you can do and it is one of the strongest point of the game. Playing through the game seems a little bit confusing at the early part of the game because you have no idea what the heck is going on but as you progress through the game, you'll soon find out the truth.

The futuristic sci-fi elements might seems like a turn off for anyone who are not used to the settings but it's just some settings for the game. You can enjoy the game even if you are not sci-fi fan.

Although the graphics is nothing to shout about, the bright colour selection really match the atmosphere of the game. I think this is intended because the game world isn't used to be what is used to be. You'll understand this if you play the game until the end. I won't give the spoil!

The best part of the game is it is free and it comes in sleek 9 MB download. I will say that you can get more than 6 hours of gameplay out of it or more if you didn't use any walkthough. Remember, everything is OK. You are happy. You will like it here.

The Dead Case REVIEW

The Dead Case is a quite atmospheric adventure game about a ghost try to search who he is and what's going on around him. This free flash game plays like a typical 2D point and click adventure game of which you examine and interact with object, human or other ghosts.

Since you are a ghost, you have a very limited ability to interact with object so you can't pick most object that normal human find it easy to pick up. When you first starts, you have a very limited location to go but as you grow your power by scaring kids, many locations are revealed to you. You can't talk to human but you can talk to several ghosts.

Your goal is to cross to afterlife so you need to solve some quests that allow other ghosts to help you. Turns out that you failed to cross because you need to find out why you are being killed. So later part of the game requires you to exercise your detective skills. The puzzle in the game isn't that hard but you have to remember things in order to solve it.

The game is basically separated to 3 parts as password will be given to you as you reach the end of the part. This is a good design because you can later type the password to go to other part of the game without starting the game from the scratch.

Although the background arts aren't drawn in details, I personally like the stroke as it match the atmosphere of the game nicely. Since the game is played on the night settings, the developer has definitely use the right colour to bring the mood of the game. Nice job on that.

The game can be played in a couple of hours so it is a short game. It does not have high replay value but I'm willing to play this game several times just to look at the background arts. The game website allow you to play the game straight from the website but you can download standalone version using download link on Best Software 4 Download. Just do a search for The Dead Case.

Bubble Letter REVIEW

Bubble Letter is an interesting word game of which the objective of the game is to click on several bubble letters on the screen to form a word. You can't just click the bubble randomly - you must select the right bubble that correspond to the sequence as shown by the highlighted shell. You must click the right bubble before the pin drop to the shell to reveal the actual letter. If you do that, you get points.

You will be competing with a computer so the idea is to get as many points as possible so the turtle ( its you! ) can cross the finish line much faster than starfish ( the computer ). Once you cross the finish line before the computer, you can move to another level.

All of this stuff might not make sense at first until you try the game yourself. Although the game does not have any help text, the game is easy to figure it out.

The game right now has a solid gameplay to it. All the developer has to do is to add some polish to the game in terms of graphics, help/tutorial text and more levels.

There are 2 levels to try out but it can give a lot of fun because the words are random so the game is quite different between session.

Battle for Wesnoth REVIEW

Battle for Wesnoth is a free turn based strategy game based on fantasy world of Wesnoth. If you have played fantasy turn based strategy game before, all the genre cliche can be found here - campaign game, scenario game, building units, finding resources, zone of control, fog of war and most important of all challenging turn based combat that will test your tactical skill and your patience to the limit.

The game try to differentiate itself by employing a design philosphy called KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid ). The game is easy to play initially because you don't have to remember a lot of things but then as you progress through the campaign, the game starts to be difficult even to the point of frustrating. This has nothing to do with the simplicity of the game but certain design element makes the game becomes difficult to play.

The problem can be traced to units that you recruit in the game. They can be transferred to the next scenarios which mean that their level can improve if they kill enough enemies. This is a good design but the problem is if you didn't pay too much attention to the placement of these units, enemies will try its best to kill these units before they choose another weaker units.

It is always frustrating to see weaker enemies surrounding your Level 3 Paladin and managed to kill that hopeless unit in that turn. You know that its your fault because you are supposed to move units in formation but sometimes you can become carried away. The placement of your units is very important which remind me of chess game. If you like chess game, then this game might interests you.

The other design element that makes the game becomes difficult to play is its dependence on chance to hit calculation which mean attack can sometimes missed. Of course you would love to see it happen to the enemy but if that happen to your units, that can become irritating.

You can tolerate your units missed their attacks but because most of the time you are facing lots of enemies and every single attack must count, this is tough act to play. I think this is the reason why it is almost impossible to play the game without reloading the game several times. So get used to reload the game until you get the result you want. This sounds silly but there's nothing you can do about it unless you cheat ( it's so easy to cheat in this game ).

Controlling the game is quite easy with mouse click and there's plenty of keyboard shortcuts. I think the developer has spend a lot of their time refining the interface because most of information that you need is just mouse click away. Asides from the game built-in help interface, extended tool tip will be shown if you hover your mouse to certain area. This is a great time saver to learn the game detail.

Graphically, the game level is rendered in old school 2D hex system ( it's rare to find developer using this system anymore ). There is nothing to shout about but there is one art elements in the game that truly shines - the portrait. The pixel art portrait are beautifully drawn especially for the female units ( heh... ).

The games comes in a whopping 200 MB download which can be a problem if you don't have a broadband connection. Interestingly, half of the size are taken by music files in compressed Ogg format. I listen to the music - nothing special about it, just some classical music stuff. If the developer can separate music file download from the game download, the download can be cut to a manageable 100 MB size. The music files are unnecessary in my opinion to enjoy the game.

If you like turn based strategy game, this game can gives you lots of gameplay time because there's plenty of campaigns to be played. Even if you have played all of the campaigns ( this can takes months! ), you can download additional campaigns straight from the game. The game also features a variety of multiplayer game modes.

Even for its whopping download size, the game has been downloaded over 3 million times over the course its development. This proves that if you make a good game no matter how niche the market, the game will be well received by public. Not to mention that the game is cross platform, have extensive localization support ( imagine playing this game in Arabic! ) and most important of all, it's free!