Polyfauna is an abstract first-person exploration game that is a collaboration between the band Radiohead and designer Universal Everything. In this game, you explore abstract, polygonal worlds based off of Radiohead songs. In each world there is a grey swirl of what seems to be sand, and when chased it expands and slams into the player, transporting them to another world. There are around 8 different worlds, and everything that there is to see in this game can be seen within half an hour. Besides some interactivity in some of the worlds, that's about all there is to this game. It is semi-VR in that you look up and down with your device to look around and move in the game. This game is beautiful, and each world has its own unique features and feels. This game is free, and is definitely worth downloading from the iOS App Store or the Google Play Store. Bernband is also an abstract first-person exploration game for PC, this time set in a futuristic alien city. Unlike most games of this genre, which have a lonely feel, this game is filled with colorful alien pedestrians which make the game seem crowded like a real city. This game is in the low-resolution style, and really has no goal other than to explore the rather large city. The map is large, and has over 20 locations with a variety of scenes from raves to diners to bathrooms. Hover-cars hurtle by under bridges, and music plays in sprawling squares while teachers teach above. The game tries to replicate a real city with all of its amenities, and its noisiness seems to make a statement about life in the city. This game will really cause you to contemplate its sprawling structures, and is definitely worth a free download from Gamejolt.
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#1: FotonicaFotonica is an infinite runner like no other. With a mostly white on black worrisome style, and a first person view with moving arms similar to parkour games, this game is a mashup of elements from many types infinite runners which come together beautifully. This game's visuals and soundtrack give it an echoing and ethereal feel to it. This has beautiful, strange, and abstract music and sound effects. It has three different modes: arcade (level-based), endless, and versus, where to players play in split-screen on opposite ends of the same device. Though this game is about running in a straight line, jumping, and landing, don't dismiss it as another infinite runner. This game is a unique experience, and its stunning visuals, excellent soundtrack, and intuitive controls make it worth every penny of its $2.99 price. You can get it on the App Store. The PC version is in development, but you can pre-order it from Humble or Desura. You can also look at the game's Steam Greenlight page here. #2: MelodiveMelodive is a beautiful procedurally generated game. In this game, you "dive" into a randomly generated 3D world filled with bright colors and strange flora and fauna. This game is an infinite falling game, wheeler you cannot hit the ground too many times or you will become "out of tune", and then it's game over! The most interesting feature of this game is its procedurally generated soundtrack. The world is filled with little crystals that fly around, and whenever you come near one, it pops and makes an instrumental noise, like a flute note or drum beat. These small crystals are everywhere, and they travel in groups, so you are constantly popping dozens of them as you fall, effectively creating a random soundtrack. The soundtrack sounds more like random noise than music at first, but it grows on you, and adds to the game's open feel. This game gives you a serious feeling of flight and its completely open-world, combined with its breathtaking audio and visuals, make this game more than worth $.99. You can get this game on the iOS App Store here. #1: Spout: Monochrome MissionSpout is a 2D monochromatic pixelated fast-paced mobile game. You are a space ship trying to get as far as you can. You shout fumes out your ship which destroy everything they touch. If your ship touches any of the randomly generated black shapes around you on your journey, you die! This game is extremely difficult and a ton of fun, and is definitely worth downloading from the App Store or Google Play Store. #2: MountainMountain is a zero-player mobile and PC game made by one of the CGI animators from the movie Her who decided he wanted to make a game. You start off by being asked some questions and being told to respond by drawing. When you are finished a random mountain is generated. You spend the rest of your time with this game watching this mountain. It has trees that grow, it rains, has clouds, and even changes over the seasons. If you zoom out, you can observe your mountain from space, which looks quite pretty. Your PC keys or the bottom half of your screen serve as a piano that you can serenade your mountain with. Besides that, the piano serves no purpose. As time passes, random objects ranging from spears to cake from space, crashing into and embedding themselves in your mountain. You can then move them around your mountain. And finally, cryptic phrases appear on your screen from time to time. That is literally all this game is about. It is strange, but also peaceful. The ambient noise and piano music are beautiful, and make me feel serene. I feel like this game is worth 99¢, but you can find out for yourself. The App Store link is here, the Google Play link is here, and the Steam link is here. P.S. Sorry it took so long for me to get a post out guys, my life has been confusing, and I'm trying to get back on schedule. Thanks for your patience!
-Jared, The Author ATTENTION: from now on, to provide everyone with some consistency, I will now post once a week, and each post will have 2-5 games. I will post these "compilations" each weekend, and I will try, as usual, to try and find a variety of games for you all. Thank you so much again for your patience!
Need a break from intellectual games which require you to use your brain and actually think? Have you ever wanted a game where you cause senseless destruction without a care? Then look no further, because this game is just that! Attack of the 50ft Robot is a third-person student game from The Digipen Institute, whose students also created the game Perspective. In Attack of the 50ft Robot, you are a giant robot who runs around destroying things, just like in the movies. In fact, the graphics render in a black-and-white vignette, just like in an old movie. You can shoot lasers out of your one eye which automatically target and destroy those pesky little military tanks and helicopters who seem to be rather annoyed that you are destroying their city. You can also pick up and throw things, from pieces of buildings to your own head, which then grows back. Your arms (which also regenerate) can be shot off as rockets. Whenever you run into or throw things at buildings, they crumble into little pieces which you can then pick up and throw at others buildings. Watch out, though, because you are not invincible. Your health back is the the red circle on your back, and when all the sections of it disappear, you're Dead! This game is great fun and requires virtually no skill. You should just go ahead and download this free game here. Ronin is a simple 2d pixelated platformer made with GameMaker: Studio. In it, you are a ninja who runs and jumps from building to building with a sword and a grappling hook in tow. Your objective is to kill people, and you get points for doing so as stealthily as possible. You can do all sorts of really cool moves such as hanging adversaries from the ceiling. If you are caught, though, actual combat is turn-based. Each turn, a red line denotes the trajectory of the bullets about to be fired, and each turn you must avoid them whilst trying to tackle and kill your adversaries. This game is huge fun and a great challenge to play, and that is all that needs to be said! You can download this game for free here. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new domain! Courtesy of my friend Rasikh from Madhouse Domains (I know him in real life), this website can now be accessed from http://indierun.co/! I will keep the .co.nr domain up for a while, at least until most of my readers know about the new domain. And as always, if both indierun.co.nr and indierun.co don't work for some reason, you can always access us directly at indierun.weebly.com. Thanks again to Madhouse domains!
Perspective is a great little platformer that turns out to not be so little. This game is another stab at combining 2D and 3D into one game like Fez or Monument Valley, and this one is the most interesting implementation yet. In this game, you control a little man who runs on little blue blocks to try to reach a portal at the end of the level whilst avoiding dangerous red blocks. The catch: whenever you click, you go from 2d view to a First person 3D view of the room. The man is on the wall, but whenever you move around, his location changes based on your (you guessed it!) perspective. This explain may not make sense to you right now, and when you first play the game, your mind will be blown. That's okay, and as you play more, you'll become accustomed to this game, and you'll enjoy it that much more. That's about all I can say about this game. It's amazing, so download it for free for PC here. Osmos is a beautiful, minimalist take on eat-smaller-avoid-bigger games like Spore Origins. In it, you are a single-celled organism, or mote, who must absorb smaller organisms to become larger, and avoid being absorbed by larger organisms. This game is very calm and slow-paced, with slow, ambient music and sluggish-moving enemies. You move by tapping/clicking in the opposite direction of the direction that you want to go in. Your character will then shoot small blobs in the direction you just tapped in, propelling you in the opposite direction. Be careful, though, because those blobs are actually a part of you, so every time you propel yourself, your mote becomes smaller, so propel yourself sparingly. In this game, you can also speed up and slow down time by swiping left or right, which is a handy feature. This game features all kinds of different enemies, from enemies that chase you to ones that absorb you as you absorb them. This game is exceedingly difficult, but fun all the way through. You can buy the game on Steam as well as the App Store and Google Play, or try the demo here. Outer Wilds is a unique open world space exploration game with a dark twist. The game is set in a solar system (not our solar system, and the system is not randomly generated) that is completely to scale, meaning all of the planets are their real-life (or close) sizes. That means that when you liftoff from a planet, there's no warp sequence or anything, you're simply in space! You can go wherever you want and do whatever you want. You can crash into the moon, go on a spacewalk, or visit the watery core of the Giant's Deep. But there's a catch. You can die, and no matter what you do, you will die, because 20 minutes after you start the game, the sun that all the planets orbit will supernova, killing you. But that's fine, because the world is on a time loop. Just like the movie Groundhog Day, you start the same day over again, except that you remember the events of the previous loop, and all of the ones before that. The difference here is that the ship's computer remembers all of the planets you've been to previously also. Each time, you get a new chance to explore, document and possibly try to stop the sun from imploding. This game is a beautiful game with intuitive, original zero-gravity mechanics and an excellent sense of scale, and for that, you should download it free for your computer from here. |