Humble Indie Bundle 6 Overview

I bought my copies when it started a few days ago, as usual. I spent a fair chunk of my weekend playing them (mostly SPAZ). I haven't beaten any yet. Here are my thoughts so far on each game:

Dustforce: Had some sound issues on my Linux rig. It has interesting gameplay but I don't get a strong sense of consistency to it all, and I don't really understand why anything is the way anything is. The interactions with walls and ceilings feel like they need more polish. It's not really my kind of game.

Rochard: This has an intriguing story that's struggling to get out from the pointless puzzle-platforming. Graphics-wise it's a nice shout-out to Unity, this would probably be a fine phone or tablet game. Combat isn't fun. Perhaps a wider array of tools would make a better game (more fun combat, more variety of puzzles, etc.), but maybe not. (Maybe there are more tools later on? I haven't gotten that far.)

Shatter: Fancy-looking Breakout clone. Not my cup of tea.

Torchlight: Action-RPG that doesn't run very well on Linux and has no obvious advantages or innovations over other Action-RPGs. Again not my cup of tea. I'm somewhere in the first mines. Its loot system is whack. (So is its combat system frankly.)

Vessel: Does not currently run on Linux, can't comment on it.

Space Pirates and Zombies: Now here is a fun game. I'll comment on the only thing I really don't like: too much grinding. I suppose this is more of an incentive to explore other galaxies and level up by taking out gate patrols, but it comes at the cost of a player spending X hours getting through the game satisfied by the pacing vs. a player spending 2*X hours getting through the game with a kind of bittersweet feeling of having to grind too much. I still haven't finished the game but I can already tell that if there wasn't so much grinding to do I'd have finished it already and I wouldn't think any less of it for being fairly short. Remember everyone, Portal was great but notably didn't overstay its welcome.

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Posted on 2012-09-24 by Jach

Tags: games, thought

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