Review: Dust: An Elysian Tail (360)

Dusty Roads

When promising indie title Dust: An Elysian Tail received the distinction of winning Microsoft’s “Dream. Build. Play.” challenge in 2009, it received the console manufacturer’s official backing, and now, three years later, holds the considerable honor of topping off and closing out the 2012 Summer of Arcade promotion. Not only that, but it comes on strong and impresses immediately with extremely light-hearted and colourful visuals, and an equally tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.

Tough as Nails: Puddle

Making a Splash

We’ve all played your physics-based games in the past. Your sports games with realistic ball movement and speed. Your shooters that feature unparalleled ragdoll animation, with dead opponents flying in great wide arcs through gaming space. Platformers that let you play with and manipulate the pull of gravity, and puzzlers that let you bend the laws of space itself, traveling seamlessly from one point to another through neon-colored ovals of energy.

Review: Spelunky (360)

“XBLA. Why Did It Have to Be XBLA?”

Three years after Spelunky was released as freeware on the PC to rave reviews, the smash indie hit has made its way to the Xbox Live Arcade. While the XBLA version doesn’t come for free, it does feature all the graphical upgrades that you’d expect from the platform (and three years’ worth of time). It doesn’t sacrifice anything in the gameplay department, and developer Derek Yu has made sure that no punches were pulled in maintaining Spelunky‘s trademark notorious difficulty. As a result, the 360 has gained a title that, as many already know, quickly draws you into its hypnotizing spell, severely punishing you for it all the while.

The Indie Fix: The Sea Will Claim Everything

Island Living

“‘We are all islands on a wide sea,’ the philosopher said. Perhaps it’s true. Yet I cannot help but remember an older saying, scratched on a cave wall somewhere by a long-forgotten prophet: in the end, the sea will claim everything. We are like islands. Does it mean we are connected? Do we share a common origin? Or just the common fate of sinking?” With these words begins an amazing journey through the region known as The Fortunate Isles, in Jonas and Verena Kyratzes’s The Sea Will Claim Everything, the newest addition to their Lands of Dream universe of stories and games.

The Indie Fix: StarMade

Minecraft…in Space

Imagine taking the things that made Minecraft the smash success it is – the gathering of resources, the limitless potential to build just about anything you can dream up – and blasting these concepts right through the stratosphere…literally. Well, this is what indie game developer Robin Promesberger, a.k.a. schema is attempting to do with his space-set sandbox building game, StarMade.

The Indie Fix: Hearts of Men: Throne of Deceit

Deceit and Thrones and Hearts, Oh My!

Developed by COLTRAN Studios, and released onto Xbox LIVE Indie Marketplace March 19, Hearts of Men: Throne of Deceit is a twin-stick shooter with a classic fantasy twist. It’s kind of like if Gauntlet and Robotron 2084 were to get hitched and have a baby.