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  • Mattias Gerdt, Music For IGF Nominee Cobalt: Part 1 [Interview]

    Oxeye Game Studio’s action platformer Cobalt has received honorable mentions in the technical and visual arts categories for the 2011 Independent Games Festival. It is also a finalist for excellence in sound design. IGF’s judges had this to say about Cobalt: “The soundscape in Oxeye’s Cobalt was also praised for “giving it the amount of [...]

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  • DIYGamer.com State of the Site + Updates

    Hello friends, fellow readers and indie game lovers. You may have noticed a distinct lack of content and updates from yours truly these past few months. Truth of the matter is that we’ve struggled to gain traction in a world dominated by up-to-the-minute news from mega blogs like Kotaku.com, Joystiq.com and, yes, even IndieGames.com/blog (for [...]

  • Same Ol’ Ball Game… Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword [Preview]

    Earlier this year I had my first experience with a strategy series called Mount & Blade, and it’s successive sequel Mount & Blade: Warband. Despite being a huge strategy and RPG fan prior to playing these games I had, for whatever reason, completely passed them over when they were initially released. So, when I finally [...]

  • Nintendo Doesn’t Want “Garage” Developers, Who Don’t Need Nintendo

    Everybody wins! During this past GDC Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, told Gamasutra that the company wasn’t looking to “do business” with the garage developers of the world. Essentially, anybody who doesn’t consider themselves a full time game developer, either by choice or because they need another job to make money and support themselves. [...]

  • Have Many Laughs, Shoot Many Robots [GDC 2011]

    The Game Developers Conference is more than just showing off new technology for aspiring game developers and industry folk. In many ways, it’s a great place for developers to show off their work they’ve already completed to other developers and to people like us, the press (if we can so be called). So it was [...]

  • Mattias Gerdt, Music For IGF Nominee Cobalt: Part 1 [Interview]

    Oxeye Game Studio’s action platformer Cobalt has received honorable mentions in the technical and visual arts categories for the 2011 Independent Games Festival. It is also a finalist for excellence in sound design. IGF’s judges had this to say about Cobalt: “The soundscape in Oxeye’s Cobalt was also praised for “giving it the amount of [...]

    Related Posts with Thumbnails
  • DIYGamer.com State of the Site + Updates

    Hello friends, fellow readers and indie game lovers. You may have noticed a distinct lack of content and updates from yours truly these past few months. Truth of the matter is that we’ve struggled to gain traction in a world dominated by up-to-the-minute news from mega blogs like Kotaku.com, Joystiq.com and, yes, even IndieGames.com/blog (for [...]


  • shootfirst Shoot First is, officially, a “co-op Action Roguelike” by the creator of Action Fist, Beau. If Desktop Dungeons is a cross between Nethack and Minesweeper, Shoot First is a cross between Nethack and the overhead-view stages of Super Contra.

    The presentation is dusted with artifacts of retro glam grime. The simple three-button controls (shoot, strafe/use/pick up, and map) are snappy and responsive. Collisions and sound effects are crunchy and squelchy. On a superficial level it’s all very cozy and warm to sink into. Scattered in treasure chests are equipment and various weapons, each with its own uses. As you shoot enemies and collect stuff, your character levels up. As you level up, your weapons upgrade in various ways. Also along the way you can find or rescue followers, who trail after you and mimic your actions rather like Gradius Options.

    I’m not so sure about the level design; it’s full of dead ends without so much of the hidden promise of Nethack. It seems like every three steps a boulder will fall from the sky and threaten to crush the player. Some of the boulders even explode or seek the player out. Keep the boulders down to at most one or two events per level, and throw in a “search” function (perhaps again overloaded on the strafe key) that would lend the dead ends some possible purpose, and there would be little to complain about. As it is, the presentation and feel carry the game pretty well.

    You can download Shoot First here. If you take issue with screen resizing (and who doesn’t?), best go for the second download.

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