My Top 40 Games of 2013, 30 - 21 or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Jack King-Spooner

Written By: Tyler Selig

                Welcome back to my Top 40 Games of 2013! In this here article, I’ll be giving you 30 – 21.

30: Super House of Dead Ninjas*

                Technically I believe this game came out last year, but this one is a re-release with more stuff and it was the first time I played it anyway, so I’m counting it as a 2013 game. It’s an SNES inspired – peep that name for proof – game where you descend a huge tower while gaining power-ups and whatnot. It’s not innovative, it’s just a lot of fun.

29: The Wolf Among Us Episode 1 – Faith

                I never played The Walking Dead, so I wasn’t really sure what their games are like nowadays. I had an idea, but wow, this game has a great story. It helps that the source material is apparently awesome to begin with, but even if you are like me and aren’t familiar with Fables, you know a lot of these characters anyway.

28: The Great Work

                The Great Work is a puzzle-platformer with a gorgeous art-style and wonderful mechanics. That about sums it up.

27: Moirai

                This is a short game, and to be honest it’s not even that exciting as most of it is just walking with very little to do. I don’t even want to say what ends up making it awesome, because I don’t want anything to be ruined. Play it, it’s free and it’ll take you approximately five or ten minutes anyway. You’ll at the very least get a game with a neat idea, and that counts a lot in the books of someone like myself who has been playing games for over twenty years.

26: Inventor

                If you’re a fan of any art form, you probably will find an artist that you can identify with. These are the type of people you look at and think, “This is similar to something I’d do if I had that kind of talent.” I have a couple game developers like that, and Jack King-Spooner is one of them. I love Inventor, and it’s not because it’s that much different than his other games I’ve played – you mostly just walk and press space, but there are some mini-games to play. I think his surreal visuals are some of the best he’s done. The only reason it doesn’t get higher is because short indie games don’t tend to get placed as high as full game experiences, and because as a game, it might leave a little to be desired. Not as an experience, but as a pure game.

25: Anarchy Reigns

                Anarchy Reigns came out of nowhere for me. It is multiplayer focused, and it’s a beat ‘em up. It does some interesting things with the genre and I don’t think so many people should sleep on this. Get an online community for this beast.

24: Will You Ever Return: in da hood

                Another Jack King-Spooner jam, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his weird, funny, sincere and somehow tragic trilogy. I don’t know which one is the best, but I really liked this one, obviously.

23: Killer Is Dead

                Suda51 is another game designer that I really like. If you haven’t noticed, I tend to gravitate most towards oddballs, and Suda is definitely that. Killer Is Dead has a few problems, and it’s not as good as Lollipop Chainsaw, but it’s still a weird, action-packed game with some strange, yet memorable, characters. Killer is dead.

22: Crysis 3

                Unfortunately my PC couldn’t run this, but I played it for 360 and it was another solid entry in Crysis, a first-person shooter that allows the player a little more freedom when going about their business. Plus you can go invisible.

21: Sluggish Morrs: A Delicate Time In History

                And yet another King-Spooner game. The sad thing is, if I got time to play Blues For Mittavinda that’d probably be on here too. Sluggish Morrs: A Delicate Time in History is better than Sluggish Morrs because there’s just more to it… a little more gameplay, more interesting events, everything.

                When I made this list I wasn’t aware of the extent of my man crush on King-Spooner. It’s almost creepy at this point. Make sure to tune in again tomorrow for my next ten picks, and comment below if you got something you want to say.

Ye Indie Game Corner 1 - Reviews For Galah Galah and Moirai

Written By: Tyler Selig

                It’s been a little bit since my last blog post, and that’s because I’ve been moving to a new house so times have been busy. However, I am back. Outside of this article, there will be a new On The Gamely in the next couple days along with a full review of Super Mario 3D World.

                But just as an article to keep all three of you as fans, every now and again I will do a short review of a few indie games that I’ve played recently (I will try to keep them to new releases). As far as I know these two games were released within the past couple weeks.

Galah Galah

Rating: 8.5/10

Coolest elevator ride since Drive. Or something.

                I have to admit I’ve become kind of a… fanatic of Jake Clover, because I view him as a David Lynch of video games. I know Lynch has become the go-to director to reference when something is surreal but I feel he’s a better fit than someone like Jodorowsky. Anyway, not to get all off-topic and onto movies, but I just love what Jake Clover does, as I count Nuign Specter in my Top 100 games of all time.

                So what does Galah Galah offer? He bills it as a “game which involves a number of glitchy alien experiences. It’s meant to be a game version of a video of unfinished games.” It’s a little less WTF than some games, but it’s still ultimately WTF mixed in with some minimalist gameplay. I don’t say that as an insult, because the visuals are well done and his art-style has always fit the nature of his games. Though a lot of the gameplay is simply walking from point A to B, he does throw in some parts where you can die.

                But Galah Galah is another interesting experiment, a game that uses audio and video in fun ways to give you an experience unlike others. It’s a short game, and these types of 10 minute games allow the developers to get away with certain things a full game can’t.

Moirai

Rating: 8.5/10

Someone's gonna get a hurt on real bad.

                Moirai is a first-person adventure game where you end up wandering through a cave for a brief amount of time. We see a lot of games like this in the indie community that aren’t heavy on gameplay, but Moirai comes with a very novel feature that I won’t spoil.

                Because I don’t want to spoil it, I can’t give a real great review because there’s only so much I can talk about with a short game.

                I did think that the music was fitting, and the game tells its simplistic story in a very clever way, and it’s because of that reason that Moirai gets an 8.5 from me. I’m a sucker for experimentalism and things that are outside the norm.

                Well there you have it, two 8.5s to start this off. Don’t like what I have to say? Yeah, me neither, but let me know in the comments.