Alternately a downloadable or browser game (depending on how you want to play it), Aether is a story about a boy, his pet, and their journey through the galaxy, swinging on clouds and asteroids with the pet's long tongue. Along the way he must solve puzzles to bring life to planets that no longer have it. The interface is simple and well done as well, never confusing the player. Except for the puzzles, but that's the job of a puzzle, after all.

The game itself controls very well, and the gameplay is fun, but the real treasure behind the game is the sense of childlike wonderment behind everything. From the opening poem, to the art style, to the music and theme, the entire game is childlike and open to many different interpretations. It's a deeply personal experience for anyone who plays it, with its themes of nostalgia, artistic expression, loneliness, helpfulness, and sympathy. In the end, it's a game that isn't so much played as experienced, and will indelibly leave an impression on all who decide to dig into it.


Ever feel like developing a game, but not really learning all that code and such? Ever enjoyed such classics as N or BlockQuest? Then you'll probably like OmniLudiCon. Featuring five different modes to build levels for, it acts as a browser-based beginner's development kit. You can mix and match elements from different modes, change the win conditions to anything you want (such as kill yourself, or get X amount of points) and mess around within the game's constraints.

The awesome part about OmniLudiCon is the fact that you can upload levels and games to a central repository, much like the aforementioned N and BlockQuest. While there, you can play games of all sorts of different shapes and sizes as well as rate them. User content is always a boon to a game, as the creativity of users is often more surprising than most would think. Just look at the explosion of Spore creatures!


For a lot of people, Settlers sapped away their life not because it was a cunning economic simulation, and not because they were riveted by the rather boring story. No, where Settlers grabbed players was in letting you watch all these little men move things from place to place and build up a civilization. It's one of the most entertaining parts of the series, and Breaking the Tower continues this grand tradition in great style. It even has an art style similar to the original two Settlers games!

Taking place on an island with an ominous stone tower to the north, you must guide your population to bring down the tower with as few losses as possible. With resource management, units with a mind of their own, and a rather interesting difficulty curve, it's intriguing both in how it approaches such a simple concept as destroying a tower and in how it was developed in extremely short time for a competition. Just goes to show that some of the best games can come from a competition.


For flash game enthusiasts, there's an incredibly good zombie arena shooter series called Boxhead. It's bloody, cartoony, and captures that elusive element a lot of arena shooter miss: a true sense of action. But this isn't about those games. Rather, the developer of the Boxhead games has turned his sights now upon the side-scrolling strategy game (among which the likes of Epic War reside) with a modern combat game called Shadez. And it's very good.

Taking place, as I said, in the modern day, you must control a military force bent on keeping enemy operatives out of their homeland. Unlike most horizontal strategy games, though, Shadez has some real depth to it. With a system incorporating things such as upgrades, tactical strikes, orders, and the actual unit itself, it's significantly more complex than what one might be used to out of the genre. It's a refreshing breath of fresh air and definitely worth a place for strategy fans.


Half puzzle game, half mini-golf game, Putt Base is an interesting mix. It combines elements of both genres in mind-bending ways. However, if all games turn out like Putt Base, I say keep doing it! It very much stands on the backs of such puzzle classics as The Incredible Machine, and in some cases the gameplay parallels are almost scary. But Putt Base is really its own game, which is excellent.

The base gameplay of the game has you setting up blocks to guide a ball into a hole as quickly as possible. The player only gets one stroke from the start, and the rest is up to the blocks. You are rated based on how many blocks you use, how long it took you to finish the puzzle, and how far the ball traveled. Sometimes the simplest games are the most compelling, and Putt Base is a perfect example of this design philosophy. After all, a fair bit of people just want to solve a puzzle!

For more coverage on indie games and the scene, keep an eye out for Independent Minds at the same bat time, same bat channel. Also check out Freeware Friday and our indie category for some excellent freeware games and indie news, respectively.