Jesse-Venbrux posts

Jesse Venbrux, that ever enigmatic peddler of experimental games, has gone a much gentler route on his latest endeavor. Well, gentler in the sense that it's not experimental. Dubbed Torque, it's slightly different than your standard fare arena shooter, which means that it is hard. But that's fine with us. You spin and fire uncontrollably, and by holding down Z you can focus fire in one direction. That's it. Featuring hypnotic graphics, simple gameplay, and excellent controls, it's a great entry into a crowded genre, definitely worth a play for any fan of classic arcade gameplay. There is an online leaderboard as well as several modes to plumb the depths of.

[Via IndieGames]

We here at Big Download love indie games. From telling you about them, playing them, or offering downloads for them, we are all about helping lesser-known developers get their name out into the world. Each week on Saturday, we'll give you the Indie Wrap-up, a collection of all the indie news stories and features during the previous week.

There was no big features this week, unfortunately. Most of our staff was gone at E3, after all! Just Freeware Friday was this week. However, the TOJam 2008 competition recently wrapped up, so there's a ton of games that were released this week! Dwarf Fortress also finally got the first update in the Army Arc, adding battles and wars to the historical records of the game.

Features

Freeware Friday: Off-Road Velociraptor Safari James Murff takes Freeware Friday to a new place: browser games.

Jesse Venbrux, that purveyor of pernicious, punishing platformers, has released a new game. Pazzon is a decidedly retro platformer that reminds us a lot of the surreal stylings of Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld. However, while Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld is still in production, Pazzon is available for consumption right now.

The game is a simple story-based platformer. You must jump around inside a dream, talking to inhabitants along the way. The sound and art design are both excellent, especially in the color contrast of the environments. Everything is also simple geometric shapes, which lends a very minimalist air to the entire game. In short, another excellent game from Venbrux.

[Via IndieGames]

There's some experimental games that utilize a concept that is completely unworkable. Deaths is not one of those games. Featuring a very simple concept and gameplay, it could be far more amazing with better execution. At the moment, it is merely good. A platformer, the entire concept revolves around displaying recent deaths from players around the world. Not only that, but the bodies actually affect the environment, as you can walk on them. The game even accounts for this in design in the later levels, requiring there to be bodies to jump to a higher platform. There's nothing else to the game, and it's only a short 6 levels, but it's a great proof-of-concept that Jesse Venbrux may use in later games.

[Via IndieGames]

Almost anyone who plays browser games knows about the incredibly Desktop Tower Defense. It mixes the classic tower defense gameplay with an entertaining lo-fi, paper-looking aesthetic in a package that is completely irresistible. Jesse Venbrux, who we have reported on before (he created Mubbly Tower and Execution), has released his new shoot-'em-up for use to play that blends the looks of a cluttered office desk with sublime shmup gameplay.

It's a simple arena shooter designed to work entirely with the mouse, and at 5 mb, it's not hard on the disk space either. Use the left button to fire, and the right button to trigger your bomb. There is also an online high-score table (AKA leaderboard) on Venbrux's site as well. You can download the game off of YoYoGames.

[Via IndieGames]