Rescue-The-Beagles posts

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

There are games that are replayable thanks to how complex the interaction of gameplay and story mechanics are. There are games that are replayable due to their incredible multiplayer component. Then there are games that are replayable simply because they are fun. Rescue: The Beagles falls solidly into this last category. It's not particularly hard to understand, anyone can play, but it consistently draws you back with charming graphics, good visuals, and entertaining gameplay. We originally covered it for the TIGsource competition that spawned it, but it's time we went more in-depth, especially since it's the only game from that competition we continually find ourselves returning to.

Welcome to a new regular feature here on Big Download. Since indie competitions are such a large part of the independent community, ignoring them would be very foolish. There's lots of undiscovered talent out there as well as established masters, and indie competitions are the best way to bring them out of the woodwork. They are held everywhere from TIGSource to poppenkast, and always bring together lots of great talent.

Indiedaze takes the best entries from a recently finished indie competition and showcases what we think are the best of the best. Sometimes they coincide with what the original competition's top three were, sometimes they are completely different. In any case, they are always the games we liked most, and worth all the attention you can give them. A recently finished competition is the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, having finished up around a month ago. Since such a long time has passed, the games have had a chance to be played and decisions have had a chance to be weighed. So here is our top three and honorable mentions that were just so good that they couldn't be passed up.

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 were no major independent releases this week, with most of the week's news concerning more freeware than independent. There have been an explosion of new releases, however, thanks to the Procedural Generation Competition being held over on TIGSource. Stay tuned for more news concerning the excellent output from the competition!

Features and Downloads

	Freeware Friday: Torus Trooper Our resident indie fan James Murff takes a look at one of freeware's best shoot-'em-ups, even if he gets disoriented by all the twisting.
	Armageddon Empires demo available for download The incomparable Armageddon Empires now has a demo available for download through the Big Download service!
	MODvelous Monday: 6/2/2008 David Craddock takes his weekly look at mods to the excellent single-player Half-life mod They Hunger.

Over the next few days, we are going to report on some of the best games of the TIGSource procedural generation competition. The TIGSource forums have always been a great source for the best in indie and freeware games, and this is doubly true while a competition is going on. One of the best (and best looking) games of the competition is a platformer called Rescue: The Beagles.

A pixelated affair, Rescue: The Beagles is a game about rescuing dogs from evil researchers. There's not much in the way of complicated mechanics, but the game more than makes up for it with charm. Featuring procedural terrain, quirky music, and a unique art style, it's a great indie game in its own right. You can get the game from the developer's website.