cactus posts

Air Pirates trailer shows cactus' new game

by James Murff Jun 3rd 2009 @ 9:00AM

For those keeping track of cactus, you're in for a rare treat. The accomplished concept game developer is working on a flash game for e4.com dubbed Air Pirates, and has released a trailer through Youtube for people to check out before the game is actually released. The best part? The game will be in Flash, which means that it is one of cactus' only browser-based games. Nothing like surrealism on the go!

The gameplay in the video shows some horizontal shoot-'em-up segments (a genre familiar to cactus) as well as some pllatformer action sequences when you board enemy planes. The art style is distinctly his, with blocky graphics animated extremely smoothly and fast-paced explosions and special effects.

[Via IndieGames]

Filed under: Indie, Trailers

Independent Minds: Concept or Complete?

by James Murff Feb 17th 2009 @ 2:00PM

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

There's a division in the indie community. No, I'm not talking about who likes top hats and who likes bowlers, but rather whether an indie game that is merely a concept of a potential full game should be given the same treatment as a game somebody spent the last few years working on to perfect. Frankly, it's way too complicated to even bother with discussing how to classify them. Instead, this article is about which one you should choose, given your personal preferences. Each has benefits that the other does not, and fits a specific kind of person.

Continue reading Independent Minds: Concept or Complete?

Filed under: Features, Indie

Independents Minds: Marketing Your Game

by James Murff Sep 16th 2008 @ 3:00PM

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

Much as in the indie subgenre as well as the mainstream, marketing is everything. Getting yourself known is the hardest part of being an indie. It's not so much a concern for those making freeware games, like cactus, but for those aiming to make a pretty penny off of their hard work, getting good press is essential to the well-being of their business. But how does one go about doing this?

Continue reading Independents Minds: Marketing Your Game

Filed under: Features, Indie, Meta BD

Independent Minds: Of Critics and Developers

by James Murff Aug 26th 2008 @ 2:00PM

Welcome to a new weekly column here on Big Download! Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie. The very first topic of conversation is something that, given the failure of Eternity's Child and the success of Braid, has been on a lot of minds: criticism. How do you respond to people tearing apart your most beloved works?

Continue reading Independent Minds: Of Critics and Developers

Filed under: Features, Opinion

cactus releases Stench Mechanics

by James Murff Aug 6th 2008 @ 7:30PM

Sometimes a game is just plain weird. There's no escaping that sometimes you just want to play a game that confuses you to no end. Look at how popular the Metal Gear Solid series is, after all! Stench Mechanics, a new adventure game by cactus, definitely falls into this category. Featuring cactus' minimalist pixel art, surreal and confusing plot, and multiple endings, it's definitely an interesting entry into the freeware adventure game scene. Much like most of cactus' games, it's little more than a concept, but that's not a bad thing. It's very well done for a game made during a casual get together of Scandinavian developers.

[Via IndieGames]

Filed under: Adventure, Indie

Destroy these 50 states in Stallions in America

by James Murff Jul 25th 2008 @ 4:30PM

Sometimes there's nothing like a little good-natured "destroy everything" to cheer yourself up. In the Third 3 Hour competition at poppenkast, cactus has taken this theme to heart and crafted Stallions in America, a game about completely annihilating the Unites States with your buff manliness. Don't mistake this for political commentary, though. Eggs drop from the sky, releasing strange bird things to attack you. Enemies explode violently, but with no gore. The only potentially mature thing about this game is the language. No matter, though, as sometimes you just have to go on a total rampage to blow off all that steam.

Filed under: Action, Indie

Retro 4, another arena shooter from cactus

by James Murff Jul 3rd 2008 @ 8:30PM

You could write a blog just covering cactus' releases alone, it seems. Alone with Life Is A Race, cactus also released a simple arena shooter called Retro 4. The controls are simple, comprised of just WASD for movement and the mouse for attacks. Enemies are simple geometric shapes that are different colors. You can hold down the left mouse button to fire, tap it to rapid-fire, and press right mouse button to unleash a special. Simple. There's an online leaderboard for those who want to compete with others as well. In other words, it's another simple, addictive, quick game from the mind of everyone's favorite freeware developer.

[Via IndieGames]

Filed under: Indie, Arcade

Life is a Race! Press one button to reach the end

by James Murff Jul 2nd 2008 @ 9:30PM

If only real life were this simple. A very quick game, Life is a Race! is one of cactus' new releases. It's extremely simple, featuring a little pixel man trying to reach the end of a plain screen. You tap the mouse button to have him run forward. That's it. The game is 1mb and completable in a little under 3 seconds, if you so wish. There are also online leaderboards as well. If you play it more than once, thanks to the simplicity of the game, you can also play it meta, such as using different tools to speed up your time, or see what the lowest time you can possibly get is. In other words, it is a cactus release.

[Via IndieGames]

Filed under: Casual, Arcade

Indie Wrap-Up: June 14th - June 20th

by James Murff Jun 21st 2008 @ 10:00AM

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.

It was a slow week on both the news and features fronts for the indie scene. No in-depths, no interviews, and no MODvelous Monday graced us this week, and the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition has wrapped up. Here's looking at next week for more interesting indie news and features!

Features

Freeware Friday: Battleships Forever
James Murff takes a look at yet another freeware game. This time, it's the IGF finalist Battleships Forever!

Continue reading Indie Wrap-Up: June 14th - June 20th

Filed under: Indie, Meta BD

cactus brings us BlockOn!

by James Murff Jun 17th 2008 @ 5:00PM

cactus has brought us yet another of his famous quickly made games. This time it's a puzzler platformer by the name of BlockOn! where you control a little man trying to make his way to the exit of each stage. That's not all, though. You must place blocks to help lead your character to the exit as well as trap any enemies to keep them from attacking you. It's a relatively short and simple game, but as it was made in just 3 hours, it's to be expected. cactus explains the full game on his forums, so take a look and see if it's your thing.

Filed under: Action, Indie, Puzzle

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