minimalist posts

Haunting, minimalistic games are our specialty, with games like Dyson ranking high on the list of must-have games that are played often. Broken Brothers is yet another addition to this list, thanks to simple graphics, simple gameplay, and creepy music. It's artistic in the way that will send shivers down your spine, and any RTS fan will love the careful dissection of their favorite genre. It's one of the best entries to any Experimental Gameplay Project theme to date.

Broken Brothers is all about fighting insects to get back your lost brothers. To do this, you must gather hope, which translates into units. It's a fairly standard resource gathering to unit production model, but the incredibly basic way in which the game approaches all of this makes it a definite play. The two downsides are the huge, sudden leap in difficulty, and the inability to make more "bases".

Minimalist adventure games will always hold a special place in our heart. After all, it's a niche that rare few people fill. The developer of Takishawa is Dead!, however, managed to do just that and evoke one of the best freeware adventure games, Mondo Medicals, in the process. However, unlike Mondo Medicals and the title, Takishawa is Dead! is not morbid or depressing, but light and cheery!

The controls and goal of Takishawa are very simple. You use WASD to changed the camera, and the arrow keys to move around. Interact with people and objects with Z, and jump with X. Simply explore the environment in your search for the elusive Takishawa. There's a calm pervading every aspect of the game, even when the touchy controls and frustrating platforming come into play. All in all, a quick but satisfying game.

It appears that one of BigDownload's most featured indie games has been delayed. Dyson, that serene, minimalist strategy game that emerged from the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, has been delayed from its original date of late July to sometime in October. While it may be sad that the game is not releasing on schedule, it does allow the developers to add more to the game. More features, within reason of course, is always a good thing.

One of the new things that is being added, and the most important, is base-level Lua scripting so that modders can edit the game to add new graphics and gameplay with ease. This also sets up the developers to add more play modes and gameplay goals within the game proper with the extra time they have. Finally, over the next few months, more details about the new Dyson will be revealed, such as the aforementioned new play modes. Excellent!