Indie | PC Freebies Round-Up – 18/08/09

By Lewis Denby

I’m falling into bad habits. I’m writing this at 11:54AM, and this has to be on the site by 1.  Blame it on trying to get roughly eight quadrozillion things done before I go away later this week if you want.  Blame it on my stark-raving-lunacy if that seems a better fit.

The reason I mention it is that there are only three games in my round-up this time.  But my lateness is not actually the reason.  I’ve played all four that I intended to mention.  It’s just that one of them seems suited to a more expansive piece, one that I’ll mega-quickly-write to ensure it can be on your screens while I’m galavanting down south to meet my iccle new nephew.  Can I get an “awww!” here?

Anyone?

Ah, screw you all.

//Window Hater
Jabberwock [link]
I mean, the name says it all, really, doesn’t it?

The premise is utterly barmy.  You play as a small, grey, pixellated man who’s harboured a deep loathing of windows all his life.  One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, containing a jet-pack and a flamethrower.  Of course, as the info screen informs, he knows exactly what to do.

Window Hater is another product of the ’stay afloat while trying to simultaneously do something else’ crowd – see also the classic Helicopter Game, as well as Auntie Pixelante’s rather enjoyable When Pigs Fly, mentioned in the last column.  The up arrow activates your jet-pack, while the space key unleashes a stream of fire.  Spray enough fire on a window and it smashes.  Get too close when it does so and you lose a life.  Accidentally fall to the ground and you perish.

Quickly, the authorities take a dislike to your manic, sky-bound ASBOing, and begin to send in the forces to take you down.  You’ve then to avoid their bombs as you scurry around each stage, trying to get rid of all the local glassware before the clock runs out.

It’s all very basic, completely mindless and averagely distracting fun.  It’s not exactly inspirational (goodness, I really hope it doesn’t inspire anyone, or I’ll be boarding up all my windows with aspestos. That’ll keep me safe, surely…), but for an easy way to pass a few minutes, it’s perfectly amusing.

//Cube Colossus
Lucidrine [link]
Considering the sort of stuff that usually crops up on Newgrounds, Cube Colossus is an astonishingly adept arcade shooter.  You control your ship with the mouse, shoot with left-click, and activate various special functions with the keyboard, as you battle EVIL CUBES through a series of stages in search for your twin sister.

The story ends up being cheerfully silly and very much entrenched in classic videogame lore, which is ever-so-slightly disappointing after the wonderful and genuinely moving set-up.  But hats off to Lucidrine for establishing such a narrative at all, and hats at the top of upstretched arms for the almost entirely professional presentation.

The battles themselves are high-octane, mad dashes around the screen, avoiding projectiles, juggling special abilities and carefully aiming.  A Metroid-esque lock-on feature is particularly handy and works brilliantly, snapping your aim to the nearest enemy and allowing you to easily circle them.

It’ll take you an hour or two to blast through the entire thing, which is an impressive feat in itself.  Absolutely, positively worth your time, and Lucidrine can be hugely proud of the work they’ve put in over the game’s eight month development cycle.

//Silent Conversation
Gregory Weir [link]
Silent Conversation is a remarkably interesting release from Gregory Weir, whose name I incidentally just typoed at “Gregory Weird.”  That’s probably quite apt, considering the completely off-beat and obscure nature of Silent Conversation.

The idea is this.  It’s a platformer, sort of.  Only each level is constructed of famous texts.  Quite literally /constructed/ of them, as in, the building blocks of each area are the letters of the works themselves.  To obtain a good grade in each level, you must touch as many of the words as possible, many of which are in hard-to-reach places.

Your enemies are the red words.  These powerful segments of text jump off the page and float towards you.  When one hits, your recent progress is erased, and you can’t highlight new words for a short amount of time.  You can usually wait it out or simply plod along and receive a slightly lower mark, so it’s never particularly difficult, but Silent Conversation is more about the odd, ethereal beauty of strolling through this exquisite literature, as gentle piano music soothes from the background.

It’s pretty much unlike, well, anything else that has ever been or will ever be.  For that reason alone, it’s well worth experiencing.