Xbox Live Indie Games Round-Up – 27/10/09

By Sonny Jones

Despite there being a few indie games worth checking out, the sea of pointless, worth-less-than-shareware-dross keeps rolling in on the XBLIG shores this week.

//Run Away!
By L0llygagg3r [link]
Before we wade in to the eddying currents where many a gamer’s soul has been lost, we must first frolic on the golden shores of indie games.

Run Away! encapsulates everything that the term “indie” was created for. Imagine for a moment that Wes Anderson wasn’t a movie maker. Imagine that he didn’t have international recognition and the wealth that comes with it. Imagine he was actually a lonely developer sitting in his bedroom, hunched over a computer, lost in his own world of indie charm. See him gazing up every now and then at his favourite Purple Ronnie birthday card (form the purpose of this flight of fancy we need to believe that Wes Anderson collects and frames Purple Ronnie birthday cards – just roll with it) and chuckling to himself as he conjures up the next bit of code.

Sounds interesting, right? So go and check out L0llygagg3r’s Run Away! right now. The plot is simple: you’re a young man, on his way to meet up with a girl you’ve got the hots for. Only, before you get there you pass an angry dog who, as soon as he’s laid eyes on you, ups and runs straight at your juicy buttocks. Run Away! But be careful to avoid the bee’s nest and hedgerow obstacles, and let us know whether you’re meant to avoid the marijuana plants or not because we’re still not sure.

It’s a joyous platformer set to music that could easily nestle inside a Moldy Peaches album. In short, it has DIY written all over it. It’s like a game that’s been made by someone who’s never heard of Call Of Duty, who thinks Mario is the guy from the local Italian and suggests you visit the doctor pronto when you tell them your Wii is broken.

Its looks owe a lot to Purple Ronnie, but there’s a hint of David Lynch’s Dumbland in there, only without the creeping, cloying Lynchness (if you’ve not seen Dumbland, a quick trip to YouTube is in serious order). In truth, the gameplay isn’t great, and frustration easily sets in when you’ve tripped over the same cricket stump five times in a row, but the ‘game over’ animation that accompanies every canine/buttock interface somehow makes it slightly less irritating that you’ve just been caught again.

Does it have repeat play value? Yes, since you’ll be aching to show it to both gamer and non-gamer friends alike and will be satisfied at the results – a lot of people will be asking “is it my go yet?”

//Poker Blinds
By Shuboarder [link]
If Run Away! is the sort of thing that should be heartily encouraged, Poker Blinds is the kind of indie “game” that should be removed from the system immediately lest any indie videogame virgins see it before they see anything else and consequently never come visiting again.

It’s meant to be a poker assistant, in as much that you input the details of any poker tournaments you’re playing at home and it ‘does the rest’. Which raises the question: why? Why would you switch on your 360 and input a load of data about a card game you’re playing with friends round the table? What are you going to get out of it? Even in your most drunken, 4am and going-all-in-on-a-pair-of-threes moments, you are not going to need a piece of software to remind you that you’ve got three minutes left to play your hand or fold.

Then there’s the other question: what ‘rest’? What else do you need for a poker tournament? Some cards, some friends, a scrap of paper with the hand values on, some chips. Maybe some beer and bar snacks. But Poker Blinds doesn’t, sadly, spit these out of the disc tray whenever you bash the X button. At best, it’s a glorified egg timer, counting down the seconds in big bold typeface. And if you need the help of a 360 ‘game’ just to boil an egg you shouldn’t be in the kitchen in the first place.

Hours of quiet contemplation on why you would ever need this bore no fruition bar the next-gen egg timer apple. Contemplating a reason why anyone would bother to sit down and make this  was just as futile. Maybe Shuboarder is studying Statistics and Computer Programming at uni and this is some sort of course work, which is all well and good, but it justifies putting it up for sale on Xbox Live no more than opening your own restaurant because you know how to make toast. If anything, it makes you wish there was someone actually moderating the indie games marketplace, just so pointless applications like this never see the light of day.

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