Bravely Navigating Greenlight (also 10 games that have to be on Steam if the world is to ever be a better place)

In its first day Greenlight, the cunning Steam scheme that lets mainstream gamers vote on indie games and saves Valve the trouble of promoting its service, has gathered over 500 submissions. It is of course quite the mess, though a mess that will ensure that only well-known games with built-in communities make it to Steam, thus bringing Valve even more money. Hoorah!

Or, well, not.

Anyway. I too did spend a few hours navigating the Greenlight entries and here are the 10 games I would like to see make it on the service. They are of course games I was already aware of, but that's how things work, isn't it?

The Sea Will Claim Everything; it's the only game that will make you a better person. Also, it looks and sounds wonderful and sports thousands of lovely words that are lovely.

Death Ray Manta; it's by Rob Fearon and it's the most psychedelic, colourful, enjoyable and modifiable arena shooter we'll ever play. Besides, DRM eh?

Dark Scavenger; because everyone should love excellent, verbose adventure/RPG hybrids with a demented sense of humour.

Project Zomboid; yes, zombies can still be fun, interesting and actually innovative. Here is where I confess my love for the thing.

Neocolonialism; seems to have involved since I first covered it for the IndieGames Blog. Besides Steam could easily use a couple more political games.

Wyv and Keep; I do love co-op games played on one PC. Even more so when they are weird and pixel-artsy. Mind you, I did preview this particular game some time ago.

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller; crafted with a little help from Jane Jensen AND using the power of post-cognition: the most useless sounding super-power of late, that does though make perfect sense from a gameplay point-of-view.

Fibrillation; from Russia. With horror.

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land; WWI turn-based strategy and Cthulhu. Better yet, Call of Cthulhu of the Chaosium variety. Did review it some time ago.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch; the trailer, the TRAILER.

And if you feel I haven't posted enough links, well, here's another one. It will take you to my Greenlight Collection thingy, which, provided I don't get bored, will generally include some pretty intriguing games.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Thomas Was Alone; a review
• The 2011 AGS Awards
• Roar and Rampage in Roar Rampage
• J.U.L.I.A. review

Adventure Lantern #32

It is admittedly August, but you should definitely download the July issue of Adventure Lantern. It is after all as fresh as your average August magazine and, by far, the best looking issue the dear, venerable adventure gaming fanzine has so far managed. Pretty impressive really, as are the excellent reviews of Scratches: Director's Cut and Metal Dead. Oh, and the news section is both incredibly rich and downright mouth-watering.

Deirdra Kiai presents Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!

Okay, we still don't have The Threepenny Opera: The Game, but Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings! will apparently be able to cover our collective jazz-musical point-and-click adventure gaming needs. Provided we help it get funded, that is. You know, by giving money to this mouth-watering indiegogo campaign and making sure that the brilliantly multi-talented Deirdra Kiai has the funds she needs to actually pull this one off.

Just take a look at the pitch video and tell me the prospect of such a visually and aurally beautiful stop motion detective adventure isn't something worth supporting...

See? You loved it too reader! How very lovely!

Thomas Was Alone and a new breed of reviews

Having already covered the release of Thomas Was Alone over at the IndieGames blog (see? that's where newsbits go these days) I thought I'd take my time and finish the game before reviewing it for my very own, very cozy place. But first a bit of history.

Thomas Was Alone is a game by Mike Bithell and Mike Bithell is one of the first indie game designers I started writing about sometime six years ago. He was still a student back then, but had already come up with more than a few intriguing ideas and was more than capable of creating beautiful games. Games like Reunion if you remember, which I deeply enjoyed and (hint, hint) would love to see evolved.

Then, things and games happened and Mike went on and crafted a particularly successful flash game named Thomas Was Alone which you can no longer play online. It was an utterly lovely game. A refreshing puzzle-platformer that provided you with rectangle characters and a geometric world, in which said characters could climb and bounce on top of each other in order to solve platformer puzzles.

Then, even more things happened (mainly glowing press and, apparently, brave choices) and Mike decided that Thomas Was Alone simply had to realize its full potential and become a full-blown, downloadable and thus logically commercial indie game. Following a modest IndieGoGo campaign the game was released and you can (and frankly should) buy it now for Mac and PC over at its very own and most aptly URLed site. There's even a demo available to help you make the right choice.

History lesson over. Time for a review.

Well, the official description of the game goes a bit like this: a minimalist game about friendship and jumping and floating and bouncing and anti-gravity, which is pretty accurate, but fails to add the words terrific, story-heavy and brilliantly narrated somewhere. A grave marketing mistake surely, as what we are talking about here reader is easily one of the very best platformers ever. A game that has earned its place among classic platformers Manic Miner and VVVVVV; a rare action offering that can proudly sit next to Alphaland (an inspiration perhaps?) and claim it really knows its storytelling.

The plot and its delivery, you see, are central to Thomas Was Alone, which does force me to namedrop a bit more. Remember that Portal game? Good. Now, do the math and find out what I want to say, by keeping in mind that I easily preferred Thomas' take on interactive storytelling.

As for the gameplay itself, things are both straightforward and innovative. You get to control a variety of subtly yet brilliantly animated rectangles, each with its own unique personality, set of abilities, shape and colour, and guide them through an excellently designed set of levels that will mainly tax your brain, but also -a bit- your reflexes. What's really lovely is just how well each rectangle's defining ability is tied to its character; what's downright impressive though is that said rectangles are so much more interesting than your average multi-polygonal mainstream hero. They have a soul and that's coming from a person who simply doesn't believe such things exist.

So, uhm, as I said earlier, buy it will you? Don't make me go on about how lovely the stylized graphics are or how addictive the game can get. I'm very busy these days, you know, and am pretty confident the less I tell you about it, the more fun you'll have discovering the many graces of Thomas Was Alone.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Alphaland: the prequel of a beta
• The VVVVVV review
• Meet Manic Miner
• Let A Thousand Free Games Bloom

Today's Mech Delivery: PlaySF issue 2

Ask anyone who has ever published anything of a periodical nature and they'll admit that actually doing a second issue is the most difficult and crucial phase their magazine had to go through, which, gently leads me to telling you about the release of Play SF issue 2 and my being very happy about it. Well, it's out and I'm happy, and you should absolutely grab a copy (for Mac/PC and your iOS contraption) or, better, yet subscribe to the thing, as this is much more than the only sci-fi focused gaming magazine; it's a great and excellently written magazine. One of the three (yes, only) I actually read!

As for this issue's contents, expect tons of reviews, previews, features and newsbits. Personal highlights include a Carrier Command preview, a little something on Wing Commander Saga, my introduction to Hawken, an amazing feature on game adaptations, the continuation of the brilliant Tripping The Quantum Mechanic series and that Endless Space review.  

The Recession Bundle

And there you (and I) were thinking I was done with bundle-blogging (working on Bundle In A Box can be more than enough) when BLAM! there appears the Recession Bundle by lovable bundle-observatory Indie Game Bundles. It's a wonderful and most unique beast and I couldn't help but mention it. The bundle comes with 6 freeware games and, should you be nice enough to pay something, 2 commercial indie offerings I at least hadn't tried before. All the money will be used to directly support the developers, cover the bundle's costs and help an important charity.

Among the games you'll find such gems as Anna Anthropy's sadistic platformer Mighty Jill Off, Gunstar Heroes inspired actiony-shooty thing Action Fist, stunning political adventure The Cat and the Coup and the gorgeous 8-bit Night. So, uhm, go grab the Recession Bundle and support this wonderful initiative.  Here's the trailer to further whet your appetite: