JUEGOS RANCHEROS’ FISTFUL OF INDIES: FEBRUARY 2014

Every month, as part of the regular monthly meetings of the Austin, TX independent game community JUEGOS RANCHEROS, we do a very casual & chatty rundown of the ten or so games from the previous month for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed. The featured games are both local and global, and both indie and, on occasion, a bit-bigger-budget — what binds them together is simply that they’re all amazing.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are presented here on Venus Patrol for your reference, each fully-annotated, -linked, and off-the-cuff blurbed, in addition to their home on the JUEGOS RANCHEROS site.

50 Short Games

Developer: TheCatamites | Platform: PC | Get it: Here

“…the first actual commercial release by the creator of games like Murder Dog IV, whose work is consistently surprising and delightful and entirely outside the realm of what you normally expect from games. We hope you’ll be able to support this, because we want to him to keep making new games forever….”

Global Game Jam 2014

Developer: Various | Platform: Various | Find them: Here

“…this past month saw the creation of approximately a billion new games for the Global Game Jam, a TON of which came out super amazing — I could’ve filled up the whole list with just game jam games.

I’ll link a bunch of the best of the games from here in Austin and everywhere else, but one I especially wanted to call out is this one you see here, called “How Do You Do It” by a New York City game jam team, which is probably my favorite of the bunch. It’s about exploring the mysteries of adult sex while your mom’s away — I instantly fell in love with it and think you probably will too.”

[See also: Pyramidwarf, Riff Raft, Iris, Myth of Medusa, HowToLearnAboutYourselfUsingThisOneWeirdWorm, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Candy Quest 3: Edge of Sweetness]

The Banner Saga

Developer: Stoic | Platform: Windows/Mac | Get it: Here

“…a game I actually first heard rumors and whispers about at one of these JUEGOS meetups a few years back, this ended as smart & tactical & well designed and unbelievably gorgeously illustrated as everyone was expecting, and is super worth spending some time with.”

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Developer: Young Horses | Platform: Windows/Mac | Get it: Here

“…Like Banner Saga, this also turned out to be exactly what you were hoping it was going to be all along — a smart, funny and sort of tender game about always just barely holding it all together and keeping up appearances.”

Jazzpunk

Developer: Necrophone Games | Platform: Windows/Mac/Linux | Get it: Here

“…best described as sort of 60’s bachelor pad spy fiction by way of Mad Magazine, it’s stylish but very much not sophisticated and it totally revels in that, and basically exists only to tell you a long steady stream of really dumb jokes you can’t help but laugh at.”

Eliss Infinity

Developer: Little–Eyes | Platform: iPhone/iPad | Get it: App Store

“…a re-release of a game that came out many years back, and was one of the first best artful games for the iPhone. It’s a super beautiful and super challenging action puzzle game about manipulating these colored planetary objects here, and the new release adds a brilliant endless mode as well as a bunch of other new balance tweaks and enhancements. Definitely pick this up whether or not you’ve ever tried the original Eliss.”

Threes

Developer: Asher Vollmer, Greg Wohlwend, and Jimmy Hinson | Platform: iPhone/iPad | Get it: Here

“…a super simple idea executed really beautifully, this has become a pretty constant companion — alongside Eliss Infinity it’s some of the best work the iPhone’s seen in a while…”

Pale Machine

Developer: Ben Esposito & Bo-En | Platform: Web | Play it: Here

“… a collection of tiny scenes timed to the track by musician Bo-En which all have one simple discrete purpose and interaction, which add up to an amazingly compelling experience. Ben has been pretty effortlessly killing it lately with everything he’s released, and this one is no exception…”

Broken Age

Developer: Double Fine | Platform: PC/Mac/Linux | Get it: Here

“…cuts out a ton of the frustration you may have felt at older point and clicks, but stays just on the right side of not-too streamlined, the 3D rendered 2D art is crazy beautiful, and the voice work is perfect. I devoured this in a single night and loved every minute….”

Nidhogg

Developer: Messhof | Platform: Windows | Get it: Here

“…the clarity of the fights, the new Daedelus music, and the unexpected slapsticky humor of the tug-of-war combat make it one of the best two player games ever made — it’s more or less the perfect expression of what it wants to be. Of all the games I’ve showed here tonight, you definitely need to experience this one.”