Developer Summary:

It’s about a super-powered squirrel with bombs, in a semi-urban setting of puzzles. Somehow or another space is involved. Why haven’t you played this game yet?

What We Think:

The Few, The Proud, The Squirrelly

Cute, fluffy…highly destructive? Other than the small paragraph provided by DTA Entertainment about Urban Space Squirrels, there was little for me to go on in regards to just what this game was going to be about before I played it, it was left completely up to my imagination. Thankfully, the creation of this game was left completely up to the imaginations of the people of DTAE.

You play as agent 1337, a highly agile, incredibly intelligent super-squirrel with an armament of bombs so vast that only the Bush administration could have possibly provided it to him. However the twist is that these are antiparticle bombs, and rather than blowing up everything in sight, you use your bombs to flip switches, open locked gates, and propel yourself to otherwise unreachable heights. If you were hoping for mass squirrel destruction or a long-lost episode of Happy Tree Friends, forget about it, but don’t let that deter you, what’s waiting for you in this game is far more gripping, challenging and crafty than anything you will find in one of today’s uber-violent button-mashers.

This game will test your brain, your fingers, and your patience… and I mean that in the best way possible.

It’s Your World, Squirrel

Although not exploding (pun intended) with colourful creatures, or crafty character/level design, I still found this to be a highly polished and visually appealing title. Agent 1337 is well drawn and animated and his environments may be simple in concept, but they have a colourful bubble-gum visual aesthetic and help to add greatly to the ambiance. Objects and enemies are also simplistic in design, but do well to correspond to the look of the scenery, giving the title a somewhat 50’s approach to space design. I half expected Marvin the Martian to be a cameo, if not an end boss.

Even the menu screens have a pleasantly appealing cartoonish theme, somewhere along the lines of Dexter’s Laboratory or Clone High. Funny fonts, and simple background drawings help to add to the fun simplistic nature and really contribute to creating a light-hearted but well conceived design scheme.

Though this game will look best on higher resolution screens, It can be enjoyed on nearly any TV because of its basic approach. My TV sucks and I thought this game looked great.

Extreme Animal Testing

The game may not have been given much of a storyline, so here’s my take on it. Somewhere in the near future, scientists have realized that running a mouse through a wooden labyrinth in order to find a piece of cheese at the end is no longer a sufficient means with which to test an animal’s capacity for learning, Instead they arm them with endless bombs and set them loose in one of the craziest, mad-cap laboratories ever invented to see how they fare. What ensues is some of the most intense, skill-testing platforming action available since games like Ninja-Gaiden, or (dare I say it?) Castlevania.

Squirrels don't fear the Reaper

The game starts lightly enough, you can run, jump and deploy a single bomb to flip a switch, open a gate or launch you in the intended direction. It’s a well calculated control scheme which helps to keep things simple at first. Run with the left analog stock, jump with the A button. The right analog will aim the bomb in which ever direction you push it, and then you simply hold the left trigger to send your bomb off in that direction. The Bomb will continue travelling in the intended direction until you let go of the left trigger, the right trigger explodes that bomb. It kind of works along the line of the puzzle bobble games, except you control the distance for how far the bomb is launched, and you can (and will have to) move while launching.

That’s it: the entire game is mapped to 5 buttons.  Seems simple, right? The game becomes much more advanced however as you pick up multiple bombs , which then forces you to use these bombs in succession, or conjunction with each other to solve a variety of brilliantly crafted puzzles which are just as, if not more, intuitive than what you would find on the early NES platformers. After a couple of levels you’ll be thanking the sweet scientist above that you only have to worry about 5 buttons, as the puzzles move so quickly sometimes that any more would melt our tiny little brains, though the game may be pop-rock in design, It’s heavy-metal in game play.

Some of the more brilliant puzzles involve use of the old Metroid-launch-yourself-in-the-air-with-bombs tool, the twist on this is that now some puzzles will force you to precisely place those bombs at certain spots in a puzzle, and in the proper order of detonation(bombs only explode in the order they are launched). Other puzzles require impeccable timing and hand-eye co-ordination as you traverse your way through narrow corridors lined with death-rays.

One puzzle had me so flustered (though it was about 3 A.M at the time) that I was forced to retire for the evening, however I ran it over in my head so many times that I was able to figure it out while I wasn’t even playing. To me that is the true sign of amazing and highly addictive game design.
There were multiple moments in this game, where I swore I was ready to tear my hair out, but all the while I had a smile on my face. It’s a relentlessly challenging game that will push your skills to the limit, yet it will never feel like success is completely out of your grasp.

Even red-necks will love this game. YEEEHAWWW! Fried squirrel!

No Squirrels Were Harmed in the Making of this Game

That’s actually a lie. This is the kind of game where you will die, and die a lot. The designers however have taken this(and your sanity) into consideration. Kindly they have put a number of checkpoints throughout each level, which you will instantly warp back to as soon as you are electrocuted, fried or squashed, however you may only save at the beginning of a level, so you may want to persevere and finish a level if you feel like you’ve made considerable progress through it. Starting again at the beginning of a level can be a might frustrating.

Squirrel Trumps Hedgehog

If it were up to me I’d crown a new king of animal-based platformers. This is Classic-platforming action at the top of its game. Without a doubt DTAE has created something special, and although this game only took me a day to beat, It would be more than worth it to re-visit and try to best my top times and scores. I’m sure that if they continue to make games in the Urban-Space universe, this squirrel is gonna fly.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – XBOX 360′s community games were renamed Indie in 2009 and we saw a huge surge in the number of releases, many of which flew by, and for good reason, for looking like nothing but rehashed version of startup kits with little imagination and far less game theory or design practice implemented. That said, we also saw some truly remarkable and imaginative choices from micro developers. XBLIGR (XBOX Live Indie Game Reviewer) chose ten games that, while no competition for Dragon Age, let alone Splosion Man, certainly did what indies should do: offer legitimately fun, engaging, pretty to look at, edgy content for less than five bucks, or in some cases less than a song on iTunes.

It is so important to encourage the indie gaming community; despite many shoddy releases, behind those titles we often find eager and ambitious young minds who dedicate an awful lot of time to getting their title ready and conformed for the indie marketplace. So we ain’t knockin’ ‘em, we are just waiting to see what they come up with next!

Here are our ten favorites, some which came from reader suggestions with which we were in agreement. We hope you get a chance to play them and enjoy.

Here’s to all the great new titles that await us in 2010!

Trino

Developer: trinoteam
Genre: Shooter
Price: 240 MS Points

What They Say:

“TRINO, an evolving alien, must escape the NANITES, an insidious nano-robot swarm, that have imprisoned trino for his powers! Use TRINO’s powerful TRIANGLE TRAP to defeat the Nanites and break free from their Laser Prison! Evade, outsmart and destroy over 15 types of deadly enemies! Evolve for power! Over 48 challenging levels! Live scoreboard! Save trino!”

What We Think:

The Qix and the Dead.  Guide your alien pod through each area, using your capture beam to trap Nanite enemies.  Ensnare multiple Nanites to rack up big points and bonuses.  As your creature evolves, you’ll be able to link up additional triangle force fields, and you’ll need them!  Act fast, because the fields don’t last.  Don’t let the leisurely feel at the start of the game fool you:  you’d best get used to the trap-and-collect mechanic while the enemies are somewhat docile.  As the levels progress, the enemies get more aggressive, and you’ll have to trap on the fly.  Trino is sleek, fast-paced, and highly addictive.

Screenshot:

Solar

Developer: Murudai
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 80 MS points

What They Say:

“Solar, a space simulation/action game where you play as the sun itself. You can complete a myriad of challenges or simply mess around in an infinite, sandbox universe.”

What We Think:

Here is what our reviewers thought when we originally covered this title:

“Players are put in the role of the sun and they can collect other celestial bodies to complete different tasks. You can choose between two modes of game play: the first is called Sandbox and this mode allows you to explore and navigate freely throughout the universe. Adding planets to your orbit and destroying stars for the fun of it makes this mode addicting.

The second mode is called Challenge and is comprised of eighteen levels in which you complete objectives to get more skills. The purpose of each level is pretty straightforward and the overall appearance is very clean and modern.

Solar does not have a multi-player mode and it is suitable for all ages. It isn’t extremely violent and is completely unique compared to other games out on the market. The music is ethereal and really creates a sense of being in outer space. This game is very relaxing and can be played for hours at a time. There are no sound effects when the sun smashes into stars or planets. I think it would have taken away from the whimsical feeling of the game if there were loud crashing sounds.

I would highly recommend Solar to other Xbox Live users. This game is so cool that you are almost sad when it is over.”

Screenshots:

Miner Dig Deep

Developer: Robir
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 80 Microsoft points

What They Say:

“Dig and expand your mine to find greater treasures from the depths. Build the deepest mine so you can make your fortune in rare gems and metals from the earth below.”

What We Think:

Here is what we wrote about Miner Dig Deep in 2009:

“Miner Dig Deep is a great looking game with excellent sound design and music (the soundtrack sounds like a hip Silverlake indie band) and most importantly: the five-second play cycle is perfectly executed – easy to pick up, detailed enough to sustain interest and very responsive to user input.

Far too many developers fail to understand that if a game doesn’t work at the basic control level, if a user does not “get” or feel comfortable with how to puppeteer their avatar, let alone how it looks when it moves, then the rest is irrelevant.  Too many games, even those with multi-million dollar budgets fail at this basic level.

Miner Dig Deep has a brief but logical learning curve.  It then succeeds at the next flagpole: the five-minute play cycle offers the player opportunities for simple level advancement by virtue of the stickiest game ploy of all – improve your abilities, sell stuff you have found questing for cash with which to upgrade your gear, rinse, repeat – addictive gameplay.  Of course this simple formula in and of itself is not enough to make a great game, but in this case, the blend of Dig Dug, N+ problem solving and Arkadian Warriors simple upgrading systems make this one a winner.

Screenshot:

Decimation X

Developer: Xona Games
Genre: Shooter
Price: 80 MS Points
Players 1-4
Co-op 2-4

What They Say:

“1-4 player intense retro shmup. Classic 2D fixed gallery shooter. Features: Insane firepower, progressive defences, tons of power-ups. Smooth 60 frames per second, pure arcade action.”

What We Think:

Holy particle emitters Batman!  If you like Space Invaders, and you like glow sticks and maybe water bottles and pacifiers and plush to backpacks, then you literally could not find a more perfect game to suit your cerebellum.  Fast and furious shooting to a throbbing trance soundtrack and more flying sparks than your eyes can eat, Decimation X is a space shooter of the highest caliber, and a price that can’t be beat by any Arcade game; at 80 MS points, it’s a complete steal.

Screenshots:

Storage Inc

Developer: Stolpskott Studios
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 points
Players 1-4
Co-op 2-4

What They Say:

“Cooperative arcade puzzle game for 1-4 Local players. 100 Maps, all with full coop support. Easy to learn. Simple controls. Work together as goods keeps dropping in. Organize stored goods to save both time and well needed space. Plan ahead, and make sure ordered deliveries are out in time.”

What We Think:

A well designed, addictive and increasingly complex game requiring that you organize stored goods to save both time and well needed space. Plan ahead, and make sure ordered deliveries are out in time.  We really liked the challenge ramp up as organizing the incoming and outgoing orders, while negotiating available space becomes ever more demanding.  Kind of like a day job, but far ore fun due to the ability to watch the havoc ensue with impunity.  Would be even more fun if knocking over towers of boxes with your forklift meant destroying an entire vodka factory.

Screenshots:

Arkedo Series – 03 PIXEL!

Developer: Arkedo
Genre: Platformer
Cost: 240 MS Points

What They Say:

“”MORE BLUE” : Arkedo/Pastagames’ answer to Avatar.”

What We Think:

Hip to be Squares – If Mario ever had a Tamagotchi, his virtual pet would be PIXEL! the cat.  This platformer may not be a big spender in the graphics department, in fact paying tribute to 2-bit graphics, but what it lacks in flash, it makes up for in charm.  All of the character sprites and playable areas are constructed using monotone pixels, but the animations slather this title in all kinds of awesome.  The soundtrack is enjoyable, and the gameplay, while a bit repetitive, is tried and true.  If you’ve been itching for a good side-scroller, PIXEL! will find the sweet-spot under your chin.

Pixel! released at the tail end of 2009 is already one of the Xbox Indie blade’s top rated games (by users).  See also Jump! and Swap!

Screenshot:

Square Off

Developer: Roonda
Genre: Shooter
Cost: 240 MS Points

What They Say:

“Wield shotguns, bombs and missiles in up to four player co-op or deathmatch action. Features beautiful sound and graphics, LIVE online highscores, hordes of vicious aliens and absolutely loads of addictive fun.”

What We Think:

With bright and well done animation, excellent sound design and even some well integrated particle physics, this Castle Crashers styled science fiction platform shooter allows up to four players in co-op mode.  You can always tell the game is working when you hit the demo timer expiration and huff a sigh of frustration that you have to go to the purchase screen.  It’s another good sign when you forget you are playing an indie game because you go to look for it under your Arcade menu.  Solid all around, not perfect in that at times the play density can get a little thin, but better than most.

Screenshots:

Platypus

Developer: Escapist Games
Genre: Shooter
400 MS Points

What They Say:

“Platypus, the acclaimed and thoroughly addictive claymation shooter, comes to the Xbox360. Fight your way through 20 stages of intense action, either solo or cooperatively with a friend. Countless enemies and end of level bosses to beat, plus loads of bonus pickups and other treasures to help you on your way. Can you defend your home planet of Mongola and defeat the invading plasticine army?”

What We Think:

Smoosh!  Headshot!

Imagine an army of 10-year old boys had access to an unlimited supply of plasticine, and decided to construct not only a massive air force, but a landscape and sky for that force to dominate.  Toss in an inspired soundtrack reminiscent of the Commodore 64 days, and see how long it takes to figure out that some part of us just never gets any older.  Platypus harkens back to the glory days of games like R-Type, but gives it a nice squishy coat that you just want to sink your hands into.

As you damage larger enemies, your bullets sink holes into their pliable fuselage until they can fly no more, dropping from the sky with a blast that is also made of clay.  Even the numbers that make up your score mash together to reform as points rack up!  Collect weapon upgrades to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting.  Team up with a friend, and you can both tear Wallace & Gromit a new one.

Screenshot:

Dungeon Adventure

Developer: UberGeekGames
Genre: Role Playing
Price: 240 MS Points

What They Say:

“Classic ASCII dungeon crawling on your Xbox! Customize the game with remappable ASCII and graphical tiles, play with the precision of a keyboard or ChatPad, use your Avatar as the hero, and prove you’re the best on the Global Scoreboards. Unlock a slew of Awardments while enjoying endless gameplay, with an infinite number of dungeons to loot!”

What We Think:

Finally, someone who was clearly there for the good times of Multimate, or inserting a 5″ floppy disk (when they were still actually floppy) into a computer to load the operating system, when MUDs and MOOs and Infocom were teh l33t, made a video game we can play with an Xbox 360 controller.  Although combat involves little more than running into things, there are a lot of choices that can affect how such pixel collisions go – whether it be through weapons and armor, potions or other buffs or level.  The hero can fast travel across the screen when the “ASCII refresh” gets a little slow, but  chance of running headlong into a powerful adversary becomes a risk.  This is just awesome fun, brilliantly executed and totally faithful to the good old days of monochrome monitors and Ultima 1 – when imagination filled in the gaps and no one answered phone calls when you wanted a good game of pencil and paper D&D.  Much love.

Screenshots:

Ninja Bros

Developer: Dot Zo Games
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 80 MS Points

What They Say:

“It’s Ninja action puzzle game , wao!”

What We Think:

No Ninja Gets Left Behind! This is one tricky puzzler to get your head around. You can have up to four ninjas on the screen in a stage. To clear the goal, successfully navigate each ninja to the exit door. Not. That. Simple. The left analog stick controls all of the ninjas at once, while each of A, B, X and Y buttons are each mapped to make one of the ninjas jump. Traps abound, and shurikens rain down from above. You must plot your moves carefully if you want to get all of your ninja to safety. If one of your ninjas should meet an untimely end, you must start the room afresh. You have to plan ahead, or try to be mindful of where all of your ninjas are at once. Minimalist graphics, but dying a lot isn’t supposed to be pretty. You’ll get frustrated, but I defy you to walk away from this game without saying “just one more try…” at least a dozen times.

Screenshots:

@udience Favor1t3!!!1

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!

Developer: Jamezila
Genre: Shooter
80 points

For a buck, an addictive song and lots of flying zombie guts this little monster of a game pretty much had everything going for it in the popularity contest. And popular it was indeed, even grabbing IGN.com’s Indie Game of the Year 2009 prize. We thought it was alright too.  The only thing it was missing was a half time where someone brought out free hot dogs and Dallas cheerleaders in bikinis washed cars at center field.

What They Say:

“This video game product represents a culmination of years of intensive psychological research, bleeding edge engineering, and artistic collaboration by over two dozen internationally recognized art houses, using such technologies as the HYPERMAGIC 3.0 engine to power never-before-seen eye candy with the MEGACORE X parallelization processor for smooth-as-glass presentation.”

What We Think:

Here is what our reviewers wrote when this title was first released:

“Featuring a twin stick shooter setup, the action will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played the XBLA game Geometry Wars.  In Zomb1es you play the part of, well, a tiny character running around a landscape riddled with zombies.  There are numerous weapon power ups at your disposal, including such zombie bashing classics as the flamethrower, the shotgun, and the machine gun, while adding new favorites like a missile launcher and a weird green tri-attack-star-shooting-thinger.  You’ll also enjoy the occasional extra life, speed boost, and temporary shield.  As you shoot more zombies, the game begins warping to include netherworld like backdrops and puddles of green slime, among other odd creatures.

In all of the simplistic glory that unfortunately too often comes with an Indie Game, I would hesitate to call title truly original or even mildly thought provoking (unless of course you aren’t fluent in l33tsp3Ak and are caught in the headlights by the game’s actual title). That aside, Zombies still has a lot of good things going for it. The graphics are both polished and smooth, the controls are very responsive and the addictive soundtrack is comprised of one long song hammering on about making a game with, well, zombies in it.   At 80 Microsoft points, the zombie killing is frantic, the pace is unyielding, and most importantly, the game costs 80 points.”

Title:

Developer Summary:

ZP2K9 is a super-crazy multiplayer sidescroller. Play Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill with 13 devastating weapons and 6 grenade types including Akimbo SMGs, the freeze gun, gas grenades, and the enemy-splattering MIRV.

What We Think:

ZP2k9 is an action platform game that is compatible with 2 to 10 players on Xbox live. The developer – Jamezila – has a several other game releases but today we are focusing on his multi-player destruction party: ZP2K9. You can play a varied of different game types like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill. With thirteen devastating weapons and six grenade types including Akimbo SMGs, the freeze gun, gas grenades, and the enemy-splattering MIRV.

The biggest problem in multiplayer is that there is only one map but it feels like it is three or maps put together; one part is all wooded then one is all white, making it sometimes difficult to find people because the map is so big and thus you don’t get many kills in a game.

The controls reminded me of a Flash game: there aren’t many buttons that you need to remember, and absolutely zero button combinations.  It sounds simple, and it is.  A simple control layout is always good as it offers quick, smooth game play without the hassle of trying to remember any tricky button combos during an intense fire-fight.

The music? If you guessed that it resembles that of a typical Flash game, you’re absolutely right.  The game just loops one techno style track over and over again. While this seems like it might get annoying after a while, you’ll be too caught up in the action to even notice the techno music.

Give ZP2K9 a shot (for 200 MS points its the same price as a new t-shirt for your avatar) and get a sense of what is going on with the evolution of online multi-player in the XBOX Live Indie Game world.

Rating: ★★★★☆