Sniper Killer PC Review 6/10 “Flesh Wound” 🔫 @LeggoMyGiallo @henryhoare8 @torturestar @PuppetCombo #IndieGame #GameDev

I’ve been very vocal about my love for the Torture Star Video line of releases, enjoying every release that I have played thus far. After playing several of them, a thought did enter my mind – “would I ever finally play one and dislike it? Would one fail to live up to the rest and finally break the streak?” Luckily, whilst I would say the streak is intact - I do have my issues with Sniper Killer.

In Sniper Killer you play as… well, a ‘Sniper Killer’, a man who enjoys shooting people… usually in the face, although the first time I took control of him, I shot the wrong target and then, when I found the right one - I shot him in the shoulder, a mere flesh wound, but the game decided that was close enough to kill him. This did tickle me as you see the victim later on and he is missing most of his face. I wanted to tell the police that someone else must have shot him after I did, as I was nowhere near his face with my shot - but that's strangely not a dialogue option.

Dog Man: Mission Impawsible Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Full price? You’d be barking mad" 🐶 @MindscapeGames @F84Games #IndieGame #GameDev

I have to admit, I had never heard of the Dog Man franchise, I was very much unaware of Dav Pilkey’s books, graphic novels and the upcoming animated film. As such, I approached Dog Man: Mission Impawsible as a pure platform gaming experience, and as such – found it pretty middling in terms of gameplay, interesting in terms of presentation... but I did balk <bark? - Ed> at the asking price.

Dog Man Mission: Impawsible begins with the titular character getting called back into action, and re-banding his old companions in a bid to save their town, each has their own skill to surpass certain obstacles, as well as their own weaknesses. From that moment, the game reveals itself to be a pretty standard platformer, very accessible, and with a generous learning curve for younger / newer players, but overall very much not deserving the premium price tag that is attached to Dog Man Mission Impawsible.

Tap Wizard 2 Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Tap Wizard 2 Didn’t quite manage to cast its spell on me" 🧙‍♂️💥🧙 @Top_Cog #IndieGame #GameDev

The trailer for Tap Wizard 2 struck me as a game akin to Vampire Survivors, and as I’d wet my whistle on that particular genre during my end of year Switch mini-review round-up, I quite fancied another game with the same flavour. Digging deeper into Tap Wizard 2 reveals that it is actually an ‘idle’ game, a genre which is more suited to mobile devices – from which this is a port – and so I wondered how it would fare on consoles. It turns out that whilst the design and charm is there – it does feel that the mobile market is perhaps the best place for Tap Wizard 2.

The game begins with you choosing your wizard and their six powers from a choice of various elements, from then on, your wizard will engage in endless waves of combat with enemies in ever-increasing numbers and strengths as you incrementally increase your stats, powers, and abilities.

Visually the game features some tasty pixel art and runs very smoothly. The chiptune audio is catchy, but on a relatively short loop, although you can flick between a few different ditties in the menu. What you cannot do, though, is turn off the rumble on your controller, this is of note as the controller constantly rumbles throughout the game, and you can’t put your controller down or it’ll rumble off the table and onto the floor. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but as it’s an idle game with a lot of downtime, it would have been a nice feature to include.

Whilst primarily an idle game, you can take direct control over your wizard as he wanders his way around the single-screen battlefield, and you’ll find that you’ll survive longer and get more pick-ups this way, as the AI-controlled wizard tends to just either move in a sweeping circle, or stay in the centre of the screen, ignoring the many chests that pop up full of goodies. 

Another minor niggle is that the left thumb stick – this controls the on-screen cursor, the right thumb stick handles manual wizard movement – seems to always start offscreen at the bottom left, which is a bit odd, the centre of the screen would be preferable for initial cursor placement.

The number of various panels, inventory areas, unlockables, upgrades and bonuses etc. is laudable and certainly adds a sense of progress to your quest, but the time-locked lore / narrative reveal is so overly verbose and lengthy that I got more irritated than intrigued upon reading. 

I found that the game was best played as I was cleaning my flat, having it on in the background and popping back every few minutes to maybe take over manually, and click through, selecting all of the things I’d unlocked whilst idle.

SUMMARY

It’s a game that’s too uninvolved to sit and fully engage with, and not engrossing enough to boot up and check in when playing on the Xbox, without the instancy and casualness of mobile play. 

I’d be interested to see what developer TopCog comes up with next, as I feel there’s a lot of talent and promise there, but on console, Tap Wizard 2 doesn’t quite click for me.

6.5/10

💧MELTING💧

Neon Blood Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "The spark of something beautiful" 🧠⚡️ @ChaoBrainStudio #IndieGame #GameDev

Neon Blood was one of those games that struck me the moment I first watched the trailer, a beautiful blend of 3D environments with 2D characters, that supposedly melded that cyberpunk aesthetic with detective-based adventure, on paper – and on screen – it looked to be a winner. Sadly, as much as there was in Neon Blood that really drew me in, there was just as much working against my enjoyment.

Set in an alternate, distant future, the player is cast in the role of detective Axel McCoin, a burnt-out detective who regularly uses the fictional drug Spark to cope with extreme pain caused by his failing bio-implants. Mostly dismissed by his superiors, Axel (cool name ) gets embroiled in a series of murders that hint at a larger conspiracy…

Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Keep on rollin’ baby" 🧶 @solidneongames @JanduSoft #IndieGame #GameDev

A fun and polished casual title, Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe is a game about downward momentum. You must control your colourful, rotund buddy as they tumble down mountains avoiding spikes, traps, and pitfalls in a bid to make contact with the jewel at the end of each stage, thus completing the level.

Controls are simple, you can backpedal slightly, slow yourself down, or hop as you roll down the hills, smashing up the tiny houses, cars and structures that litter your way. The music is light and gentle, matching the pastel colours that are a breeze on the eyes. The animation and scrolling is also a very smooth 60 fps, which adds to the flow of the game.

Unfortunately, whilst there are various cosmetic unlockables that you can purchase – and side roads that lead to the extra gems etc. that act as in-game currency, the environment never really changes, and aside from the game getting trickier, you’ll find yourself passing the same structures and items over and over, meaning that there’s no real sense of progress beyond the numbers of the levels changing. 

You can adjust the difficulty to make it more of a challenge, but a little could have gone a long way here, with maybe differing weather conditions affecting your traversal, and some more dynamism and variety to the environments themselves, or the inclusion of hectic multiplayer races. 

SUMMARY

All that said, this is a fundamentally sound game that is fun for short blasts and is perfectly priced – but lacks that little something extra to make it a strike.

6.5/10

💧MELTING💧

Snowman Story Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "A very specific festive adventure" ☃️ @OdencatGames #IndieGame #GameDev

As this was a child-friendly game, I thought I’d take the opportunity to play through with my three-year old son, a boy who is very much caught up in the magic of Christmas. As it pans out, whilst this is a very cute and noble game as a bittersweet Christmas fable, the simplicity and repetition end up stagnating any sense of flow, and ultimately mute the eventual emotional payoff.

IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 💥 @VdDevGames #IndieGame #GameDev

Sometimes I’m taken in by a simple trailer for a game, or even the first few words of a press release, we -very kindly – get sent a lot of games here at GF, and as I mention in my year-end article - we unfortunately don’t get the time to cover them all, so when a certain genre pops out that you haven’t tucked into for a while, or you are just really in the mood for. It’s fun to take a punt and see what the game has to offer. In the case of IronFall: Invasion, I could see that it was a Switch FPS – and that was all it took for me to dive in.

From the rating of 6/10, you can probably tell that this won’t be featuring in our end-of-year lists, but I do have a bit of a caveat here, as IronFall: Invasion captures a very specific vibe, and I can imagine that it will find its niche among gamers as it feels like a bit of a time capsule, which I’ll explain as best I can.

IronFall: Invasion is a 2024 release of what was originally a 2015 3DS game, and though it appears that it wasn’t too warmly received at the time of release, as I didn’t know the background of the title at the time of playing, I had a very different experience, and to me, it felt very much like an early PS2 title that had been remastered for the PS Vita.. 

From the blunt and pacey intro through to the presentation and mechanics of the game – you’ll be getting Perfect Dark / Deus Ex vibes from how each cutscene is presented – there’s a solid functionality to the game that seems locked in to the early 2000’s in an almost delicious way that’s designed to invoke a very specific nostalgia, and – to me – it’s this that is the IronFall: Invasion calling card. If you don’t connect with this, it will be a very vanilla experience.

Set in the near future, you are a soldier that is a one-man force against an alien (although...robots) invasion, and through arena / corridor based FPS action, must take down this growing threat. The combat is suitably PS2, in that it is heavily cover-based and against a relatively small variety of enemy types in empty areas with no collectibles or reasons to explore, beyond clearing them out. 

There are sections wherein you have to hold a post against enemy attacks, but it’s all very PS2-retro. That said, the entire game is a silky smooth 60fps, and the gun play is quite satisfying, you pick up weapons that fare better against certain enemy types etc., and that N64/PS2 vibe is in full force as you make your way through the campaign. 

There’s almost a celebratory sense as to how the game feels to play, like it’s point blank refused to move beyond the era that it evokes, and does it bizarrely well. Each time I cleaned out spawning roomfuls of identikit enemies, and had marched down myriad boring corridors, I almost felt transported back in time, and it was oddly nostalgic of a very specific time for me. 

Of course, the question is - whether that feeling is worth £18 to you?

The controls feel like they could do with a slight tweaking in terms of sensitivity, but again – there’s no room for personalisation here, you get what you are given, and that adds to the ‘trapped in time’ sense that the game conjures up.

SUMMARY
I hope that this game finds its audience – perhaps not at the current full price, admittedly – but nonetheless, there’s a little bit of magic here that will be quite a trip down memory lane for a lot of folks. 

There’re no flourishes here, just a rock solid meat ‘n potatoes early PS2 duck ‘n cover shooter remastered for the PS Vita...except it’s a 2015 3DS game released in the Switch in 2024, natch.

6/10

💧MELTING💧

PURCHASE LINK:

IRONFALL Invasion | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo UK

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion XBOX Series X Review 6.5/10 "A voyage with a touch of seasickness" 🏴‍☠️🦜 @PlayFlintGame @_SavageLevel_ #IndieGame #GameDev

A game that presents itself fantastically in some ways, but fumbles the bottle of rum over the side of the vessel in too many others to make it completely smooth sailing.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion has an opening segment that certainly grabs your attention, as the game opens on a raft adrift in the ocean and we are introduced to Captain Flint and his hulking second in command, Billy Bones. They’ve clearly been at sea for a while with no food or water, and Flint finally loses his mind and decides he has no recourse other than to devour his best friend. 

It’s a fun and novel way to introduce the basic mechanics of the game as you chase your erstwhile companion all over the tiny raft. Luckily for all involved, in the midst of this debacle a ship sees the duo and takes them aboard…

Europa Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "Its visuals, charm and story do enough to lift it above average" 🌏 @EuropaGame #IndieGame #GameDev

Having seen the trailer and played the game, I can tell you right now that it's not possible to review Europa without mentioning Breath of the Wild, so I won't try. This game, like the aforementioned (Linked, you might say) Nintendo smash, is an open-worldy, puzzley platformer. 

The game has you play Zee, an android, as you explore the breath-taking views of the eponymous moon of Jupiter. You're guided through the journey by the voice of your deceased creator/father, who speaks to you through his journal, pages of which you gather as you progress.

The EPYX Games: Sports Collection Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "a pleasant (and challenging!) blast from the past." ⛷️🥇🏄‍♀️ @pixelgamesuk #RetroGaming

A collection of Epyx sports titles that I am very familiar with, having played them all in my childhood (to various degrees of success), and then re-buying them again in my thirties – they currently (sadly) reside in storage until we get a bigger place! -  this collection is a pretty meaty one, with over 50 sports events spread across 8 titles:

Monarchy Xbox Review 6.5/10 "Monarchy of the Glen" 👑🐎 @brainseal #IndieGame #GameDev

Brain Seal quickly became ones to watch for me ever since covering Dark Quest 3 last year, a game I really clicked with, and spent a lot of time diving in for ‘one more run’. And so, I was quick to check out Monarchy.

A 2D game that involves resource management, combat, and base-building – but all in a very brisk arcade style - the game tasks you with building up your little village until you gain enough gold in your coffers to finish the level (of which there are several available).

The game begins with a tutorial, which is somewhat abstract in how it’s entirely wordless – this is charming and fine…but this is game that could really have done with a little more depth here, and after showing your little horse-seated monarch how to complete the basic game mechanics, it ends with an emblem on the screen. I thought the game had crashed, as the tutorial had clearly finished, but none of the buttons on the controller did anything to move past this greyed-out screen. It turns out that I had to press ‘start’ then ‘new game’ and the main levels were now playable, it’s this slightly esoteric approach that makes the game seem a bit more involved and daunting than it actually is.

The visuals are bright and cartoony, the animation smooth, and the music lilting and gentle - before ramping up a touch in the night-time sections that is, where the combat happens in earnest. During the day, you move left or right, adding folks to your tiny army, searching for chests and coins to afford various builds and defences. Then, when the night comes, you have to fend off small waves of sword-wielding attackers. The game ends if your main tent is demolished, or you get struck by an enemy whilst not holding any coins (they act as a sort of health bar), as this causes you to fall of your horse, ending the game.

The premise and presentation is great, but I found the game limiting in a lot of aspects. You cannot directly control anyone aside from yourself – and you can only attack by turning away from the enemy and kicking them with your horse (an automatic action)– but they will pretty much always strike you at the same time, taking a coin away from your treasury.

This means that you have to rely on the archers that follow you around, and more often than not, they’ll get distracted by shooting at a passing rabbit or deer. The base building is also quite functional, and almost feels like a ‘lite’ version of itself, I found it hard to get engaged in the game, as I spent most of the evening standing still in my fort (the days / nights pass quickly, so it’s only a few minutes) then in the day, wandering around trying to find something to do, the lack of text in the game sort of hampers it, as sometimes the on-screen icons aren’t particularly clear.

Monarchy also has a two-player co-op screen where the other player can be another friendly monarch assisting you, and this adds some fun and extra tactics to the game, but even then it feels oddly slight, as if there’s something missing to really get me engaged. It almost feels like a mobile game in this aspect, as it’s such a breezy experience.

SUMMARY

Whilst I much preferred the depth in Dark Quest 3, I get the feeling that I didn’t quite ‘get’ Monarch, and I hope that other players will click with the game more.

As it stands, I’ll still play with my young son – as he quite liked the characters and simplicity – but Monarch does – to me- feel like a game that needs a little fleshing out in order to stand up above the crowd, and pull plyers in for the long haul.

6.5/10

💧MELTING💧

Predator: Hunting Grounds PC Review 5/10 "The devil is in the details" 💀 @IllFonic @PHGTheGame

You can see why they thought this would work. Asymmetric horror-themed multiplayer is IllFonic’s bread and butter and the much-missed Friday the 13th: The Game did an incredible job of putting you in the sneakers of hapless Camp Crystal Lake counsellors… or wielding the machete of Jason Voorhees.

If you were perusing other 1980s IPs looking for something to fit into the Friday the 13th mould, Predator makes a lot of sense. The all-timer 1987 Predator sees a group of macho characters who already feel like they’ve been lifted out of a video game battling against a single powerful adversary - the ideal recipe for asymmetric multiplayer.

And so Predator: Hunting Grounds was born.

Liberte Xbox Review 5/10 "A promising premise that has issues throughout" 🫡🗼 @LiberteGame #IndieGame #GameDev

A Lovecraftian action-adventure game with horror elements set in 17th century France, Liberte was subtly on my radar for a little while leading up to its release, and I was quite intrigued as it had been a while since I’d played a game in the action-adventure genre.

Unfortunately, Liberte has quite a few technical issues that bear down on a game that ends up feeling feels unrewarding and unfortunately – a missed opportunity.

Looney Tunes Wacky World of Sports Xbox Review 6.5/10 "Looney Tunes return (the serve)" 🏀🎾⚽️ @BamtangGames #IndieGame #GameDev

The premise of an anarchic Looney Tunes sports collection felt oddly nostalgic, and I was quite keen to dive into the game in multiplayer at home, as we are all familiar with the characters, and as the game supports up to four players locally,  numbers wouldn’t be an issue. Whilst the visuals, characters and functionality is there, the games all feel a little too flat to be a recommendation, unfortunately.

Purpose 1951 Xbox Review 5/10 "These boots are made for walkin’ (and simulatin’)" 🥾 @TongucBodur #IndieGame #GameDev

Purpose 1951 is a brief little game that blends walking simulation with extremely light puzzle elements. Clocking in at around an hour in length as the character muses about the situations that have arisen to bring him to his current predicament.

Presented in a 1st-person POV style, Purpose 1951 is a very slender game in a lot of ways, you follow a mostly linear path – with the only branches areas leading to what are effectively ‘trophy points’ - as the narrator monologues as you trek.

Camp Sunshine Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "If you go down to the woods today…" 🔪🩸 @Fossil_Games #GameDev #IndieGame #IndieGameDev

Originally released in 2016 on PC, Camp Sunshine if now available on consoles. Part of Fossil Games’ ‘Sunshine’ series, the game casts you in the role of a young boy arriving for his first night at camp, only to find that during the very first evening there, things have gone…awry.

A perfectly timed release for the spooky season, Camp Sunshine is a game made in RPG Maker that admirably captures the 16-bit era. Whilst however, it scores highly for mood, sound design and setting, issues with the core gameplay take the wind out of its sails a little.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "The Rugrats Ride Again" 👶 @WallrideGames

I must admit that I wasn’t expecting a Rugrats game in 2024. I remember the cartoon back in the early-mid ‘90s, but I was far more preoccupied with X-Men and Spider-Man at the time, a lot of the quirkier shows of that era kind of passed me by, although some of my peers remember them very fondly.

That said, the show must have been on a hell of a lot, as the moment I booted up the game and heard that theme, even I was surprised how much of the show I remembered, from the voices, character names and family members, it all came flooding back. Heck, maybe I did watch it more than I can recall! Or perhaps it was such a cornerstone of culture at the time that it just permeated my very being.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered | Xbox Series X Review 6/10 “A blaster from the past” 🌠 @transvaalgf @AspyrMedia

Recently I reviewed Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, a remaster of two beloved games from the past, games I spent hours and hours playing and share a whole lot of love for. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter on the other hand, I have heard about but never played.

Going in without any nostalgia was going to be interesting as I felt the Battlefront remasters were held up entirely by nostalgia, and so having had no previous experience with it, would Bounty Hunter hold up in 2024 or should it have been left in 2002?

Shadows of Doubt XBOX Review 5.5/10 "A Fantastic Premise Sandbagged By Technical Issues" 🕵️ @colejefferies #IndieGame #GameDev #IndieGameDev

Much like my review for Cloudpunk and more recently, Wartales, Shadows of Doubt is a game that is packed with great ideas, a cracking premise, eyecatching visuals and intriguing gameplay, but is hamstrung by technical issues that will hopefully be a distant memory after several months’ worth of updates and patches – but sadly can’t be ignored at the time of launch.

Shadows of Doubt is game that I’ve been following for a while, the premise of being a private detective in a dystopian future comprised of glorious voxels, spending your days solving cases and scouting for clues very much appealed to me. When it was announced for consoles, my trousers were neatly folded in a drawer, hopefully to never be needed again. 

Deathchron Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "A great premise hindered by design" 🤖 @CM_Games @RatalaikaGames #IndieGame #GameDev #IndieGameDev

The actual premise of Deathchron – in that you are a child in a mech that needs to occasionally leave the safety of the suit in order to get into small spaces or activate certain switches etc. leaving you vulnerable as you do so – very much appealed to me when I watched the trailer for Deathchron.

The vibrant music, tasty pixel art visuals, and platform-based side-scrolling action presented in super-smooth 8-bit fashion all had me twirling my moustache in anticipation, but upon actually playing the game – it became clear that there were too many factors working against my enjoyment to really make this a keeper.