It seems to be a recurring issue of late — Xbox Live Indie Games developers worried about poor sales. Who can blame them when the marketplace is crowded with fart machines, controller vibrators, and cheesy games about picking up women? Even if a game is good, it often gets flushed off the list of new releases too quickly to get noticed. There’s also the glaring issue of very little front page advertising for these games. The Indie Games channel is much more accessible than it initially was in the most recent system update, but even then some developers feel that’s not enough.
What you’ll find after the jump is my opinion, and mine only. It doesn’t represent our staff as a whole, and it’s certainly not meant to offend. Please stay objective as you read, and if you need to vent please take it out directly on me in the comments below. Again, I try to stay objective and neutral, so any stings are unintentional.
We at XBLAFans were very excited when the Xbox Live Indie Games section got a bit of extra promotion with the Indie Games Winter Uprising late last …
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iCandy is developed and published by Dandysoft. It was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace May 3, 2011 and cost 80MSP. A copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.
iCandy is a board based, puzzle style game. This concept is a little different and makes for quit a challenge, you must place a candy square on every block of the board. This sounds simple enough, but the challenge comes in when you have to start matching the color and candy style of all blocks. You can complete a straight line, which makes the whole row disappear, but you have to keep in mind to keep all colors on the board and playable. 25 levels, 9 pretty girls, and trophies await you in this candy packed puzzler.
Gerbil Physics was developed by Beringela, now known as Pencel games. It was released on Xbox Live Marketplace December 7, 2009 and cost 80MSP.
Gerbil Physics is a simple block and physics puzzle game. The premise is simple: use a set amount of tools per level to get all blocks below the red line. With bombs, ropes and a disintegrators at your disposal, it’s your job to beat all 24 levels of gerbil mayhem.
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The Last Pod Fighter was developed and published by Fighter9 and was released for Xbox Live Indie Games on May 9th, 2011 for 80MSP. A copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.
The Last Pod Fighter is an arcade style 3D space shooter that throws players into battle against several other space ships. It features four different pods (the game’s powerups) at your disposal to help you defeat the waves of enemies. There are two styles of game play at your disposal: arcade, in which you fight enemies round by round trying to get to the capital ships (bosses), and survival mode, which is self-explanatory.
Another late episode, we promise we aren’t planning on making a habit of this. We’ve got a pretty special episode to make up for it though! John, Andrew and Tyler are joined by very special guest Matt Davis of Barkers Crest Studio. Matt is responsible for one of the most popular games on the Xbox Live Indie games marketplace, Avatar Golf.
The guys don’t waste the opportunity to pick the brains of an Indie Game developer so we’ve got a whole hour of in depth discussion of just what it’s like to develop an Indie Game. A ton of stuff is discussed, from what Microsoft can do to help elevate the games to Matt’s upcoming game Avatar Legends.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/XBLAFancastEp11.mp3[/podcast]
Are You Smart Enough? was developed by Latino Soul Studio and was released on Xbox Live March 4th, 2011 for 80MSP. A copy of this game was provided by the developer for reviewing purposes.
Are You Smart Enough is a puzzle game that makes you use your brain on multiple levels. The object is to move the boxes around by pushing them to the predesignated spots on the board. What makes this challenging is that you can only push the boxes to the destinations, there is no pulling and each stage has a different set of walls that you must maneuver around.
Last month some indie developers suspected foul play in the XBLIG rating system when the developers of College Lacrosse 2011 urged fans to rate the game highly in an …
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The Wizards Who Fell In A Hole was developed and published by Battenberg Software. It was released on XBLIG on November 4, 2010 for 80MSP.
The Wizards Who Fell in a Hole is a simple story about two moronic wizards who while on a journey happen to fall into a hole. Once in the hole they discover a world of monsters trying to keep them from getting out. Just like games of the past such as Bubble Bobble for the NES this classic style platformer has a simple concept, kill all the enemies on each of a 100 levels and get the wizards back home.
Warbirds at Work was developed and published by Kaape. It was released on Xbox Live December 23, 2010 for 80 MSP.
Warbirds at work is a classic style overhead arcade shooter. Trying to follow in the footsteps of it’s predecessors like Raiden or 1942, you are a small ship trying to protect the earth from invaders. In this case you happen to be the last line of defense against a group of aliens. Equipped with a temporary shield, upgradeable gun, rockets, impulse gun, and bombs it is your job to blast everything back to outer space.