Danielle Dabrio-Carroll

I like free stuff, but who doesn’t? So, since we all like free things, I thought this was worth a quick share (really quick). Free Key Fridays is a Twitter raffle online that takes place every Friday (duh) opening at midnight. This started as a way to spread knowledge of great indie games by letting gamers compete for free keys from some of the best developers and games. In order to participate you must follow the group on Twitter and answer the weekly Twitter question that is posted every Friday. From there they select the winners.

With almost a thousand followers on Twitter, it looks like feedback has been very positive. Who doesn’t like winning free stuff? Example questions: “What item would you use from the game of your choice to skip shopping lines this holiday season?” and “Name the profession of your favorite video game character before they began their adventure.” The questions are fun and can play on your creativity and imagination. The winners are announced the next day, and don’t worry, the usernames are always different.

Every action has a reaction and consequence. The latest game from Owlchemy (clever) Labs seems to have taken this saying literally when they developed Dyscourse, and I am excited! Most games are like mathematical equations; they may have a few ways of completing the problem, but ultimately there is only one conclusion. Dycourse, on the other hand, is different. While one player could be the reason for why he and the other survivors have all died, another player could end up surviving long enough to be rescued. Everything depends on you, your memory, your survival skills, your choices, and more. If ten different people play this game, there’s a good chance they won’t all get the same ending. That is the beauty of this idea, and it’s not just your ordinary choice game either, it goes much further than that.

Upon landing—well, crashing—in your plane with the other passengers, you are on a large island with no map and surrounded by many dangers! Just like in real life, your only map is your memory. You can leave “memory markers” that make it possible for you to retrace your footsteps back to a particular place. You also have to be able to recall past events, form relationships with the other survivors, hunt for food (fight or flight has been built in, too)—just so many goodies to name! You are going to need to take advantage of all of these and more if you’re going to make it off the island alive.

However, Owlchemy Labs needs help with the finishing touches and they have turned to Kickstarter to do it. They are half-way to their goal amount, and as of today, there are 11 days left to donate. The first gameplay video has been released and it has already gotten the OK to be released on Steam with every donator getting a Steam key once its live. The beta is expected to come out in May 2014. If you want to get the full details on this new kind of virtual survival game, then check it out here because I am pretty much sold.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…not really, it’s a seal. A Huge Seal, to be exact. Conceptualized from the wonderful people at Frozenbyte, Huge Seal is basically a “build your own” indie game sale bundle (I love bundles). It features more than 30 indie games from various genres including but not limited to Antichamber, Monaco, FTL, Terraria, and more! This is a Steam Coupon Giveaway, so here’s how it works: you pick five Steam Discount Coupons out of the 30 indie games listed. For every purchase you make you can pick one new coupon. Then for every three games purchased with the coupons, you will receive one free random Steam key for one of the games from the list.

The sale ends on November 24, and there’s a countdown clock at the bottom of the site. In order to take part in this limited time sale, you must meet the following requirements and rules. You have to sign in with your Steam account, and that Steam account must be public. You must set your profile to public and it must be recognized by the system as public before using any of the coupons. I don’t know what will happen if you don’t log in with a public account, but it was stressed on both sites holding the sale. Also, these coupons can obviously only be used through Steam and will not work anywhere else (sorry). The games themselves are playable on PC, Mac, Linux, and comes with this nifty video to watch, explaining details and giving more info.

More awesome games using Kickstarter! Lords of Xulima is a game being developed by Numantian Games, and they have so far raised double their asking amount. Lords of Xulima looks to be a 2D single-player, turn-based RPG with a classic look to it. Going old school is turning out to be the new theme these days, and it seems like a lot of developers want to go back to what got them into gaming in the first place. Lords of Xulima has everything that I remember loving as a young gamer (even though I’m not that old) when playing my old RPGs. It has a detailed and thought out back story, and I also like the fact that it requires a form of actual strategy and intelligence instead of testing how well you can follow a pre-determined set of events after barely completing a mission where you are given step-by-step directions. Finally, it also claims to have a challenging environment. All of your actions have consequences, whether they are positive or negative ones are completely up to you and what decisions you make.

The official trailer was released back in March on YouTube but recently they also released the first gameplay video as well. This video shows the beginning of the game in tutorial mode. It also shows you how to navigate through the game and how the turn-based battles look as you go through the first village on Xulima. It all looks very promising, and the finished project is expected to be released early 2014. The game has already gotten the Steam Greenlight and will be released on Steam as well. So if you want to help fund this game or just find out more about it, their Kickstarter page can be found here. As of today, there are only nine days left to donate.

I find the fact that someone decided to do this and complete it to be just as worthwhile and amazing as Campbell Whyte’s NES illustrations. Completing one game is an accomplishment to me, but to think up and create 31 is a show of creativity that I can appreciate.

The praise I am gushing about right now goes to Victor Breum who recently posted about his project on Indiegames.com and Gamasutra. Now, why did he take on a task that others would find daunting, you ask? What an excellent question—to improve! In his blog post, Breum gave a list of reasons for why he started the experiment, but the biggest reason he gave was that he wanted to practice. He explained in his blog post that when he looked up how to become a better game developer, all the experienced developers said the same thing—make lots of games! He might have taken the advice a bit further than most, but I think he got something beneficial from it.

Breum’s games are simple and can be played in your browser (except a few of them don’t run in Firefox). But even though Breum’s games aren’t money-making, viral sensations, in the end he got something much more important: experience. I hope in the future he will put himself out there a little more and create games that can challenge his type of drive and motivation. If you want to actually play all 31 games (#31 so far is my favorite) you can just go here, scroll to the bottom of the page and play to your heart’s content. There is also a poll asking which game you enjoyed playing most.

Contrast’s launch trailer rocks my world! The latest game developed by Compulsion Games was released on Steam yesterday under their Indie games section, and it’s a whirlwind mess of oh-my-goodness! With a very appropriate name, Contrast is filled with just that—contrasts. You play as Dawn, the imaginary friend of a little girl name Didi who has a less than ideal home life. With an absentee father and a mother who spends her nights performing at the local night club to make money, Contrast has the kind of plot one typically expects from a page-turning novel. Add to the fact that daddy’s back in town and trying to do right by the family he abandoned adds even more complexity to the story.

With a 1920s film noir setting, you (Dawn) go through the game with the power to shift between both 2D and 3D worlds. Get it? Contrasts! The gameplay consists of you using the different sources of light in the 3D world to cast shadows in the 2D world to solve puzzles (Editor’s Note: Sounds similar to Ghost Trick). You basically become your shadow and race through the game while jumping in and out of worlds. More contrasts! That’s all I have for now folks; everything else about this game is a bit of a mystery since I haven’t played it yet. But I’m excited to solve the many puzzles that fill this amazing world. Look out for a review in the near future since I will be downloading this game within moments.