Indied, Games that you will surely love!

Recently I have picked up a few games through steam sales which I have loved for their originality. These were cheap games in which I have already racked up an impressive (or unimpressive depending on your viewpoint) number of hours in. So if you’re looking for a great game to add to your steam libraries read on.

Escape Goat is a puzzle platformer in which you play as a goat accused of witchcraft and thrown in prison. You must escape by awakening several sheep which you find at the end of 6 levels. This game has classic puzzle elements such as pushing switches in the right order, not getting trapped etc and platformer elements like jumping and jumping higher. However where Escape Goat differs is in the new mechanics it adds. How will you solve puzzles while being blasted by invincible fire ball throwing wizards? By using the new tools the game gives you, such as your mouse friend who can travel in small cracks and climb walls and the magic hat which, in select puzzles, lets you teleport to your mouse friend. Ok I can see that this game sounds ridiculous, but it really works. The puzzles are inventive and fun to solve, and the platform elements add to make this an engaging game. Visually I think the game looks awesome, and it reminds me of games such as Doom and Hexen. Strangely where this game really stands out for me is the soundtrack. Escape Goat has a beautiful 8-bit Beverly Hills cop themed soundtrack which I loved so much that I downloaded it and put it on my IPod (which you can do for free). For the price this game is great and you will get your money’s worth.

I had heard about Hotline Miami from a friend and instantly wanted to buy it but held off until it appeared in a sale. This top down view game has you carrying out hit jobs normally in people’s flats. You start off with just your fists but as you take down people you can pick up their weapons and the more you play the more weapons there are. Each mission you get to choose a mask that gives you special abilities. You start with a mask that doesn’t do anything but over time you start to build a collection of some pretty useful abilities. My favourite was a mask that enabled you to kill your enemies by slamming a door into them (which normally just knocks them out). This led to a time where feeling trapped I fired off the last of my gun. When I looked back at the screen everyone was dead because they had been killed by the door I was standing behind. This however was extremely lucky as in general this game is hard! Each floor of a building will need to be completed in one go and this leads to frustration but a massive feeling of success when you finally manage to kill everyone. The levels remain fresh by adding interactive elements (picking up a pan of boiling water from a kitchen), and different enemy configurations. Sometimes you are forced to be stealthy or just run in and be quick, but on the most part each level can be completed in many different ways and it’s this creativity that makes the game so much fun. Not visually demanding this game can be run on most machines and will add a fun game to anyone steams library if you can handle the violence.