My Top 20 from the Independent Games Festival 2013 (Part 3)
I’m running behind schedule from last year’s IGF recap so I’ve narrowed it down to just two posts for 2013. Here’s the final seven games I really, really liked from the 15th Annual Independent Games Festival. Let’s go!
Farm for your Life by Anneke and Oliver Eberlei
Astute fans of the site won’t be surprised to see this one. I posted about the “zombie farming time management tower defense“ game back in December and it proved itself as one of the most interesting and adorable games from the entrants.
Icebreaker – A Viking Voyage by Nitrome
I used to love 2D physics simulation and something about Icebreaker has really rekindled that love. It’s part Cut the Rope and part Angry Birds but with much more complicated and platformer-like levels to indirectly navigate. The pixelart Viking style doesn’t hurt either!
Leaper? by Sophie Houlden
I still get a kick out of good use of a gyroscope and Leaper? looks to use it very well. It also mitigates the hassle of first-person platforming by making jumping (err, leaping) a process that lets you stop and line up exactly where you’ll land. It looks like a nice little adventure.
Mushroom 11 by Itay Keren
Sort of like a water physics game only the water you’re moving around is mostly solid. Destroying or shaving off parts of the mass change its size and momentum but the mass grows back quickly so timing and fine tuning seem important.
NEO Scavenger by Blue Bottle Games
Taking the things I like about Don’t Starve, Minecraft and Make No Wonder to their ultimate, hard science extremes, NEO Scavenger is a brutal survival game. I’ve put hours into the demo alone and — if nothing else — always manage to die in a new and terrifying way. It’s a new kind of brutal, unforgiving and punishing rogue-ish survival game that I can’t seem to get enough of.
Sang-Froid – Tales of Werewolves by Artifice Studio
The biggest surprise from the IGF this year! Take Orcs Must Die’s action tower defense to an even bigger and more strategic scale. It’s got a wonderful lumberjack-vs-the-undead setting and looks maddeningly frantic. I cannot wait to play it!
StarForge by CodeHatch Corp.
What is this madness!?! A realistic looking Minecraft with wave-based fort building and defense, the ability to build straight into space, hilarious movement physics, a Borderlands style gun system and vehicles. The only thing it’s missing is Match-3 and zombies.
And there you have it; my Top Twenty from the IGF 2013 is officially complete! In case you missed anything here’s my first post featuring the biggest names of the show and my second post detailing my next top seven. And in case you’re also a crazy person here’s a direct link to all 586 entries for you to start going over yourself. Have fun!
