This week saw the return of *spit* Bubsy the Bubcat, but not quite in the way you may have been expecting. He's not the star of a misguided Kickstarter project - we've so far managed to avoid the likes of Zool and Cool Spot and Boogerman - but rather the hero of a fantastic indie platformy thing from the equally fantastic Arcane Kids. This week also features a lot of clicking, a lot of reading, a lot of dying repeatedly, and a lot of fun, free rogueliking - enjoy!
Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective by Arcane Kids
Bubsy the Bobcat's back! No, Kickstarter hasn't hit its nadir just yet – he's starring in a short, brilliant art game from Zineth developers Arcane Kids. In it, Bubsy takes a trip to the James Turrell retrospective, which is a real thing – albeit slightly more of a real thing than the frog-filled madness shown here. Who knew that the furry 16-bit mascot had such an appreciation for the finer things? Bubsy's latest – and let's be honest, best episode – gets even stranger once you leave the exhibit, and it's taking every ounce of my self-restraint not to spoil those incredible scenes for you.
Megami Quest by shimage
A new entry in the – as IndieGames are rather wonderfully calling it – “self-incremental idle game” genre. Megami Quest isn't anywhere near as well-executed as Cookie Clicker, A Dark Room, Clicking Bad or Speed Warp, but it does have a J-RPG flavour that speaks to the latent Final Fantasy fan beneath my jaded, world-weary exterior. It's mostly saying “Look, this game lets you recruit characters, go on quests and level up without the tedium of hearing an irritating cast chirp and squeak their way through an excruciatingly bad story.” Which is awfully eloquent for a browser game.
Clone by Zoe Quinn
A few weeks ago, Zoe Quinn (of Depression Quest fame) lanched Tidbytes, a webcomic-style site where she aims to release a new short game every couple of weeks. The first was Win RL Stine's Money, a timed quiz themed around the author of the Goosebumps series, while the latest is Clone, a short piece of interactive fiction that made me quite hungry. True to the name, Clone is apparently copycatting a pre-existing game, though I'm too full of orbs to realise what it's ripping off.
Famaze by Christopher Barrett, Loren Schmidt, Rich Vreeland, Roger Hicks
Oryx – creator of an ace series of sprite packs – puts his art and design skills and 16-Bit Fantasy Tile Set to good use in Famaze, a puzzley roguelike which also features music from Fez chiptune maestro Disasterpeace. It's a little like Desktop Dungeons, in that you're better off growing stronger off weaker enemies before returning to mop up the bigger baddies later. The dual-screen/sidescrolling layout might confuse initially; as you navigate using the map, your avatar hops left and right on a 2D plane, battling monsters and activating traps and doing all the other things adventurers can't get enough of. Roguelikes, like 'self-incremental idle games', are ten-a-penny at the moment, but Famaze stands out through its unique presentation, lovely pixel art and soundtrack, not to mention the deep, addictive game lurking underneath.
Zero-G Boy by Ryleigh Kostash
And now for something insanely hard. Zero-G Boy is a platformer that only lets you jump from one surface to another – but you're not totally at the whim of gravity. To help you evade this GameBoy-style arcade game's many one-hit-kill enemies (but not by much), you have a gun that can both create and destroy blocks, in addition to oblitering any enemies that fly in your way. I can't survive long enough to trouble the leaderboards, but you might fare better. In fact, you almost certainly will. (Via IndieGames )
