Screenshot Saturday #3: Pretty Indie Games to Covet
We've got a round-up of some of the coolest stuff you can find on Screenshot Saturday this week.
This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.
Nobody has time for anything these days. Even on weekends, there is often a stampede of chores to perform, things to watch, games to play and hours of sleep to make up for. You know the drill. With so many responsibilities clamoring for attention, how do you catch up on what's good at #ScreenshotSaturday? You check out our round-up, of course! This week's selection is of rather esoteric breeding. Tentacles abound as do young heroes, restless spirits, cavemen and bizarre landscapes.
Octopus City Blues holds the distinction of quite possibly being the most peculiar thing I've seen this week. With sinuous pink appendages punctuating almost every corner of its in-game architecture, Octopus City Blues certainly lives up to its description: 'an interactive experience in which you get to visit the titular Octopus City, a towering metropolis built around a giant octopus.' It gets more surreal yet. There's a plot cradled in all this strange design. Here, you play as Kaf Kafkaryan, a middle-aged Octopus Blood (the vital fluids of the city are apparently a drug) junkie and tentacle cutter who finds himself exploring a twisted dream world, embroiled in a conspiracy and doing dreadfully illegal things. Mysterious!
Official Octopus City Blues website
Hat tip to @pohungchen for this one. White Space appears to be Curve Studio's Jonathan Biddle's newest thing. Sort of. At the very least, White Space looks to be an experimental prototype of some variety. According to Biddle's Twitter, he has only been working on this project for a few weeks so, regardless of the potency of your Google-Fu, you're likely to be disappointed if you go out looking for data on this procedurally generated arctic landscape. (We'll keep you posted. Promise.)
No official website for White Space exists just yet but you can always stalk Biddle's Twitter instead.
Making references to Futurama is never a bad idea when you're attempting to garner attention with a screenshot. Of course, it helps if your game comes with an armament of pretty pixels and a spiffy idea. According to Whalenought Studios' website, the Isle of Bxnes is a 'bloody stone age adventure RPG' for mobile devices. As our loin-clothed protagonist, you're going to have to contend with 'feral beasts, hungry cannibals and warring tribesman' along with more fearsome labours such as raising strong, healthy offspring.
There is probably no better way to insinuate yourself into my heart than to present me with an adorable spider. I love arachnids and Midora just so happens to have a particularly endearing-looking one. Squee. Once again, precious little information is available currently. So far, only this much has been revealed: Midora is supposed to be a 2D RPG that draws heavy inspiration from the Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, a part of an upcoming trilogy, and the residence of a spider named Fred. Unless things go drastically wrong, Midora will have a public demo floating around the Internet sometime next week.
As a kid, I used to be obsessed with a game called Ghost Master. Instead of having you furtively explore a spooky domicile, Ghost Master asked you to take on the role of, well, the Ghost Master and instigate unparalleled horrors. Watching terrified human beings barrel out of their homes, the victims of a multi-tiered scare, was one of the best parts of my early gaming experience. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about Poltergeist. It follows a very similar formula: you're the ghost of one Mr. Henry B. Knight and you want nothing more than to drive the living from your precious abode. If that didn't sound promising enough, Poltergeist actually placed first in the Square Enix Latin American Game Creation Contest 2012 so you know they were onto something cool.
Made by the dude who produced Demon Chic, a dizzying action-RPG that has been compared to the Rocky Horror Show, One Way Trip is an intriguing-looking cypher. Though little has been divulged about the nature of One Way Trip outside of the fact it may take the shape of a visual novel, the quirky, fashion-forward(?) characters make it something to keep an eye on. Gameplay photos are due to be released sometime soon so it won't be too long before we can figure out exactly what's going on here.
Go stalk Michael Frauenhofer Twitter while you wait.
Lantana Games' Children of Liberty has been in production for almost as long as I've been working in this industry. This stealth-based historical platformer follows the tale of four children as they work to free their families from an oppressive regiment. An attempt at, among other things, portraying the kind of life kids from that era faced, Children of Liberty looks like it might be rather entertaining - if the game ever gets finished, that is. Still, better late than sloppy, right?
Kyttaro Games' Droidscape: Basilica is set in 4057. As is often the case with games that take place in the distant future, the world in Droidscape: Basilica is a bleak, dystopian place. There is a Chronomancer here who serves as one of the last bastions of hope. Unfortunately, as is traditional, he is currently incarcerated and it is up to you, a little automaton named Bishop 7, to save the day. Everything you see in the game is the result of hand-modeled clay and stop-motion animation, a choice of aesthetics I am perfectly okay with.