The Top 100 Indie Games According to Caltrops
Content of this nature isn't traditionally posted in the news section, or at least hasn't been over the last few years, but I'm going to (eventually) try to maintain a diversity of news articles as opposed to posting only file updates and the occasional DN-related article.
Mischief Maker of caltrops.com recently published a list of what he(?) considers the 100 best indie games available. Dink Smallwood comes in at 91, with the author admitting to not having played the game in quite some time. Other inclusions I find notable are Progress Quest, One Must Fall: 2097, Zombie Smashers X2, and the new classic Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.
How do you feel about Dink's placement in the list? What other games mentioned are you a fan of? What would you include?
Mischief Maker of caltrops.com recently published a list of what he(?) considers the 100 best indie games available. Dink Smallwood comes in at 91, with the author admitting to not having played the game in quite some time. Other inclusions I find notable are Progress Quest, One Must Fall: 2097, Zombie Smashers X2, and the new classic Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.
How do you feel about Dink's placement in the list? What other games mentioned are you a fan of? What would you include?
Wings and Triplane Turmoil should be somewhere pretty high on that list, he's propably never heard of them though. Sadly, I've never heard of the majority of the games on this list either.
As for Dink Smallwood, well obviously lt should be higher. =) I've never really figured out where people are coming from calling Dink like Zelda or in this case a Zelda-clone either.
As for Dink Smallwood, well obviously lt should be higher. =) I've never really figured out where people are coming from calling Dink like Zelda or in this case a Zelda-clone either.
K, games that I've actually played on here and haven't been mentioned are: Weird Worlds, Cave Story, and Ur-Quan Masters. Zombie Smashers 3 was quite good, too. Actually, pretty much anything by James Silva deserves to be on this list.
Weird Worlds is pretty awesome and reminds me a lot of Ur-Quan Masters, but with combat that's more like Baldur's Gate than UQM's gravity based arcade-style combat. I've gotten hours of enjoyment out of the demo, but, like most Indie games, they're asking about $10-15 more than I'd actually pay for this.
Interesting that they included Freespace 2 on this. I have the original game (which is in storage at my parent's) and if I still had a joystick, I would so be all over that. If he mentioned that, I'm surprised he didn't mention Allegiance. This list and its order has a lot of flaws.
dang... I miss good space sims... Freespace 2 may have been the last good one. I guess Freelancer was... okay.
Weird Worlds is pretty awesome and reminds me a lot of Ur-Quan Masters, but with combat that's more like Baldur's Gate than UQM's gravity based arcade-style combat. I've gotten hours of enjoyment out of the demo, but, like most Indie games, they're asking about $10-15 more than I'd actually pay for this.
Interesting that they included Freespace 2 on this. I have the original game (which is in storage at my parent's) and if I still had a joystick, I would so be all over that. If he mentioned that, I'm surprised he didn't mention Allegiance. This list and its order has a lot of flaws.
dang... I miss good space sims... Freespace 2 may have been the last good one. I guess Freelancer was... okay.
It's good to see ADOM and plasma pong on that list as well. Starships Unlimited and Stun are okay, but those aren't freeware.
Gotta say, I truly enjoy Dwarf Fortress. Sure, it's only an alpha, and the learning curve is more of a wall with a cliff over your head, but it's awesome. I'm happy they are in the Honorable Mentions.
Gotta say, I truly enjoy Dwarf Fortress. Sure, it's only an alpha, and the learning curve is more of a wall with a cliff over your head, but it's awesome. I'm happy they are in the Honorable Mentions.
This is so great.
Just the fact that these are all great games that I haven't played is very helpful, but the fact that most are free is beyond my thanks. That's not even mentioning that alot are side-scroll shoot-em-ups of which I hardly have played any since the days of arcades. I suck at them do to bad twitch skills, but still I have too many fond memories to not enjoy them.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
Just the fact that these are all great games that I haven't played is very helpful, but the fact that most are free is beyond my thanks. That's not even mentioning that alot are side-scroll shoot-em-ups of which I hardly have played any since the days of arcades. I suck at them do to bad twitch skills, but still I have too many fond memories to not enjoy them.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
Gunroar is probably my favourite of the Kenta Cho shooters, if only because I kind of tired of rRootage after playing too much Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Fun Fact - at least one element of I, Kara Gu's final boss was inspired by this game's extra stage boss). I think it's pretty much brilliant that Harpooned exists. The Chzo mythos is pretty well written but the interface is pretty irritating, so it's probably just worth it if you can put up with the bad parts of adventure games (it's also more interesting than the Art of Theft game that the guy made later, for the most part). I thought Noitu Love was a bit boring and repetitive, but the sequel looks a bit more interesting. Cho Ren Sha's little more than basic shooting on repeat, but the basic shooting is really good. Knytt Stories is really well put together but I don't think it's as interesting as either Knytt or Within a Deep Forest, which seem to have been maliciously excluded from the list. Warning Forever is cool, but I'm surprised it's so high up the list. If you haven't played Cave Story yet, DO IT NOW. The Sam & Max games... well, they're ok. But the original one was never as good as Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle, and the humour isn't given enough time to grow on you because of their episodic nature.
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Why Dwarf Fortress and La Mulana aren't on the list proper I'm not sure. Possibly because they're both cripplingly difficult. They're also kind of dumb considering how smart they are (contradtiction in terms, but hey, you all know someone who's kind of dumb for how smart they are, right?) La Mulana is well worth persevering with for at least the first four bosses, although once you reach the confusion gate you should definitely either reach for a walkthrough or delete it from your hard drive and never think of it again. Dwarf Fortress is basically incredible and constantly changes, but it's also buggy and incredibly time consuming and impossible to get into, so i dunno. The white chamber, yeah, is sci-fi silent hill except not as interesting (although interesting this criticism isn't made of any part of the chzo mythos). The writer also seems to have the typical indie loser's hatred of introversion, which is kind of a shame as Defcon is at least as cool as 90% of that list. It's tense and devious, although you wouldn't necessarily play it with random bozos and the singleplayer is worthless, so it's overrated in the sense that you'll never ever get to play it properly.
I'll shut up now.
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Why Dwarf Fortress and La Mulana aren't on the list proper I'm not sure. Possibly because they're both cripplingly difficult. They're also kind of dumb considering how smart they are (contradtiction in terms, but hey, you all know someone who's kind of dumb for how smart they are, right?) La Mulana is well worth persevering with for at least the first four bosses, although once you reach the confusion gate you should definitely either reach for a walkthrough or delete it from your hard drive and never think of it again. Dwarf Fortress is basically incredible and constantly changes, but it's also buggy and incredibly time consuming and impossible to get into, so i dunno. The white chamber, yeah, is sci-fi silent hill except not as interesting (although interesting this criticism isn't made of any part of the chzo mythos). The writer also seems to have the typical indie loser's hatred of introversion, which is kind of a shame as Defcon is at least as cool as 90% of that list. It's tense and devious, although you wouldn't necessarily play it with random bozos and the singleplayer is worthless, so it's overrated in the sense that you'll never ever get to play it properly.
I'll shut up now.
Never heard of most of them 
But Dink should come higher because it's so moddable if nothing else.
...
What's a schmup?
But Dink should come higher because it's so moddable if nothing else.
...
What's a schmup?
One reason why the current version of Dwarf Fortress (btw, it's 3d now), isn't on the list, is because it's a bit of a CPU killer.
Schmup = Shoot-em-up (no, I don't know where the H comes from either). Basically refers to 2d scrolling shooters.
To add something slightly more dink related, it could well be that it's the game's moddability (is that a word? oh well, is now) that justifies the place on the list of both it and Knytt Stories.
To add something slightly more dink related, it could well be that it's the game's moddability (is that a word? oh well, is now) that justifies the place on the list of both it and Knytt Stories.
The term is more commonly spelled shmup.
"no, I don't know where the H comes from either"
Have you been drinking?
"no, I don't know where the H comes from either"
Have you been drinking?
Perhaps he's using one of those British spellings that include unnecessary letters?
No, we don't include unnecessary letters, you guys just leave the necessary ones out. 
These are all new to me. I'll check out thev site when I get time; but "DINK" COMMING IN AT "91"? That insults my meager intellegence!
I always pictured "Dink" as kinda standing alone?! I've never run across anything just like it!
If it was up to me: I'd put it at between 10, and 20 (conservitavely).
I always pictured "Dink" as kinda standing alone?! I've never run across anything just like it!
If it was up to me: I'd put it at between 10, and 20 (conservitavely).
