In this week’s Indie Flash: Fez comes to PlayStation, The Procedural Death Jam kicks off, and Crawl gets on Steam Greenlight. Indie Flash is a small look into this week in indie games.
Fez On PlayStation
Everyone’s favorite fez-wearing cubic hero, Gomez, will be coming to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita on March 25th (March 26th for EU). Fez is well known for it’s charming story, interesting gameplay, and controversial developer.
Developer Phil Fish has held and internet silence since his massive Twitter blow up in July of last year. During which, Fish announced in a fit of rage that Fez 2 was cancelled and that he decided to leave the games industry. Will the PlayStation release of Fez bring him back to the popular spotlight? Or will Fish remain underground (underwater)?
im done. FEZ II is canceled. goodbye.
— PHIL FISH (@PHIL_FISH) July 27, 2013
Procedural Death Jam
Procedural Death Jam is a 7-day game jam benefitting OpenGameArt’s recent Patreon campaign. The theme is “Procedural Death Labyrinth,” a new way of describing games like FTL, Spelunky, Coin Crypt, The Binding of Isaac, etc, that’s less awkward than “Rogue-Like-LIKE” or “Rogue-LITE.”
Procedural Death Jam’s official website
The Procedural Death Jam has launched! The Jam is running from March 8th – March 15th and invites developers to create their very own Procedural Death games. Follow progress on Twitter by following @ProceduralDeath or by checking out #ProceduralDeathJam
ROIGHT. Back home, had some tea, watched an episode of Breaking Bad, chill on the sofa. Time to get back to Jammin’. #proceduraldeathjam
— Alex Kelly (@GameDevAlex) March 10, 2014
Crawl is On Steam Greenlight
Crawl is one neat looking game. This 1v3 couch co-op dungeon crawler pits an unfortunate hero against 1-3 vengeful spirits. As a spirit, you can control traps, monsters, and hazards all in an effort to kill the hero and possess his body. As the hero, your goal is to survive as long as possible before you are killed and become a spirit.
The game goes on and on, a sort of cycle, as the body is traded between spirits; even if you die, the game isn’t over until it’s over. At the end of the game, each player will be ranked based on how well they did as both the spirits and as the hero.
Go vote for the game on Greenlight (UPDATE: Greenlight Approved!) here and follow the developers, PowerHoof, on Twitter @PowerHoof.
Just played my first round of @Powerhoof’s Crawl and BY GOD IT IS AMAZING
— Rami Ismail (@tha_rami) March 8, 2014
This leads me to my question of the week:
Steam Greenlight has gotten a lot of flack lately and even Gabe Newell has voiced that he doesn’t really like the system. That said, Greenlight is still an incredibly important platform for indie developers.
What are your thoughts on the current state of Steam Greenlight? What would you want to change about it? Let me know in the comments below.
