Demo-Gogues: Why Indie Games, Anyway?

A recurring trend one may have noticed over the course of the last three or so months (has it really been that long since we started this blog?), since my first review of Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, is that when I featured a demo, it would always be for an indie title. Maybe a title that wasn’t indie snuck in at some point, but for all intents and purpose, indie games were on the menu. Why is that?

Demo-Gogues: EDGE Demo

There are many aspects of mathematics. The core principles of addition, subtraction, Multiplication, and division. Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry, etc. Many increasingly convoluted strata of theory involving numbers. And there’s Geometry, the study of shapes, both two dimensional and three dimensional. And what is every fundamental shape made of? Corners…and edges.

That’s where EDGE comes in. And boy was this a stretch to justify a game about moving a cube around geometric levels suspended over oblivion.

Demo-Gogues: Sideway Demo

Guess what? I got the Sideway Demo to work!

Demo-Gogues: Good Old Games Dot Com

Well, I’d meant to review the Sideway Demo this week. And it looked so cool too. A platformer where one runs, jumps, and fights one’s way through hoards of grafitti monsters on the walls and roofs of urban buildings. As in, a game where one plays across every surface of a city and fighting the collective works of spray-painters everywhere. I knew from the moment I found the thing on Steam that I’d be reviewing it for this column.

Demo-Gogues: Blocks That Matter Demo

In everyday life, one may very well do only what’s necessary to advance or maintain. Doing the minimum amount of work to move forward through a process, or to make the present status quo go unchanged. But to not merely complete a process but rather complete it well; to not merely prevent backwards movement but rather raise one’s station; these require one to work harder than the minimum. To strive for perfection rather than completion.

To obtain not just a pass and a few blocks, but rather obtaining all the Blocks That Matter.

Demo-Gogues: Xotic Demo

Enough of these puzzle games and Japanese imports. Let’s finally take a crack at the first person shooter genre!

Demo-Gogues: Bastion Demo

When a young adult goes off to college, one could say they’ve gone about the process of making a new world for themselves. It’s as if they’re building the very earth beneath them, knowing that an errant step could lead them falling to a bottomless void of failure. And that every part of their world must be built. In the case of Bastion, this is quite literal.

Demo-Gogues: Gundemonium Recollection Demo

For the sake of those considerably less nerdy among the audience, I attempted to limit the number of demos showcased for Japanese imports with anime-inspired art styles. That said, I shot myself in the foot by focusing on demos I already had downloaded. And I just so happened to have the demos for all three games in the Gundemonium Collection.

Demo-Gogues: The Clockwork Man Demo

See if this sounds familiar. You need to find a specific object in your dorm room or whatever, only to realize your domicile looks like its been hit by a tornado. And then you spend about a half hour looking for this object, vow to clean up your living space, and then never get around to it.

Demo-Gogues: Demolition, Inc. Demo

So much of physics concerns itself with working out with numbers what humans do automatically in the abstract. Determining the arc of a thrown projectile. Finding out how a structure distributes its weight. Guessing where a moving object will go given environmental forces acting upon it.

Figuring out the exact placement of an exploding cow and a glob of paste to cause a moving car to destroy two buildings in rapid succession. Oh wait, that’s just the kind of situation one can encounter in Demolition, Inc.