Yet Another Humble Bundle – Voxatron, Blocks That Matter and The Binding of Isaac

I've written before about the Humble Indie Bundles and their many advantages, pay whatever you want, support charity, DRM-free Indie games that deserve our support, and these are all still true. I've purchased every one of the bundles I've encountered since I became aware of them, and have been extremely happy with my decision. Though "bundles" that are initially released as just one game, but frequently get more content added gradually are happening more regularly, they've consistently been a great value and the Voxatron Debut bundle is no exception. In this case, unlike the Frozen Synapse Bundle, the "main" game is the weakest of the titles (for now) included, so paying more than the average to get the bonus games is a must.

Let's start with that main event, available for any price, as low as $0.01, the Alpha release build of the Robotron-inspired voxel-based shooter Voxatron. The 3D graphics combines with an old-school aesthetic not unlike Minecraft in a shooting game that is unlike most of what I've played on the market. You play a character with a basic gun, the ability to move in all directions and jump, and when you shoot, it locks your direction of aim and movement together into a strafe based on where you are pointing. It feels like the arcade classic it takes its name from with the way movement and shooting interact, but the controls end up feeling extremely clunky, and that takes a lot away form the game. I've also suffered a few crash bugs and framerate slowdowns, but I expect these will be corrected in future patches. The one thing that saves this game from mediocrity is the fact that players can use an editing program with building blocks to build and add their own content and custom levels, and turning a community's creativity loose on your project is a sure way to ensure a lot of content (quality, and otherwise.)

The Binding of Isaac is a twisted little game that combines features of shooters, the original Legend of Zelda dungeons, and roguelike RPGs. The story is that of a child whose mother hears God's voice telling her to murder her son to prove her faith, and the weeping, naked boy escapes into his basement, which is filled with awful things. There are disgusting and hellish elements from bosses based on blobs of flesh with cleft palates, enemies weeping blood or vomiting flies, and upgrades related to the occult and implied child abuse. The arenas are randomly generated every time the game starts, power-ups and bosses are different with each playthrough and there are tons of unlockables and achivements to earn. The game is tinged with a disgusting dark sense of humor but it is never funny, images which could (and perhaps should) be shocking are rendered with a cartoon style that robs them of their power and just makes them part of the game world. If the concept of playing as an abused child using his tears as a weapon against demonic creatures and confronting his own fears and personal demons doesn't offend, you may find that the overall solid game design makes this one a lot of fun to play.

My personal favorite game in the series is the platform/puzzler Blocks That Matter. The game combines elements of Tetris and Minecraft to form a unique experience that directly pays homage to its inspirations. Indie Developers Alexey and Markus have been kidnapped, and their secret project, the Tetrobot is the only way they can free themselves. The robot can destroy and collect many blocks such as sand, wood and dirt, and is able to replace them elsewhere in the level, but only in shapes of four consecutive blocks, like tetris pieces. Parts of the four block designs may again be destroyed and collected, leaving bits to stand and jump on to reach other parts of the level. As levels progress, there may be massive spots where there are blocks that cannot be drilled through, but, like Tetris, any line of eight (or more) blocks can be made to vanish. Figuring out how to make the various types of blocks interact and being efficient with them allows for progress through the games many stages.

This bundle will be available until Monday, November 14^th, 2011 and the bonus games both have Steam and Desura activation codes. Like other bundles, bonus titles are available if the price chosen for the bundle is higher than the average for all bundles purchased thus far, so about $5.50USD (as of the moment) gets you all three titles, and any of these games is worth at least twice that.

Frozen Synapse: Violent Cyber-Chess With Perfect Tactical Simulation.

I've got more than a few video games awaiting my attention at the moment, so noticing that there was yet another Humble Bundle being offered was not great, in terms of timing. A further glance revealed that the bundle consisted of just one game (though several days later a second game was added, and paying more than the average of about USD$4.75 also gets the Frozenbyte Bundle.) When I noticed what the single game was, however, I snapped it up immediately. The game in question is Frozen Synapse, indie developer Mode 7's simultaneous turn-based strategy game. I loved X-Com, it's spiritual descendent Laser Squad Nemesis and Jagged Alliance is still one of my favorite games of all time, setting a tactical plan and then letting the violent results play out is really a thrill, especially when your plans work as you think they will. In my experience, that is rarely, so I find myself saving a whole lot in this sort of game and grinding through the more difficult levels. Frozen Synapse solves the issues with these sorts of games that made me do that, and made that cheesy "strategy" impossible at the same time.

Happy, sunshiny, soul-crushing Dystopia. But the internet is not only high-speed,
it is literally everywhere.

Frozen Synapse is set in a complicated and somewhat confusing cyberpunk dystopia, the City of Markov Geist. In this city, a complicated network called the shape that has features of both augmented reality and virtual reality overlays the real, physical architecture of the buildings and streets. The city is ruled by the megacorporation Enyo: Nomad who own everything in both the real and the shape, including armies of "vatforms," cloned humans capable of noting more complicated than moving about and firing a weapon. The player is called only "Tactics," as giving orders through the shape is his specialty. Tactics has been hired by the splinter resistance movement Petrov's Shard, a group funded with technology and funds stolen from Enyo: Nomad when its founder left the conglomerate. The goal is to liberate the city, with the help of a rogue "shapeform" (A.I.,) several double agents and members of the unwashed fringes of humanity, as well as an army of your own vatform soldiers.

The game is played through a tactical display connected to the shape, giving buildings, units and cover a stylized "Matrix meets blueprints" look. Tactics is only called in at difficult "chokepoints" in various sections of the shape where things get rough. These chokepoints are procedurally generated, so the terrain and tactical possibilities are different with every time a mission is played or retried. Orders given to the vatforms can be micromanaged to an insane degree, and freely tweaked until the final order is committed. There is no "I go, then you go" as all orders execute simultaneously. The play feels like the tactical display and command found in the Rainbow Six games, but with one huge difference. Nothing is random. Depending on cover, aim, range of weapon and movement, a unit that has the advantage gets a kill. There are short range shotgunners, medium range riflemen, long range snipers and the terrain-destroying rocket launcher troops.

The interface shows everything you need to know to plan your next move.

Every move, shot, choice of aiming or hiding can be simulated before making orders final, and if you can guess where your opponent will move to counter you, you can give that order and see what happens if you are right. Simulate several possibilities and see which plan gives the maximum advantage, commit the order and see if you were right. The single player campaign offers escort missions, traditional "kill all the guys" scenarios, objective defense and many other scenarios. However, the true replay value in this game is the multiplayer. All the same tools and possibilities used against the AI can be used against a human opponent in a tense game that resembles a version of chess where pieces are heavily armed psychopaths that all move at the same time. Multiplayer games play like an online version of a "Play by e-mail" as you submit your next moves whenever you are ready, even if your opponent is not, and get a notification when the system is ready to display results of the last turn and accept new orders.

The developers set up an excellent lobby/matchmaking system with advanced tracking of statistics and the ability to watch games in progress or archived replays of past games. Particularly good matches are easy to export to YouTube with a click of a button and though the graphics are stylized with blue walls, red opponents and green friendlies (with yellow NPC allies in single-player missions,) the violence of headshots or rocket launcher explosions is almost more graphic in how it has been abstracted. There is a wide variety of multiplayer scenarios, each with "light" and "dark" variations depending on whether both sides can see all units at all times, or if an opponent is only on your screen if one of your units has line of sight. I particularly like the scenario where players "bid" on how much terrain they can keep their opponent out of based on the random tactical situation presented by the procedurally-generated map.

A strategic view of the fight for Markov Geist.

This game is well worth the normal price of USD$25, but through October 12, 2011 the game can be downloaded for whatever price you choose at the Humble Bundle Site. Like other bundles, you choose what to pay and how much goes to the developers, the guys running the hosting site and to charity. You also get the soundtrack to the game (the music is quite good) and a Flash adventure game about a woman recovering in a hospital named Trauma. Both games work on PC, Mac and UNIX, and can be redeemed with Steam or Desura if you like, all DRM-Free. If you want to try before deciding what the game is worth, it is easy to pay a price low as $0.01 and then go back later and increase your donation to whatever you feel is appropriate.

The Humble Indie Bundle: Support Charity and Indie Devs, Fight DRM, and Pay What You Want.

 I know I just talked about video games yesterday, and I make it a point to keep my content varied so people can come back at the end of a week and see if what I had to say on one or more days lines up with what they personally find interesting or not. I'll break the rule I established for myself on this occasion because this is important. If you are into the indie game scene or follow the news on certain social media sites, you may have already heard of the Humble Indie Bundle. This project is as close to a “win for everyone” as anything I've ever heard of in computer gaming. Things the average gamer claims to like: good games by smaller studios, fair pricing, companies that support good causes, and no DRM. The bundle has all these things.

It isn't just about the games, this is important to a lot of us.

The spirit of the Humble Indie Bundle is one of positivity and trust that if given the opportunity to do the right thing, most people, gamers in particular, will expend great effort to see that whoever provides that opportunity is rewarded. Games in past bundles have included such popular titles as World of Goo and Braid, which both enjoyed moderate success as downloadable titles from console services like Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo's WiiWare Store. The pricing of these games? Whatever you want. Any amount from a single penny to thousands of dollars in US currency is a valid an accepted amount for purchase. The average chosen amount for the current bundle as of the publication of this article is $4.78, and the largest amount paid (by Notch, the creator of Minecraft) is $4048.

The current bundle, which was released July 26^th and will be available until August 9^th, contains the games: Crayon Physics Deluxe, And Yet It Moves, Hammerfight, VVVVVV, and Cogs. These titles are a blend of puzzle, platformer and physics-based action games. I'd previously played demos for more than one of these and I am very happy with my personal purchase of this bundle, contributing to the cause. More than half a million dollars in sales has been generated in the first day that this bundle was made available to the public, and it is set to break record sales from previous bundles (highest ever was $1.8 Million USD for Humble Indie Bundle 2.) Funds from this game (the portion allocated to developers, more on that in a bit) go directly to game developers, bypassing any middlemen.

This and Crayon Physics Deluxe are in the early running for my favorite of this Bundle.

The contribution of gamers to the success of such a bold experiment is great for the industry, and proves in some small way that the prevailing “wisdom” of the big studios that a game can't be a success without restrictive anti-piracy DRM and a $50-$60 price tag... Well, it is just plain not true. Not only can gamers set their own price, but they can decide how the money they spend is used. Through simple sliders, every gamer can choose what percentage of their personal purchase goes to the game developers, the company that hosts and pays the bandwidth bill for the bundle, and two charities. It doesn't hurt that the charities are personal favorites of mine, either.

Donations to either of these charities can be turned down or off if you don't agree with what they stand for, but that wasn't a problem for me. Child's Play, founded by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade is a charity by gamers to provide games and toys to children in hospitals, dealing with illnesses, conditions or injuries and the fear and pain that comes with them. The charity was founded in response to the public disputes between crackpot anti-game crusader Jack Thompson and Penny Arcade, as well as the entire gaming community. The other charity for the Bundle is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting rights, especially those of free speech and privacy issues online. I've given to both of these organizations before, and will happily do so again in the future.

It is tough, considering our politically polarized society, to assign "Good" or "Evil" labels
to non-profit organizations, but I'll go ahead and say it. These are the Good Guys.

Despite the ability to “name your price” and the good causes associated with the project, there has been quite a bit of piracy associated with the bundles in years past. I've struggled with the ethical questions concerning piracy for years, and despite my views moving toward the center on this issue, the average person would still probably say that my perspective comes down on the side of the pirates. That said, I have nothing at all reasonable or nice to say about the poor excuses for human beings for whom a single penny is too much to pay in support of something like this. Titles in previous bundles suffered from piracy rates in excess of 25%, people not only taking free copies of the game, but using up all that bandwidth to transfer the files. I excuse anyone who made a large donation in anticipation of downloading multiple copies for friends unable for one or another reason to pay themselves from my opinion on this subject. I understand that the rest may never feel bad about their actions in this, but if there was ever a line to draw with what should or should not be pirated, this is it.

For people interested, the games are available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and come with product keys to redeem the games using either Steam or Desura, whichever you prefer. I hope that in my own small way, I can provide a little more exposure to something that is such a Good Thing.  I am contemplating running a contest of some sort in the next few days, with one or more bundles as a prize for the winner. The value and the causes are both so good that despite my being out of work for going on six months now, I'd buy a few more copies.  I'll think on that soon, but in the meantime, I have 5 new games to play.