This Week In Indie: Bundles, Skydive, Exodus And More

This week has been consumed by E3 news and the reality is that fresh indie news is quite sparse. However, I did manage to rummage some information together this week for your weekly indie fix. This year’s E3 is a great example of the diversity that is the games industry. But the indie game industry can be different as well, albeit a little weird at times.

The first piece of news is for all you indie bundle connoisseurs out there. Another indie bundle has been released this week called the Indie Space Bundle, and is available for purchase on Steam. Selling for approximately $19.99 the bundle consists of a host of space-themed interstellar titles like: Shattered Horizons, Gratuitous Space Battles, Universe Sandbox, Stellar Impact and Lunar Flight. The variety of games in the bundle is amazing. Games range from a first person shooter, to strategy games, to space simulators. All space-faring gamers would love this package.

In other bundle news, Humble Indie Bundle V now includes three more games which are: Lone Survivor, Braid and Super Meat Boy which can be unlocked if you pay more than the average, which is $8.13 at the moment. There are just over six days left before this bundle expires. So get buying as soon as possible.

The developers behind a new game called Exodus will soon be releasing some information about the alpha stage of the development of their game which strongly resembles games in the Oddworld series, particularly games from the PS1 era of the series like Abe’s Oddysee. With clean and smooth character animations and an amazing colour palette the game already seems to be setting a precedent among indie fans across the internet. The game is very much a platforming adventuring in the style of Metroid and the games in the Oddworld series with puzzle elements and obstructions to overcome. It’s great to see sidescrolling platformers make a return to the gaming market. They have been sorely missed.

Another indie game which has released this week and is free to download is Skydive. As the title suggests the game is a skydive game where you jump from a helicopter and fly over the edge of mountains whilst plummeting to earth, maintaining glorious flight with your own wingsuit. The game has an arcade feel to it. The goal of Skydive is to retain a high amount of points as you plummet to earth whilst not dying in the process by making it to the bottom of the level safely. The closer you are to a mountain the more points you lose. Yet points can be regained by performing tricks and stunts as you fall to an uncertain death.

On top of this, an indie game called Lifeless Planet has an E3 trailer out which demonstrates gameplay for their sci-fi adventure game that they claim to be reminiscent of Ico, The Dig and Another World. In the game, you take on the role of an American astronaut who lands on an alien planet finding the planet to be barren, and that he is not the first human to have explored the planet. The Russians had landed on the planet first, a long time ago, with labs and settlements. Mystery ensues when a mysterious alien woman saves the astronaut’s life. The game looks like it will have a solid mystery plot, with some platforming and physics-based puzzle elements.

That brings us to the close of another week. There have been some great bundles out over the past few weeks and now with the Indie Space Bundle people are going to be strapped for cash. Skydive, Exodus and Lifeless Plant look like they’re going to be brilliant games and I look forward to more news from their developers. I hope you have a great weekend and continue to enjoy the indie goodness.