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It's only a dollar?!
Nov. 1st, 2009 09:29 pmIn my quest for good Xbox games, I've started picking up indie games. They cost between 1 and 5 dollars, but most of the good ones seem to cost a dollar for some reason.
I've got a shooter called "I MAED A GAEM W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1", which is hilarious and probably worth a buck. I've got a game that's pretty much Super Sprint, but with better graphics and on the 360. I've got a game that's an interesting little abstract strategy thing called Hexy Trench.
And I've got the best video game I've played in years.
It's called Miner Dig Deep. You play a miner, and you dig up resources, which you sell for money, to buy more mining gear. That's the whole game. No enemies, just digging deeper to get more valuable stuff.
The mine is a grid, obviously, and you can jump two squares high. If you can't get out, you can call for rescue at the cost of dropping all the rocks you're carrying.
You can see all the tunnels that are on the screen, but you can only see buried gems within the radius of your lantern, which shrinks the longer you stay underground, so you hurry down and mine out some stuff, being careful to leave yourself a way to climb back out when your light goes dead or your bag is full. Then, you leisurely go back to the top, recharge your lantern and sell your stuff, and buy other gear: elevators, ladders, upgraded pickaxes, etc.
The game is partly a puzzle game, gathering gems without getting crushed by boulders or getting stuck, and partly a SimCity-like planning game, designing your mine to facilitate getting to the lowest point as fast as possible before your lantern shrinks, and being able to easily get out.
It tweaks the "getting random rewards" incentive and the "obsessively-compulsively building the perfect structure" thing. It's a game I would love to show to Bob, or failing him, Adam. It should probably not be allowed to cost only a dollar.
I've got a shooter called "I MAED A GAEM W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1", which is hilarious and probably worth a buck. I've got a game that's pretty much Super Sprint, but with better graphics and on the 360. I've got a game that's an interesting little abstract strategy thing called Hexy Trench.
And I've got the best video game I've played in years.
It's called Miner Dig Deep. You play a miner, and you dig up resources, which you sell for money, to buy more mining gear. That's the whole game. No enemies, just digging deeper to get more valuable stuff.
The mine is a grid, obviously, and you can jump two squares high. If you can't get out, you can call for rescue at the cost of dropping all the rocks you're carrying.
You can see all the tunnels that are on the screen, but you can only see buried gems within the radius of your lantern, which shrinks the longer you stay underground, so you hurry down and mine out some stuff, being careful to leave yourself a way to climb back out when your light goes dead or your bag is full. Then, you leisurely go back to the top, recharge your lantern and sell your stuff, and buy other gear: elevators, ladders, upgraded pickaxes, etc.
The game is partly a puzzle game, gathering gems without getting crushed by boulders or getting stuck, and partly a SimCity-like planning game, designing your mine to facilitate getting to the lowest point as fast as possible before your lantern shrinks, and being able to easily get out.
It tweaks the "getting random rewards" incentive and the "obsessively-compulsively building the perfect structure" thing. It's a game I would love to show to Bob, or failing him, Adam. It should probably not be allowed to cost only a dollar.
