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Slant community chat on DiscoursePro Individualistic levels
Each level in the game has its own look and design which can keep the gameplay varied thanks to creating a need to explore in order to see what comes next. Ranging from deserts to ice filler terrain, there is no level that looks the same.
Pro Gameplay with a sense of humour
There are several jokes and silly moments throughout the game. All done without speaking any word. This keeps the game lighthearted and amusing thanks to the humor of the creators and how they infused it into the game itself.
Con Fair amount of grinding
There is a good amount of grinding that will need to take place for players to be able to advance past certain bosses.
Pro Unique black and white aesthetic
Limbo uses (what was once) a very unique monochromatic color scheme to give an atmospheric feel.
Con Keyboard controls not that good
Movement is locked to the arrow keys instead of wasd.
Pro Artistic puzzle
Limbo has very unique environment with highly creative puzzles that offer a great experience with monochrome, b/w and other dim colors.
Pro Old-school arcade-like design
Makes for fun interesting scenarios, as there is a portal on each side of the screen that allows arrows flying off the left side to come in on the right. It also allows for trick shots by utilizing one side of the screen to shoot enemies on the other. This adds to the challenge, as you need to be c...
Pro More powerups and arenas
TowerFall Ascension features more powerups and arenas than its previous title as the game has been refined as well as expanded making for a better experience in this newest offering.
Pro Simple to learn, hard to master
Anyone can pick up the game and be playing competently in a minute but there is a lot of technique and strategy to lean to keep players engaged. While the gameplay keeping itself pretty basic and easy to grasp, there is a level of skill needed here that can be learned through repeated gameplay, as...
Pro 2D retro-platformer style
Instead of building a deliberate feeling of suspense, Terraria uses bright palettes and arcade action to provide a fun experience outside of the survival elements. When those elements gradually appear one by one, each is all the more shocking from the contrast.
Pro Encourages creativity for all ages
Terraria is like a 2D Minecraft, so you can alter the world around you and craft things, which teaches creativity and critical thinking skills. This is great for children who enjoy building and discovering new ways to tackle ideas just as it is great for adults who enjoy the same things. It also ma...
Pro Extensive crafting system
The vast majority of items in Terraria can be used to create other items, often requiring specific crafting stations (which themselves must be crafted). This is the core of character advancement, since gear defines nearly everything about your character.
Controller SupportAndroid (MOGA / HID), Steam (Full)Co-Op8 Player Online / 8 Player LANGenre2D platformer / Minecraft-like
Terraria is a 2D sandbox survival adventure game. The gameplay consists of exploring a randomly generated world while building structures and farming resources for said structures as well as equipment and weapons. A survival game at heart with a sandbox base.
Con Limited button mapping support on keyboard
FEZ has a couple of preset control schemes to choose from, but the buttons can't have functions assigned individually.
Pro Brilliant puzzles
Fez has some deviously hard puzzles and mysteries that will require gathering clues from around the world to solve them.
Pro Clever 2D rotation game mechanic
The core mechanic of FEZ is the ability to spin the world around in 3D, and then traverse and interact with the resulting terrain in 2D.
Pro Great story
The game uses an interesting way of telling the story through a narrator, which has an exceptional effect. Has an odd universe, something like a post-apocalyptic "Alice In Wonderland" during the cowboy era.
Con Combat is mundane
Like a lot of hack and slash titles, the combat itself can be pretty repetitive and Bastion is no different here. There is a lot of button mashing going on in this game, which can get boring pretty quick.
Pro Fun, varied gameplay
The RPG elements combined with the battle mechanics make the core gameplay fun and varied as the weapons/items/abilities/upgrades play out very differently from each other.
GenreAction RPGCo-Op-Controller Support-
Bastion is a two dimensional, isometric action RPG available on Steam and for OSX, Linux and Windows. The gameplay consists of fighting ones way through each level by using one of their two equipped weapons or a limited special attack. As the player progresses there are health potions to be found which can heal the player as their health falls lower and lower from enemy attacks. In between levels the player can upgrade and equip different weapons which allows them to fight stronger and stronger enemies.
Pro Tons of fun and unique weapons
In cave story you have access to tons of upgradable weapons with unique properties for different situations.
Pro Incredibly challenging, with hard mode for veterans
Cave Story is hard and the hard mode even harder, which makes this game great for players looking for a new challenge.
Pro Great storyline
Cave Story offers a pretty deep storyline, more than one would think by just taking a quick glance at the game. There is a reason this game is still so popular after being around for so many years and it's story is it.
Pro Pure stealth gameplay
Mark of the Ninja requires stealth throughout the whole game, getting spotted will get the player killed pretty much instantly.
Con Puzzle stages in mid game feel out of place
About midway through the game users will run into puzzle platforming sections, these feel as if they were added to add longevity to the game and feel out of place with the rest of the gameplay.
Pro Great art
The art was done by the same team that did the Shank series, which itself is also known for great art. It is clean yet well illustrated, which shows a lot of polish.
Pro Forgivingly tight controls
The addition of a "run" button adds a lot of depth to levels, keeping the run-jump-repeat loop more interesting. The characters have acceleration as well, which demands finesse.
Pro Play through iteration is fast
When you die, you spawn quickly to try again. Many games draw out the death, and have to reload. Super Meat Boy immediately re-spawns you so you waste no time.
Pro Unique visual style
As is typical of Ed McMillen's games, it looks like nothing else out there. The art style is 2D based but heavily unique with a vector graphics cartoony look.
Genre-Co-Op-Controller Support-
Super Meat Boy is an indie platforming game that focuses on difficulty. The gameplay consists of controlling a 2D meat blob and platforming ones way to their mate.. As the levels progress so does the difficulty. Often the player is going to die over and over again to finally be able to complete a level.
Pro Risk reward system
Players can risk destroying checkpoints for loot, which means if one does die after destroying their checkpoints they will have to start from the beginning of the stage. Basically this is a gambling system that can pay off or cause a crushing blow.
Pro Combination of the best gameplay elements of retro pixel games of the NES era
Combining elements from Mega Man, Mario 3, Duck Tales, Zelda II and Castelvania Shovel Knight excels over the rest of the games trying to cash in on the 2D pixel art revival of recent years.
Pro Retains an original feel despite clear influences
The art design, music and writing maintain a very original feel to the game despite its obvious influences, which is what helps the game stand out, which makes it enjoyable in its own right.
Pro Great story
For what is a pretty simplistic looking game, Thomas Was Alone offers a truly great story that actually gets the player to care about what are basically squares and rectangles.
Pro Enjoyable professional narration
What really drives the well crafted story home is the wonderful narration done by British filmmaker, comedian, writer, actor, and presenter of radio and television, Danny Wallace. Not many indie small budget games receive the polish this game has in their voice acting, which really adds to the expe...
Con Some puzzles can be difficult
Here an there are a few really tough puzzles in the game which can be frustrating, luckily they are few and far between as the gameplay does not tend to repeat itself too often.
Genre-Co-Op-Controller Support-
Thomas Was Alone is a minimalist indie puzzle platformer that costs $9.99. The mechanics of the game are quite simple where the player takes control of different sized squares/rectangles characters in a 2D environment. Each character is able to jump a certain height, which limits where they are able to traverse. by combining the characters abilities though swapping out control of each character the player is able to advance through the level.
Con Story is depressing
There is a definite sense of melancholy while playing this game which can make for a depressing experience while playing the game, which may reduce the amount of time played.
Pro Clever game mechanics
Braid utilizes a rewind mechanic where in the player can rewind the action in the game at any time. This is coupled with puzzle layouts to each lever where the player has to use the rewind mechanics to reach certain spots in a level.
Pro An ambiguous, yet impactful retelling of a man's downfall and a warning to others
Braid is a story about loss and obsessiveness and how those forces drive the hunt for redemption.
Genre-Co-Op-Controller Support-
Braid is a cross platform puzzle platformer that uses time manipulation as a core game mechanic that costs $9.99. The gameplay consists of basic platforming but with a twist of time control, where the player can reverse time in order to redo a mistake as well as use it to solve puzzles. It is through this time mechanic that the majority of obstacles will be overcome.
Con Co-op is boring and confusing
In co-op this game is very confusing with little instruction on how to play and with little to spice up the game play it gets boring quickly.
Con Difficult to the point of frustration
Spelunky is pretty difficult and some could say abusive, but with practice and a desire for masochism the game can be mastered.
Pro Expanded gameplay through mods
Ranging from Mega Man to Metroid, there are a tone of great mods for Spelunky all of which make for a new experience in the game which vastly expands the replayability.
Controller SupportFullCo-Op4 Player CouchGenrePlatformer / Indie / Roguelike
Spelunky is an open-source procedurally generated 2D roguelike platformer that costs $14.99. Co-op: 2-4 local co-op, shared screen. The gameplay consists of randomly generated worlds where the player is tasked with exploring without dying, of which will happen quite often due to the roguelike mechanics of the game.
Pro Informative and well paced tutorials
Starbound allows the player to go at their own pace while completing the tutorials. By the end of the tutorials the player will have the skills and equipment to succeed in the game and have fun doing it.
Con First few hours are boring
Initially the player needs to amass enough coal to fuel their ship, which is a bit of a grind. It's been in Early Access for an entire year.
Con Combat
Combat is frustrating and unfair at times, as enemies do not knock back as far as you would wish.
Pro Interesting movement mechanics
The game has a freeing walljump mechanic as well as a grappling hook that can be used to swing across obstacles, pull towards ledges, etc. This makes for movements that are intuitive and fun as well as well controlled.
Pro 4 Player simultaneous, combined local and online
There are 4 slots per game, and each slot can be filled with a local player, a bot, a friend over the internet, or a random internet stranger.
Pro Short matches
Matches are quick and only take a few minutes to play, so it's a great game to play on your lunch break, or when you just have a few minutes of free time. This also makes for a good game to play with friends that have limited time to play online.
Con Short gameplay
At only 2 hours the games are a bit short and are easily finished in a single sitting, though to be expected as they are ports of classic arcade games, which normally had these type of play times.
Con Co-op is spotty and limited
There is no way to mix local and online players, so it has to be one or the other. On top of that the net code seems a bit spotty as disconnects can happen.
Pro Widescreen support
Being that the original arcade games in this set were 4:3, it is nice that the developers included a widescreen mode for modern monitor support.
Pro Throwback to Atari/C64 games while playing like a modern game
VVVVVV is very reminiscent of a game one would find for the Atari or Commodore 64 in that the graphics are simple, but the gameplay is anything but as it plays like nothing one would have found back then. It is fast paced and very precise, also extremely tough.
Con Not much of a story
The basic plot is that you are trying to save your crew members, but really it is just a loose story to tie the levels together as there is really not much there to discover.
Pro Use gravity to solve puzzles
The main mechanic in the game is that the player can switch the gravity in any level allowing the character to flip from the bottom of the screen to the top. This is used in an ingenious way in order to solve puzzles and avoid hazards throughout each level.
Genre-Co-Op-Controller Support-
VVVVVV is an indie puzzle platformer that costs $4.99. The gameplay consists of 2D platforming but with a twist where there is no jump button, instead the player is tasked with changing the gravity in the level in order to have the character fall in the opposite direction to the other side of the stage. It is through this gravity mechanic that the player can traverse each level trying to reach the end.
Pro Local co-op with up to 3 players and controller support
Trine has support for up to 3 player local co-op.
Pro Looks amazing
The graphics are 3d rendered with vibrant colors and a pleasing cartoon like graphics that give a real sense of the fantasy world they are meant to illustrate.
Con Co-op not as good as single player
Though there is support for local co-op the game feels as though it works best as a single player title.
Pro True choices
In-game choices have lasting consequences.
Pro Full of interesting easter eggs
There are many secret mechanics to be discovered in the game. It may take a couple of playthroughs to discover them all, but when found it will make for a mind bending discovery. How the game appears is not how the game is actually being played.
Con Art could be better
Much of the game is plain looking with simple graphics, and some with downright bad looking graphics. While it can be appreciated this was all created by one person, the graphics could use some polish in order to really make the game shine.
Pro Co-op adds a completely new element to the gameplay
There is a modified co-op campaign in the game where players must coordinate their actions to succeed. This makes for a fun couch co-op game due to the communication one must have with their partner as well as how fun it is to grief them in person.
Pro Well thought out presentation
From the witty humor, enjoyable songs or the theater cutscenes, BattleBlock shows a high level of consideration for its design.
Con Competitive play feels lackluster
Competitive play is not as enjoyable as the co-op modes due to stiff combat, really the mechanics of this wear out pretty quickly.
Genre-Co-Op-Controller Support-
Battle Block Theater is a puzzle adventure game that can be played single player as well as co-op or PVP that costs $14.99. The core gameplay consists of 2D puzzle platforming where the player must collect gems in a level and then reach the exit. For what sounds simple enough can at times be excruciatingly difficult.
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