Indie Zoe: Raider of the Lost News (19 September 2013)

That’s right guys and gals – it’s Thursday! So close to the weekend we can almost taste it. Although you really should stop tasting days, that’s a bad sign. In any event, here’s all the indie news of the week – I know you’re all going to read it carefully because you’re just so interested in news that isn’t about GTA V.

IndieCade is almost upon us, and the official selections for best indie games of the year are out. I must be honest – I must be a horrible hipster/indie game reporter because I haven’t played any of them. That said, I really do want to play Gone Home, and I told you about Sokobond a couple weeks ago. If any of you have played these games and think they’re amazing, please let me know – I wonder if it’s like the Oscars where you should check it out before the award ceremony.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is touting their indie program, ID@Xbox (really, did no one sound that one out in advance) and the power of the cloud. In an interview with Game Informer Phil Spencer explained that the cloud allows indie developers to make bigger games without worrying about servers:

“If you’re a two-person studio, you’re probably not going to invest in a server farm. You won’t know how many to buy or what the scale is going to look like. It’s really hard for those guys. What we’re able to do with Cloud, is say, ‘Here are 300,000 servers. You don’t need to tell us what that demand looks like. You don’t even have to know.’ We will handle the scaling capability on the backend. That has been one of the more interesting uses.”

I’ve go to say that it sounds pretty cool. It certainly adds a lot of support for indie developers, and makes bigger games viable. Additionally, with Microsoft handling the scaling, as games decline they can still get server support without adding an unknown or excessive expense to developers. Well done, Microsoft!

But enough about what people are saying about games, here are some games! First up, we’ve got The Long Dark, a first-person post-disaster survival sim that is looking for your money on Kickstarter. It’s still unclear if it will be a hit, but it seems to be an interesting sandbox, and asks some intriguing moral questions.

Then, there are some amazing bundles running at the moment. Bundle in a Box is running an indie RPG bundle, with games such as Inaria, Unemployment Quest and Hack, Slash, Loot coming with the minimum price of $2.

But wait, there’s more! Last week, I told you how great the latest Humble Bundle is. Now, they’ve added more games! For those who pay more than the average (currently sitting at a little less than $5), you will also get Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, A Virus Named TOM, Bastion and LIMBO. I’m so glad I paid over the average – I will definitely be digging into all of them!

Last Updated: September 19, 2013