Gweek 008: 250 Indie Games You Must Play

This is an all-gaming episode of Gweek!

Rob, Joel (of Kotaku), and I chatted with Mike Rose, who is a freelance games journalist, an editor at Indie Games, and the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.

Here's what we talked about:

• A retro platformer called, VVVVVV (pronounced "vee").

• The soundtrack to VVVVVV, called PPPPPP.

• Terraria Online, a 2D multiplayer Minecraft.

• Project Zomboid, a zombie survival RPG.

• Nintendo's head-scratching Wii U.

• Sony's new portable game player, the PS Vita

• Mobile Minecraft on Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play

• A trippy game for Xbox and Playstation that Joel declares to be "very Boing Boing," Child of Eden

• Rob's new exclusive flash game for Boing Boing: 9x9RPG

• Another game from Boing Boing Gadgets, Low-Altitude Attack Zeppelin

• The NBC TV series, Community

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• [Anonymous]

  I find nothing head-scratching about the concept of the Wii U, but maybe that’s just because I don’t fear change the way most gamers do.

• [Anonymous]

  i think poopocalypse is missing (a really shitty game ;)
  http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Poopocalypse/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585508a7

  (yes i know the guys who did create the game)

• [surprises aplenty]

  Is Gweek finished now? iTunes won’t let me (re)subscribe and I see no new episodes here.

• [benjymous]

  Re: Project Zomboid – it currently costs £5 (~$8) and supports Windows, Mac and Linux (as it’s java based), although currently their downloadable offline version only supports Windows (until they get other platforms running)

  They’ve had lots of problems lately, so would appreciate all the support they can get!

• [JonStewartMill]

  They’ve had lots of problems lately, so would appreciate all the support they can get!

  I would say their first problem was basing a game on the most hackneyed, overused concept in popular culture today. But maybe that’s just me.

  • [brerrabbit23]

    Yeah, roses are red. I made up the rest.

    If you got some big fuckin’ secret, why don’t YOU sing ME something?

    tldr; create nothing. whine about creations of others.

  • [dr.castle]

    That’s totally uncalled for. These guys have been getting repeatedly screwed–first paypal and google locked them out of all the donations that they were using to fund development (link), then a pirated copy of their game was released that could connect to their update servers and cost them bandwidth $$ (link).

    And there’s nothing wrong with taking a popular concept in a new direction. They’re deserving of support, hopefully some additional exposure on boingboing helps.

  • [Running Pinata]

    I think he’s talking about the people who stole the source code and posted it online. The alpha demo is now public btw.

• [Cassandra]

  Where the heck can I find 9x9RPG? Searching just gave me the Gweek article, which also had no link.

  • [soongtype]

    http://boingboing.net/rob/tinyhack/

• [tylerkaraszewski]

  “1. MUST This word, or the terms “REQUIRED” or “SHALL”, mean that the definition is an absolute requirement of the specification.”

  I think 250 is too many for MUST. Maybe have “3 indie games you MUST play”, or “250 indie games you MAY play”.

  • [eviladrian]

    No, you must play them all or you will fail and your dojo will appear weak! ;-)

    9X9 RPG actually reminded me a lot of the BASIC games my friends and I used to write back in high school, where you’d have little ASCII characters running around an ASCII character maze, collecting dollar signs and dodging asterisks. Ahh, the memories…

• [mokey]

  community is totally the best show on TV right now! they didn’t speak to the heart of the show, though. you learn what each character’s life and thoughts and worldviews are from their interactions with each other. they manage to make you care without ever losing the funny, which is why the show works so well.

  – a tv geek

• [Anonymous]

  It’s just “Terraria” not “Terraria Online.”

  “Terraria Online” is the name of a fan site for terraria. The official site is here: http://www.terraria.org/