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Author Topic: Indie Royale: Valentine's Bundle (Zeno Clash, Hoard, Lume, Soulcaster 2)  (Read 6882 times)

Ampa

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The latest Indie Royale bundle has gone live. Games this time are...

Zeno Clash [Metacritic 77%]

Hoard [Metacritic 65%]

Lume [Metacritic 68%]

Soulcaster 2 (+ Soulcaster 1)
« Last Edit: February 10, 2012, 10:48 AM by Ampa »

Deozaan

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Zeno Clash has an interesting (if not confusing) story and amazingly surreal visuals. Unfortunately the combat in the game is not very fun, IMO, and that's what you spend most of the time doing.

Hoard is a decent arcade-like game where you try to get the highest score within the time limit. The two Hoard DLC packs are also included with the bundle.

Lume doesn't look that interesting to me, but I haven't played it so I can't speak about how fun it is or is not.

The Soulcaster games look a bit retro but they look like they could be pretty fun.

It's a pretty good bundle this time. I'd feel better about it if I didn't already own Zeno Clash and Hoard+DLCs. But I suppose I can give those games away and keep Lume and the Soulcasters to myself.

wraith808

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Hoard is a decent arcade-like game where you try to get the highest score within the time limit. The two Hoard DLC packs are also included with the bundle.

Not exactly true.  Hoard has that mode, but you also have a couple of other modes including Princess Rush (be the first to ransom 15 princesses), Hoard (survival), and Co-Op Treasure mode (all dragons share a hoard and work together).

It also has strategy unlike typical shooters, i.e. the towns that you are destroying have economies, and your interrelation with those economies can affect your score.  If you're too efficient, there won't be anything for you to destroy/hoard, and if you aren't efficient enough, the town (and more importantly the knights) can become too powerful to deal with.

Great game and very much recommended.

But I suppose I can give those games away and keep Lume and the Soulcasters to myself.

Can you give them away independently?  I know you can't with some others...

Deozaan

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But I suppose I can give those games away and keep Lume and the Soulcasters to myself.

Can you give them away independently?  I know you can't with some others...

Yes. Indie Royale always gives separate Steam keys for games redeemable on Steam.

Their Desura keys, however, always bundle everything redeemable on Desura.

Ampa

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Thoughts after first brief play session...

Hoard: Only played the 2 tutorial levels and the 1st map, but looks like it could have surprising depth for such a simple casual game. Of the 2 DLC, one adds new visuals only (a 3rd tileset) the other seems to add new maps, a new game mode, and perhaps most importantly several new game elements.

Zeno Clash: Looks lovely, sounds lovely, story is quirky! Combat difficulty defaults to hard and indeed I have died 3 or 4 times in the first couple of fights! I think I personally will enjoy this game more if I reduce the difficulty and concentrate on the story.

Lume: Beautiful and gentle. So far the puzzles are pretty generic. This is created in flash, but unlike Machinarium, nothing has been done to disguise the fact - ie right click brings up the standard flash context menu, it doesn't go genuinely full screen, and if played in a window is cluttered by Flash Projector's GUI.

Not tried the Soulcaster games yet - they do sound interesting but the unappealing graphics are turning me off atm!

Deozaan

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I played something like the first dozen levels of Soulcaster (1) and it seems interesting and fun. It's almost reminiscent of a tower defense game since you place units down that do not move, and they need to stop the monsters from reaching the target (you!). You're pretty much defenseless on your own. So there's some strategy in placing your strong units in front to block enemy passage while using ranged units to bomb from the back.

It's not exactly a tower defense game. And since what you need to protect (yourself) is mobile, there's not necessarily one specific way to beat any given level. Also, as you move around the map, enemies will spawn from different places. And sometimes the map changes (e.g. walls break down or bridges appear). So it's actually fairly difficult at times.

As for Zeno Clash, I bought it and beat it back when it first launched. I really loved the concept, story, art and sounds. Actually I really loved pretty much everything about the game except the combat. Maybe they've fixed it since then. But so much of the game is just purely combat, which is hard, punishing, and felt unfair to me at the time. Like my character wouldn't do what I was trying to get him to do. I had to fight several battles over and over and over several times. I probably "ragequit" a few times. The only thing that kept me going was that I wanted to find out what happened in the story and see more of its universe. I can't remember if there was an option to turn the difficulty down or not when I played it.

I'd love to revisit the world and the story, but I've been hesitant to put myself through that torture again. It might be worth another playthrough on an easier setting. Sometimes I wish games would unlock a video mode after you beat them, so you can just watch the whole thing like a movie to get a refresher on the story without all the time and work involved.

EDIT: One thing people complained about at the time was the poor translation of the game, since the developers are not native English speakers. I actually didn't notice that it was a poor translation. I thought the people just spoke somewhat oddly because they themselves were somewhat odd characters. In my opinion, it actually added to the charm and mystique of the Zeno Clash universe which is a quirky and strange place.

lanux128

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Alpha Collection #1 - Indie Royale
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2012, 07:29 PM »
there is another bundle on sale now -- Alpha Collection #1

Alpha Collection #1 - Indie Royale - Mozilla Firefox_26_02_2012_001.png