The Summer Bundle

I think I missed the last Indie Royale bundle but we have another one on the go now. This bundle is a fairly big one as well which will include 9 games and also some music if you pay over $8. As usual it has a minimum price which sits at about £3.60 at the moment. The games included are:

• Harvest: Massive Encounter (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• The Journey Down: Chapter One (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• Serious Sam 2 (available on Steam)
• Gundemonium Recollection (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• GundeadliGne (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Hitogata Happa (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Acceleration Of Suguri X-Edition (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Dino Run SE (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• AirMech (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)

The bundle expires in just over 9 days 13 hours from me writing this so by my math it will end on Tuesday 10th July at 11 pm GMT or BST I can't remember which I'm in atm, it's definitely Tuesday night though I'm pretty sure it's british summer time now anyway. I am going to be getting this for Harvest: Massive Encounter as I have wanted it since last time I saw it on sale on Steam, Serious Sam 2 is also an extremely good reason to get this bundle aswell, I already have this so may just be giving my copy away.

Also check out Unfair Reviews video review (below) and also Backlog Journeys review of the bundle for more detail on each game.

Humble Bundle Update

While I have already talked about Humble Bundle V in a previous post. We have an update on this frankly fantastic bundle. Now not only do you get Bastion if you beat the average purchase price which is now about $8 you also get Super Meat Boy, Braid and Lone Survivor making this bundle, I would say the greatest one that has been released so far, and I am talking out of the numerous different bundles and not just Humble. You will be essentially be paying $1 per game minimum to get all 8 games now included. Saving nearly $150 should you buy these games separately at retail price. Not to mention you will helping out a good cause with some profits going to both EFF and Childs Play charities. If you haven't already got this bundle there should be nothing stopping you getting it now. It's $8, just over £5 for 8 great games.

The All Charity Lightning Pack

Indie Royale have yet another bundle on the go and the profits from this one will go entirely to charity. What ever you pay is split between Amnesty International, EFF, Action Aid and Unicef. You can split your payment on Humble Bundle and Indie Gala between charity, developers, and the bundle company, only it is split between the 4 charities mentioned above instead. The games included in this bundle are:

• Osmos
• B.U.T.T.O.N
• The Shivah
• Blueberry Garden

All of these games are available as DRM free versions, or redeemable on Steam (except The Shivah) and Desura. The Minimum for the 4 games above is £2.63 as of writing this, however if you pay over $7 (about £4.30ish) you also get 3 bonus albums:

• Virt
• 6955
• Disasterpeace

So as per usual I will be buying this bundle as I do with damn near every bundle after I get paid on Friday. You have about 99 hours left to get in on this bundle so by my math it should end about 7pm GMT this Sunday. For a review of the bundle check out The Backlog Journey and also the YouTube video below, he covers all indie bundles so give him a subscribe if you want reviews of future bundles.

Indie Gala IV

I'm a little late writing about this bundle as it went live a few days ago, can't remember exactly when but Indie Gala have a nice little bundle of 9 games (7 of which are available as Steam downloads) so long as you pay over the minimum which at the time of me writing this is $5.19 (£3.20). So paying even the minimum it works out at about 35p a game, how can you go wrong with that. The games included in this bundle are:

• Steel Storm: Burning Retribution
• A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda
• Alien Shooter
• Disciples II: Gallean's Return
• Altitude
• Really Big Sky
• Alien Shooter 2
• Wake
• Lunnye Devitsy

This bundle has just over 11 days left until it ends, so if my maths is correct it should be ending midnight GMT on Tuesday 15th of May. As I am currently skint at this moment in time that will give me plenty of time to find a few quid for this. Also If you want a review of all the games involved check out The Backlog Journey, he seems to cover just about every indie bundle in existence.

The May Hurray Bundle

Would you believe it? We have yet another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is obviously for the May Day holiday given the bundles name. This bundle includes the following 5 games:

• Dungeon Defenders
• Containment: The Zombie Puzzler
• Data Jammers: FastForward
• Brainpipe - A Plunge to Unhumanity
• Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

All of these games are available on Desura, and all but Weird Worlds is available as a Steam download. I would personally get this bundle purely for Dungeon Defenders, it's a multiplayer coop tower defence game, I have only played the demo but I have heard many good things from people who have played the game, this game has been on my list for a while so what's a better time to get it than during a sale like this. Anyway as with every Indie Royale bundle you can pay what you want so long as you meet the minimum which stands at just over £3 at the point of me writing this and the offer ends in just over 6 days time which is handy because I'm skint until Tuesday and I reckon I will be picking this one up. Also check out The Backlog Journey, there is a write up of all the games included in this bundle.

EA Indie Bundle?

Yes, thats right I used EA and indie in the same sentence. But according to Indie Game Magazine an EA Indie Bundle has been registered on Steam. Now I have always classed indie games and developers are those that are independent of publishers so by definition EA can not technically have an Indie Bundle as every game in here they are in fact publisher to and not developer. None the less they are apparently getting in on some indie game action as it seems to be quite the growing trend at the moment.

This bundle will consist of the following 6 games:

• Shank
• Shank 2
• Deathspank
• Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue
• Warp
• Gatling Gears

This bundle will cost you £14.38 saving you just over £30 if you were to buy these games at their usual price. You can also buy the games in this bundle individually if you happen to have some of the games in question already at a 50% discount of the usual price. This offer is running until the 9th of May and I would suggest if anything get Deathspank for cheap out of this. The other games I haven't played so I can't really say how good or bad they are, but Deathspank and it's sequels are awesome.

The Spring Bundle

It's Indie Royale time and once again you can pay whatever you want for this little bundle of indieness so long as you meet the minimum which tends to stick around the £3 mark, give or take. This bundle includes the 6 following games:

• Unstoppable Gorg
• Depths of Peril
• Tobe's Vertical Adventure
• Inferno+
• Slydris
• Ballistic

All of these games are available on Desura to download, if you want Steam versions of the games you can get them for the first 3 in the list but the rest are currently not available on your favourite digital download service. But at a couple quid for 6 games you can't complain at all.

The April Fools Bundle

It's that time once again and the Indie Royale team are at it again this bundle as you may have guessed by the title is the April Fools Bundle. This bundle includes the following games:

• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Hack, Slash, Loot
• Alien Zombie Megadeath
• Explodemon
• Astro Tripper

Just like all the other bundles before it all these games are available as DRM free downloads, though you can redeem all of them through Desura, and all but Explodemon are available on Steam according to the Indie Royale site but doing a quick search in the steam store I couldn't find Hack, Slash, Loot. As usual I will once again be giving a few quid to get me some indie bundle goodness.

St Patricks Indie Bundle

So St Paddys Day is nearly upon us and not only do we get to celebrate the drunkenness of the Irish we also have another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is available now and we have just under 5 days left to get this bundle of goodness. The games included in this one are:

• Hard Reset
• Jolly Rover
• Vertex Dispenser
• DLC Quest
• Lair of the Evildoer
  
  The first three games are available on Steam, the last two however are not, they are available on Desura though. The minimum at the moment is round about £3, but as always it is subject to change. I would highly suggest getting this if anything purely for Hard Reset, it is a great little game I picked it up in a Steam sale a while back and love it. The other games would just be a bonus but as I said before Hard Reset is awesome and is a hell of a bargain if you pick it up for the minimum.

'Indie Face Kick' Bundle

We have yet another bundle of indie game goodness on the horizon. This one as you may have guessed from the title is the 'Indie Face Kick' bundle. Their site is pretty much a coming soon advert at the moment but does give you a chance to sign up for their newsletter and get on the waiting list that will notify you when it goes live. This bundle will appear to come with 8 games, but we do not yet know how this will be priced. I'm going to take a guess at it being another pay what you want bundle. The games which will be in this bundle (all of which are available on Steam, and no doubt will be redeemable there, just as many other indie bundles have been) are:

• Sol Survivor
• Still Life 2
• Booster Trooper
• PAM - Post Apocalyptic Mayhem
• Avencast: Rise of the Mage
• Dead Horde
• Runespell: Overture
• Greed: Black Border

First Thoughts of Groupees 'Be Mine' Bundle

I recently bought the Groupees 'Be Mine' bundle and thought I'd do a little write up of my first impressions of the games included in it. All of these games if bought separately would cost over £40, so getting these at the absolute minimum of $1 is quite the bargain, I would suggest paying more as you will get your moneys worth out of them. I've already gave each game at least an hour each so far, that is since earlier today when I bought this bundle, I'm definitely going to put a lot more time in to all of these games.

Xotic is a strange little game. The basis of it is to progress though levels collecting things, you do this by shooting at them which breaks them and gives you items to pick up. Running through levels destroying stuff and collecting items seems simple enough, however there are many things put in your way to slow you down though like the weird enemies in the game, such as mutant looking things and spiders seem to explode if they touch you which are really quite annoying as they keep respawning until you kill there nest. Which is something I didn't realise the first time I encountered them so I just sat killing waves of them when all I had to do was walk round the corner and blow there nest up. Then you get the likes of huge gaps you need to cross, which can be done in a number of ways depending what upgrades you have. You can sit and cross it by placing a number of platforms underneath you as you jump, this has the higher fatality rate, if you can find an upgrade in the level that gives you flight, that is the far better solution to these giant death holes. It's not so much flight but more the ability to jump after you've jumped. It seems pretty cool.

Next we have Wasteland Angel. I had heard of this game prior to getting it in this bundle, so I somewhat knew what I was getting into with this game. It is played from a top down perspective as you drive around in your car shooting stuff. The game starts you off  in your car outside a town which you have to protect from waves of enemies. While this is pretty much the game, it does change it up occasionally to stop you getting bored and gives you boss battles. I've beat the first two which are big nasty armoured trucks with a couple flamethrowers attached to the front for good measure. Took me quite a while to beat it first time round, using napalm is the key for these guys. After the boss battle you get a bonus round which puts you in first person perspective. The first bonus stage was survival based, where you had to survive as long as you could while trying to get the highest score you could by shooting things. The second bonus stage was a time trial check point type race. 

There are a couple of platformers in this bundle. I will start with BEEP, it's a cute little game where you play as a little robot called BEEP, hence the name. You begin in a spaceship with a number of planets around you this is the level select menu which is pretty cool. After choosing a level, it looks like you standard platformer, plenty of platforms to jump on and what have you but come equipped with a gravity gun which is very necessary as there are movable platforms, debris in your way which you can move and it can also grab things (ie collectables, which happen to be little gold nuggets) which are out of reach. You also have what I think is a BB gun which you will need as these levels are fairly hostile towards you. I have only played the first few levels and have came across a number of things that are a danger. You have robots that shoot at you, some weird flying electric fish, along with a shed load of lasers and of course plenty of holes to fall down. As I am on about stuff that kills you, if you do die I wouldn't worry too much about it as each level has regular checkpoints so you won't have far to go to get back to where you were. You also seem to have unlimited lives so dying isn't really an issue.

The other platformer in this bundle is named Sideway: New York. This has a slight twist on your average platform, which is the fact that you play as graffiti on the side of buildings. You aren't completely stuck to the wall though as you can use window ledges, drain pipes among other things to jump on. You can also spray paint your own platforms to jump up on, which is a nice touch, thought you can only do this in certain places, it is quite obvious where you can spray though. As with any platformer, it's not all fun, games and randomly jumping about, thought that is a major part of it. Of course you need stuff that will kill you, or at least to attempt to. The main enemy you come across are alien goo blob type things, there are other enemies as well such as flying paint blobs and other graffiti artists. The other graffiti artist was like a mini boss I beat the first one at the end of level 2 or 3, he paints more enemies to attack you. While he isn't too hard to beat and only takes a few jumps on the head to kill him, but the paint blobs can get annoying if you don't kill them quick enough and can become overwhelming. Just like BEEP you don't seem to have any lives so you can die as much as you want, it also has regular checkpoints as well so won't you have far to go when/if you die.

Lastly we have The Ball, I say lastly it's not quite you get a bonus game called Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals due to the bundle reaching their 3 grand goal. But that is a point and click adventure game and I am terrible at them. I did attempt that game but struggled to get out of the first room, so I'm not really the right person to talk about the game. Anyway onto The Ball. The game starts you off underground as you fell down a mineshaft. Your friends up top aren't helpful at all and just tell you to explore the cave. So as you have no other choice than sitting around for help which isn't coming anytime soon, you take a wander along the only path available which crosses a very unstable looking bridge which breaks as you cross it, so you fall down another level. Great start so far you've fell down 2 holes in just as many minutes. You then see a building ahead but before you get to it you pick up some ancient device. You can use this device to push special buttons the first of which allows you in to the building. Upon entering the building you find the ball. The device you picked up outside can be used to both push away and attract the ball depending whether you use the left or right mouse button. Once you have the ball you have to take it along with you as it helps you solve puzzles. Sounds strange I know, but as you progress there are a number of buttons to press to open doors and activate lifts. Some of these can be activated by you but some of them only work by being ran over by the ball.  It's a cool game and definitely seems a worthy addition to the collection and I look forward to finishing the game off.

Groupees 'Be Mine' Bundle

The Groupees 'Be Mine' bundle is yet another pay what you want Indie game bundle. They seem to be popping up everywhere these days. The bundle includes the following games:

• Xotic
• Beep
• Wasteland Angel
• The Ball
• Sideway New York

All of these games are available on Steam and if bought separately would cost about £43. Just like other indie bundles like the Indie Royale, Indie Gala and Humble Bundle you can pay what you want for this selection of games, getting them at a severely reduced price. The site appears to be struggling with the amount of traffic heading it's way, so you will have to wait until tomorrow to get on it, you can keep up to date about what is going on over on their twitter. Anyway it's another cool little deal which I will be getting to add to the collection, thought I would share and give them some publicity as this is the first I have heard about this bundle.