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Indie Game Night (2013-04-15): Fightin’ Lava
Monday nights, 6PM, at Awesome Inc., we meet up to expose ourselves to indie games. C’mon out and look at how small game designers are pushing the medium, or bring something we can play!
Last week, we looked at Lava Blade and E’s Laf.
Details after the jump.
Lava Blade
1p, fantasy tactics, web (html, chrome), paid
Lava Blade is a fantasy battle tactics game, with gameplay distilled from JRPG encounters. It’s built in HTML5/Javascript, so it plays on most web-enabled devices.
You control a small party of characters who fight through turn-based battles with the boss Djinn’s minions. Along the way, plundered gold can be redeemed for equipment from shops. Pretty standard elements. The game keeps your place when you leave it, so you can play through a battle or two in your spare time and pick it up again later.
Discussion notes:
- The game worked on an iPhone, though it needed to be started in landscape mode.
- The music and sound effects worked well, which has been a pain point for those of us who’ve built HTML5 games.
E’s Laf
1-2p, fighting, win, free
E’s Laf is an impressive Japanese fighting game in development for over 6 years. It features a unique cast of original characters and a high degree of polish. The video above shows off Cletia, a character whose moves are based on her handgun. Each move requires bullets, and the player must execute reload moves to keep the gun topped off.
Discussion notes:
- Though the game uses original characters and is in quite a playable and even marketable state, the author still doesn’t sell it. There are still a few more characters planned.
- The gameplay feels akin to the Guilty Gear series.
- The intriguing character designs show imagination.
- The developer has only recently started adding rough English translations to suit a nascent Western audience. There’s still work to do.
. . .See you next time, devs.
