Indie game by previous 2k Australia producer, Tony Oakden, recieves 3rd place in a September roundup of the best independent games judged by a panel at gametunnel.com. Download it now!
I stumbled upon a tiny write up on Slashdot about Game Tunnel's little indie round up this morning, and being a revitalised fan of casual and indie games, I had to check out the games that made the cut. Top of the list were The Spirit Engine 2, a side scrolling RPG game that looks so polished, it's hard to believe it is an indie game, and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, a game which really needs no introduction. Third place went to a little game called Atomic Worm. The judges described it as an interesting twist to the old snake gameplay, and I was intrigued. Doing a search on youtube resulted in this awesome video of the game with a link to a website and a free download.
Now, here's the thing. I should have recognised the person credited for uploading the above video to youtube, but it hit me later after reading the homepage of the Atomic Worm developer that it was none other than Tony Oakden, previously the producer at 2K Australia! You may know him from his work on:
BioShock (2007), 2K Games
SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate (2006), Sierra Entertainment, Inc.
Tribes: Vengeance (2004), Vivendi Universal Games, Inc.
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001), Interplay Entertainment Corp.
Driver (1999), GT Interactive Software Corp.
Now, having downloaded the game, I can tell you this: it's brilliant! The art style is the tried and true neon-retro-vector look which is simple but very effective (programmers, take note! This is the best way to avoid 'programmer art' syndrome!), and the game is extremely, extremely fun. There are combo's you can do and it has some puzzle elements like picking up and chaining three items which will reduce the length of your tail. Well, enough of my babbling already, you need to go download it NOW and try it out for yourself!
It makes me wonder though, why doesn't Tony create an iPhone version for the apps store and make himself a tonne of bucks in the process? A touchscreen would be *absolutely* ideal for this game!