Xbox Live Indie-Dome is a weekly feature where we sift through the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace to find the best and worst… so you don't have to!

I was playing Halo: Reach late one night

when my eyes beheld an eerie sight!

For a monster instant messaged me over Steam.

My mouth flew open in a terrible scream!

But it turned out it was just Rob asking me to do the Indie-Dome this week. Guess I’ve been watching too many scary movies and eating too much Halloween candy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Haloween week has only one zombie game, so that was a treat.

Shall we jump right in?

As always, not every release will get more than a few sentences. The games with multiple paragraphs have basically managed to stand-out due to their entertainment value and/or shockingly amazing awesomeness (these will feature the *Must Play* tag) or because they’re so incredibly terrible potential consumers deserve a warning (these feature the *Utter Failure* tag).

Remember, the Indie-Dome (like all reviews) is an opinion piece. The comments (or lack thereof) made throughout convey the reviewer’s thoughts on the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the submissions in a given week. These comments are not directed towards the developers, but rather their games. Seriously, we know most of you folks put a lot of hard work into these things, so please don’t take it personally.

Unless otherwise stated, only the trial versions were played and will be taken at face value. So if features present in the full version of the game are not shown or indicated in the demo, we obviously won’t be able to mention them. You don’t seriously think any of us has the money to buy each and every indie game that comes out each week, do you?

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Avatar Pumpkin Smash

(Developer: Reggie S – 240 Points)

Avatar Pumpkin Smash is a third-person shooter in which you throw pumpkins at up to sixteen players or bots. It’s as simple as can be: aim with the sticks and throw pumpkins with either trigger. Power-ups recharge your health and allow you throw pumpkins faster. I suppose it’s a good starter shooter for your kids, but if you’re over twelve there’s nothing to see here.

Burn1420

(Developer: HZen – 80 Points)

*Utter Failure*

Imagine if Galaga were made by someone who doesn’t understand how video games work, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here. You’re a space ship, shooting up, down, left, or right (no diagonals) while waves of enemy ships flow across the screen in gorgeous attack patterns… that sometimes trap you into an area with no hope of escape. Or rush in from the side of the screen too quickly for you to react. Or sometimes fill the entire screen in such a way that there’s no safe zone. Yes, you get a bubble shield thing, but only twice. The music is good. The rest of the game is not. I need some candy now.

Br00t4l Qwest

(Developer: DevOur Games – 80 Points)

This is a twin-stick shooter with zombies. Over the course of several levels you’ll pick up new weapons and health packs, find key cards to open doors, and face wave after wave of the undead. The level layouts are fine. However, once again on the Indie-Dome I find myself saying “This game isn’t technically bad… but there are better versions of this.”

Melon Madness

(Developer: FileUnderMedia – 80 Points)

Melon Madness is a 2D soccer game in which your goal is to push a bouncing melon into the opposing net. It’s very easy and the controls are as simple as can be. Again I say that a child might enjoy it, but when I was a kid, I was playing Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, so I really see no place for a game like Melon Madness on your hard drive.

Avatarmageddon

(Developer: Takarotashi – 80 Points)

This is how Indie games should be done. From the moment you load it up, Avatarmageddon hits you with kick-ass rock music. Then it throws you into a third-person shooter in which you defend an artifact from cubes trying to destroy it. Each type of enemy drops different power-ups for health, restoring the artifact, weapon upgrades, and invulnerability, adding a layer of strategy as to which baddie you blow up first. The difficulty ramps up a bit too quickly, perhaps, but it’s still a solid game with impressive graphics for the Indie channel. Oh, and it actually lets you invert your axes and sensitivity, which is rare in an Indie game, so that’s pretty badass. Play this game.

Quantum Ninja

(Developer: ECHS BACHS – 80 Points)

Here’s how you make a good video game: Create a ninja game with no attack button, just Pac-Man style touch-to-be-invincible-for-a-second power-ups. Fill your backgrounds with random images that probably came from a free clip art CD-ROM from 1995. Don’t put checkpoints in your level. Make your hero grunt every time he jumps in a fashion that’s somehow more annoying than Toad from Super Mario Bros. Advance. Label the exit to each stage “Next Stage” so there’s no confusion over what the exit is. Oh, and just for fun, make the player jump to platforms off screen, and then surround those platforms with death pits. Wait, on second thought, don’t do any of those things.

Turret Battlefield

(Developer: Deviant Spark – 80 Points)

You play a turret that slides up and down a track, shooting at another turret. You each have long health bars and the other turret will dodge most of your attacks, making each match a grueling exercise in wearing down your opponent. Sometimes you can switch weapons, and sometimes you can’t. I’m not sure why. Oh, and if you accidentally press “Back” on your controller, you’re booted straight back to the Xbox dashboard. There is no reason to buy this game.

For Glory

(Developer: Celey – 80 Points)

*Must Play*

This… this is a surprisingly good game. You play a hero who walks forward in a straight line, killing things with your sword. The combat is as simple and boring as possible, and the enemies are incredibly cheap, so you’ll die pretty quickly. Fortunately, killing things earns your Glory, which you can spend to buy better armor and weapons. The score addict in me (the one who stays up all night completing Challenges in Halo: Reach) really wants to see what all the weapons and armor are like. This is a great concept and definitely worth a look if you’re anything like me.

Steam Heroes

(Developer: ProjectorGames – 240 Points)

I booted up this game, then went into the kitchen, and was surprised to hear voice acting coming from my speakers. You don’t get that a lot in Indie games. So I started a game and watched a short cut scene. The voice acting was over-the-top and kind of cheesy, and definitely sounded like all the voices were done by two people, but in a kind of charming way. The titular Steam Heroes jumped into battle with an evil robot, and I wrapped my hands around my controller…

…and played a tile-matching game. But I can’t say I was disappointed.

Steam Heroes is a puzzle game in which matching certain tiles gives your heroes certain bonuses: yellow tiles recharge health, blue tiles let you shoot enemies, and so on. It’s actually a fun concept that has some decent depth to it, and requires you to think strategically about which tiles to line up next. The only problem is that the tiles you get aren’t balanced very well — sometimes you need health and there are no yellow tiles that can be matched up. If you like puzzle games, this is definitely worth a look.

Seizonrenda

(Developer: DigitalGibs – 400 Points)

This game is a decent twin-stick shooter that takes place on a sphere. It looks good, has a decent soundtrack, and plays well. But if you know what the Indie Games channel is, you probably already own a twin-stick shooter, and I’m not seeing anything here to make me think you need this one, too. And it’s 400 points!

Dice XY

(Developer: KakCAT – 240 Points)

Dice XY is a game in which you move dice around to form chains of dice of the same color. There are a hundred free games like this on the internet, and most of them actually have some sort of challenge to them. Oh, the game’s soundtrack consists of ambient noise like rain or the beach, so I suppose you could get the trial of Dice XY as a free ambient noise generator. There you go.

Starlight

(Developer: Duncan Keller – 240 Points)

*Must Play*

Wow.

Starlight is a platformer in which you’re tasked with collecting stars to complete each level. You do this by switching frequently between to planes of existence. Each plane has its own platforms, traps, and enemies to contend with, meaning that you must often jump to a platform, then jump to the next, switching planes mid-jump. The level design in this game is on par with anything Nintendo has done in the genre — Duncan Keller certainly knows how to make games. And did i mention that the game is gorgeous? Platforms and characters and hand-drawn and crayon-colored, with high-res photographs serving as the backgrounds.

Coupled with an excellent soundtrack, the visuals set you in a fantastic world. The only tiny nit I could pick in this game is the button mapping. A jumps and X switches planes, which makes it tricky to switch quickly, mid-jump. I might have put plane-switching on a trigger or bumper, but that’s a small thing. You need to go buy this game right now.

Acid Rain Heroes

(Developer: Allan Chaney – 80 Points)

Somehow this game isn’t related to Steam Heroes at all, even though they came out on the same day. The cross-promotion practically writes itself. Huh.

Anyway, Acid Rain Heroes puts you in the shoes of an… Acid Rain Hero who is tasked with finding survivors of an acid rain attack and leading them to a safe zone to be picked up by a helicopter. It has a sort of neat mechanic in which zooming out lets you see farther but increases the rate of acid rainfall, which adds some strategy to how you play. Unfortunately, unnecessary HUD elements cover a third of the screen, making it impossible to see where you’re going. This could be fun for half an hour or so, but there’s nothing here to keep you playing for any longer than that.

Inertia!

(Developer: specialtopics – 80 Points)

Inertia! is a platformer set on a derelict space ship. Its gimmick is that you can press the “Inertia” button to continue moving in one direction, using the momentum you’ve built up by running. The level design is decent, and the darkness of the stages couples with the simple music to make for a nice atmosphere. And the creators wisely allow you to use X or Right Trigger as the Inertia button, something that the guy who made Starlight should have picked up on. Unfortunately, as is too often the case with these indie games, I have to say that this game has nothing technically wrong with it; it just isn’t very much fun.

Snail Story

(Developer: csmall – 240 Points)

Okay, so this one is definitely best played by kids, but not in a bad way. Snail Story is a collection of mini-games designed for very young kids. Everything here is simple, from touching letters to catching falling instruments that match an icon on screen. I didn’t want to have a kid just to test out this game, but I suspect your younglings will enjoy it. The animation is fantastic and there are pleasant children’s voices encouraging the player every step of the way. And I suppose it would be fun if you’re high, too.

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*Must Plays*

• For Glory (80 points)
• Starlight (240 points)

*Utter Failures*

• Burn1420 (80 points)