For the most part, Xbox Live’s Indie Game Channel has been a bit of a disappointment. I’ve found it to be a tremendous chore to search through the XNA library and find a decent game amongst all the amateurish and hobbyist apps. To put it simply, Carcophony is one of the best games I’ve played on Xbox’s Indie Game Channel thus far.

I enjoyed Carcophony primarily due to two factors. First off, Carcophony is incredibly addicting to play. The gameplay is simple and revolves around selecting and changing traffic lights to help motorists get on their jolly way. If things get too congested, you lose. Like great classics such as Tetris, failing is inevitable. Carcophony is all about frantically surviving for a few more seconds for a new high score. The game’s simple design and challenging nature kept me playing despite the stress of traffic jams and impatient drivers.

The second factor that makes Carcophony so great is the fact that it’s 240 MS points ($3). Unlike most of the games on Xbox Live’s Indie Game Channel, Carcophony is a great value. The game features a tutorial that walks you through the basics of the game along with 5 challenging maps. The maps are unlocked as you replay levels for high scores. While playing, I found myself unlocking a new map right as I was tiring of the game. This made led me to tell myself, “One more round on the new map and then I’m done for now.” After doing this with 4 of the 5 maps, I was finally able to tear myself away from the game.

The fact that the game has pleasant graphics, music and overall presentation contributed to my enjoyment, but are not spectacular on their own. With all the hokey Avatar games, controller massages, and other forgettable downloads on Xbox’s indie game service, it was refreshing to play a well designed game that stuck to its simplicity without devolving into a 1-level arcade survival game. The stress of traffic and overall challenge of Carcophony may be too much for people, but I found it a great example of the potential of XBLIG. Carcophony is the only game I have ever played based on traffic jam. It’s originality, challenge and execution make it quite the value at $3. It’s definitely not for everyone, but hopefully it’s found a nice little niche on Xbox’s Indie Marketplace.

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