Kickstarter, 8Bit and other crowdfunding sites are awesome for funding “ideas”, but what about projects that have already made progress and have fans wanting to play them and support the developers? Alphafunding fills this void, as the basic purpose is we give fans early access to games which are not complete, but will be frequently updated, in return for their purchase. Developers win because the money allows them to make bigger and better things, and the players win because they get to feel good about themselves and help their favorites get the love and polish they need (whilst playing of course!).

-Scott Reismanis, Founder of Desura

Alphafunding basically means paying the developer for a game that is still in development, and in exchange get instant access to the (often buggy) game. All future updates are included when you alphafund a game(most of the time). Minecraft is the best known example of Alphafunding. People pay to play a game still in development, and Mojang gives out a new update every once in a while, adding more features to play with.

Desura, the STEAM for indie games — as it has been called, has recently launched a new project: Alphafunding. Desura users get to support indie developers in the development of the game, get regular blog updates about them and of course: get instant access to them. Desura users all around the globe are wildly enthusiastic about this, here are some comments on Alphafunding on Desura:

“Look at the clock, get the demo, look at the clock again.
Did you see how long you played?”
-Pogswarts

“Great initiative and good use of Desura. I will surely support some games this way over time.”
-Chriz_86

“Awesome. LONG LIVE INDIE GAMES!”
-Ennui

I couldn’t agree more. The games currently being alphafunded on Desura, can be viewed here. One of them is Project Zomboid, a review which can be found on IGM. To read about the recent burglary that seriously pushed the development of Project Zomboid back, read this article.
Scott Reismanis, Founder of DesuraNET(IndieDB, ModDB, Desura)

I recently had a chance to interview Scott Reismanis, the founder of Desura, about Alphafunding. In it, we talk about the why and how of Alphafunding. Give it a read, if you like.

DB, IGM: Me, Dale Beerling, IndieGameMag
SR, DNET: Scott Reismanis, founder of DesuraNET

DB, IGM: How well is the alphafunding on Desura going? Is it working out as you expected, or are there any problems?

SR, DNET: There are tons of digital distribution services which just do releases, which is cool but we like to do things a little different, “the indie way” I suppose you could say. If we can help some developers make better games and eliminate the hassle / stress of Paypal and other problems then that is win/win, after all, we want these people focusing their effort on making a great game. Plus, I feel we are all about bringing developers and players closer together, and having developers blog about their progress and then allowing fans the ability to play the alpha and see the progress is pretty cool I reckon.

DB, IGM: It sounds like you’re really focusing on helping the indie developers, but then why are there just a few games in the Alphafunding category at the moment?

SR, DNET:Handpicked because they are all a little different, all awesome, all alphas and well suited. We are going to be quite picky about who we choose for alphafunding, because like crowdfunding, it works best when you have fans and supporters ready and willing to help.

DB, IGM: Oh okay. Do you think that Alphafunding could be a big change in how (indie) games will be published in the future?

SR, DNET:Whilst it isn’t for everyone, I think you’d be crazy as an indie to not consider it. The way I see it is, it takes years to make a game, and then when you release, you get maybe a week of coverage in the form of reviews on other sites. To depend on that week to earn your money is a massive risk and any number of things can go wrong – especially as marketing usually isn’t a strength of developers. Imagine then, that over the 2 years you make your game, every time you post an update you have a chance to reach more fans and more sales? If you’ve got someone wanting to support your project you’d be crazy to ignore them – let them, because when you do eventually release in 6 months, they may have forgotten or missed the release. Besides, look at how damn well it has worked for Minecraft, Overgrowth, NS2 and others.

DB, IGM: I think we’ve covered most aspects to cover, so let’s move on! What else might we expect to see from Desura in the future?

SR, DNET:Essentially anything that is good for developers, good for our users and is different. Steam kicks ass, so we are just continually going to try different stuff. For example, right now Linux is a big focus of ours; as is alphafunding. We’ve got some cool stuff coming soon so I wish I could share more, but you will just have to wait and see.

DB, IGM: Too bad, I can’t wait! Anything else to say before we wrap this up?

SR, DNET: Virtually all of the alphafunded games are $5 to $10, all of them are awesome (guaranteed) so show them your support and purchase. It’s a cool initiative and something we’d like to see happen more and more.

DB, IGM: Okay, thanks for your time!

SR, DNET: Been awesome, thank you!

–

Thank you for taking your time to read this article, but if you’ve got more time, I’d like to hear your opinion on Alphafunding, so leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Read any of my other articles at: http://www.indiegamemag.com/author/grafixgfx/

Most everyone at some point in their life has wanted to own a robot, from the days of the Jetson’s gracing our television sets with their numerous robotic contraptions to those weird yapping robot dogs that seem to drift across the ocean from Japanland every year. Robots hold a unique fascination within our society and Erin Robinson has only served to further that fascination with her latest game, Puzzle Bots.

Puzzle Bots is an adventure game that features five curious robots on a mission to find out what’s up with Dr. Hugo, the boss himself. There are five different robots to control, each created by a different employee at Dr. Hugo’s factory and each with a different purpose in mind, from the ability to swim to lighting objects on fire with a flamethrower. Each robot has its own personality and abilities and utilizing all five of them in order to complete the devious puzzles is absolutely necessary.

After escaping from their enclosure, the robots decide early on that something is wrong at Dr. Hugo’s factory and decide to investigate the cause of his strange behavior. Soon a massive plot threatening the existence of the entire company is uncovered and the robots bring you along for the ride as they attempt to make things right in the world of robot inventors. The game’s sense of humor is decidedly unique and contains geeky but endearing dialogue with moments that will have you laughing as well as smacking your forehead as the story progresses.

While the humor is decidedly refreshing if not geeky, it’s not the only thing Puzzle Bots has up its sleeve. The point and click adventure scheme seems obvious at first as you have a single robot under your control, but as you progress and gain access to the other robots, you quickly see the value in having all of them available to solve the puzzles throughout the game. Each robot has a unique ability and only one ability, so utilizing all five in order to progress becomes essential and the search for the right robot can result in interesting dialogue between all robots involved.

The puzzles are not extremely challenging and they fit in with the theme of being extremely approachable by anyone, from kids to adults. However, you will need to pay close attention to everything that goes on around you so you can act accordingly. Though the puzzles are not hard and there is a hints system, Puzzle Bots nevertheless still manages to have a few moments of frustration since figuring out the puzzle is not immediately obvious and many times your pride doesn’t let you press the hint button.

Since the game is played entirely from the robots perspective, you will find yourself using small objects like cups and batteries to make things happen on a larger scale that eventually attracts the attention of the humans in the game. The robots share some interesting dialogue amongst themselves as they watch the humans and the trading of speculation as to what the humans are doing is one reason the game is so enjoyable. Ordinary every day objects become spectacular to the robots, with a toaster making an appearance as a giant robot, while spools of tape can be used to bridge gaps in a work bench.

The cartoon style graphics hold a unique charm of their own and it is almost as if you are playing your favorite Saturday morning cartoon as you watch the story unfold between puzzles. There is also a unique collection system incorporated into the game that lets you take the initiative to find new pieces of furniture for your robot abode. With 8 pieces to collect, hunting around the various screens for these new pieces of furniture can be a challenge in and of itself. Aside from the graphics, the voice acting is pretty solid, though the lines and interactions between several of the characters tend to be pretty geeky with just a sprinkling of charm. Even the robots have their own voices, though they communicate through a series of beeps and noises.
The controls of Puzzle Bots could stand to use some improvement, as working in close quarters with five robots on the screen can lead to you switching several times between the robots without meaning to do so. Other than the control problems, the animation during the human interaction scenes can be a little coarse, but given the cartoony style of the game, these animation glitches hardly take much away from the experience. My biggest problem with the game was the fact that there was no option to play in windowed mode, which means the game stretched across my rather huge monitor, making everything extremely pixelated.

If you enjoy light-hearted humor with a bit of a brain twist thrown in every now and then, by all means give Puzzle Bots a try. You’re sure to get a few laughs out of the robot’s various interactions and the puzzling gameplay will satisfy anyone.

]]> http://www.indiegamemag.com/puzzle-bots-review/feed/ 0 http://www.indiegamemag.com/vizati-2/ http://www.indiegamemag.com/vizati-2/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:44:55 +0000 David http://www.indiegamemag.com/?p=3203 Vizati is a puzzle game that will put your mind to the test.
You have to rotate a magical cube to connect (group) the little vizati stones by color and figure out the best way to do it with a limited number of rotations/moves.
You can play the Story Mode and follow the story between Julie and Peter who discovered the Vizati cube, or play the Arcade Mode,
which is a rawer, faster and even more teasing mode.

Key Features:

• Use gravity to make the stones connect by rotating and flipping the Vizati cube
• 50 Story Levels
• Rich art style hand drawn in HD (720p)
• Beautiful music
• Arcade mode with special Vizati stones
• 2 distinct Arcade modes
• Support for Xbox360 controller

]]> http://www.indiegamemag.com/vizati-2/feed/ 0 http://www.indiegamemag.com/bionic-heart/ http://www.indiegamemag.com/bionic-heart/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 19:13:57 +0000 Mike Gnade http://www.indiegamemag.com/?p=2912

Download the Demo

London, 2099. The earth isn’t what it used to be anymore. Incredible climate changes have corrupted the weather, causing a permanent rain on most of the Earth’s surface.

You play the role of Luke Black, a 36-year-old bio-informatic engineer. He is one of the lead programmers at Nanotech, a big nanotechnology research company.

But one night, his life is changed forever when he encounters Tanya. Who is she? What does she wants from Luke?

Purchase the full version to see all 24 different endings and explore all the possible paths! It’s a truly dynamic adventure that will keep you entertained for hours.

The game is fully voiced and features beautiful manga art, brilliant dialogue and characters relationship that will change the final outcome of the game.

]]> http://www.indiegamemag.com/bionic-heart/feed/ 0 http://www.indiegamemag.com/steam-brigade/ http://www.indiegamemag.com/steam-brigade/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 18:24:36 +0000 Mike Gnade http://www.indiegamemag.com/?p=2908

Download the Demo

Steam Brigade is a side-scrolling, real-time strategy game set in an alternate history where airships and steam-powered tanks rule the battlefield.  It’s an older indie game, but it’s definitely worth your time and purchase.  It’s incredibly unique and has a really sweet art style.  Check it out.

]]> http://www.indiegamemag.com/steam-brigade/feed/ 1 http://www.indiegamemag.com/on-trial-ziro/ http://www.indiegamemag.com/on-trial-ziro/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:51:46 +0000 Mike Gnade http://www.indiegamemag.com/?p=2115

Click on the Screenshot to download the free pc demo

Erika: 7
Who would have known that a puzzle game involving dice, ice and blocks could be so much fun? Ziro is, indeed, an interesting puzzle game in which players must direct sets of dice in order to match like-numbered pairs. The casual gameplay makes Ziro easy to pick up and play, but its difficulty level quickly ramps up to excruciating. Even so, this difficulty does not take away from the experience. My one gripe would be the lack of direction in the game. Gameplay instructions are limited and only appear before the first level. This is frustrating if you’re like me and want to have a second look while playing. Ziro may be fun and easy to pick up, but at $9.99, you’re better suited at playing the demo.

Sam: 7
Ziro is a unique puzzle game with lots of polish. You match blocks with the same value by sliding them together and combining them, removing them from the board. More points are rewarded for removing all the blocks in fewer moves or less time. The puzzles in the demo were straightforward, with only a few taking more than one attempt on Medium difficulty. The blocks have heft and weight, making satisfying clinks as they move about the board. The music is upbeat and the graphics are bright and cheery. The puzzles got somewhat repetitive, but they were entertaining the first time.

Peter: 8
I’m not sure that I really want to learn about global warming while playing a game, but at least the gameplay in Ziro is pretty solid. The point of the game is to clear a board of dice. Equal dice cancel each other out, while nonequivalent dice combine to become larger or smaller. That would be challenging enough, but the dice slide in one direction until they hit a wall, so you have to work pretty hard just to get the dice close enough together just to combine them. It’s challenging, but not too frustrating, and it’s worth a try.

Mike: 7
The graphics and presentation are solid in Ziro. It has a pretty slick 3-D engine that allows you to rotate the world and shows off the game’s polish. The great attention to detail and production extends to the game’s music and sound, but ultimately the sliding dice thing just wasn’t for me. Ziro is a unique puzzle game for the casual market with a decent core mechanic and excellent production quality.

Click to Download the Free PC Demo

Erika: 7
TriO: The Great Settlement is yet another title implementing the physics-based puzzle concept. In the game, players are expected to free magical creatures called Orbics by dropping them to combine three of the same colour. Instead of landing squarely on top of another Orbic, physics will make columns topple and lean so some strategy in where to drop your Orbic is required. Let me just say right now, Orbics are really freaky looking creatures. They are living, breathing emoticons full of magical energy. They aren’t the cutest of creatures, but somehow I was compelled to save them and play through each increasingly difficult level. While the game takes few risks, the gameplay is rewarding and is, at most, deserving of a free, one hour download.

Sam: 5
Trio is a “match three” game, where you drop blocks on other blocks of the same color, trying to form groups of three or more. What makes Trio different is that blocks have a simple physics model, with gravity and friction, so you can hit another block to make it drop down and make a match. The blocks are Orbics, little trapped colored spheres that you free by matching them. Once they’re free, they will wander around a clearing where you can build houses and amenities for them with the money you earn completing levels, but there’s no real reason to. Trio adds nothing that hasn’t already been done before.

Peter: 7
If you can get past the creepy faces on the orbic people you’re saving in Trio, there’s a deceptivly clever match-the-color puzzler here. While these kinds of games aren’t my cup of tea, the sticky, physics-based maneuvering is comfortably predictable. Because the blocks are a little slippery, and three of a color only have to be near each other to be cleared, it’s possible to force the caged orbs together, which feels pretty good. And the town building you do between stages is a nice break from the main game.

Mike: 6
Trio is a match-3 game with a physics twist. The presentation, graphics, and music are good, but forgettable. The only problem here is that unlike most games, physics negatively impacts the gameplay when it comes to match 3. The way the boxes stick to each other and fall over makes it difficult to setup long chains and combos.

Click to Download the Free Demo

Erika: 7

The story begins with our young hero, Anka, whose goal is to free his mother from a crime she did not commit and find his missing father. In between this story, players are asked to solve brainteasers in order to progress through the game. Simple enough, but what this adventure-puzzle game lacks is focus. The need to repeatedly visit people and locations in order to gain certain items throughout the game adds to more frustrations. Despite there being some good ideas, Anka takes a lot of missteps in gameplay. You’re better off simply playing the demo.

Sam: 5
Anka is an adventure game. You control a young boy doing everyday chores, like finding the door handle that you tore off and threw on the roof, or finding the 40 eggs you hid in and around the house. These Basic tasks require mini-games. Want to read a recipe? Solve a crossword puzzle. The other tasks are more like traditional adventure game puzzles. They involve a lot of pixel hunting and combining unlikely objects. Trying to fix a hole in a boat? Use a frog, a broken bottle of honey, and bees. The puzzles range from obvious to illogical. However, the environments are detailed, and none of the items are too hidden.

Peter: 3
Anka is a point-and-click puzzler with well-drawn, anime-style characters and various minigames. The first thing I had to do was search the pixels for 40 eggs, which was frustrating and boring. Then I did a tile puzzle and a word search. While the art is well-executed, neither it nor the puzzles offer anything new or challenging. It seems like the target audience is children who can’t handle simple game mechanics, and I guess there is some appeal in that.

Stew: 8
In spite of myself, I liked Anka. A sickly sweet tale of a chipper lad occupying an equally honey toned world, it’s the sort of game that would usually make me puke. That said, at its core Anka is less about some brat’s “adventures” and more about playing mini-games and solving puzzles. The mini-games especially impressed me. While none are especially groundbreaking or complex, they are all fun and well done. I could actually imagine several being sold as standalone products and to its credit, Anka has them all under one roof, available for play whenever you like. In short, Anka is an attractive package for casual gamers, if you can get past the Care Bears sentimentality.

Click to Download the FREE PC Demo

Colt: 3
I never got into the RPGMaker niche. While the games look neat in the vintage sense, gameplay is ancient. I think the biggest progression is the automatic battle, which is broken in this case. No map, no autosave, confusing level design with all sorts of bushes and plants and rocks to hinder exploration. Millennium looks nice enough, and it may feature lush environments and a stirring story or whatever, but I’ll never know. After I inadvertently spent all my money upgrading Speed of all things, and my fairy sidekick, the one living in my earring, started talking, I was done.

Zak: 6
Millennium: A New Hope, available through Big Fish Games, follows the typical path of a run of the mill role playing game. The gameplay is reminiscent of traditional 16-Bit Final Fantasy-type RPG. The player collects a team and defeats enemies as they wander through towns, forests, dungeons, etc. Where the game deviates from the run of the mill, is in the challenge and artistry. Most of the enemies in the demo were pretty easy to defeat, but don’t take on more than you can handle – you have to manually save your progress. A lot also rides on remembering dialogue, so grab a notepad (maybe). The cut-to and battle scenes exhibit some great artwork, coupled with the 16-bit over-world art, I actually felt like I was back playing my old SNES.

Ben: 5
Although it’s got some nice hand-drawn artwork and is fine from a technical standpoint, Millenium suffers from being painfully generic. Although it is probably meant to be homage to the isometric-view console RPG’s of yesteryear, it doesn’t have any new ideas of its own, and even takes a few steps back in some areas. Both the keyboard and mouse control schemes are awkward feeling, and playability really suffers from the lack of gamepad support. Plus, the small sampling of music in the demo is really weak.

Andrew: 7
Millennium is practically worth playing just for its soundtrack alone. Though it can be said that some of the tracks don’t exactly fit with the tone, the soundtrack includes smooth jazz, snappy pop, and heavy drum jams. The JRPG turn-based gameplay is relatively standard, though, and the story gets in the way far too often. At first the story seems pretty interesting, but conversations between characters tend to go on far longer than they have to, and soon any interest in the story gives way to a desire stop all the yapping and get to the point.

Zak: 6
Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble isn’t the typical puzzle game; actually it has elements of various genres. In the game the player builds a team of 1920’s era girls with different abilities, like an RPG, to interact with various characters in the pursuit of solving a mystery. The style of the game was unique, combining various elements with some interesting hand drawn graphics. I think the gem of the game lies with the originality and script writing, which was humorous at times. However, something kept me from loving this game. It was almost like the game tried too hard to integrate the various genres.

Peter: 7
The high school girls at the center of Dangerous High School Girls are trying to discover what’s going on in their high school. The game takes place on a board game, but your girls confront other characters through a series of minigames. Characters level up in skills like Popularity and Rebellion, which make them more effective at taunting, fibbing, flirting and exposing. The games are easy at the start, and they’d probably get repetitive as time went on. But the dialogue is sharp, so the story might be worth the hassle.

Andrew: 7
While it’s certainly true that Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble is one of the most unique games released in a long while, the gameplay doesn’t quite live up to those standards. It’s still good fun, but it’s carried solely on the back of its amazing concept, not through depth of gameplay. The mystery storyline is mostly played out in dialogue trees and minigames which, while novel, don’t quite live up to my dreams of living the life of a 1920s high school girl.