Indie Game Dev Scene

The indie RPG Franken is available for free at https://splendidland.itch.io/franken . It is a rather short game that can be completed within a hour. What is interesting is the very simple and straightforward battle scheme, which makes battles completely predictable. Basically, whether you win or lose depends on the order in which you start battles with your opponents. In addition to battles, you can move around on the map and enter towns where you can talk with NPCs. The game is quite charming because of its very simple graphics, and in my opinion it serves as a good inspiration for creating your own games.

Evoke Hauptmeister is the game that made first place in the game dev competition at Evoke 2024. It is a variant of Paperboy. You play a boy riding a bicycle. Instead of throwing newspapers, you have to take photos of cars parked in the wrong place. The game features three levels of difficulty, but already the lowest level is quite hard. In fact I learned more about this game by watching the gameplay video at YouTube . Both the graphics and the music (composed by well-known demoscene musician Skyrunner) are very good considering that the entire game is in the style of the 16-bit era. The game can be downloaded for free at: https://justepyx.itch.io/hauptmeister

This year's Evoke party has brought us several new games, including a 4k remake of Minesweeper. You probably know Minesweeper, it is all about finding blocks on the screen where no bomb is placed. If you hit a bomb you lose. The objective is to clear the screen. This implementation is for Windows and the executable is only 4096 bytes, although it contains good music (even if it is very simple) and decent graphics. A true masterpiece!

Digdogs-Streetbusters is a fun and educational advertising game from the German Transport Association. The aim is to drive through the streets of Bonn in a car that you can assemble yourself beforehand, while observing all the traffic rules. As already mentioned, the car can be equipped with various utensils at the beginning. There are several engines, from the simple 4-stroke to the modern V8 engine. You can also choose your own spoiler, tires and headlights. Controlling the car is very simple, as you can only accelerate, brake and turn left or right. The game is viewed from an oblique angle, so playability is not hampered by complicated camera views. On many occasions, e.g. when the gas tank is empty or you have not paid attention to the redtraffic light, you have to complete small gimmicks, such as a nice Tetris game, a 3D maze à la DOOM (only without monsters) or a reaction test. These special interludes loosen up the overall gameplay, but it only takes about six minutes to play th

Crime Fighter is a game that was first released in 1993, made by German programmer Peter Steffen. The player controls a gangster who can walk through the city and commit various sorts of crime at different locations, including hotels, mansions, train stations and banks. The goal of the game is to be as successful as possible, since your rank will then increase until you are the boss of the underworld. It is basically a mix of strategy, action and tactical role-playing game. Once you have reached a certain status you can hire other gangsters for your gang. They have different values of strength, intelligence etc. You can buy weapons as well as transportation vehicles for your characters. The game can be played by up to four human players. There is also a mode that allows you to fight another gang. Crime Fighter is definitely one of the best free games from the 1990s era. It can be played using the DOSbox emulator, and nowadays there is also a version for mobile phones. The official webs

Now I'm going to introduce a game yours truly developed. Adok's Number Maze is the most innovative of my games. It's based on a novel idea and I know no game with a similar concept released in the past. Adok's Number Maze was released in 2010 and it's supposed to be an educational game targeted at elementary school children who are learning mathematics. Basically you control a bug who has to move from start to goal. With every move a number gets inserted into an equation displayed on the top of the screen. If this equation is false, you have to start the current level again and lose a life. So you have to carefully decide how to move so that the equation is always fulfilled. With progress in the game the planning component becomes increasingly important. You have to think several steps ahead in order to survive. The game can be freely downloaded at http://www.cdvolko.net/ .