Indies for the weekend

Shove Knight

I don't know if the title is an intended play on the other more famous indie game Shovel Knight, but you do shove thigs as a knight. The word knight is used very loosely because considering the simplicity in the game's graphics it sure does leave a lot to the imagination considering that in-game you seem to control a knight helmet on two legs. This is one of those games that serve as a retro throwback to the good old GameBoy days with its visuals and gameplay. This is a puzzle game where you control your "knight" through various spaces and shove the skull obstacles in various holes that appear inside the levels. The unique twist here is that you can't go back to previous spaces on which you've been before since your movement creates more empty space in the level. This is where the challenge lies as the skulls that are placed throughout the levels serve as obstacles. You are forced to plan and think through how you are to move about in the level since after you've removed all the skulls and retrieved all the keys(which is a requirement later on in the game) you need to get back to the starting point to complete the level. This is a fun puzzler that I think would also serve great as a mobile game if the developers ever decided to port it.
Game Link
Game Link

The Creature's Game

There are some games out there that try to do a lot of good things at the same time and sadly in the end end up missing the mark on most of them. This is one of those sadly. The Creature's game sees you playing as a playtester for a game, but everything is not as it seems, and through playing the game you can discover what seems to be amiss. So you are playing "playtesting". This sounded very strange and when you came across a glitch or something else that seemed to be out of the ordinary you weren't sure if it was intentional or not because it's acknowledged that the game does contain bugs and glitches but it's not clear which of those are part of the game and which are not. The game also tried to tell a story and by having 8 endings, you are supposed to discover it through multiple playthroughs. However, depending on the order in which you get these endings the story ends up being confusing. The art style has a certain charm considering that everything in the game seems to be hand-drawn, but one thing that almost drove me, insane was the music. It only consists of a 5-6 second piano loop. Considering that it might take 30-50 minutes to get to all the endings, it would probably drive anybody nuts by that point. As stated earlier, this one felt like it tried to do alot of things at the same time, but all of it just fell flat in the end.
Game Link
Game Link