mrdavepizza - Mr. Dave Pizza

Big Boy Boxing is a Great Game Homage That You Have to See

Big Boy Boxing is a cartoony indie boxing dev inspired by Cuphead and the classic late 80's NES game Punch-Out!! The concept is polished and shiny for contemporary indie players who thrive on retro quirks in new games. You play as a new boxer, trained up through the earnest beginning in the ring with a trainer, Coach Hank. At this stage of development, the demo is pretty short with only one contender, but there are plenty of interesting observations to be made on this neat project. I'd say it's pretty certain by the time this is released this is going to be a very hyped game in the indie world and beyond. The project from concept to gameplay is really enjoyable and I'm ready to dive in, so let's take a look.

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August 17, 2021

INDIE GAMES

The Wratch’s Den is a Feast of Excellent Challenges

The Wratch's Den is a rogue-like dungeon builder from the depths of the PUNKCAKE Délicieux inventory on Itch.IO. The gameplay involves building a pixel art style base by mining the surrounding layers of cave rock. The core of the base is a simple brick square structure that houses a minotaur villain on a throne that oversees a group of minions. Progress is measured by how quickly you respond to crusading do-gooders and the retrieval of three magic orbs. When enough progress is made the arch-villain minotaur can research new areas in the base or even revive slain minions. This entire experience is procedurally generated and leads to casual replay value that is pretty dang fun. So, let me take you into the depths of The Wratch's Den, and tell you what I see.

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August 16, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Mini Motorways is A Little Great Game About Traffic

Mini-motorways is a delightful traffic planning sim released within the last month. It boasts charming flat graphic aesthetics with an intuitive casual style game experience. The sleek 2D environment bleeds indie simplicity worthy of a gaming machine or a new phone. The gameplay is relatively simple but allows interactive city planning in a selection of metropolitans all around the world. Start with a small group of structures within the map and drag road tiles and other traffic structures between color-coordinated structures to advance. As you progress, you'll learn tricks and skills to create a flawless infrastructure. I'm excited to take a look at this one with you, so let's get started!

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August 13, 2021

VISUAL NOVELS

Raptor Boyfriend is A Game About Love Unlike Any Other

Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance is an ambitious and masterfully crafted visual novel/dating sim that takes place in small-town Ontario. With fun cryptid characters and absolutely stunning illustrations, its gameplay value is probably some of the best I've seen for this genre. I have been excited to play this for some time, as a general fan of visual novels and cryptid fantasy games. You don't have to worry about anxiety-driven creature interaction though, because this game is safe and accessible across diverse players. Shortly after the day began, I got started on this dive into the world of Ladle, Ontario. Scene one, which is what I played for you, took around roughly an hour. Some players on Steam had a playtime of over 20 hours! So, there is a lot of content here, and many different ways to play. Let's take a look!

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August 12, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Dark Dragonkin is A Little, Simple Indie I Played

Dark Dragonkin is an indie dev project from Twintertainment that is a top-down pixelized fantasy RPG/dungeon-crawler. Players control multiple characters in a group to make them work together to defeat enemies and advance the story. This game is still deep in the dev process with a potential audience of RPG fans and general indie gamers. It feels very attended to as a solo dev project though, and the potential to scale abilities and environments into a fully fleshed world is entirely real. So, I sat down with Dark Dragonkin and played through the first level. I recommend if you test the demo for this you realize how far the developers have come in working on basic mechanics and themes. I thought it was pretty cool, so let's talk about it.

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August 10, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Colorblend fx Desaturation is an Interesting Freebie

Colorblend fx Desaturation is an upcoming game released in demo form shortly before testing it here on my end. It’s a 3D platformer with story-rich puzzle-solving elements that blend ideas about color and storytelling. The characters in Colorblend fx Desaturation consist of a wholesome-ish pack of potato-headed buds called the Splatians. And deep in the fire and brimstone caverns of who knows where is the abode of nefarious minions sworn to a meanie named Lord Ashen. In a diabolical turn of fate, Lord Ashen depletes the Splatian’s home of colorful hues in place of monochrome misery. The only solution is to work with your friends and solve creative puzzles involving color to defeat Lord Ashen.

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August 9, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Toodee and Topdee is one of the Best Indie Puzzlers Out

Toodee and Topdee is so far one of my favorite platformer concepts that I've ever tried. A while back I did a documentary review that talked a bit about the game Fez. While much different conceptually, they both have a neat mechanic that combined 2D platforming with shiftable perspectives. I'm not sure how efficiently I can describe this concept without getting into some straight-up academic theories involving geometry, so be sure to watch the video, but suffice to say it is really, really neat. Plus anybody can play! The game has a compelling intro with a demagogue world-merging backstory, and each level is a platform with locks and blocks, in what I want to say is kind of like the super old school game Chips Challenge mixed with Portal. I have some exciting thoughts on this, so let's get started.

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August 6, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Haven Park is One of the Best Cozy Park Life Sims

Haven Park is here today and we’re happy to have it. Where to start? Let’s start with adorable cute animal heads making friends in the woods. I’m drawn to them the moment I glimpse at them, and my heart gets their attention quick. Haven Park is a three-dimensional open world that expands on the social crafting genre. And it’s a cool option the addresses demand for games of this nature. In Haven Park, you play a little yellow bird who essentially inherits a whole park from its grandmother, You are tasked to maintain the park, draw visitors in, and explore. With crafting, in-game market, and skill trees, this is a pretty feature-abundant game! Let’s take a look.

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August 5, 2021

INDIE GAMES

Unbound: Worlds Apart is a Unique & Thrilling Indie Out Now

Unbound: Worlds Apart is a unique new 2D platformer with a fantasy twist and versatile special abilities. On the surface, it's a beautiful game, on par with the likes of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. On inspection, there's a heck ton of attention paid to the fine details of the environment. And when you actually play, solving puzzles with your special ability rolls off your controller quite intuitively. This is a high-quality production for those who love platformers and want to really see what's possible in this genre. If you're ready to brave a collapsing reality inexplicably parallel to a world of creepy crawly things, but recluse in your summonable portals, say that 5 times fast and push the dang portal button.

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August 3, 2021