Welcome to ep. 15 of Divercast! On today's episode we have our friend Christian Mancia aka GreenJoker24. Christian is a long time Evo competitor and co-founder of the indie game studio Cool Game Bro.

   In this episode we talk about E3, our experience our reaction to some of the biggest reveals and what really impressed us this year. We also talk about the trouble with plat testing your game and the possible issues with big game studios (AAA) and Kickstarters. 

So sit back, relax it is time for Divercast! 

   Be sure to check out Indiebox! Referral code Divercast. Indiebox is a monthly subscription service that mails collector edition Indie games to your doorstep every month.

   Check out Safari Pop and Sketch, two games created by Christian and his game studio.

Check out my Indie Arcade write up for the Indie MIX event at E3! Read about the awesome Indie Games I had the opportunity of checking out. 

   Do you have questions, comment or concerns? Email us at deepdigitaldesign@gmail.com
Follow us on Tumblr, IndieDB, Twitter, Mixcloud,Soundcloud

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100
​

  Welcome to a special Indie Arcade update. This E3 I went to The MIX after party.  This was a party for Indie developers to showcase their games to the game industry media. I decided to attend last minute so that I may do a quick write up for Indie Arcade. 

  I got the chance to try out a couple indie games and talk to their creators. It was an awesome event and here are a couple games I got to play.

   Bunker Punks is a rougelike FPS game where you lead a revolution of misfits to fight against the man. All the level layouts are randomly generated and full of enemies. weapons and loot.  

  Bunker Punks reminds me of Doom. It is an oldschool FPS all about fast movement, circle strafing and aggression. Camping back isn't a good idea, it might work at first until you realize that items such as ammo and health that are dropped by enemies slowly disappear if you don't get tot hem in time.


   The randomly generated levels are a huge plus. It adds a certain sense of tension, you need to keep pushing forward into the unknown, or get cornered with no ammo or health. It is a game mechanic that helps feed into the action. Bunker Punks adds a fresh flavor to the FPS genre and I haven't even mentioned the bunker/resource management aspect of the game! Definitely a game for fans of FPS/Rouge likes. 

   You can find Bunker Punks on the Humble Bundle Store and on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.

Note: I didn't play Jenny LeClue at the event. I played it on my PC after I got home from the event. I had downloaded the demo earlier and had planned to discuss it later.

   Jenny is a young detective taking on the biggest case of her life when her mother is accused of murder. Jenny takes the case in order to clear her mother of all charges, but she soon discovers a larger conspiracy.

   Jenny LeClue is a stylish game. The animation, presentation, dialogue and art style are incredibly charming. I was sucked into the demo within a minute. The gameplay is all point and click, and when you are inspecting objects in the world, Jenny will take mental notes of all the clues.

  Not to spoil anything, but the big puzzle featured in the demo was genius. The problem with point and click games is when you get stuck. Most people just start clicking everywhere in order to find something so they can move forward. This is simply not doable in the teaser. You will have to sit down and actually use your mind to get past the puzzle. Simply clicking on everything will get you nowhere but frustrated. 

 There was also something about being a young girl that added to the tension. As a shadowy figure stalked about the house, I made sure to keep a low profile, I knew if I were to be caught be an adult, it would be over. I was also not ready for how intense the story was, I know it is easy to just say "The mystery goes much deeper", but it really does hint at some huge story elements. Also, Jenny is a little girl investigating a murder!

You can find Jenny Le Clue on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. Download the playable teaser on PC, Mac,Linux and Iphone/Ipad. 

  You play as Typoman, a hero literally made out of the word "HERO". You must make your way through a dark and surreal world, your only weapon is words. Using letters to spell words and solve puzzles and defeat your enemies.

   Typoman is very similar to Limbo. You are in a world that isn't quite right, death can come quickly and you must use your mind to solve an array of puzzles.

   It is a very inventive game. You have to spell out words using letters in the environment. These words radiate out and affect objects in the level. For example. if there is a platform that is moving too fast for you to jump on, you can find some letters in the world and spell out "Stop" or "Slow". 

   The creators said that they would try to make sure all possible combinations would be considered, sort of like scrabble. A typical puzzles will give you a letter jumble, where you have a small pool of letters that can be used to spell out the solution. This of course isn't the only kind of puzzle the player will come across and the game will feature some platforming elements mixed in. 

   You can find Typoman on Twitter and Facebook. Typoman is set to be released exclusively on the Wii U. 

   Capsule Force is chaotic high energy game where players need to prevent the opposing team from getting to their base via tram while also advancing to the enemy base so that you may capture their flag (galaxy orb). Things get even more frantic when you add laser cannons, double jumps and bubble shields into the fray.

   I played a few games and this, and It was really fun. A lot of explosions and action are going on when you have four players going at it. The game moves at a breakneck pace, a round and end in under 30 seconds! The mechanics are easy to learn and hard to master. Knowing when to charge up your blaster, timing your shield to knock off a player from the tram and more all come into play. 

   Capsule force is a great game for anyone looking for an arcade style action/party game with some awesome throwback 80's anime pixel art. 

   You can find Capsule Force on Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB, Tumblr and Steam.

  Set in a Future where humanity now lives in underwater cities, Subaeria has players pick one of 4 characters. Players must guide their character from pod to pod, avoiding deadly traps and robot security drones. They have no weapons, but they can equip their personal drone with a variety of skills to aid them along their journey. If a character were to die, they are gone for the rest of the game.

   Subaeria is a game where you have to solve puzzles room by room. You can't engage enemies directly in combat, because 1) You don't have any weapons and 2) You are just a regular person, not a solider. This means that using your drone and it's skills is very important, and depending on what skills the drone is equipped with (up to two at a time) can affect how you go about solving these puzzles. 

The fact that your character can die permanently adds a lot of tension. Each pod needs to be handled with care. I found myself trying to get a feel for the pod's puzzle before I tried to solve it. A large element of the game involved trying to trick competing security robots into destroying each other.

  Overall an awesome twist on your typical rouge like. There is a lot of story and characters to discover that I only got a taste of. 

   You can find Subaeria on Facebook, Twitter and Steam.

   Well that is my impressions on a few of the games available at The MIX event. There were a ton of games and I had so little time! Thank you to all the Devs that took time to demo their games for/with me and chat about game development. If any of these games looked interesting to you be sure to follow the developers on social media for updates and more info.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

  Welcome to another edition of Divercast! On this episode we talk about Boss Battles, the ones that are memorable to us, there purpose in games. Are they a thing of the past, or are they still relevant? 

  We also talk about whether teaser trailers are pointless, the E3 demo vs the final release of a game controversy and what it means to design a level and a stage. 

So sit back, relax it is time for Divercast!

Games Discussed: GTA V, Metal Gear series, Megaman Series, Metal Slugs. Doom, FF 7, Ninja Gaiden Black, Viewtiful Joe, The Last of Us

   Be sure to check out Dimension Drive on kickstarter. Check out Freeze-E Frosty's, now on itch.io! Check out my blog post on a new enemy I designed for The Last of Us. 

   Do you have questions, comments or concerns? Email us at deepdigitaldesign@gmail.com
Follow us on Tumblr, IndieDB, Twitter, Mixcloud,Soundcloud, clowdy and Youtube

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100
​

   Welcome to the June 2015 edition of Indie Arcade! For this month I have an awesome sidescrolling, metroid-vania, shooter known simply as Greedy Guns.

Note: Greedy Guns is currently in Beta. I played version 0.9.4 single player only, I did not try the game in CO-OP, but I really wanted too.

   Art wise, the game looks great. Colorful and everything in the world has a strong silhouette. The game's art style is reminiscent of the webcomic Penny Arcade. The characters and environment look fantastic, sporting a wonderful sketchbook feel that is beautifully translated into the Unity game engine. 

  Unlike most games in this genre, you do not die with a single hit. You have a health bar and you recover health by finding special blue healing pads (located all over the world) that restore you back to full health. 

  I really enjoyed this game, but there are some things it is currently lacking. Greedy Guns takes some inspiration from games like Metal Slugs, and I don't know if I mentioned it before but I am a huge Metal Slugs fan. So a few things stuck out to me that was missing from Metal Slugs. 

   The first thing I noticed id that there is no grenade or grenade like weapon, and yes I did buy the grenade launcher in the beta, but I mean is that the player does not have a grenade, which is a staple of the Metal Slugs series. Maybe for now their is no grenade, maybe it needs to be unlocked or added into the game still, but my point is you will quickly be wishing for explosives once the enemies begin to mob you.

    Another thing it is missing from Metal Slugs is the melee. Once again, this might just not be in the game due to it being an unlock or just simply has not been implemented yet. 

   Why not have Bob slash at his foes with a laser-blade knife? And Kate. T can punch enemies with her robotic fist (Although add some knuckles and spikes for comedic effect). 

   As mentioned before, the keyboard controls aren't that great. Mostly when aiming the mouse, It is really hard to get the perfect 45 degree angle when shooting at enemies.

    In this case, the controller was far superior. That isn't to say that the controls were perfect, they can still use some fixes in terms of button layout, but this is somewhat minor and can easily be a quick fix in the options menu.

   Greedy Guns is an awesome game. The art is bright, the gameplay is solid and shows a lot of potential. This is just the beta, just scratching the surface here. Greedy Guns is going to be on my radar. Expect me to tweet about it once the game has a full release.

   You got nothing to lose and tons of cash to earn. Hop in the beta and give it a shot! Also make sure to send your feedback to the developers. 

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100