Best Of Indie Games: Mind the Path

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days, as well as any notable features on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.] This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week. The goodies in this edition include a commercial release of the long-awaited horror game from Tale of Tales, an unlikely casual hack and slash game, a short interactive fiction work, a rather unique roguelike, a Flash wonderful creation from Kenta Cho, and a cool psychedelic puzzler that will literally blow your brains away. Game Pick: 'The Path' (Tale of Tales, commercial indie) "A horror game inspired by the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Developer Tale of Tales calls it a 'Slow Game' for the simple reason that nearly every activity in the game is optional - you can volunteer to do as little or as much as you want. There are no difficult puzzles to solve or raging monsters to defeat, because the game is all about how keen you are on deviating from the path." Game Pick: 'Dead Like Ants' (C.E.J. Pacian, freeware) "Dead Like Ants is another well-written interactive fiction work created by Pacian, developer of Gun Mute and Snowblind Aces. In it, you play a young daughter who had been requested by the queen to carry out a special task for her majesty. The game is playable on Linux and OS X as well, although you will need to download the correct TADS interpreter to get it working on your choice of operating system." Game Pick: 'Kivi's Underworld' (Soldak Entertainment, commercial indie - demo available) "Kivi's Underworld leads with a simple premise - make your way through dreary dungeon after dungeon laying into every skeleton, zombie and undead being who happens to cross your path. Great fun for everyone with even the most casual player spending at least ten hours on it, while completists will find themselves still at it for much longer than that." Game Pick: 'DungeonMinder' (Adam Gatt, freeware) "In DungeonMinder, you play as an invisible fairy tasked with assisting an adventurer as he makes his way into the catacombs in search of treasure. This requires casting spells which immobilize enemies, increase the adventurer's stats or even change the shape of dungeon walls and floors." Game Pick: 'DefeatMe' (Kenta Cho, browser) "A new wonderfl experimental work from the legendary Kenta Cho. This seemingly simplistic shooter involves destroying enemy ships with as few shots as possible, because the problem is that on every subsequent level you're put up against clones of yourself from each of the previous rounds. The less shots you fire off, the less shots will be fired back at you in the next round." Game Pick: 'King' (Buster, freeware) "A retro 2D platformer by Buster, developer of notable releases such as the memorable Akuji the Demon and a Zelda-like action RPG tribute called Guardian of Paradise. In it, players would have to assist a sovereign in acquiring as much points as he can, simply by jumping and stomping on the enemies found in each level." Game Pick: 'Imagination Reality Paradise' (kanoguti, freeware) "Possibly one of the strangest acid trips you will play this year, kanoguti's I.R.P. is an adventure game where players would have to figure out the solution to the puzzle found in each room, simply by using the right combination of buttons on their keyboard. Every playthrough yields a different set of random sequences, so by replaying the game you might find some new areas that were never discovered in previous attempts."