Best Of Indie Games: Saddling Up for an Exploration

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days 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 delights in this edition include a cave spelunking game with low resolution graphics, a Western-themed shooter with bullet time effects, a 2D platformer focused entirely on the aspect of exploration, a point-and-click adventure with delightful watercolor art, and a fighting game about two bandits out on a search for gold. Here's the highlights from the last seven days: Game Pick: 'Excavatorrr' (Arvi Teikari, freeware) "In Excavatorrr you play as an adventurer who is searching for rare treasures in an unexplored network of caves, equipped with only a pickaxe and some starting items strewn on the floor. Maps are procedurally generated every time you start a new game, and there is also a score submission feature that you can use to upload your high scores online." Game Pick: 'GunFu Deadlands' (Christiaan Janssen, freeware) "GunFu Deadlands is a 2D arcade shooter in which you play a cowboy out to prove that he is the quickest sharpshooter in the West. Similar to Max Payne and the recent Call of Juarez series, our hero has the uncanny ability to react faster than everyone else, although he can only use bullet time in short bursts." Game Pick: 'Gretel and Hansel' (Makopudding, browser) "Gretel and Hansel is a short point and click adventure loosely based in the world of Hansel and Gretel. Gretel overhears their parents discussing some 'money-saving ideas', and decides to embark on a pebble-collecting mission as per the story. It's definitely worth playing for the watercolour art - every little bit from the backgrounds to the character models was hand painted and scanned in." Game Pick: 'Small Worlds' (David Shute, browser) "Small Worlds is an exploration game created by David Shute for JayisGames' latest Casual Gameplay Design Competition. The controls for your character can be a bit frustrating at times but everything else about the effort shines through. Even if you take all the wrong paths, this adventure is still a rather short one that will only take roughly about fifteen minutes of your time to complete." Game Pick: 'Bullets of a Revolver' (DieFox, freeware) "Bullets of a Revolver is a fighting game for the most part, but also has dodging, dueling and dancing minigames thrown in from time to time. It tells the story of two bandits on their quest to discover the location of the fabled Golden Cave. There's also an arcade mode if you simply want to get into a fight, or Versus mode for those want to play against a friend on the same keyboard."