Best indie game of June for Windows Phone and Windows 8

The Xbox One received a ton of new indie game releases this week, including a diversity of genres similar adventure, sports, and driving. Only you know, Windows Phone and Windows viii accept quite an agile indie scene every bit well. This weekend, we're taking a ii office await at the indie games of June.

For part i of our indie games roundup, I played a word game called Alpha Pop, puzzle game Dino Tribes, retentivity skill game Ditto, endless running game Firefly Runner, and a 3D racing game known every bit Formula Strength. Which games belong on your Windows Telephone or tablet? Let our impressions and hands-on video help you make up one's mind!

Alpha Pop

Looking for a word game alternative to Wordament and Wordament Snap Attack? Alpha Pop, the first Windows Telephone game from Monster and Monster (and currently exclusive to our platform) features the same bones mechanic of searching for words within a field of letters. The longer the word and/or the less mutual the letters that compose information technology, the more points you get. But the words you lot notice disappear from the board, allowing new letters to drop in and have their identify.

The goal is to score equally many points equally possible before time runs out. The occasional differently colored letters tin can be a big help with that. Make a give-and-take with one of these special letters and a whole row or column will be cleared. Stone letters are less helpful, though. It takes too matches to eliminate the rock from a letter, at which point information technology can exist used similar a normal letter.

Alpha Pop is quite a slick game visually, with catchy music to kick. It too has nice features like 16 in-game badges to earn and Facebook leaderboard support. The game is free and supported past ads. If y'all find the ads distracting, you can opt to pay 99 cents to disable them – always a welcome selection.

• Alpha Pop – Windows Phone 8 – thirteen MB – Gratis – Store Link

Dino Tribes

This match-iii puzzle game from Blazing Griffin is an AppCampus winner, and exclusive to Windows Phone for its starting time three months of release. Information technology starts out with a lengthy intro featuring a bunch of slightly ugly dinosaurs discussing the impending doom of their homeland. Not a bad concept but instead of showing what'due south happening, we simply see the same contour pictures over and over every bit they engage in a lengthy discussion. Boring!

The game itself initially appears to be another Candy Crush Saga clone. Y'all complete unique levels on a map, each of which has goals like reaching a certain score or finishing in under a fix number of moves. Failing costs y'all a life, which accuse up over time. And you can buy boosts with the gold y'all earn from playing, or opt to buy gilded as an in-app purchase. We've seen it all before.

Nonetheless, Dino Tribes does a few things differently than the average match-3 game. First, you're matching cute colored dinosaurs instead of jewels. Dinos are way cooler than gems!

Second, instead of but sliding a unmarried slice in guild to make matches, you lot really slide the unabridged row or cavalcade of pieces. The line sliding mechanic creates unique matching and philharmonic opportunities compared to most games of this ilk.

Dino Tribes boasts a feature I haven't come across earlier: Nokia Mix Radio support! If you have Nokia Mix Radio installed on your phone, yous can stream music from there while you play. If more games start doing that, I might have to break down and install Mix Radio.

On the downside, the game lost my progress at one point, forcing me to start fresh the next time I played. Hopefully the developers can squash that bug and maybe optimize the engine a piffling more in the future.

• Dino Tribes – Windows Telephone 8 – 72 MB – Free – Store Link

Ditto

Blacksmith Software's Ditto is a new spin on the musical memory skill game Simon. The twist? Instead of four round buttons to watch, y'all take a field of 38 colored squares! You all the same watch the computer light upwards an increasingly complex series of buttons, and so attempt to recreate the same blueprint. Just the vastly increased field of buttons adds a new degree of challenge.

Besides the memory portion of the game, Ditto also offers a Composer mode. Each button on the lath makes its ain unique tone. Musically-minded individuals can play around with those tones every bit much equally they similar without the game rules getting in the way.

That's all there is to Ditto – information technology's a small and simple game with no in-app purchases or technical flaws to mire the experience.

• Ditto – Windows Phone viii – 14 MB – Gratis – Store Link
• Ditto – Windows 8 and RT – ii MB – Free – Store Link

Firefly Runner

Desire to help a skillful cause? Firefly Runner from U.k.-based Cherry Kite Games is a paid game (and a universal app for Windows Phone and Windows 8!). Fifteen percentage of the acquirement information technology generates volition be donated to the Games Aid and SpecialEffect charities.

It helps that Firefly Runner is actually a pretty proficient endless runner, every bit we mentioned in concluding week's story. This one plays a lot like Jetpack Joyride, simply with an anthropomorphic firefly named Switch instead of a jetpack dude. Borer and holding on the left side of the screen causes your firefly to lift off the basis. Release and he'll drop downwards.

Different most running games, our firefly hero isn't defenseless. Tap anywhere on the right side of the screen and he'll spit cherries at that spot. Cherries will knock out the many villainous insects who make it Serenity'southward way. But cherries are limited, so you tin can't only spit them all the fourth dimension.

Although Firefly Runner doesn't have a shop or endless arsenal of side missions like Jetpack Joyride, it does feature a few goals also shooting for high scores. Sometimes you'll come across a key. The primal allows our hero to rescue some of his friends after in the level. The game also has a rank system in which you level up as you play. Information technology doesn't actually explain the system for some reason, which might exit some players oblivious or confused.

The game itself is fairly pretty, which a proficient multifariousness of environments and colorful backgrounds filled with multiple layers of parallax scrolling. But I must say: the firefly himself is one ugly bug.

• Firefly Runner – Windows Phone viii (universal app) – 32 MB – $.99 – Store Link
• Firefly Runner – Windows viii and RT (universal app) – 32 MB – $.99 – Store Link

Formula Force

The first Windows Phone game from The Pixel Bullies is an AppCampus championship, and thus exclusive to Windows Telephone for its starting time 90 days of release. It will also exist coming to Windows 8 in the most future.

Formula Strength is a 3D arcade-style racing game with a big accent on tunnels. You lot can actually drive on the walls and ceilings if you're careful. That said, the collision mechanics with other cars need some work. We should be able to ram other cars out of the way with style in games like this, but instead such collisions unremarkably exercise more harm than good. I plant myself wishing for a nitro function as well.

The meat of the game is a Championship manner in which players race across ten international tracks – quite a nice variety. Make sure yous plow down the engine audio so you can actually hear each track'south unique music; the engine is wayyy too loud by default.

Win races to earn money, which can then exist spent to unlock new cars and pigment jobs. You tin likewise unlock everything right away with a 99 cent in-app purchase, simply it's not necessary.

Formula Force is a decent racing game, but kind of crude effectually the edges. The menus don't use a widescreen attribute ratio, and they're ugly and generic to boot. And in-game, the textures need to be higher resolution to make up for the overly simplistic track geometry. Only if y'all're itching for a racing game with lots of tracks, you might not listen.

• Formula Force – Windows Phone 8 (1 GB of RAM or higher) – 136 MB – $1.99 – Store Link

Don't miss part two of our indie games roundup!

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/june-indie-games-roundup-1

Posted by: bassqual1986.blogspot.com

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