System Shock Meets Alien

Just a few years ago, you would not have been surprised to see a game like this getting cover treatment from the major PC game magazines. It's a nicely polished oblique-overhead third-person shooter set in a mining colony on Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons) that is under attack by alien critters. The story line is nicely done too, with good voice acting and a real sense of tension and a colony under siege; naturally, weapons get more powerful over time, and NPCs work with you in later levels.

Amoeba Shmup

Singularis is a sort of shmup for amoebas. You play Proto, a protozoan with the unlikely ambition of becoming the most powerful being in the universe. Initially, you can do nothing more than move (which, in the default control scheme, you do by choosing direction with the mouse and pressing the Up arrow to move forward, or the Back arrow to move back). Later on, you gain additional abilities, including cilia to let you row yourself forward more quickly, and -- I did call it a shmup -- a gun. Or if you prefer, the ability to shoot destructive viruses at enemies.

Starscape is a great example how a small team that knows what its doing can pack a lot of gameplay into a small package--and Moonpod, a team of long-term industry vets turned indie, know precisely what they're doing.

At its heart, Starscape is a space "shmup" (shoot-em-up) with the kind of fast, intense shooting action you expect in a game of that style; but layered atop that is a game of resource management and tech development.

Slamdance Guerilla Games Festival Finalist

A sidescroller? Sorta; Steam Brigade's ultimate heritage is in games like Rescue Raiders. You and your opponent have bases at opposite sides of an area; you build units at your base, they move horizontally across the screen (which you have to scroll to see the full play area), and the ultimate objective is to take out the enemy base.

Old school gameplay, in other words but, well, very nicely implemented.

2003 Independent Games Festival Finalist
Buy This Game and Get Plasmaworm as a Free Bonus

Here's how a typical game works: You spend 20 hours or more pounding through a series of pre-planned linear obstacles, very often hurling your controller across the room or banging on your desk in frustration as you meet a boss that seems well nigh impossible until you go read a walk-through... And when you are done, you are done, because you've finished, and why would you ever want to play it again?

Here's how Strange Adventures in Infinite Space works: You spend twenty minutes or less, you have a satisfying game experience, and there is never a moment of frustration... if you fail it doesn't really matter because you can always start another game. And when it's done, you find yourself saying "damn, it's over already? I want to play again."