When I was younger I played this Scotland Yard board game a few times, in which one of the players takes the role of the ominous "Mister X". Well, as I said I was young, so guess how cool I thought it sounds I actually think it's not even too bad of a nickname and it even suits me to some extent. Yet, I dislike knowing that some people will prematurely judge me because of it, thinking I'm a kiddy.

Anyway, apart from that I also oftentimes go with the generic fantasy-esque nick "Syrion". Some years ago I needed a name for an elven character, so I looked up some Sindarin terms and came up with "Sirion", meaning "river". Spiced it up a little with that "y", there you have it.

Hell, I'm such an artist

What about the Superb Owl?
Ahaha.
Ha.

Ahem.


Anyway, cool dude you got there

[Teewars]

Found another sweet game which could make a nice entry for the frontpage for that it's apparently truly indie and still in development:

Teewars
Basically I would say it's a "2D cutesy Quake". You have a weapons at your disposal, including the typical shotgun, grenade launcher and a cool katana and those are simply being used for shootin' the hell out of the other.. fluffy... cute... kitten-thingies.. or so And not to forget it features a great Liero-like hook used for stylishly swinging around the map or pulling enemies towards you for further "preparation" with the wooden hammer
Seriously so far it is rather rudimentary with only few weapons and as far as I could see only few (Team) Deathmatch and Capture The Flag maps, but even for the apparently early development status (v0.3.3 was just released) all that's included feels very polished. Even the server-browser is more functional than that of many commercial "blockbusters".
A pretty solid, positively short-lived fragfest. And it's oh so cute!

Link to Teewar's homepage: http://teewars.com/?page=news

and two screenshots taken from it (both not from the current version, but I couldn't spot major differences to it ):

[Silencer]

Well, that's understandable.
And of course, the game might still be fun, but this idea of not making a "cool and fun" game, but the "most obscene" one, for the sake of provoking and gaining fame like this or whatever, that combined with all the rest I've posted at least makes it very.. "unsympathetic" for me.


But to something more on-topic:
Silencer
It is an online 2D multiplayer game about different agencies fighting each other in kind of a cyberpunk scenario. Each player takes the role of one agent whose main goal is to hack different terminals in the level and bring the gained information back to his hidden base. The level is full of civilians and guards making it hard to secretly hack, yet still the most dangerous threat are the competing agents, which you can fight using several weapons purchased in the base and the cool jetpack.
Silencer is probably not even an indie game. It was commercially released around 2000 by Mind Control Software. Unfortunately it was only playable through the WON servers, which were disabled in 2001, so it could not be played anymore. Though finally only few months ago a group of dedicated die-hard fans managed to somehow alter the game's code so they could use an alternate server, which is since up and running for everyone to be used. This means that Silencer is now basically freeware, or at least something like that.

I don't know how popular Silencer used to be back when it was still officially supported, but at least now it only has a very small community. As there is even a leveling-system it gets quite hard for "newbies" to play the game, especially as the tutorial doesn't cover much. But at least I found a nice person online explaining all the game's features to me and it might also be a nice game to play on a gamenight

Some links:
Official Homepage
Guide to playing Silencer now including the download
Wikipedia article containing some more information

and two rather unrevealing screenshots from the tutorial:

[not]

I'd really like to see what you think about BERSERKER.

At least I'd love Berserker to not be mentioned on TIGSource. Firstly I can't stand Michal Marcinkowski's and Sigvater's (the main developers of Berserker and link-dead I'd say) general attitude, which you can most clearly read about in this blog entry (Probably most interesting for indie developers). Secondly the aim they have with Berserker, at least as described by Sigvatr, is to make the "most obscene" game ever made, apparently including necrophile rape and whatnot. May sound funny, but doesn't seem to be.
Both of these points are nicely combined in this comment by Sigvatr. (For more "information" look for "Electric Retard" on Google. But be warned, this can truly be called offensive, which again seems to be the main goal.)
I'm not a "hater" or so, I'm sort of a Soldat (made by Michal Marcinkowski) veteran and looking forward to link-dead (also mainly developed by the two), but Berserker sounds downright bad in many ways.
So as long as the game doesn't turn out to be totally different I just wouldn't want it to get any more publicity than the lots and lots of which it will get, anyway. At least not by TIGSource, please.

Playing it might be a piece of cake compared to some other games on that list, but I think The Spirit Engine is a hard game, in a very great way! Basically TSE is sidescrolling RPG minus the RPG, totally focussed on very tactical combat. At the beginning of the game you freely pick a group of 3 characters, ideally each of one of the 3 classes, the soldier (badass gunslinger), sorcerer (attacking but more importantly defending from magical and physical attacks) and a priest (gunslinger and healer). The combat is somewhat unique, as you pick different chains of skills for each character that you mostly only switch during combat. For example you could have an "offensive" chain for the sorcerer consisting of 2 attack spells and once restoce your mana, or a defensive one consisting of the "wall" spells against projectiles. Also you can always switch the positions of your group. As the game is 2D and mostly "flat", most of the time the foremost character gets attacked, so you have to switch their positions from time to time so they take turns in "tanking", if that's even necessary.
Now, this all may or may not sound great, for me the greatest thing about the game is how truly tactical it is. At some point nearly each single fight will be difficult, but always totally possible if only you got the right tactics. You got to fully adjust your whole group to each new encounter, setting up new skill chains and using these in the right way. This means that you will definitely get defeated several times, but for me it was totally outstanding how much satisfaction you get from finally killing a boss you died 2 times on before, because you know it was your perfectly set up tactic which allowed you to take him down this time in contrast to the prior two attempts when you just got crushed by him.

Ok, this was a little longer, but TSE deserves it, it seems to be far too unpopular for how great it is, anyway. Nice artwork, suitable music and one great unique combat system Added to this are some quite funny dialogues between your characters, which differ depending on which you chose. Give it a try!

Hm, an X-head got to look rather awkward :S
Sweet game! It might be called "short-lived", but hey, fun anyway! I just think for some reason I won't find a friend playing this against me. I say this needs online play!

Oops, thanks for mentioning it. Fixed

Somebody catched all the demo downloadlinks from the homepage. Here they are, plus one "MegaUpload":
http://zaphire.ca/aqdemo/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://derekyu.com/aqdemo/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://www.flashbangstudios.com/mirror/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://www.ninj4comic.com/aquaria/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://www.battleforthecity.com/aquaria/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SP8R2O0K

There are many great games on that list, but I suppose this thread is rather ment for recommending a fewer number of really good games and especially explaining what makes them be so great in your opinion
Still a very nice list! I finally got to check out Silver Knights, I heard about it quite some times but never bothered to download it

[want]

Wow, The Cleaner is amazing! I can't believe I've spent the last couple of hours playing only this game - and I'm still not finished. I'm usually not into simple shooters like this I guess, probably try out all spells and that's it. But apparently The Cleaner got a nearly perfect balance of giving you the ability to upgrade your character, show you new environments, introduce you to new enemies and of course and let you fight huge bosses. Somehow it's just great.
Highly recommended for the "frontpage", I want to see it there!

Also I guess it's quite similiar to Aquaria. Hm, can't wait for that game :D

[Edit]
Ah, he also made Mage Craft. I remember playing that game. Well, I remember I didn't really have fun with it, but at least it also had the addictive upgrading system. Fortunately The Cleaner is better in every respect

As I fear my comment won't show up on the current topic again, I'll also post it here. I'm not quite sure if the game suits the site so well, because it's neither really original nor creative, but that's yours to decide The game is "Portal - The Flash version" and as the title subtly suggests it's basically a clone of the game Portal, which is included in "The Orange Box" alongside Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2, made into a 2D Flash game. You can find it there: ttp://www.armorgames.com/games/portaltheflashversion_game.html
Even though I make it sound so bad it's still a very fun game, as the concept also works out in 2D, it's only less amazing than it most likely is in 3D. The goal, "get to the exit", is the same as in many other 2D games, but the way you get there is different to all of them.
Also it is a nice game to be played "cooperatively", as likely everybody will get to a point where he needs some help, although there are luckily only few really frustrating levels Fortunately the game even saves your progress, so you can also go on playing some other time.

Hi guys,
I'm not only here for advertising, actually a daily visitor of th TIGSource, but just registered today The reason, as the title already says: The follow-up game to the 2D multiplayer shooter Soldat has been announced today by its developer Michal Marcinkowski. The announcement is featured on his personal blog: http://mm.soldat.pl/?p=77

After the cancellation of the partly 3D dogfighting game called Crimson Glory he goes back to the roots again with this game being mostly 2D, so that also mods can be created that much easier without having to fiddle around with the modelling
Of course as with many great indie games 2D graphics don't have to mean the game is technically old-fashioned, which also holds true here: The engine Michal built will feature some great techniques like the automatic translation of maps drawn in paint to polygons as well as a dynamic character animation system based on physics.

In contrast to Soldat the new project, called link-dead, will be a slower game based on tactical progression in both an underground as well as an overworld part of the map. This will include not only fighting, but also hacking, as link-dead is set in the near future. Even though at this point the information about the game is rather sparse, we will get more insight into what it's about and especially what it will look like in the future. Also you can have a look at the development logs featured on Michal's blog, right there: http://mm.soldat.pl/?cat=3


So, what do you think? As a long-time Soldat player I am of course pretty excited about link-dead, especially as more elaborate tactics are what I always missed in this fast-paced shooter I suppose it will still take a long while until there will be a playable version of it, but I got faith that Michal will turn link-dead into a real gem after all the experience he gathered in these last years. It is about time, anyway