Indie Devs release 300 games for free under the banner of Pirate Kart.

[flameboy]

EDIT THE TITLE SHOULD SAY PIRATE KART! EPIC FAIL!

 

So yeah a ton of indie developers have clubbed together and released a huge bundle of 300 games for FREE. Here's a bit of writing about it:

 

What's an indie developer to do if their hand-made game is too small or weird to enter the Independent Game Festival -- the same annual award that's been handed to the multi-million selling Minecraft and the Microsoft-published Castle Crashers?

 

The answer is to take 300 tiny games from over 100 developers, zip them up into one massive torrent and submit the lot as a single entry. That's exactly what Mike Meyer, Rocketcat Games and way too many independent creators to mention here did, in the 2012 IGF Pirate Kart.

 

"The pirate kart represents a different side of indie games, one that I think is far more interesting -- and one that's maybe not so easily represented in the IGF," said Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV fame, who also has a few games in the Kart. "That's why I'd love to see a pirate kart enter the festival. Not as a protest, but with complete sincerity."

 

"I like how the Pirate Kart is celebrating the smaller crazy creative indie games that would probably never make it to IGF on their own," said developer Jake Birkett, who has a handful of games in the package.

 

We thought it would be fun to download the 1.3GB torrent and try some of the games. Though, seeing as we do actually want to go home at some point tonight, we won't sample all 300 titles. Instead -- in the interest of absolutely no fairness -- we'll pick games from indie developers whose names we recognise.

 

Robert Yang, who makes arty mods for Half Life 2, has you set a building on fire in the appropriately titled FuhFuhFire. Then you head back in with an extinguisher to jot out the flames and save the potato-like inhabitants from your handiwork, like some kind of psychopathic pseudo-arsonist.

 

VVVVVV-maker Terry Cavanagh offers up a pitch-black spoof of RPGs in the ultra-twisted, minute-long Hero's Adventure. A must play. Another title, Graveyard Graveyard Revolution, turns "I'll dance on your grave" into a design pitch as you literally perform Dance Dance Revolution-style jigs on burial sites. Until you die of a (presumably Karmic) heart attack.

 

Big Runner, from Canadian app-maker Matt Rix, has a chubby bloke trying to stay fit as he avoids tempting birthday cakes and, uhm, tanks. If he gobbles up too many treats he'll get fatter and slower. You can always puke up your meal to slim down a few belt sizes, though.

 

We also tried some random titles from less well-known creators and found text-only dungeon crawlers, a game that almost broke our computer, bizarre Spectrum-style platformers, a game called "Space Phallus" that we didn't even need to play to know that we'd love it, an RPG made in Klik n Play featuring a motorcycle with a giant penis and a telepathic puzzle game that we played for way too long.

 

All in all, a mental smorgasbord of random games, weird experiences and retro influences -- a sort of anarchic manifesto to true indie spirit that's okay with being a bit weird. And we're okay with it too.

 

The 2012 Independent Games Festival is being held at the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco from 5 to 9 March, 2011.

 

So yeah perhaps not the best time of year to be trying to work your way throuhg hundreds of games but certainly worth the download and there are a few gems in there. This wierd dancing game where you dance on graves is in there and I remember playing it before and it being kinda fun.

 

Link for actual downloads:

 

http://www.piratekart.com/