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Four indie things you should be playing

in addition to Minecraft.  There’s a whole bunch of really cool indie stuff that’s coming out.  Here’s four alpha/beta state games that are available for play now.  These are all fairly early in development (Terraria and SP&Z being the most polished) and if you’re interested in watching something awesome come out of the development process and getting to watch things turn into a finished game, warts and all, then these are all excellent examples and well worth your time.

Project Zomboid

 

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/ Isometric Zombie Apocalypse survival game.  As in, really surviving.  Health, hunger, exhaustion & boarding up the windows while scavenging for supplies in a neighborhood infested with the undead.  Really this is going to be very very tense.  The initial version available is still early alpha and manages to do so many things right.

Space Pirates & Zombies

 

http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/ Aims to go back to classic space combat and exploration with gameplay like Star Control 2.  You fly around various sectors and perform missions between rival factions to gain favor and unlock blueprints for new ships and weapons.  And then there’s the zombies and an overall massive plot and stuff. Available on impulse only for now.. but Steam is coming as well.

 

Terraria

http://www.terrariaonline.com It’s superficially like a 2D minecraft.. however once you spend a while with it it opens up to be much more.  It has a much higher emphasis on exploring the world, fighting monsters, summoning boss monsters and crafting all sorts of weaponry.  Oh and it has multiplayer support.

Starfarer

http://fractalsoftworks.com/ On the surface it might remind you of SP&Z above.. however gameplay is much slower and strategic. Feeling more like you’re flying large capital ships. At this point it’s a collection of fleet battles but the promise of an open universish campaign mode has lots of promise.  oh and it’s absolutely beautiful and has incredible ships.