Oh, Gabe

For those with adequate PCs and an interest in independently created games, Valve have recently bundled together 5 of the best independent games available into one package.

For a measly 15 bucks you will get the following awesomeness

1. Machinarium

A glorious steam punk point and click puzzler. It has won various design awards, and a Google search will help you see what they are. It's cute, fun and at times hugely mind bending.



2. World of Goo

Does exactly as it says on the tin. You create structures using orbs of goo in order to get another set of goo balls to an exit. Which is far more addictive than you'd think.

It has its own mini-game as well, which is World of Goo Corporation, where the aim of the game is to build the largest towers or longest bridges which is also quite damn addictive.


3. And Yet It Moves

An interesting torn paper aesthetic and a fun twist on puzzle platforming make this a good, if short game. As you play you run, jump and can rotate the world in order to make it from A to B whilst avoiding obstacles. Pretty run of the mill. Until you read it again and notice the rotate the world part. This can make all the difference.

4. Osmos

Here you play a single organism (called a mote) and the aim is to absorb smaller motes to make yourself the largest mote in the level. However, there are motes that are already larger than yourself, be absorbed by them and its game over.




Last but not least we have

5. Galcon Fusion

This post is getting too long so this is from wikipedia:

Players start with one planet and send off ships to conquer other planets around them. The numbers on each planet indicate how many ships it will take to conquer them. The numbers on a player's own planet indicate the amount of ships that their planet holds. Each planet a player owns produces ships for that player with more ships at a faster rate produced depending on the planet's size. Players can select what percentage of the ships to send from a planet and players can redirect ships in midair. The aim of the game is to defeat the other opponent(s).




Individually you would usually pay that price for Machinarium alone. This is one of the best deals I've seen since The Orange Box came out. Please jump on it. These independent developers need all the support we can give them to continue providing us with non-FPS clones all year long.


Also, chuck another 3.99 on top and you can get the excellent Winterbottom. Which you all know I <3 hard. The Faux Bot has now had his pretentious view that it is 'Braid for dummies' smashed and seemed to enjoy it (okay, he was at gunpoint and worried about his glossy dick at the time but still!).

If you still have doubts, download the machinarium demo, see that it is glorious and then get this - you get 4 other awesome games for free!