Inescapable Review

Magnetic RealmsInescapable is a Metroidvania-style indie game of admirable constraint and deliberateness. Even for a one-man Amiga homage, it never overreaches in its pursuit of a specific type of gaming minimalism. In this day and age, this in turn creates a style, and atmosphere, that is much its own.

(It helps that Amiga-style platforming is seldom imitated these days. If you can still remember, Amiga games were often half-arsed ports from other platforms, with terrible palettes and clunky controls, bogged down by the constraints of the Atari ST.)

Inescapable 03The keys to understanding Inescapable’s aims are the arts of 1) imitation and 2) limitation. Here, what was once a sheer necessity (say, a hardware constraint), is now a choice, or a decision, that enhances the game’s retro aspirations. Japan-based developer-designer Matt Fielding characterizes the game as being “…inspired by a wide range of classics of the genre such as Exile, Gods, Switchblade, Flashback and even the Dizzy series.” 1)http://www.magneticrealms.com/press/sheet.php?p=inescapable#description

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Rocketbirds: Revolution! Review

A finalist in three categories (Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio, with the amount of nominations shared only with Closure and Trauma) in this year’s IGF competition, Ratloop Asia’s Rocketbirds: Revolution! is looking to be the early bird that catches the worm this year.

At the end of its animated intro, “OBEY” reads imprinted in upper-case on the sides of two massive missiles standing upright, shining and erect, at once establishing a poignant scene of the promulgation of violence and power.

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