TOP 10 FREE INDEPENDENT GAMES of 2008 - #1: Virtual Silence

When everything's said and done, I think this is more of a tech demo than a finished piece. I though the play mechanics of altering color to change the game world were pretty innovative (here's a different direction on that theme that will likely come to XBLA)and I do agree that the end puzzles are pretty frustrating and unintuitive. That said, it's hardly ten minutes (or twenty, if you felt the need to "win" it) wasted. The final puzzle especially was enjoyable; how often do you play a game that gives you a metroid countdown and then fucks with your vision so you can't even see if you're going in the right direction? The storyline is, as noted, badly marred with poor grammar and spelling but, again, the IDEA is solid.
It's a pretty impressive rough draft; I'd love to see someone with a budget run with these ideas.

yeah if you link to another actionbutton review i'm never clicking on another one of your threads again

shit, the countdown was a level? i thought you were just meant to sit there and wait for the kid to die! god, my version of the game is way cooler.

Forks pretty otm there. It wasn't mindblowing, but for a 15 minute long game, the fact that certain elements stick in your head at all is pretty impressive. Onward to #2!

I only got to test #3 before I had to go off my lunch break. I will try the rest later, but boy the feeling of non-control is really jarring in the way that that one good part of bioshock is really jarring. (i maintain that the golf club scene is the only redeeming factor in BS)

A MAN DECIDES

I'm about halfway through Test #2... and I failed Test #1! I'm really trying to be patient here, but the slowness and intentionally cruddy controls are aggravating. And that actionbutton review was ridiculous pretentious garbage. How did you guys make it through? Should I really keep pressing with this?

If all else fails, don't forget you can shoot.

^thug talk^

...wow, this thing just hard crashed my Mac. Through a VMware Fusion virtualization session, no less. Amazing.