Xbox LIVE Indie Game FortressCraft has hit an incredible milestone not too long after its April 8, 2011 launch. As of now, it’s the highest-grossing Xbox LIVE Indie Game yet.

The game, which sounds a lot like indie darling Minecraft in both name and gameplay senses, has officially hit $1 million in sales after selling 350,000 copies.

The developers, ProjectorGames, report that a giant update is on the way that will add customizable blocks and server rankings (and more).

From August 22-31, this merry band will release one game a day as voted on by developers. However, the community at large does get a chance to provide some input. From August 1-15, anyone on Facebook can vote on two favorites from the list of more than 70. The community’s two picks will release on September 1 and 2.

How do you know which 10 titles make the cut? Pay attention to Twitter! The day after the polls close on August 16, the winner’s will be announced on IGSU’s Developer Twitter chat at 8 PM, which you can follow by searching the hashtag #IGSU. Don’t be afraid to talk, either!

Here’s a full schedule:

July 4 – July 18: Developer voting for 8 titles to represent the platform
August 1 – August 15: Community voting for 2 additional titles they would most like to play
August 16 – 8PM EST: IGSU Developer Twitter chat, community winners announced
August 22 – September 2:  Promotion and release of 8 developer and 2 community voted titles

To learn more, visit the IGSU site.

So, shelve those dreams of a Dragons Vs. Squirrels or Dragons Vs. Mermaids…because it’s Dragons Vs. Spaceships that is coming to Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

The top-down shooter, designed by Game Production Studios, will be released for Dream Build Play 2011. In it, you’ll fight a legion of spaceships that are…threatening the dragons’ way of life.

That’s why we fight things in games, right? For real, though, if the spaceships win, things in Dragonia will never be the same.

To read more, visit the official website. The first trailer is below.

It is kind of adorable. I don’t think I’ve ever been so amused by a sea creature. (That is what Cthulhu is, right?)

ESRB: Unrated
Platform: Xbox Live Indie Games
Genre: RPG
Number of Players: 1
Developer: Zeboyd Games (Robert Boyd and William Stiernberg)
Cost: $1 (80 MSP)

BUY

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning describes itself as a “retro parody RPG”. It certainly feels retro with its 8-bit NES looks, music and play style which do a great job of conjuring up nostalgia for ‘the good ol’ days’. The parody comes from the fact that the game is essentially a homage to RPG games in general, and that it references games such as The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and even Mass Effect, with a smile and a wink. Even the title is a hybrid of Final Fantasy 7 and Breath of Fire.

In 20XX, mankind destroys itself with nuclear weapons. The undead restart the planet’s civilization from scratch and everything goes smoothly until evil invades. You play as an adventuring skeleton knight hero called Dem, and your quest is to explore the world, discovering new places and unearthing lost artifacts that will help you to fight back the evil hordes. You start off alone, but as you progress through the game you pick up different companions that follow you around like you’re picking up people for a conga line of death. You can then use these companions in each battle you fight, and each character has their own unique skills such as healing, or brute strength.

As with a lot of JRPGs, battles are triggered randomly as you walk around a level, and the battles are turn based, which makes it all feel very much like a Pokémon game. If I was going to do great injustice to the game and describe it in a few words, it’s an intelligent, funny, Pokémon game with zombie puke. There is some very intelligent game design involved, such as characters which perfectly complement each other, which can’t have been an easy feat when you fight with multiple characters each turn. I loved the fact that each time a character levels up, you get a choice of two skills or stat improvements to choose between, which allows you to customize your characters based on how you’d like to play. You also regain full health after each battle, which is something that should occur more in games where random battles occur.

However, for all the brilliance, there are a few annoyances, such as repetitiveness when the same easy opponent triggers a battle every few steps when you’re just trying to get to a cave. I often found myself just spamming one button to get through to the end of fights I didn’t want to trigger. This resulted in another complaint of mine about early NES games, death is a harsh thing. At one point, I’d button bashed my way through a fight, to see at the end that I had died, and had to respawn further back in the game than I had liked as save points are a little bit too infrequent for someone that wants to have light-hearted fun. I can’t complain too much, as it was my fault that I wasn’t playing the game as it was intended, and it’s not a difficult game at all.

You can’t stay angry at this game for too long though, the victory music is the most heart-warmingly cute chipper you’ve ever heard. It makes you feel like you are on a stroll with cotton candy in one arm, and a soft, purring kitten in the other. The victory music is my favorite, but the music throughout the game, sourced by the developers from indie music composers at indiegamemusic.com, is all comprised of gorgeous chipper tunes that make you smile. Breath of Death VII: The Beginning has some of the best music I’ve heard in a game for a while, and I’d pay a dollar just for that.

The writing is also spot-on; this game is genuinely funny for all the right reasons, in a Phoenix Wright kind of way. The dialog between the characters is full of subtle humor and jokes, as is the environment, which includes tombstones that are inscribed with witty quips.

The art style is very cute and very indie too; there are a lot of different themes to prevent you from getting bored of the same background. The evil opponents are weird, wonderful, and sometimes unfortunate, such as the ‘Whompillow’, a living tree with a root in a place it probably shouldn’t have been drawn.

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning is a game you should buy if you enjoy RPGs in any form, even if you’re scared of Xbox Live Indie Games. I’ve not seen a full game with this sort of value for money in a while; you get 4-6 hours of funny, intelligent, lovingly put together game, all for one US dollar.

Rating: N/A
System: Xbox 360
Developer: AwesomeGamesStudio
Players: 1-2
Genre: Shooter

BUY

While it seems reminiscent of Worms (a game I was introduced to during my high school years),  Duel: The Art of Combat, has its own feel and prospective. There are three modes: story, duel and survival modes. Story mode has three difficulty levels, beginner, advanced and insane. In total there are four levels with four waves, each that you need to get through before you can advance to the next level. In terms of story, there really isn’t one. You just go through wave after wave and level after level until you get to the end. As you go through story mode you unlock different types of weapons such as a shot gun, flame thrower, or lasers. You can also level up your skills as you proceed through the levels and you can make your snake (I am assuming that it is a snake.) warrior have a higher jump, endurance, long rope length, and other power ups to defeat you enemies.

Survival mode, is exactly how it sounds where you attempt to survive as long as you possibly can. Sounds easy? Not always. And then, duel mode is where you get the chance to play with friends. You are unable to play this game over Xbox Live, it plays split screen on your console. You and a friend battle it out to see who is victorious. I was unable to find someone to play co-op with.

This game provides a tutorial at the very beginning of story mode, and teaches you the controls as you battle a few enemies. There is also a skip option on the tutorial if you have played before or if you just want to learn on your own.  The tutorial is short and to the point, and within a matter of minutes I was playing the story mode without too much difficulty.  The controls themselves are simple, yet purposeful.  The only thing you need to remember is which button does what, which after a run through the tutorial isn’t difficult.

The graphics are not what you expect from most Xbox Live arcade games, or from huge development studios, but this little game can hold its own. It is bright and colorful with the change in level backgrounds and the color of the worms to show the level of difficulty.  There are different effects for the flame thrower and other weapons as you shoot or swing them. Also, the creators have put a mini map in the corner so you can see the item drops or other enemies. There is only an issue with the ability to move the camera.  At time when I shot the rope, I  had no idea where or if I was shooting the rope to an area as far away from enemies as I needed.

Duel accomplishes it’s intentions: creating a fast paced strategy duel, where its you against your enemies.  Your level ups and choice of weapon can mean the difference of life and death, and you may have to quickly change your strategy if thing are not working out.  There is no time limit, no pause for weapon choice, movement, or attack. This isn’t turn based, it is quick reflexes.  When it comes to difficulty, it does get harder as you go along, and there were times that I had to restart the level after dying.  Also with all the different modes and difficulties available to the player, if give you a bit of replay value which you will end up playing again.  I found that even after I had finished, I loaded the game to just have a little break from other games.

Overall, this game is worth the price of 240 meager Microsoft points, the same price as some of the avatar items.

Literally taken, a sidehill gouger is an imaginary creature with uneven legs. If you ever see one out in the forest, start looking for Bigfoot, because he’s probably not all that far away. Here at GA, though, we want to talk about a sidehill gouger, we probably mean the indie game developed by Canned Games. (If an “Imaginary Creature Angels” section ever gets started, you’ll hear it here first, though.)

Rating: E (There is no ESRB rating since this is an indie game)
Players: 1
Genre: Puzzle
Publisher: Canned Games
System: Xbox 360 (80 MS points)
Release Date: December 15, 2009

BUY/PASS

Canned Games’ designers, Shannon Brownlee and Adam Culberson, have taken a beloved family story and set a puzzle game (dedicated to Everett “Grampy” Culberson) to it. It’s pretty simple.

Young Andrew is at summer camp and wants to go fishing when he recalls his Grampy’s advice: Beware the Sidehill Gouger. Each level, in a nutshell, requires you to find and shoot the Gouger with Andrew’s trusty slingshot.

I have one recommendation, as far as actual gameplay goes: Ignore the “How to Play” section given to you at the beginning. It’s a little confusing, and you’ll pick up everything you need to know in the first few levels anyway.

Move Andy around with the left stick to uncover bits of the 9×6 board, and aim his slingshot with the right stick. You’re given clues to the Gouger’s location with bits of blood on the ground, and, lest things get too easy, occasional potholes will befall you. Or you befall them. Either way, the level is over if you end up in one. Or if you let the monster-thing eat you. But I thought that went without saying.

You also uncover a couple of other creatures on your trek across the 54-square board: Treesqueaks and Hidebehinds. Treesqueaks live in trees, and they squeak. But one thing their name won’t tell you is that if you dare to cross its path again, it might just pick you up and drop you in an undisclosed location, kind of like the Secret Service does for the President in the event of a nearby disaster/bomb threat/upset wife. Hidebehinds hide behind things (Yeah! I know! It’s genius!) but may cover up the steps you’ve already taken once you cross its path. Altogether, these things don’t really impact gameplay that much, they just make it a little less predictable.

What Canned Games has done is make a Minesweeper clone. Granted, this is a Minesweeper clone where you do your best to blow up the mine once you think you know where it is, but still.

Of course, there are differences. Well, in Minesweeper, you get points. The timer also counts down to give you a finite amount of time to complete the board and gives you some level of urgency. When you finish a minesweeper board, maybe you even feel some sense of accomplishment. Sidehill Gouger…well, maybe this is because it’s meant for kids, but the timer counts up. As far as I know, there’s not a point where a level just says to you, “Okay, you’ve been doing this too long, you’re done.” And if it did, it wouldn’t matter — you’d just start the level over again with slightly moved pieces. Also, those points things? I can’t find any. You get “trophies” for completing “days,” and a “new best time” record set any time you finish a level particularly fast, but those just don’t particularly mean anything to me. (Once again, that could be because it’s probably for children.)

Overall, the aesthetic of the game is bright and colorful, and the art is like it’s attempting to be a lifelike cartoon. As far as the people go, anyway. A few of the boards were bright enough that I found it difficult to see the treesqueaks from time to time. This may be a design thing, but a few of the tiles become curves, and one curve always meets another. So, when you find a curve, you also are almost guaranteed to find another curve — and you can cross off finding the Gouger in that spot.

These kinds of puzzle games aren’t always my bag, and this isn’t any different. However, I was hoping that I could play at least ten minutes before I started hating myself. This isn’t to say that this game made me a bad person (man, I hope not), but I did eventually just start throwing all caution and patience to the wind as a result of having no reason to play carefully. When I got it right, I got it right within fifteen seconds. If I failed, I got Andrew eaten or stuck in a hole in twenty seconds or less. Not a huge waste of time.

I will admit that after a certain point, I just couldn’t do it anymore. The story from one day to the other…well, there really isn’t one. There’s a premise for the entire game in general, and from there I just assume that Andrew loves fishing so much that he’ll do it even with the promise of being eaten by a monster at least twenty times before he gets to the pier. You play on the same maps over and over again, and the same song is used repeatedly. Nothing that adds any excitement at all or takes away from what becomes an endless stream of potholes and imaginary creatures.

Because I’m so impatient, one feature in particular did make me laugh. At the bottom of the screen where you move between levels is a meter that measures your “streak,” how many levels you beat without failing. To me, that kind of became a joke in itself. I played this like I was running towards a cliff, and if I happened to shoot the Gouger, then yay. I’m sure that if you wanted to think and strategize this sort of thing, you could get a perfect streak going, but that’s definitely not for me. My streak was never higher than 1. I like action, and guns, and a storyline that lasts more than a few screens. Sidehill Gouger might be the perfect indie game for some of you out there, but not me.

I might have seen this game a lot differently if I were 12 years younger. As an 11 year-old, I loved these sorts of puzzle games and likely would have played it for at least two hours — well worth the buck it costs. But as an adult, I just don’t dig it that much. That said, if you want to entertain your kids, go ahead and pick this up. It’s clean fun with some sweetness behind it at a very affordable price, and where else can you find that these days?

They do this with the (probably) fictional punk rock band Charlie Murder, capitalizing on their fake feud with metal band Gore Quaffer. Apparently part of the battle involved stealing Charlie’s girlfriend, Skelekitten. So, naturally, they have to get her back by beating up anyone involved. Is there any other way?

Hopefully, his princess is not in another castle.

Ska Studios’ press release is probably funnier than anything I could write, and includes fake quotes and sarcasm, so take a look. (We almost thought this was about a real band for a bit, that’s how good it is.)

Schenectady, N.Y., January 14, 2010 – In a move bound to shake up the music scene, punk rock super group Charlie Murder have agreed to license their names and story for an upcoming Xbox LIVE Indie Games title on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from
Microsoft. Based on the band’s recent spat with rival metal rockers Gore Quaffer, Charlie Murder is a four-player arcade beat ‘em up featuring all four members of the revolutionary punk act. The
developer, Ska Studios, known for the breakout hits The Dishwasher and I MAED A
GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!!, plans to painstakingly recreate the band’s crusade to
retrieve front man Charlie Murder’s girlfriend, Skelekitten, from their chart topping metal rivals.

“A lot of fans and media might see this as a shameless cash grab and marketing stunt prior to our new album releasing,” said lead singer and founder Charlie Murder. “They are all absolutely right. These dangerous and largely illegal habits we’ve developed on the road don’t exactly pay for themselves.”

Facing off against hordes of bloodthirsty zombies, lethal ninjas and other things James Silva can draw, the band will find itself pushed to the brink. Also, I heard there is a level where you throw projectiles at enemy ninjas on motorcycles while you drive down the street. It’s pretty rad.

“Being a punk fan myself this really is a dream come true. Charlie Murder is band with so much depth and such a wide array of talents I really couldn’t pass up this opportunity,” replied James Silva to no one in particular. “I’d also add that I did not write and record all of the music myself. Unless you like it in which case I did.”

Developed by Ska Studios Charlie Murder is the greatest punk rock beat ‘em up ever. It is scheduled for release on Xbox LIVE Indie Games this March. Probably.

About Ska Studios
It’s this guy James Silva and like a whole team of engineers and artists and sound designers and marketing dudes. Yeah, write that.

About Charlie Murder
Despite no information on the band being available anywhere online and no record of their existence outside of this press release, rest assured that they are real and have been producing hit punk rock tracks for a long, long time. Ask around.  More information on Charlie Murder can be found online at facebook.com/charli3murd3r because that’s what punk rock bands do. They get on Facebook.

Developer: Ska Studios
Where: Xbox Live Indie Games
Price: 80 MS Points
Players: 1-4 (same console only, not Live enabled)
Awesomeness: Extremely High

I have never downloaded an Indie Game (formerly Community Game) ever. But you know me and zombies. I love them. And any game that has zombies and a catchy tune I will be all over like a zombie is all over brains. I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT has both of those and based on those two facts alone, I spent the 80 MS points (roughly $1) on the game.

Brought to us by the brilliant minds behind Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, you control You, a one man (or woman) army defending yourself from wave after wave of zombies and other random enemies, all while listening to the most AMAZING song of all time.

The game controls almost exactly like Geometry Wars, and even though I suck horribly at Geometry Wars, I still enjoy playing this game. (Did I mention the soundtrack is Spike Video Game Award worthy?) You move about the screen using the left thumb stick and aim with the right. Make sure to pick up the power-ups scattered all over the field without letting the zombies eat your brains.

Also, I have to make mention of the press release, because it is honestly the best press release I have read in a long time. Here is an excerpt for you!

“I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 represents a culmination of years of intensive psychological research, bleeding edge engineering, and artistic collaboration by over two dozen internationally recognized art houses that may or may not exist, using such technologies as the HYPERMAGIC 3.0 engine to power never-before-seen eye candy and the MEGACORE X parallelization processor for smooth-as-glass presentation.

“You can make a game,” said Ska Studios Lead Engineer Gato Maria Hernando Rodriguez-Rodriguez in an exclusive interview with Chairman Meow Magazine, “but what happens when you put zombies in it?  Nobody knows, but they’ll find out soon.  We’ll all find out soon.”  And, with Xbox Live Indie Games interest flagging under reports of poor sales, difficulty locating the section in the Dashboard while inebriated, and super-smart people saying super-smart things on web forums, the game couldn’t be released at a better time.

“We were following trends and noticed that most people were buying Xbox360s for the DVD player, the Xbox Live Vision Camera, and the Calculator app on XBLIG, but not for games,” Gato continues, “I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES!!1 will change that.  You’ll be playing our game.  It has zombies in it.  Ok bye.” “

Now I will show you some super ultra hi-resolution screenshots of the intense gameplay. Seriously. Its like the most intense game ever.

You should definitely check out the developer’s blog after you play this AAA title and let them know how blown away by the awesomeness of the game you are. You can also follow him on Twitter.

If you are like me and love zombies as much as I do, you should check out these awesome tops from SplitReason.com