Hey all to another episode of December's Desura Dementia Deux, my annual appraisal of Indie games too cool for Steam that's at least two "de" words too long already. (Not that I won't be adding more next year.) Though I selected this year's fifteen games randomly, by an astonishing coincidence they're all 2D platformers today. Not just any 2D platformers either: each possesses a certain retro charm that I can't help but admire, despite my reservations for deliberately old-fashioned games last time with 8-bit Commando. Well, I'm nothing if not a capricious fellow.

As always, if you have an opinion on any of today's highlighted games (or have even heard of 'em, because I sure hadn't) then feel free to post away in the comments. Feel equally free to reply if you have suggestions for bundles and the like too: I've found a few neat things exploring the Desura wilderness without a compass already, though I'm always grateful for a little direction.

Shootin', Tootin' and Cassette Bootin'

The game: Bertil Hörberg's Gunman Clive.

The source: Indie Royale's The Debut Bundle

The pre-amble: Gunman Clive is a side-scrolling platformer/shooter in the vein of something like Mega Man. The player proceeds carefully through levels, gunning down enemies and making their way across moving platforms and other obstacles. The game has the visual quality of an animated Wanted poster, with a lot of yellow and brown hues, and some slick 3D cel-shaded animation for its backgrounds and characters. As well as Desura, the game is also available on iOS, Android and the 3DS eShop.

The playthrough: Gunman Clive's all right. I likened it to Mega Man, but it seems to draw from a lot of NES games like Ninja Gaiden (there's a few angry birds, as it were) and Contra (the titular gunman can upgrade his weapons, though loses any power-ups after getting hit once). Artistically, though, it looks almost nothing like anything I've ever seen, except perhaps last year's The Unfinished Swan. I made the "Wanted poster" comparison myself, but that's only a guess for what the designer was going for. It's a good thing I had the presence of mind (read: could be bothered) to include a screenshot, because it's a hard aesthetic to really describe. It looks even better in motion, so I'd recommend finding a video of it on YouTube or something. Wait, I should probably handle that part: Here you go.

I didn't get far enough to see a lot of the weirder shit. I kept tripping up on an annoying jumping puzzle early on and gave up because I had two more games to cover today, but it's definitely some solid 2D platforming if that's what you're into. Not much in the way of innovative new ideas for the genre, but I've found a lot of Indie games are more about simply proving themselves as a well-crafted facsimile of what's come before rather than trying to push the envelope. Kind of hard to make something truly unique when there's only one of you: it takes a few of these competent coders and designers to come together to create the sort of magic that wins prestigious VGX awards. I... just said "prestigious" and "VGX" in the same sentence. I think I could use an early night.

The verdict: Eh, I'll probably come back at some point. That trailer I linked to makes a good case for it, as simplistic as the game is. I have a lot of platformers to get through right now though (3D World at the forefront) as well as just games in general. It's not going anywhere.

The game: Bulkypix's Jazz: Trump's Journey.

The source: The Be Mine X Groupees Bundle (one of the few I didn't cover in this pair of blogs).

The pre-amble: A 2D platformer that tells the life story of Louis Armstrong between a series of platforming vignettes. Though only tangentially related to the famous jazz trumpeter and his upbringing in the Treme region of New Orleans during the early 20th century, the game manages to represent and embody his musical talent and upbeat attitude within the confines of its Mario-esque platformer gameplay. Perhaps best to think of it as a game that does for Louis Armstrong's memory what Eternal Sonata did for Chopin's: rather than some on-the-nose rhythm game, it honors the musician behind the magic and the travails they suffered on-route to the big time through a lot of symbolism.

The playthrough: Like Gunman Clive, this is a likeable game with a distinct personality that doesn't really do a whole lot to innovate on an admittedly somewhat hoary genre at this point. It seems like we've created every possible iteration on the 2D platformer format at this point, so the game wisely focuses instead on its representation of a famous figure in jazz music. It's interesting how the game finds a way to take what I can only assume are actual events in the young Armstrong's life and frame them as platformer levels where you're pushing boxes to reach ladders, freezing time to halt spinning platforms and dodging cops in era-appropriate uniforms.

Probably goes without saying that this game is a lot more palatable if you're a fan of Armstrong's music and of jazz in general. Its obvious intent is to celebrate the medium, which means you'll get a lot of rambunctious jazz music to enjoy in each stage. The game works in the musical element by having the young Armstrong (nicknamed "Trump" in-game, or occasionally by the derisive "Gumbo") play the trumpet for its aforementioned time-manipulation powers. Certain objects have green symbols that signify that they will be affected by freezing time, while others will continue moving regardless. The game finds some clever uses out of its few mechanics, but this isn't one of those puzzle-platformers that have largely taken over the Indie world alongside Tower Defense and Artillery clones: the game's a dyed-in-the-wool standard collectible-finding, checkpoint-reaching linear 2D platformer.

While it's worth playing for its excellent platforming gameplay alone, the biographical angle and lively jazz music elevate it above most of its retro Indie peers.

The verdict: Sure, I'll go back to it once I'm done with some of the 2013 GOTY contenders I'm sitting on. Actually, this is a 2013 game as well, so maybe I'll see about beating it before that inevitable VGA blog happens.

The game: Fred Wood's Love+.

The source: The Retro Groupees bundle.

The pre-amble: Love+ is another retro 2D platformer (I told you I'd be covering a few) that manages to do a lot with a little: a smattering of C64-era pixel art, some ambient tunes and a few neat ideas for score-keeping mechanics. It's worth noting that Love has been around in one form or another for quite some time; the new and improved Love+ was only recently added to the Desura store. It's also available on Ouya, if you happen to own one of those.

The playthrough: Love+ was short but fun, though I don't feel like I really did the game justice by playing it on Easy. A scant eleven stages in length, Love+ has you jumping and dodging your way through various obstacles, traps and instant-death pitfalls. In that sense, it's very much in the Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV mold - though apparently pre-dates them both, at least in its earliest incarnations. While it resembles a Spectrum ZX or Commodore 64 game, it has an ingenious use for its monochrome colors: like VVVVVV, the color palette (which is to say, the one color that isn't black or white) changes with each stage and its stark boldness is enough to make the active elements - the player, the instant-death traps, the bouncy platforms, the shadow you leave behind as a checkpoint: all colored white - stand out that much more. Both graphically and chromatically, the game is very minimalist, but it's clear that the designer had a clear idea about how to make it work in the game's favor. The soundtrack, in contrast, is very layered and well-crafted, with a lot of catchy ambient and chiptune music produced by the game's other contributor James Bennett.

Love+ does have a few tricks up its sleeve in a mechanical sense as well: the player has been afforded the agency to create their own checkpoints, which means they can essentially set a respawn point on any piece of solid ground they wish. While this does make the game substantially easier (except for when you forget to do it frequently and get sent way the eff back after dying), the number of times you set a checkpoint influences the score you earn at the end of the game: like Resident Evil, this score checks for how often you made the game easier on yourself and docks points appropriately. Likewise, the game's "normal" mode gives you a hundred lives and tasks you with beating the entire game with that generous stock. Selecting the Easy mode, like I did, removes this limit but greatly reduces your final score. By shifting the focus from the game's total length, which could generously be called compact, to this idea of playing it over and over to improve an overall score, the game extends its longevity and gives the masocore crowd a stronger reason to want to memorize the game back to front. That's not even going into the insane YOLO mode, which is pretty much exactly how it sounds with regards to how many extra lives you can expect to receive.

Though I whizzed through the game in under an hour I only earned an "E for Effort", which didn't sound all that congratulatory. To say I've beaten the game, then, would be rather specious given the circumstances.

The verdict: I'm not one for speedruns and no-damage jaunts and the like, which is the type of crowd this game appears to cater to with its final score malarkey, so I'd say I'm done with it. It's a decent little masocore experience, if that's your bag.

That should do it for today's installment of "Indie Platformers: There's a Lot of Them and You Really Needed Me To Tell You That". Thanks for stopping by, and see you all for the final part soon.