Humble Indie Bundles Discussion

What are people's favorite HIB games? What do you like/dislike about HIB in general?

Here's my thoughts on the bundles I've got access to:

I bought Humble Indie Bundle 1 entirely for the purpose of playing World of Goo, which I'd heard many good things about. I was not disappointed; WoG is incredible! The music in some of the World 2 stuff is emotionally stirring. I never tried any of the other games until recently, when Daynab recommended Gish and Lugaru HD. I'm only a short way into Lugaru, but I love the way it feels like a fighting game, but more intuitive and open feeling. I will probably finish that one.

I forgot to buy HIB 2, but I've played Braid's Xbox360 demo. Good story, platforming isn't generally my thing tho.

I bought HIB 3 for access to VVVVVV. I'm very happy with VVVVVV just because of how brutal it is, and the great retro music. Because it's a platformer, I'll probably never finish it - too difficult. And Yet It Moves was pretty sweet musically as well - looks platformy but plays more like a puzzle game IMO. Atom Zombie Smasher was a pleasant surprise that I enjoyed much more than I expected. The rest of the games seemed pretty dull and boring.

I bought the Introversion bundle entirely for the purpose of getting Dredmor. Due to having heard nothing exciting about the other games, and being so bored with some of the HIB3 stuff, I haven't tried any other Introversion games yet.

HIB 4 has the amazing stand-out titles Bit.Trip Runner (which really needs checkpoints) and Gratuitous Space Battles, but I haven't played them much due to being crazy about Dungeons of Dredmor. Bit.Trip world 1 was pretty doable on levels 1-10, but 1.11 took me hours to finally beat, and I haven't managed the boss yet. I freak out and press the wrong button with the right timing too often.

What are your thoughts on the Bundles? I'd love to hear more personal opinions, play experiences, and maybe get more interested in some of the titles I haven't tried yet.

 

Well, I started with the bundles from the 1st one, and I always found something to buy it for. There was Aquaria, Hammerfall (with its awkward as all hell to get used to controls, but enjoyable nevertheless), VVVVVV, Braid, Cave Story Plus, DEFCON, and some other stuff.
Heck, I don't see the reason not to buy it, honestly. That way I can get some games legally for a price I can pay, and indie games (which are a large part of Humble Bundles' load-out) are often funnier to play than so-called big games.

Dredmor was actually something I wasn't really interested in when I first bought the Introversion bundle,and I installed it on a random chance. I can't say it was a bad decision, though.

 

Just to verify - there's no way for me to purchase the bundles I missed out on, is there? Aside from piecemeal purchases of each individual game, many of which cost $10 on their own.

 

Pretty much like that. You might be able to buy a code from someone else who bought multiple, or you might try to get the games individually. But other than that, there's only the bonus games from previous bundles, or trying to get it pirated (which would be pretty weird, but it's individual choice).

It's the bonus one gets for finding out about it earlier, I guess. And the reason I subscribed as soon as I could.

 

fwiw, I was gifted World of Goo which was is a bundle bonus. Great game.

 

Man, it took me freaking forever to finally beat the second to last level of World 1 in Bit.Trip Runner. The bossfight after that wasn't a whole lot easier (thankfully it WAS easier). I am really digging World 2 so far though - the difficulty is just right (not a breeze like most of world 1, but nothing too crazy either). The music feels a little better too. I only play a level or two a day, but the music is CONSTANTLY in my head.

 

Aquaria. It's a little slow and "girly" in the first half hour, but after that it sucks you in and never lets go. The visuals will blow you away. The story and emotions are so strong they had both me and my wife in tears at one point. (And then we just about cried again after the game was over when we learned that the studio had broken up and the post-credits cliffhanger would never be resolved.) The boss fights are EPIC and packed with old-school puzzles. Seriously, Aquaria is a amazing. Go play it. Now.

I modded for Aquaria a bit, it's got a great level editor built in. Sadly, I ran out of steam before getting the final levels of my Aquaria mod completed. it's a non-random story-based game, which meant the more screens I modded in, the more of a task it became to playtest the newest stuff I was putting in. Dredmor's random levels and great variety of skill trees gives it more replayability, but Aquaria's well worth a single breath-taking play-through.

Aquaria and Dredmor are the only HiB games that have been able to keep me interested long enough to beat them. Minecraft had me for a while as well, but at the time there wasn't anything akin to "beating" minecraft.

But if you've already got that first HiB, there's no excuse for you to have not played 20+ hours of Aquaria yet.

A little off-topic as it's not a HiB game, but I also highly recommend Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space from Electric Eel. It's a space-exploration game that a similar sense of humor to Dredmor, and was the first game I ever modded.

 

Aquaria is amazing and basically all of Derek Yu's games are freaking awesome ( cant wait for Spelunky 360 to come out ). You summed it up pretty well though, the beginning of the game can feel slow and quiet but the action does get really epic and intense when you go on. The boss battles are some of the bests I've had and when you health is low and Nadia starts yelling that's she's gonna die, you do really freak out.
Only bad points is the game being quite easy in a lot of parts, not enough ennemies and tons of food item I never used ( though I dig the recipe system ).

If you ever finish your maps I will definitely play them. I looked at the user maps created online but I couldnt find much things finished there : (

 

Gonna throw Aquaria onto my list of things to play; thanks for the great info about them.

 

The Introversion games were brilliant. i didn't like DEFCON very much though. Uplink was very good though. It's quite a time waster, and sucks you in. At times it feelquite real, and really tense.

 

Well, for DEFCON you need really good people to play. Playing against the computer isn't that interesting, and while random online matches can, they are too random. I actually played it with my friends, after we really got to know each other, and it was much better (other than this one time when they all allied against me from the start, but they never did it again after I chewed on them for that).
But yeah, each to his own, I can see that this game wouldn't pull everyone in.

 

Holy crap you were right about Trine. This is so good! Have you played it multiplayer yet?

 

I got a retail edition of Trine some years back - published by Nobilis, I believe, now there's a name you don't seen often (Trine 2 was distributed by Lace Mamba Global here) - and yeah, it's amazing. Incredibly pretty.

It's a little frustrating at times, mind you, but still a great game.

 

I did Trine 2 with 2 other players. It IS fun, but, the game doesnt feel really designed for multiplayer. It is very nice, but imperfect. The mage is the one that ends up being usefull all the time.

The rogue can go anywhere but she cant do anything to help the others join her so she ends up going on her own and waiting that the others find a way to cross the gaps.
The warrior is fun for battles but Trine isnt a game of constant action, it has very sporadic fights. So warrior has a gameplay that suffers big rythm issue.
Mage is all fun. Has a fun spell for fights, great abilities for platform sequences and is pretty much the only one who can help the others reach high places.
You could play with 2 or 3 mages but its not as fun.

 

The game could easily have been a lot better with a different level design. A few more, smaller encounters. And buttons for the rogue to activate so that she feels usefull at least once in her life.