Indie Royale's current bundle is complete in alpha edition

Indie Royale's current bundle is an amalgamation of a few popular ideas, including the online fundraiser and, well, the bundle, which has become a beast all of its own. This may sound like a contradiction -- underground developers borrowing mainstream methods -- but in fact it somehow makes this bundle even more indie.

The Alpha Collection, offered now through the next week, features three games in alpha mode, and "buying" the bundle is a way of "funding" their continued development while getting access to their current builds. Similar to backing a Kickstarter project, The Alpha Collection has people invest in the potential of the following three games: Towns, 3079 and Wyv and Keep.

The low price for the Alpha Collection is hovering slightly above $5, the recommended price is $10 and the "Show Support" price is listed at $20, but of course you can pay any amount above the low price if you believe the future of these games is worth it. As with all Indie Royale bundles, the more you pay, the less the people after you will pay. It's like 360-degree charity.

Reader Comments (13)

The 3079 demo looks like it would be an awesome game. Falloutcraft? It would end all social life as we know it.

@(Unverified) Not gonna lie, I wasn't even interested in this until I saw "FalloutCraft" in your post. And you're right, 3079 looks awesome.

3079 sounds awesome. I've had my eye on it for a while. It looks like a Doom-Minecraft-Weirdo Sci-fi-Roguelike. Those are all good things!

3079 looks like a futuristic Minecraft :D

I was interested in Towns, so this is good.

But even for an Alpha...yeesh. The font is awful, I can't read it with my resolution (there is no option to change resolution, either). The tutorials are just plain BAD. The second one says to select a 5x5 area to build a room. But if you select a 5x5 area, you get people putting walls around every single square! You're actually supposed to select the perimeter of a 5x5 area, because it turns out wall pieces are set ON squares, not on the edge of squares. The game does not tell you this. Then you have to build a carpentry bench- the game built the bench about 40 squares away from where I clicked to build it, and the whole process of making this building seemed really confusing.

@FuzzyPierce The other two games are nice though. 3079 is a bit confusing, but it's really sweet. Immediately I found a building which held a gun and a GRAPPLING HOOK! Fought a robot and some stats went up as I used them, then I died and lost my items but kept all my stats and respawned IN PLACE. Very good.

I was feeling generous today since I'm bad at saving up for a car and paid the $10. I'm looking forward to trying these after I get acclimated to Desura. Wyv and Keep appeals to me the most; hopefully it's not too difficult playing solo.

So, it looks like here's what we go:
- a version of Dwarf Fortress made by Zynga..
- Minecraft
- A decent looking platformer from the mid 1990's

I know we're dealing with Indie stuff, but come on.. Indie stuff is supposed to push boundaries in unconventional ways, not cling to convention. These seem like games that big budget studios would come up with if you took away their big budgets. I hope my characterizations are just poorly jumped to conclusions, and that the games are nothing like what I said, and that the developers enjoy sweet success.

That said, I didn't jump to those conclusions for no reason. I watched the videos. If their games really aren't just clones, they need to emphasize that in their promo material.

@sigma8 So are you stupid, or...what, exactly?

"Randomly generated terrain? wow, obvious minecraft clone"

seriously, I ask again, are you stupid? Just absolutely stupid?

@FuzzyPierce
Tell me with a straight face that 3079 bears little resemblance to Minecraft. Please.

@sigma8 So, what, are you telling me that if two games share two visual aspects (in this case, being first person and composed of a sort of randomly generated block landscape), it means they're the same thing?

So Pokemon and Zelda, both overhead 2D sprite-based games, are the same thing? Mario Kart and Pole Position? You drive cars in both, clearly mario kart is a ripoff.

Again, one more time, are you stupid?

Hey guys, 3079 developer here!

Thanks for the news post, Joystiq!

Also thanks to my supporters, I hope you guys are enjoying 3079! Also, I agree it kinda looks like Minecraft at first glance -- but give the free demo a try. It plays nothing like Minecraft -- I developed the game with the people who liked Minecraft in mind, but wanted a completely different experience in a familiar environment.

Don't forget that this isn't a complete game either, much more is planned from the support I've been getting from this bundle. Thanks again!

- Jeremy (aka Phr00t)

@Phr00t
There's certainly no grief for your alpha game not being complete in an "alpha" bundle! In my posts above, I was mostly worried about how the game appears to be marketed. I'm not sure if that's mostly the Indie Royale folks, or if it's the devs themselves.. but I felt the merits of the games--and what was different about them--weren't well communicated in the promotional media.

I think you're still going to do pretty well with nothing other than "mine craft + fallout" (two big names) in your tagline, and getting marketed through a popular bundle.. Maybe that's enough! This whole marketing/promoting of a game is a very interesting process to me, though, since I hope to be in the same shoes at some point... so if I'm a little critical about it, consider it the same type of criticism i'd be applying towards myself.

Indie Royale's current bundle is complete in alpha edition

Reader Comments (13)

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 4:49PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 5:40PM Hank Hill said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 4:57PM serialsleeper said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 5:09PM sith94 said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 5:26PM FuzzyPierce said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 5:51PM FuzzyPierce said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 6:13PM Steyrvolt said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 6:16PM sigma8 said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 6:28PM FuzzyPierce said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 6:29PM sigma8 said

Posted: Feb 23rd 2012 6:38PM FuzzyPierce said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 10:09AM Phr00t said

Posted: Feb 24th 2012 12:21PM sigma8 said

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