Each week our resident Indie Gamer Nicholas takes a look at a different Indie Game that you may or may not have heard about. Join him on his adventures as he sifts through the rubbish to find The Indie Game of the Week.
Hey there, ladies and gents! This week, we’re going to try something completely different: a little series known as “Indie Game of the Week.” Basically, it’ll be a series where I share with you the details of one of my current obsessions in the field of independent gaming. I’ll include a mini-review of each title; enough to tell you whether or not you’d find the game to be of any interest.
The title on the chopping block today is known as 10,000,000; a frantic puzzle/platformer/RPG with a very simple premise. You are, for reasons you don’t quite understand; trapped in a dark, dilapidated dungeon. In order to get out, you must fight your way past wave upon wave of dangerous monsters and locked doors and chests; fighting endlessly until you finally manage to reach ten million points.
You do this by matching rows of three to five tiles on a large grid, on which you can move both rows and columns. There are seven tiles in total: Wood and Stone net you resources which are necessary to repair and enhance the rooms you’ll use to upgrade your character and equipment; Keys are used to open locked doors and treasure chests; Backpacks have a chance of dropping a random, usable item; Shields grant you armor, which allows you to resist enemy attacks(this is important, as these knock you back); Swords deal physical damage and have a chance of landing massive critical strikes; while staves deal magic damage and have a chance of either freezing or poisoning an opponent.
In addition to wood and stone, there are two other resources: gold (acquired from chests) is used for weapon, armor, shield, and staff upgrades; experience(gained by killing monsters) lets you purchase new abilities and skills in the training room. Note that all of these rooms need to be repaired before they are unlocked.
Your character is positioned in a long corridor which constantly scrolls to the right. Once you’re off the screen, the round’s over and you return to your home base. The problem here is that the screen keeps scrolling when you’re stopped – whether it’s due to a chest, a door, or a monster. To make matters worse, every time a monster hits you, the screen jumps to the right a bit (based on how much ‘damage’ they do). Some monsters are weak against physical damage (swords) and some are weak against magical (staves). It becomes pretty obvious which is which.
It ends up being fast-paced, addictive fun, and even once you’ve gained ten million points, it’s still enjoyable to drop in and play every now and again.
The music consists of chiptunes, and the graphics are primarily 8-bit. There are a few more advanced sound effects, but they too bleed old school. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. though: everything looks and sounds incredible; the game’s got a great aesthetic to top off the enjoyable game-play.
10,000,000 isn’t a terribly long game, nor is it terribly complex. It’s a great way to kill an hour or two of downtime, though, and at a very reasonable price. Check it out on the Steam store if it sounds like it’s your cup of tea.