Alpha Beta Gamer

Project Starship is a bat-shit crazy bullet-hell arcade vertical-shooter, with big, beautiful sprites bursting with color, procedurally generated levels, random ’Mad Events’ 19 bosses and tons of minions to smash.

It shows a lot of love to the classic arcade shoot-em-ups of the 80’s (you can even use the ’Konamai Code’), but takes their old school shmup gameplay, adds a ton of bullets and turns everything up to 11. The procedural generation, multiple power ups and random ‘Mad events’ give a roguelike feel to Project Starship, with every game feeling as fresh and crazy as the last.

As well as the visual feast on-screen, the soundtrack also rocks, offering up excellent retro-inspired music and sfx. You really won’t have time to admire any of this though as all of your concentration is spent on avoiding the myriad of bullets hurtling towards you. With it’s retro leanings and chaotic action, Project Starship is tough, vibrant, crazy and tons of fun. A Bullet-Crazy-as-Hell Shooter.

Play the Alpha Demo, Free & Check out the Greenlight page

Gunslugs 2 is a wonderfully chaotic run and gun arcade shooter with a great sense of humor, procedurally generated levels and fast, fun gameplay full of carnage, explosions and tons of action movie cliché’s.

Building on the award winning original, Gunslugs 2 improves on the OTT action filled Gunslugs gameplay in every way, offering up more chaos, more guns, more enemies, more explosions and more corny movie references. As your Gunslugs battle through the carnage-filled procedurally generated levels, you’ll unlock more characters and weaponry to blow away the evil Black Duck Army, and stop their nefarious master plan.

With it’s OTT action, Metal-Slug-esque run and gun action, wonderful pixel art graphical style and tongue-in-cheek humor, Gunslugs 2 is a blast. Bigger, Better & Michael Bay-ier than ever.

Play the Free Beta Demo & Check Out the Greenlight Campaign

Ethereon is a gorgeous Myst-Style adventure where you travel deep into a mysterious world full of logic-based puzzles and beautiful underwater sea creatures.

Although Ethereon works perfectly well on a standard screen, it’s been designed from the ground up to work with VR to offer a fully immersive experience that really transports you to another world. The puzzles are well thought out and logic based, requiring you to observe and experiment with mysterious alien artefacts that often have dramatic effects in this strange world.

One of the devs was part of the team that brought us Riven and you can really tell. It’s a wonderful zen-like experience as you explore the strange alien world, full of beautiful scenery and fantastic creatures. A great test of grey matter and a beautiful feast for the eyes.

Check out the Kickstarter & Play the Alpha (Win & Linux, Standard Screen & Oculus Rift)

Courier of the Crypts is a charming pixel art action adventure game where you play a courier on an errand to the guardian of the crypts, fighting enemies, solving puzzles and avoiding traps along the way.

As you traverse the dangerous crypts, your magic torch forms a pivotal role, lighting your way, helping you solve puzzles and affecting the environment. You’ll have to keep your torch topped up with magic and learn when to toggle it on and off, as some enemies actively seek it out to extinguish it.

The story has a nice mix of humor and mystery, and there’s a fantastic atmosphere thanks to the wonderful pixel art animation and ambient sound. The dungeons of Courier of the Crypts are great places to explore, full of unknown dangers, treasures, puzzles and secrets. Just make sure you keep that torch alight!

Check out the IndieGoGo campaign & Play the Prototype, Free

’Poppy the Austere Hobbit Security Guard’ fought bravely, dispatching (among others) a professional dinosaur, a Demented Pool Cue and a Ruinous Mother-In-Law before falling foul to a Deformed Bishop on level 6. Rest in piece Poppy, you faught well!

No this isn’t the start of a mental break down, it’s just a normal play through of the wonderfully bizarre ASCII-styled procedurally generated FPS Roguelike - Illuminascii.

Thanks to procedurally generated enemies, levels, weapons and characters, every play though of Illuminascii is as strange and surprising as the last. The ASCII visual style is fantastic, with nice little touches everywhere, such as kicking over trash cans and watching lots of ASCII characters (and the occasional cat) spill out. The enemies are a particular highlight, taking the form of large colorful letters with a randomly generated description above them - you’ll never forget the first time you round a corner and come face to face with a 6-foot tall glowing letter ‘J’ described as a ’Moist Bearded Cat’.

To make it through each procedurally generated level of Illuminascii, you have to find 5 pieces of 'evidence’ (hidden in drawers throughout the levels) then make it to the exit. As you progress, you fight enemies, collect loot, equip new weaponry and level up your character. In typical rouguelike fashion, you only get one life, but when you die you’re treated to a eulogy which is a nice little touch - allowing you to recap your ridiculous adventure.

We first covered Illuminascii way back in January, and it’s come a long way since then, with the latest build featuring better visuals and even more ASCII-randomness. The Greenlight campaign started in July, but unfortunately it’s still not Greenlit, so if you like the game please vote for it, at least ’Poppy the Austere Hobbit Security Guard’ won’t of died in vain.

Play the Latest Build, Free & Check Out the Greenlight Page

Momentum is a highly challenging physics based ball-rolling platformer where you tilt the levels to guide your ball through increasingly tricky levels across beautiful and tranquil environments.

Gameplay will be fairly familiar to anyone who’s played any of the Super Monkey Ball series, but where SMB has an anarchic atmosphere that escalates tension and frustration, Momentum‘s audio & visuals guve off a wonderfully relaxed zen-like vibe. This means that even after you fall off at the same point for the 10th time in a row, frustration doesn’t get the better of you. You simply carry on at a speed your comfortable with and eventually conquer that troublesome corner.

Once you’ve mastered your ball rolling skills you can then go for faster times – the jump button comes in handy here, allowing you to skip large sections of tracks if you’re skillful (or lucky) enough. The Alpha Demo features the first 16 deviously designed tracks, while the full game will fature around 100 across 3 worlds and a variety of fun unlockable skins.

With it’s blend of challenging precision ball-rolling and it’s chilled-out, zen-like atmosphere, Momentum offers up a unique mix of frustration and relaxation that’ll really get your ball rolling.

Check out the Greenlight page & Download the Free Alpha Demo

The Chosen is an ambitious open-world online RPG with FPS and strategy elements that allows players to choose their own path between light and darkness, exploring a vast, persistent universe, discovering new civilisations, forging alliances and taking part in epic battles.

The Alpha Demo is single player only, but serves as a nice taster of what the finished game will feel like. It starts off with a slightly clunky handling, but well written section with you floating around in zero-gravity, with things picking up pace once you get your feet on the ground. As you explore the damaged ship your AI will assist you learning the ropes. Although you’re stranded on a damaged spaceship, full of nasty mutants, your character seems remarkably upbeat about the situation (although it may be the painkillers talking), leading to some pleasantly humorous dialogue between yourself and the AI.

Currently early in development, the finished massively multiplayer online game will feature a huge sprawling galaxy for you to explore full of mysteries, new civilisations and rich lore. You’ll be able to build and customise your own ship, hi-jack enemy ships, voice chat with NPCs and trade in a player driven ecomomy.

It’s an impressive project and sounds a lot like what we were promised from Destiny. The single player Alpha Demo shows off some solid foundations for The Chosen, if the developers can bring this level of innovation, wit, graphical prowess and gameplay to the online multiplayer, this could be something rather special.

Check out the Greenlight Page & Download the Free Alpha Demo

Alum is an well crafted old school point-and-click adventure reminiscent of Beneath a Steal Sky, that sees you uncovering the truth about ‘The Vague’ – a mysterious disease that makes those infected increasingly apathetic and disconnected from the world.

Even from the outset you’ll notice that the writing in Alum is particularly impressive, as your protagonist, Alum, describes his wifes contition. She’s affliced with ‘The Vague’,and throughout the adventure you’ll uncover the truth about this mysterious illness, search a cure, and discover what’s really going on city of Kosmos.

Alum really does hark back to the glory days of point and click adventures, drawing inspiration from the likes of Monkey Island and Quest for Glory to create a game with charming retro visuals, excellent audio, intuitive puzzle design, quirky humor and an epic storyline. Like any good mystery, the more of the truth you uncover, the more questions you’ll have, pushing you towards this grand quests promised epic conclusion.

Play the Alpha Demo, Free

Dungeon Nightmares II is a terrifying first person horror that sees you exploring creepy procedurally generated dungeons, searching for keys to unlock the doors of a mysterious hotel.

The original Dungeon Nightmares was originally made for mobile in late 2013 and was later released for the home computer early 2014 on GameJolt. It was an overnight hit with the community and is still currently one of the highest rated games on there to date and now has over half a million players across all platforms.

Dungeon Nightmares II greatlyimproves on the already very creepy original, with improved audio and visuals building a foreboding atmosphere full of dread and terror. The procedurally generation not only enhances the games replayability, but also increases the tension, with you never sure where the next scare (of which there are many) will come from.

Gameplay is similar to Amnesia, with you exploring the dungeons unarmed, filled with macabre illusions and creepy sounds. You’re never too sure what’s real and what’s illusion in this procedurally generated nightmare - but the scares are definitely real.

Play the Alpha Demo, Free

Border-Remembrance is a top-down beautifully pixelated, fast paced, highly challenging Metroidvania inspired by Castlevania, Demon Souls, Dark Souls and HP Lovecraft, that tells the story of a worlds last 3 weeks.

The game has three different characters all of which are amazingly crafted with unique gameplay, style and character. It features beautiful hand drawn landscapes, destructible environments, lots of enemy characters with unique attacks, non-linear storytelling and multiple endings.

With Border-Remembrance’s, stylish visuals, challenging difficulty levels and non-linear gameplay, this Lovecraftian Dark Soulsvania is well worth checking out.

Check out the Kickstarter & Download the Free Pre-Alpha Demo

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