TIGA Showcase – Some British Indie Games

TIGA is the UK’s trade association representing the games industry with a focus on developers. They recently held a showcase to talk about some of the newest and upcoming games from independent UK development companies. Here are some of the games that I saw.

LEGO Brain Attack

LEGO have been producing online casual games for years, many of which were developed by Bournemouth-based studio 4T2. Building on the success of their most recent title, LEGO HEro Factory, 4T2 are released a new game called LEGO Brain Attack. It’s a top-down shooter for iOS and Android that will have you blasting away at “The Swarm”, upgrading your LEGO person with armour, guns and all that jazz. Here’s the trailer:

Save The Day

Coming from Denki Games, Save The Day is a frantic, time-attack, helicopter rescue game. Race against the clock to rescue as many hapless victims as possible from an imminent volcano eruption, dropping them off at helicopter pads.

You’ll have to use your water jet to extinguish flaming rocks, dodge bouncing plasma balls and, of course, try not to fly into the cliffs. Save The Day is playable now through the Turbulenz browser game portal.

Xi: Continuum

On completely the other end of the video game spectrum, nDreams have been developing a new chapter in their popular PlayStation Home virtual reality game. Xi: Continuum launched earlier this month and will be running for the next three months with new content provided daily. The in-game section will be filled with mini-games like tracking down an objective inside Home with your radar, while story clues will pop up around the net, or even in the real world.

The Snowman And The Snowdog

Those of you in the UK may have heard that Channel 4 have made a sequel to Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, broadcasting on 24th December. They’ve also commissioned a tie-in mobile game.

The Snowman and The Snowdog (catchy title) is definitely aimied at young children. You’ll follow the snowman, the snowdog and the boy they fly through the air, over forests and eventually across London. Your job is to collect snowflakes so that they fly faster. Occasionally their journey will fork and you can choose to, e.g. fly through Tower Bridge, or back over the Thames.

The app is free and available now on iOS and Android. It’s not the most challenging of game but it’s a lovely Christmas-themed release and should bring a smile to your face.