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The Soul of Dracula is a 2D platformer inspired by the Castlevania series, featuring appearances from mainstays such as Death and the Count himself in the role of level bosses. You play as a vampire hunter who must venture into the Dark Prince's castle and defeat him using only your whip and the familiar array of ranged weapons at your disposal.

Though many of the enemies had appeared in monsieur Belmont's adventures before, the developer of this tribute project had included a couple of twists and surprises that will please even the most hardcore of Castlevania fans out there. Download the game here. (Windows, 1.84MB)

Marsh is another vertical-scrolling shooter created by the developer of EX -extra-, featuring three ships with different weapon configurations to choose from and five levels to play in total. In addition to your primary and secondary weapons, there is also a special attack that can be deployed at any time, provided that you have at least one bomb counter in the blue bar at the bottom of the window.

The type of bomb launched is dependent on your current energy gauge, which can be increased by destroying enemy ships over time. A destructive laser beam is fired if the energy indicator is maxed out, else your ship will drop a carpet bomb that destroys all other harmful projectiles on screen for a couple of seconds. The game can be downloaded here. (Windows, 22.6MB)

Tikei no Kami is a puzzle game in the style of Psygnosis' Lemmings, where players have to guide an eggplant-headed character towards the exit in each level while avoiding any traps or obstacles that might be in his path. To achieve this you would have to drill your way through floors and walls, then build the necessary bridges or place spring contraptions to assist our hero reach higher platforms.

Hold the left mouse button to drill or place an object from your item stash. Right-click to switch between your tools. You can alternate between windowed and full screen mode by pressing the left Alt and Enter key at the same time.

To use the scroll option when viewing levels, just hold the left mouse button for a couple of seconds when the cursor is over the up or down arrow indicator. Download the game here. (Windows, 13.3MB)

Madness is a seven-day project that explores the theme of insanity in a roguelike very well, where players take on the role of an adventurer who has to descend ten dungeon floors and defeat the evil Dungeon Master who resides at the lowest level. If you enjoy light roguelikes, then this is definitely one game that you should download just for the concept alone.

Everything after this point is spoiler territory, and it is recommended that you try the game out yourself instead of having me reveal all of the surprises that you might encounter during your adventures here. (Windows/Linux, 1.58MB)

[This is a guest article by PerrinAshcroft. If you’d like to contribute a guest article to TIGSource, go here.]

Digital: A Love Story is a free to download interactive story by Christine Love available for Windows, Mac and Linux. The game is set in 1988 and you begin the game with a threadbare interface closely resembling the Amiga’s workbench. To progress through the game you must use your modem to dial into bulletin board systems (BBS), make friends and enemies, download utilities, hack into protected system and commit phone fraud to make long distance calls. The game has a wonderful retro feel that’s going to tug strings of nostalgia for anyone who built up astronomical phone bills dialling into BBSs back before the internet became so widespread.

Parallels can be drawn to Introversion’s Uplink but Digital is very much its own experience. While Uplink was driven by the game elements of upgrading your deck and breaking into systems in a cool cyberpunk-esque world, Digital keeps its focus on characters and storytelling and draws instead from the unglamorous nerdy reality of the pre-internet digital world. The tools at your disposals are primitive, but are interactive enough that it doesn’t just feel like passive story.

I don’t want to elaborate too much on the content of the story as finding that out is what makes this game worth playing, but the story is really well structured and paced taking you through quite an emotional three-act tale in only a few hours. While the primary story is a fairly serious affair, Christine is smart enough to include humorous side plots such as getting into arguments with Star Trek nerds, a level of attention to detail that keeps the world interesting.

On a technical level I was very impressed once I realised the game was built with Ren’Py, a python based tool for building Japanese style visual novels. The game has been customised to the point where it’s unrecognisable from most projects build using those authoring tools. The interface is slick, the graphics are retro in a perfectly fitting manner and it includes a fantastic ambient soundtrack.

A game like this is unlikely to appeal to everyone, heavily story driven games are not to everyone’s tastes. But for those of you willing to spend a few hours, working slowly through an intriguing piece of interactive narrative there is a lot to enjoy about this title. I considered nit picking at a few minor issues but it seemed silly when for the most part this is a game with a specific purpose in mind and it executes it brilliantly. Ultimately for me, when the ending finally came it was a truly emotional moment where I just didn’t want to let go but knew I had to. Continue reading

Jump, Copy, Paste is a 2D platformer in which you overcome obstacles by copy and pasting parts of a level to build new platforms or create a passage through a wall. Parts which are greyed out cannot be affected by your copy and paste ability, so players need to work around those areas as they collect all yellow pieces to unlock the exit door.

There are seventeen levels to play through, and the game does get trickier with the introduction of bad guys, laser beams, switches, portals and even sawblades in the latter stages. (Windows, 2.20MB)

Fish Face is a one-button arcade game with three levels to play, each taking roughly five to ten minutes to complete. Here you play as a fish that uses its buoyancy to move in and out of the water, avoiding walls or enemies that will hurt our aquatic friend on impact.

Red loops can be collected for points, while the blue ones act as checkpoint locations that you can return to when your fish crashes into a solid object. Fish Face was originally created by Beau Blyth for submission into the Gamma IV competition, though the game eventually lost out and didn't make it through the final cut. (Windows, 3.36MB)