I haven’t done a Free Indie Game Quick Hits since January, I’ve been a bit sloppy to be fair. But this evening, as Britain stagnates with the heat, I bring you two quick and free to play indie games to check out. Both are from CY ‘Failnaut’ Reid who made Hug Marine which gave me so much joy last year.

This first game from CY I want to talk about is Escape Pod, which of the two is certainly the more ‘gamey’. You control a small Escape Pod with your arrow keys trying to avoid asteroids and nuclear material. A classic example of a quick and easy to play endless runner. It first came out in March when I had initially intended to play it. CY described working on it as such:

Escape Pod was something I started working on late one night not long after I’d moved back in with my parents. It was a good for me in retrospect as it gave me something to do, which was important at the time. At one point I started working on it at 11PM and didn’t stop until 2AM. I learnt a lot through the project, but ultimately because it was a fairly straightforward endless runner, it wasn’t something I was hugely interested in doing. I’d had the idea to make one a while ago, but it wasn’t until my friend Chris Ray started work on Swordfish Can’t Fly that I wanted to give it a go.

Since then CY has moved away from his parents, and the other game I am linking to explores his reasons for moving. It is titled Dear Mother and could be considered a personal blog, but in video game form. It also shows how someone’s fervant religious attitudes can push away those closest to them. A topic that other games might try to deal with, but which CY does with a definite degree of flair. This what CY had to say about it:

With Dear Mother, the process was a little different. I was sitting at my desk, thinking about what had happened between me and my mum, who’s very religious, which tends to cause tension between the two of us. Without hesitating I got to work on a game to express what I was feeling, and the result was what you see there. It’s not a particularly long or complex game, but it’s the development equivalent, to me, of a Facebook status – it’s me saying “this is how I feel about the way in which her religion defines her outlook.” It was a cathartic process.

Two very different games, but when you then look at the other titles CY has made, especially Hug Marine, you get the sense that this is a young man with a lot of potential and some great ideas. His ability to get different messages across within his games ensures I’ll be keeping an eye on what he makes next.