The third indie bundle was released a few weeks ago now and managed to raise a whopping $910,140.09 dollars for indie developers and the charities Childs’s play and the Electronic Foundation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of the humble bundle it is a series of downloadable, pay what you want, DRM free, games created by independent game developers.
Previous releases of the humble bundle have contained modern classics such as ‘World of Goo‘, ‘Machinarium’ and ‘Braid‘.
The pay what you want scheme even lets you adjust your contribution and divide it between the developers and charity. The scheme is run and managed by Wolfire games and works by by-passing the middlemen and publishers and going straight to the developers and charities themselves.
The games bundled this time around are available for most platforms including MacOS and Linux. Some of them will even provide you with a steam code so you can add download and back them up to your steam library. The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle offered five titles with one being a pre-order but the next might include a different mix.
Trine – a side scrolling, action adventure platformer where players takes control of three different characters each with their own unique abilities. The gameplay is in a similar style to classics such as the Lost Vikings in that you will need to use each character’s abilities to solve simple puzzles and progress throughout the level. Trine has some of the best visual presentation I’ve seen in a game in a really long time. The attention to detail is outstanding. From the fairy tale book opening sequence to the highly detailed levels and lighting. You’ll never stop finding little bits of detail and wonder hidden throughout the game’s 5 + hours of gameplay.
Shadow Grounds – a 3D arcade style shoot’em up similar to classics like Alien Breed. The plot is pretty simple, aliens come on board your ship, shoot said aliens, rescue survivors. The meat here is in the gameplay, use light and shadow to gain the upper hand on the aliens and battle your way to saving the colony and the survivors. You will also have a variety of simple tasks and postal missions to complete along the way and it’s all good fun. You can even bring a buddy along with you in Co-op mode if you’re too scared to play alone. As part of the bundle you will also receive the sequel Shadow Ground: Survivor.
Jack Claw – (still in development) Is a game that contains an impressive physics based gameplay system. The game also gives you a windows based executable and source code if you’re into tinkering or developing your own games.
Splot Preorder – Unfortunately ‘Splot’ is just a preorder but it seems to be an interesting and colourful puzzle platformer and will be available for download as soon as it’s ready to anyone that has purchased the bundle.
Although arguably not as packed as the previous bundles the Frozenbyte Bundle still has some fantastic game play in there and it was a great opportunity to discover the talents of the indie development scene. Unfortunately The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle is no longer for sale but head over to http://www.humblebundle.com/ and sign up to be emailed when the next bundle is released!
