Indie games featured at fest

Many awesome, unique and crowd-pleasing indie games were featured at Fantastic Fest's Fantastic Arcade Sept. 22-25 at The Highball. This event was open to the public, not just festival badge holders, and featured rows of TVs and laptops loaded with new games and even a few adapted into upright old-school arcade style machines.

"Octodad" was hilarious. It's premise was an octopus disguised as a human trying to perform mundane tasks turned bizarre and somewhat difficult like cleaning out the fridge or washing the dishes using Octodad's inky tentacles. The colorful kitchen tiles and silly plot make for a mildly addictive and entertaining game.

"Jesus Vs. Dinosaurs" is an instant classic. People were waiting in line to play this game, peeking over shoulders for a preview. Players choose between playing as God or Darwin and create vehicles out of Tetris shaped blocks with wheels on them. When the cars are ready, a Jesus or dinosaur head appear on the front of the cars and they start rolling toward the opponent's end of the rocky battlefield. The goal is to create bigger and longer Tetris cars faster so that when your dinosaur or prophet is released, they'll be competent enough to cross the screen and score a point. Cars can also collect crates full of power-ups or bombs, which can be used to either knock opponents back or launch your car forward. The PC version of the game is available for free download at grapefrukt.com/jesus-vs- dinosaurs.

"Skulls of the Shogun" is a strategy based battle game with a new twist. Apparently there is a long wait to get into the warrior afterlife, but one general can't wait and decides to battle his way in. The storyline in the campaign is full of hilarity and unusual plot turns. The general teams up with archers, shogun and cavalry warriors to pursue their post-mortem hereafter.