Indie Squid Kid

I’ll admit that, for a geek, I know very little about video and computer games, and I know even less about the world of independent game design. However, what kind of Indie Squid Kid would I be if I didn’t acknowledge indie game designer Miguel Sternberg of Spooky Squid Games Inc.? Miguel is the creator of two cephalopod themed games—both were made in conjunction with Artsy Game Incubator, an event that encourages the Canadian indie game community (of Toronto and Montreal, at least) to develop and hone their gamemaking chops.

Night of the Cephalopods! is a “survival horror game with old school pixel art graphics and an innovative fully voiced dynamic narrative system.” Having mistranslated the sinister Octinomicon, you must survive until dawn, fighting tentacled horrors armed with only a shotgun. (Um, you are armed with a shot gun, the cephalopods are armed with, well, their arms.) All the while, your every move is narrated in grand Lovcraftian fashion. Here’s some sample game play…

Cephalopods Co-Op Cottage Defence is Miguel’s follow-up-in-progress to Night of the Cephalopods! It is a two-player, cooperative game “featuring a lady scientist, her clockwork valet and hundreds of squidy things.” Surviving the night is again the goal, but this time it seems you must also defend your laboratory form eldrich invasion.

Both games can be downloaded at AGI.

All this came to my attention by way of Rock, Paper, Shotgun.