This comment isn't really hacker related, but it is related to this bundle:
For anyone that likes playing games but doesn't really follow them, I highly recommend taking a look at both Amnesia: The Dark Descent and LIMBO. Both are available in this pack, and they are both unique, high-quality, and inspired games. The former is a terrifying journey into a nightmarish realm that was created to emerse the player in the environment moreso than any other game in existence, and the latter is a spectacularly creepy 2D puzzle game that looks like it was created by Tim Burton.
All of the games in this bundle are worth my weight in gold, and I'm not exactly anorexic. To add to those you noted, Bastion is a wonderful ARPG featuring gorgeous graphics (it's 2D but it looks like an oil painting which moves), excellent gameplay and balance and an original and pitch-perfect narration following the player through his journey married to a high-quality soundtrack; Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP is an excellent visual and aural experience sold as an point & click game; and psychonauts is a strange and weird and wonderful and out-of-this-world platform/adventure game, think of a game in the Beetlejuice universe except absolutely excellent and wonderfully droll.
Only thing there is to hate about this bundle is I already have every single game in it.
Now I'll have to buy bundles to gift them.
(actually I'm lying, I'm also buying one for the OSTs, since I only have bastion's)
I can't recommend Psychonauts enough. It's by Double Fine, who recently had the $1M Kickstarter campaign many of you will remember. Tim Schafer, founder of, and designer at, Double Fine, is celebrated at his craft, and Psychonauts is an excellent example of why. And it's written by Schafer and Erik Wolpaw, who wrote Portal.
In his games, and especially Psychonauts, Schafer is known for creating a beautiful world and characters for the player. In Psychonauts you play Raz, a young child of circus performers who (instead of running away from his boring life to join the circus) runs away from the circus to attend summer camp! Of course, it can't be normal; it's a summer camp for those with mental abilities, training to join a super-powered CIA style organization. You hone your psychic abilities as you go through levels that take place in the minds of characters. The characters, though fun, start off warm and familiar: The militant trainer, the cool, calm, and perfectly restrained agent, and the hippie-dippy counselor who just wants to have a good time, maaan. There's even a kooky old man who may be more than he thinks... But then it gets amazing.
Schafer is well known for his writing, and for me it's his ability to perfectly marry together game concepts and game content that make him great. In Mario you collect coins and in Sonic you collect rings, both existing in story only to their own end. In Psychonauts you traverse the minds of other characters, collecting mental fragments, the doodlings of an inner child. You can also find memories locked away in vaults, sometimes hidden behind barriers (mental blocks), or behind cobwebs. (Talk about not wanting to deal with things!) It's through collecting these memories that we actually get a better picture of the people whose minds we're traversing.
The game is not perfect. There are issues with a level or two. Well, one anyway. Overall, it's reach probably exceeds it's grasp, but that's okay. It manages to reach pretty damn far. And how it gets there is far better than most games.
To add to that, Bastion is an incredible game as well, the music, narration and graphics are all amazing, it creates a great atmosphere. This Indie Bundle really has some big hits.
Agreed. Limbo is easily worth paying for just on it's own. I purchased it for the Xbox 360 after seeing videos of it online and it is an amazing game with a gorgeous creepy atmosphere.
Amnesia was creepy, but I wouldn't call it excellent. Psychonauts is the 3D game that really shines in this pack. It's extremely memorable and utterly original. Fun fact: the Metacritic user score for Psychonauts is 9.4 compared to Amnesia's 8.8.
For anyone who's interested in the Linux versions, Canonical also announced[1] today that HIB5 purchases will be redeemable via Ubuntu Software Centre.
I'm only a few albums in, but there are definitely some gems. (Impeccable Micro and In Momentum are my current favourites.) The last bundle was absolutely fantastic (especially Impostor Nostalgia and vvvvvv).
How do you guys divide up your purchase? Default, all to someone, mixture?
I dumped everything to the developers with the mentality that games are hard work - I'd like to reward that - where as charities are much more common, but I'd love to hear other's view points on this.
I almost always give everything to the devs, with maybe a dollar or two to HIB to cover things like hosting, dealing with Steam, etc. If I were going to donate to EFF or Childs Play, I would do that directly, not as a way to self-justify paying less of my money to the developers that put a lot of hard work into the games I'm buying. But hey, working in the gaming industry might make me biased...
I usually give most of the money to charity. While I have purchased the majority of the Humble Bundles, I don't actually have time to play games. For many of the bundles, I've not even bothered to download the files. That's how I rationalize it anyway.
Mostly to developers, but man are those sliders annoying. It took a lot of fiddling to get all three in line. Some option which would let me under or over allocate temporarily would have been a huge help, instead of this one up, that one down, that one back up, that one down again.
I went 75% developers, 25% humble on this one; I'm usually much closer to 50% devs / 30% charity / 20% humble. My reasoning being this is an above-average bundle IMO, and I want to see the developers rewarded handsomely so that more critically-acclaimed games will come to the bundles.
I will add my comment to say that I've played most of these games, and they're all spectacular. Limbo is great, Amnesia is terrifying (to the point that I'm too scared to continue it), and I enjoyed Bastion very much too (I finished it).
I'm not one to game a lot, but these are so convenient (I run Linux so I rarely reboot into Windows just for a game), very casual, so you can just play one level and return to whatever you were doing, and just overall great games.
Linux sales are dwindling, sadly. Judging from the "Total Payment" pie charts of past bundles, we went from ~23% (bundle 2) to 12% (bundle 4) to the current ~9%. Total sales across all platforms have remained fairly constant.
Interesting style of trailer. It borrows the art style from Sword and Sworcery and the narrator from Bastion. Strange choices considering their target market is surely people who _haven't_ played those games and so won't get the references.
But yes, a set of great games - at least the half I've played (S&S, Bastion, Limbo) are great - and I've heard only good things about the other two.
I don't normally do that much gaming, but I may give it a try.
Question 1: Can I run the games on a laptop with an intel i3 and no discrete graphics? Question 2: Is it okay to just pay a dollar or so to start, and then pay more if I actually enjoy the games?
2. I feel this is completely okay, you are not stealing from them because you cover the charges for your purchase and if you use steam for download you are not wasting their bandwidth.
All of the games are excellent so I bet you will enjoy at least two of them.
I can't believe I've just bought 4 of those 5 games last month (Bastion, S&SEP, Limbo and Amnesia). Well at least I supported the Indie Game scene with more money than I would have with Humble Bundle.
The funnier part is... that I'm giving some bucks anyway just to have Psychonauts (because it's from Double Fine) and because I can't imagine not to have ALL the Humble Indie Bundles :-)
Never played the games, but I bought the bundle and downloaded these two soundtracks to listen to while I work. You're absolutely correct, these are great and easily worth what I paid on their own. They make me excited to get to play the games themselves tonight!
[+] [-] courtewing|14 years ago|reply
For anyone that likes playing games but doesn't really follow them, I highly recommend taking a look at both Amnesia: The Dark Descent and LIMBO. Both are available in this pack, and they are both unique, high-quality, and inspired games. The former is a terrifying journey into a nightmarish realm that was created to emerse the player in the environment moreso than any other game in existence, and the latter is a spectacularly creepy 2D puzzle game that looks like it was created by Tim Burton.
[+] [-] masklinn|14 years ago|reply
Only thing there is to hate about this bundle is I already have every single game in it.
Now I'll have to buy bundles to gift them.
(actually I'm lying, I'm also buying one for the OSTs, since I only have bastion's)
[+] [-] jeffool|14 years ago|reply
In his games, and especially Psychonauts, Schafer is known for creating a beautiful world and characters for the player. In Psychonauts you play Raz, a young child of circus performers who (instead of running away from his boring life to join the circus) runs away from the circus to attend summer camp! Of course, it can't be normal; it's a summer camp for those with mental abilities, training to join a super-powered CIA style organization. You hone your psychic abilities as you go through levels that take place in the minds of characters. The characters, though fun, start off warm and familiar: The militant trainer, the cool, calm, and perfectly restrained agent, and the hippie-dippy counselor who just wants to have a good time, maaan. There's even a kooky old man who may be more than he thinks... But then it gets amazing.
Schafer is well known for his writing, and for me it's his ability to perfectly marry together game concepts and game content that make him great. In Mario you collect coins and in Sonic you collect rings, both existing in story only to their own end. In Psychonauts you traverse the minds of other characters, collecting mental fragments, the doodlings of an inner child. You can also find memories locked away in vaults, sometimes hidden behind barriers (mental blocks), or behind cobwebs. (Talk about not wanting to deal with things!) It's through collecting these memories that we actually get a better picture of the people whose minds we're traversing.
The game is not perfect. There are issues with a level or two. Well, one anyway. Overall, it's reach probably exceeds it's grasp, but that's okay. It manages to reach pretty damn far. And how it gets there is far better than most games.
[+] [-] nik_0_0|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] res0nat0r|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordlicorice|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matmann2001|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrame|14 years ago|reply
Bastion is quite good, too.
[+] [-] vignesh_vs_in|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomku|14 years ago|reply
[1]: http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/31/humble-indie-bundle-5-c...
[+] [-] aw3c2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] franciscoapinto|14 years ago|reply
- Amnesia is fantastic. Terrifying, yes, but fantastic.
- Limbo is gorgeous.
- Bastion is a great game.
- Haven't played the others, but I've heard good things.
A big "thank you" to the developers and humble bundle inc.
[+] [-] mortenjorck|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chocolatebunny|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technomancy|14 years ago|reply
I'm only a few albums in, but there are definitely some gems. (Impeccable Micro and In Momentum are my current favourites.) The last bundle was absolutely fantastic (especially Impostor Nostalgia and vvvvvv).
[+] [-] aw3c2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrazedGeek|14 years ago|reply
http://www.indiegala.com/
http://www.indieroyale.com/
http://www.gamemusicbundle.com/
The indie bundle sales are my favorite trend in gaming in a long time.
[+] [-] Splines|14 years ago|reply
"We've hit a rate limit sending to gmail.com addresses, our email provider is working on it though!"
[https://twitter.com/humble/status/208273636589715457]
Edit: I received mine, so it looks like it is working now.
[+] [-] HCIdivision17|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HazzyPls|14 years ago|reply
I dumped everything to the developers with the mentality that games are hard work - I'd like to reward that - where as charities are much more common, but I'd love to hear other's view points on this.
[+] [-] nuclear_eclipse|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedunangst|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoka|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwny|14 years ago|reply
Buying a few bundles for gifts woohoo!
[+] [-] Dejital|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aw3c2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeff18|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ch0wn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrem|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CJefferson|14 years ago|reply
I have used the Limbo Linux port, and didn't have any problems.
[+] [-] eupharis|14 years ago|reply
If only all software distribution was done as flawlessly as the Humble Bundle. Spectacular.
[+] [-] StavrosK|14 years ago|reply
I'm not one to game a lot, but these are so convenient (I run Linux so I rarely reboot into Windows just for a game), very casual, so you can just play one level and return to whatever you were doing, and just overall great games.
[+] [-] ced|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adam-a|14 years ago|reply
But yes, a set of great games - at least the half I've played (S&S, Bastion, Limbo) are great - and I've heard only good things about the other two.
[+] [-] mindstab|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freditup|14 years ago|reply
Question 1: Can I run the games on a laptop with an intel i3 and no discrete graphics? Question 2: Is it okay to just pay a dollar or so to start, and then pay more if I actually enjoy the games?
[+] [-] fishbacon|14 years ago|reply
2. I feel this is completely okay, you are not stealing from them because you cover the charges for your purchase and if you use steam for download you are not wasting their bandwidth.
All of the games are excellent so I bet you will enjoy at least two of them.
[+] [-] Feoh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kell|14 years ago|reply
The funnier part is... that I'm giving some bucks anyway just to have Psychonauts (because it's from Double Fine) and because I can't imagine not to have ALL the Humble Indie Bundles :-)
[+] [-] avolcano|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanfalcon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debacle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|14 years ago|reply