Indie Focus: Humble Indie Bundle 9

Let’s face it, I could cover the best indie game in the world and it wouldn’t get a look in this week, thanks to the juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto V. I’m not complaining, I have been eagerly awaiting its release myself and with any luck I’ll be playing it right now (that is, when you are reading this, as Indie Focus is written in advance) and will have been for two days, provided my Amazon order arrived on Monday.

So instead of the usual piece I’m going to shorten the article and widen the focus from one game to six, pointing you towards the Humble Indie Bundle 9. The king of indie game bundles continues its unrelenting streak of quality with a line-up consisting of some truly superb games.

Double Fine Productions’ Brütal Legend, which stars Jack Black and a tonne of distorted guitars, is probably the game you’re most likely to recognise. It’s an action adventure through a world of metal – both the genre of music and actual metal – and has the sense of humour you might expect from anything featuring Jack Black with some guitars. It’s backed up by Eets Munchies, a puzzle game with a little Lemmings inspiration and a good sense of humour, that is currently in beta and developed my Klei Entertainment.

Then there is what is possibly the best stealth game of 2012, Klei Entertainment’s Mark of the Ninja, which is a true stealth game in that if you’re spotted and can’t get away, you will probably die. If you’re into sneaking around and have always wanted to be a ninja, this is most definitely the game you’ve been looking for.

Finally, there’s Trine 2, which is a shockingly pretty side-scrolling puzzle-adventure in which you control three heroes in one body: a wizard, a warrior, and a thief. As mentioned, it’s absolutely gorgeous, and its sense of humour is a little reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. It blends combat and puzzles very well and will have you gasping at its beauty all the way through.

If you pay more than the average you’ll also get brilliant space ship management game FTL: Faster Than Light and the pixelly Fez, which centers on getting around levels by rotating the world to change your perspective and possibly hurt your head.

You can get the Humble Indie Bundle here and with the average price being around the $4.60, it’s highly recommended, pretty much any one of these games is worth more than that on their own. As for Indie Focus, we’ll be back next week and it’ll be business as usual.