Lindsay looks at A.N.N.E. and Black Ice in this week's Greenlight Special.

This week for the Greenlight Special, I revisit PAX East (I know, all the way back in March) and some of the indie devs we visited while there. There wasn’t nearly enough time to delve into the IndieMega Booth, so I feel it only right to go back over the video notes we did grab. You know, for science reasons. That applies, right?

This week’s Greenlit Game: A.N.N.E. Bossman Mike B was stoked to see these guys at PAX, and seeing as the guy knows his indies, I took note. Games by Mo had a Kickstarter for A.N.N.E. and had a modest $70k goal. They reached over $100k in about a month. Yeah. Awesome. I also covered another game from Mo last week, Boss Wave. This guy….

Basically, this game platform shooter with some RPG elements, that feature two adorable robots - Number25 and A.N.N.E. As love is forbidden to robots, you have to go find your pink robot love somewhere in the universe. You travel around the planet Gomi, trying to find pieces of A.N.N.E. You solve puzzles, explore, find crystals to upgrade your spaceship, go on quests. Adorable robots in a shmup? Oh yeah. Gimme dat sci-fi love. Available on PC, Mac, Linux, PS Vita, PS3, Wii U, and Ouya.

Check out their Steam page here. You can pre-order the game here for about $9.99, and here is an excellent trailer.

The Released Game this week is Black Ice from lone developer Garrett Cooper, and it’s described as a “Hack and Shoot - a Cyberpunk First-Person Shooter / Hack & Slash RPG about hacking.” Each cyberworld is procedurally generated with randomized loot, and you level up as you hack and fight your way to the top of the corporations in the game. The game does offer cross-platform online multiplayer for up to 10 people, but I only played it by myself, because I don’t have 10 friends. I kid. Sorta.

So, aesthetically, I love this game. It’s like Tron and Asteroids and all the best things about cyberpunk. Who doesn’t like that shit? Blade Runner, anyone? Exactly. And what I enjoyed about this game was the basic mechanics. The premise is that you’re a kind of scriptkiddie/hacker (every kids dream, amiright?) and you’re navigating your way through a cyberworld populated with corporations you can hack into for loot. Once you initiate the hack, a wall pops up, the music changes and you’re forced to murder sundry digital bugs and jellyfish looking things that shoot lasers at you. Once you get over the terrifying maw aspect, the bugs are actually kind of adorable in their disco outfits. I don’t think that’s what Cooper was going for, but eh. I like the creepy neon spiders.

Loot can be anything from credits (which you can spend at the store), better weapons, and pets. Like a shiny disco scorpion, who looks like a badass when being swarmed with a ton of neon spiders. The more pets you have, the higher level the corporation you can hack into, which become increasingly difficult, but obviously reap greater rewards. That’s about as far as I got into the game, but it’s really great fun. It’s a hack-and-slash, and I’m kind of a fan of those games. However, I am nowhere near being into the whole hacker/script kiddie lifestyle thing, so I felt a little in over my head with some stats. Using RAM as a form of energy was fantastic (and, coincidentally, one of the only things I recognized in my woefully ignorant status in the hackerlyfe). If you’re anything like me and don’t mind jumping right into a game for the sheer joy of murdering waves of monsters as a way to blow off some steam at the end of the day, then check this game out.

Black Ice has been available on Steam Early Access since July 2014 for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can buy it here for $9.99. Also, check out Garrett Cooper’s website. It’s pretty cool.  

If you have any suggestions on which games I should review for the Greenlight Special, feel free to contact me via Twitter @lindsaygeektr0n. I also stream these games every Tuesday on my Twitch channel. Come on by and check out new stuff.

 Lindsay “amoril” Geektron, Brand Ambassador