For our second “indieview”, we’re excited to have unflappable seer of truth and justice, Jack Thompson of Thompsonsquire. In case you don’t know who he is, he’s that brilliant comedy character that has been turning up in web-comics right across the internet. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a real person!

We’ve been reading his stuff, and he clearly knows what he’s talking about! This is the brave warrior against all that is evil in the world (violent video games, obviously) and his never-ending quest to bring down child-corrupting evil empires like id software and Rockstar North.

We salute you, Jack Thompson! Tell us how it really is!

L&B: Hi Jack! Thank you for joining us! So, tell us how video games cause violence?

JT: Well, to determine the link between violent video games and murderous psychosis, there have been many extensive studies performed on groups of hippies. We made them play a game called Gibbage, created by some murderer-lover called Marshadillo Dondanshell. After 10 minutes of playing they began to show some homicidal tendencies, mainly pulling on each others hair. After 30 minutes of game-play the group began to eat each other’s eyes out, and torture rats with acid. After 2 hours of exposure, every single one of them had begun constructing orbital weapon platforms, with aspirations of galactic domination.

L&B: Couldn’t that just be coincidence?

JT: No! The problem is that gamers seem to blindly defend violent video games without even looking into the facts! For example, did you know that Hitler played violent video games?

L&B: Hitler? Wow! That explains a lot, huh?

JT: Yes indeed! The fact is we have strong evidence to suggest that US Marines found several copies of Doom and Super Columbine Massacre RPG in Hitler’s bunker shortly after the fall of the Third Reich. This evidence is in addition to sections of his Nuremberg address, where he can clearly be heard saying “GTA: Vice City is the shit, man!” and “I got me a score of 12 on Manhunt!”. This is stone cold FACT that anyone can find out by reading things I say in interviews.

L&B: So are you saying that Hitler wasn’t mentally unhinged in any way before playing games?

JT: Exactly! We can see from looking at official records that, before he began playing these vile “murder simulators”, he was a compassionate, well adjusted and friendly guy who regularly got invited to parties and asked to baby sit friends’ small children. He even had quite a stylish moustache that looked a little bit like a Fu Manchu!

L&B: So violent video games caused World War II, then?

JT: Of course! He was a vegetarian painter! What could possibly turn a friendly, animal loving, vegetarian painter into a genocidal maniac? Surely playing on a video game for a few hours is the only thing that could have this profound an effect on someone’s mind? The fact is this conclusively proves that every act of violence committed since the dawn of our species can be blamed on these sick video game “murder simulators”.

L&B: So what about the Mongol invasions?

JT: Errr… Counterstrike.

L&B: Ahhh. Of course… Well who can argue with that?

JT: Indeed! The fact is, an independent study conclusively proves that anybody who disagrees with me plays violent video games, and is therefore a murderer. Who can trust a murderer? No one, that’s who!

Man, I’m so obviously right about every single thing I say!

L&B: You are that, Jack my friend, you are that! So what’s next in
the exciting world of video-game fascism?

JT: Well, I’m currently working on a case to prove that Mario causes gayness.

L&B: Wow! Can we have your autograph?

JT: Racist!

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Not in an evil way like Darth did. In a lovely way, where the Stormtroopers give out free cake.

Gibbage developmicator Donatello has transformed Gibbage.co.uk into an indie game resource where all the money made from t-shirts, mugs, and of course indie games, is pumped back into funding new innovative indie titles by giving money to aspiring and worthy full-time indie wannabes.

What a lovely bloke! … and we’re not just saying that because of the suspicious, heavy-set man in a suit that’s been stood outside our door since Saturday afternoon either!

So go buy something (like, ahem, The Forgotten Element t-shirts and wonderful magical mugs, plus some other tat like indie games or summat) and maybe Don will get enough money in the kitty to fund some handsome indie developers to make lovely games? Maybe even us? I dream that one day I can escape from the shadow of Ainsley Harriot’s iron fist, and Binky can finally quit working down that mine… ahhhhh.

Or maybe someone else who’re a bit more daring and original than making a point-and-click adventure essentially using a “make-a-game” program?… ahem.

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Nikolas the Great and Lovely, Musical Jedi from CGEmpire land and our co-game makificator on The Forgotten Element, has entered a high-octane debatathon with some prima-donna “grumpy designer”, who clearly has issues of many kinds, on this CGEmpire thread.

Interesting and rather funny heated debate. We’re all off over there right now to hide behind Nik and shake our fist going “yeah!!!!” in faux bravado. Why not join us?

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Welcome to Through the Indie Looking Glass! This is the rather sophisticatedly yet lovingly cliché titled regular feature on the blog where we, the writers, will write for you, the readers, to read, about up-and-coming indie games that will make your eyes bleed (in a good way) or maybe make your ears fall off–though this is unlikely as they’re probably pretty well attached by sinew and flesh (unless you’ve been mauled by a dog, in which case you’re probably not that concerned about the goings on in the indie scene at this moment, are you??)

Lemmy&Binky is the only place you will ever need to go to find out about all those up-and-coming indie gems! And we’re not only talking about the kind of gems that you can match 3 of to make them disappear, oh no! We’re talking about the kind of gems that—

Scratch this, it’s not working. Now on with the games:

Addage

This long awaited title from Gibbage creator Donatello Marshmellow is top of our list of most anticipated indie games of the century.

Dubbed by its creator as “Multiplayer Mathematical Fun—With Blood”, and continuing on Don’s tradition of old-skool social gaming. Addage sees two players violently duking it out in 30 diverse arenas with every increasingly difficult mathematical puzzles, along with wise proverbs from the man himself, and promises to be the most violent edutainment title ever made. This has not stopped “The Don” marketing the upcoming release of the game to schools across the country, where he hopes to “breed a new generation of twisted and violent youths with an excellent grasp of long multiplication”.

Good luck Don, we look forward to hearing more on this exciting title!

Jill Goes Postal

Jill, the heart-meltingly lovely-yet-bland and pert-breasted lass from the hit Cake Mania series, is back, and this time she’s pissed off!

After the violent murder of her grandparents by rival cake-shop proprietor Mr. Trifle, Jill embarks upon a hate-filled quest for bloody vengeance, which will see Jill travel across America handing out terminal justice to all of her enemy’s friends and family by ever more sadistic means, before finally ridding the world forever of his disgusting apple and carrot marzipan cakes.

After playing an early beta copy, we feel the developers must be commended for the brave social commentary that runs through the game, broaching such taboo subjects as racism, incest and buggery. This is a day that Jill, and her helpless victims, will likely never forget!

We’ll keep you posted on any news about this one!

Bill O’ Reilly’s Coconut Knockout Extreme Challenge

A bit of a scoop here! Seems that Fox News presenter Bill O’ Reilly has stepped into the indie development arena, with a fun little casual game which is similar to the Coconut Shies that have entertained fairground visitors for centuries.

BORCKEC, as it’s being referred to across the interweb, is a pleasing blend of casual mouse-driven arcade game-play, and right-wing elitist propaganda that is sure to please all but the most hard-core, leftie gamers. Your task is to knock over enough coconuts in the allotted time so that “Bush the Great Commander for the Good and Just” will award you a golden button. You must win all 14 golden buttons before you will be able to annihilate all countries in the Middle East and claim all that “black go juice” for your brave leader!

In a highly generous move, Bill has revealed that BORCKEC will be completely free to download, and is even vying to get it included in the next service pack for Windows Vista to sit alongside old favourites Solitaire and Minesweeper.

What a lovely bloke!

LINUX USER 3

As the only realistic Linux user simulator on the market, the LU series is often touted as being as close to the experience of being a Linux user available. LU3 puts you in the driver’s seat of the most accurate virtual Linux box to date, and promises to be the best iteration of the franchise so far.

LU3 sports ultra-high definition 3D graphics of an authentic looking Linux terminal and desk, with amazing attention to detail (even in as far as your character’s smug and self-satisfied grin reflected in the monitor) as well as full-stereo sound of humming machines, distant tapping of keys and violent retching, this game puts you straight into the action. The mouse can be used to focus on different parts of the monitor while playing, or to look around in distain at other characters in the game, with the keyboard being used to type in unnecessarily long console commands, as well as to trigger various patronizing snorts and half-baked, biased arguments at passing PC users about how much better and more secure Linux is than Windows.

You can take control over 30 different Linux users, from the balding, overweight, sweaty Linux-head who just hates Microsoft purely for the sake of it, to the weedy, creepy Linux user who claims erroneously that Linux never, ever crashes, and that anyone who uses a PC is obviously a brainwashed idiot. As well as this, LU3 realistically simulates many different Linux distributions, from Gnome, to some of the lesser known ones like those that we’ve never heard of and can’t be bothered to google.

The game has a steep learning curve, and the user interface is very clunky, unreliable and difficult to use, while later levels will undoubtedly prove a near impossible challenge when PC users start using counter-arguments about how much of an unnecessary arse on it is to do even the simplest of tasks in Linux–though all these shortcomings are unavoidable if the game is to provide an authentic experience.

For those who are looking for a simple and arcadeier operating system simulator, this will probably not be your cup of tea.

Also, the game is only currently available on Windows, like pretty much every other piece of software that exists today.

Match-4 Match Mania Madness 4

No, come back! This is the Match-3 game that will turn the entire genre on its head. Why? It’s so daringly original it is hardly fair calling it a Match-3 game. For a start, you match 4, not 3! And you’re not matching gems! Oh no! You’re matching matches!

These matchsticks have different coloured tips. Once you match 4 of them, their coloured tips will ignite, burning all adjacent matchsticks that have tips of the same colour!

Also the matches don’t fall down from the top of the screen as, in a radical twist on the genre; they kind of slide in from the right, and wobble up and down a bit.

There are also no green matches! M4MMM4 has a shockingly original brownish colour match tip instead. Totally crazy!

There are also “power matches” which… (You were going to say: you bet they destroy all the matches on the screen that are the same colour as the match it lands on? Weren’t you?) Well, HA! HA, HA and triple HA! They don’t do that at all!) They do something completely different. They destroy all the matches on the screen that are the same colour as the match to the right of where they land!

Also the gravity goes up… and to the left! Plus you play the levels in reverse order!

Genius!

This list goes on and on. As you can probably tell, this is as far away from a traditional Match-4 game as you could possibly get without it spontaneously transforming into some kind of first-person-shooter or farming simulator or something. Awesmoe!

Popularity: 52% [?]

Welcome deer readers! (and other assorted mammals that might also happen to be reading). You are lucky enough to join us after an extended hiatus with an exciting new regular feature on the site!

In the Lemmy&Binky Indieviews we will quiz the greatest minds of our generation on their most loved and most hated indie games, how much they like a quick game of Cake Mania before tea, and exactly how many copies of Gibbage they have bought.

Joining us for our first Indieview is renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who has taken some time out from his busy schedule of talking about black holes and reading Penny Arcade to join us for a chat about the indie gaming scene. What a lovely bloke!

L&B: Thanks for joining us Prof. Hawking! So with all your thinking about science and that, we can imagine you don’t get much time for playing indie games?

Stephen Hawking: Hi Lemmy&Binky, thanks for your recent email which you sent to Prof. Stephen Hawking- Stephen would be happy to contribute an interview to your site but unfortunately he is away at a conference at the moment - please feel free to send your questions to me and I will ensure Stephen answers them when he returns. Best regards Cathy

L&B: So what do you think of Gibbage? A great game, isn’t it?

Stephen Hawking: Hello Lemmy&Binky, I’m afraid Prof. Hawking will be away from the office until the 26th of March so it would be best if you sent us a complete copy of your questions so he can tackle them all when he returns from his trip. Best regards Cathy.

L&B: Well we haven’t had a post on our site for a while now, and we don’t really want to wait until the 26th if at all possible. Isn’t there any way you could get a copy of the questions over to him?

Stephen Hawking: I’m afraid he is unlikely to have the time to particapate in your interview until he gets back. May I ask what this interview is actually regarding?

L&B: the interview will be mainly about the indie scene, though we will stick in a couple of spacey questions in there to give Prof. Hawking a chance to plug his own stuff, any new books he has out or whatever. Sound good?

Stephen Hawking: I’m not sure I understand what this “indie scene” is that you mention, is this something relating to Stephen’s professional work at all?

L&B: Well not really. We tried to get Peter Molyneux but he wouldn’t answer our e-mails.

Stephen Hawking: Please refrain from e-mailing us any more regarding this matter. I will send Stephen a copy of this email thread when he returns, and if he wishes to participate in an interview you will hear from him then. Regards Cathy.

So there you have it! When he’s not he’s not mulling over space-time, Prof. Hawking likes nothing more than going to conferences… of some description. He also has a PA called Cathy, though she may be his publicist. Or wife. Or something. You heard it here first, in the Lemmy&Binky Indieview!

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