21st Century Digital Boy

XBLIG: Games You Should Know About

What it says on the tin, really. I keep recommending some of these to people, so I figured I’d make a definitive list - and so I spent a couple of lunch breaks going through my Xbox Download History, picking things I particularly like and writing up super short summaries. And there you go.

Recommendations my way very welcome.

Cursed Loot (80msp) - Realtime roguelike. Not too horribly punishing, fairly pick-up-and-play.

Escape Goat (80msp) - Puzzle platformer. Fairly short (probably 3 hours ish?), but really good. Lots of clever things done with minimal level design components. Includes editor.

Flotilla (400msp) - Choose Your Own Adventure Tactics Ballet. Rasta Space Cats. I am not making any of this up. Also on Steam.

Gravitron 360 (80msp) - Glowy neon Thrust. Older version available for the PC for free.

LaserCat (80msp) - Spectrum-style platformer. No special mechanics, just platformy goodness. Final boss is a bit wonky, but the game as a whole is still very good.

Leave Home (240msp) - Sidescrolly score attack shmup with dynamic difficulty and pretty glowies.

Miner Dig Deep (240msp) - Rough art, but a weirdly enthralling game. Randomly generated resource gathering shenanigans with exploratory elements.

REVOLVER360 (80msp) - Sidescrolling arcade shmup + perspective buggery. Really neat twist on the genre. Pretty 3D bullet patterns.

Solar 2 (400msp) - Sandbox Katamari-like. In space. With DISCO QUEST. Also on Steam.

Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! (80msp) - Trippy Robotron-style arena shooter. Also on the PC.

Treasure Treasure: Fortress Forage: Extra Edition (no really) (80msp) - Gameboy-styled puzzle platformer. Two simultaneous characters with different abilities. Two-player coop.

UpBot Goes Up (240msp) - Puzzle game. Really difficult and really clever. Also available in a (much less fancy) Flash version.

Wizorb (240msp) - Breakout RPG. Lovely pixels. Also on Steam.