First-rate indie developer Moonpod (of Starscape fame) brings us an excellent title that's an unusual but tasty combination of Sokoban-style puzzles and Final Fantasy-esque RPG.
You play Asimov, a repair robot in service to HEL-9000, the controlling computer of a generation ship that's carrying a cargo of frozen humans to another star via slower-than-light interstellar travel. As you might expect given HEL's name, he is gradually going nuts, and the whole journey is at risk--and it's up to you to rescue the ship and its human cargo.
Graphics are nicely rendered oblique overhead view sprites, and the controls are intelligently designed and smooth. The core of the game is a series of puzzles, many of them involving moving crates to solve a problem (Sokoban-style); a simple "reset room" option is useful if you screw up. From time to time, however, you must enter cyberspace to hack another robot or the computer's own systems; this leads to the RPG portion of the game. When in cyberspace, you attack other bots and systems with ICE and similar routines; combat is turn-based (ala Final Fantasy), and equipment (earned during the puzzle-solving portion of the game) helps you in combat. Once you've finished the hacking task, you return to 'normal' space.
Combine this will a nicely written story and engaging dialog, and you have practically indie gaming perfection--an intelligently conceived individual vision executed with polish and panache. It's no surprise that Game Tunnel ranks it the #1 indie game of the last three years.
