Iron Dukes

Our instruments indicate that at some point this map contained readable and fairly important treasural information.
Unfortunately pirates store things underwater so the deal is blown.

I don’t play enough indie games. To be honest I almost never play them. I should because it’s looking like my most likely route into the industry and I’ve collected quite a few ideas by now (Larry keeps poking me about sharing but I’m still working on writing them all down in a good format).

My newspaper, Politiken, recently started reviewing games in their culture section, and the first batch of games to receive this honour were the winners of the IGF. I already knew the winner of the Audience Award Audiosurf from having played the beta – I didn’t enjoy it that much, it was fun enough in the beginning but after about half an hour I lost interest. The tech is cool but I don’t enjoy the gameplay. A game that caught my interest, however, was the winner of Best Web Browser Game, Iron Dukes.

I checked out the demo today and it was great. Being a preview, it doesn’t offer a lot of content, so I only played it for half an hour – but it kept me entertained that long, not least thanks to its outstanding sense of fun. Ever read Calvin & Hobbes? Remember the naïve, playfully nonsensical feeling of Calvin’s games? Iron Dukes replicates that perfectly – it truly seems like an illustration of a universe some kids have come up with to pass the time until their parents pick them up from kindergarten. Especially the item descriptions are laugh-out-loud funny. It’s wonderous. And since the demo is free and currently all there is, I think you should give it a try. I can’t guarantee that it won’t get repetitive after a few hours, but as far as the preview goes, it’s worth your time. You can play the Iron Dukes demo here, right in your browser!