No one- I repeat, NO ONE- takes my favorite scarf!

I haven’t really been posting enough here about the awesome games I’ve come across in my travels.

Action Fist was first brought to my attention by one of the folks over at Hardcore Gaming 101. It’s an awesome freeware action game; it looks like Cave Story, but the game itself reminds me strongly of Treasure’s Gunstar Heroes with a dash of Metal Slug for flavor.

Action Fist is a sidescrolling run-and-gun; it stars two main characters- the Tom Baker-esque Domingus and his monocled companion Ina- as they chase the creatively-named Madman and battle his army of robots. Each character carries two modular weapons, each of which is defined by a color, firing pattern, and bonus (such as increased bullet speed or damage). Enemies come in three colors (Yellow, Red, and Green), and take additional damage from a weapon of the same color. It’s a simple gimmick, but it adds some depth to your weapon selections- should I keep my yellow gun, or switch to green? Is a rapid-fire, penetrating weapon more useful than a three-way?

On the normal difficulty level, the game is pretty forgiving- you’re given infinite lives, and it can be completed in under two hours. There’s a reasonable variety of stages and enemies, and the game is fun throughout. A number of unlockables are available upon completing the game, including additional playable characters, costumes, and difficulty levels.

It’s a solid game, and absolutely worth playing. It can be downloaded for free from the Action Fist website; if you’re still not convinced, check out the trailer.

– HC

Oh, so NOW there’s gold in them thar hills! I guess I should go back!

Andy Moore has written a very interesting article about how his Flash game, Steam Birds, has made over $34,000.

Almost a year ago, Dan Cook (who happens to have done all the art for Steam Birds) wrote a couple of articles about the possibility of making a living off Flash games. I called it a pipe dream, because I’d looked into the possibility of making a living off Flash games a few years earlier, and had come up empty-handed. So I pursued other things, like Xbox Live Indie Games, and sticking with my day job.

Last month, a friend of mine made a cool little Flash game, and sold it to a flash portal for almost twice as much as In the Pit has made in the year and a half it’s been on Xbox Live Indie Games. That totally amazed me, and convinced me that going back to making Flash games would be a more worthwhile pursuit than making Xbox Live Indie Games, but it certainly wasn’t a “quit your day job” amount of money.

$34,000, however, is more than I make in a year (before taxes). I realize that Moore is splitting those profits with his co-creators, but his take ($15,000) is certainly enough to get me off my ass and get me to finish up the pile of mostly-finished Flash games that I abandoned once I concluded that “there’s no money in Flash games”.

Thanks for being right, Dan!