Grapple Buggy immediately conjures up warm, fuzzy feelings of Bionic Commando, Super Metroid, Contra III: The Alien Wars and Blaster Master. Damn good retro company to be kept in.
Fouts brought the work-in-progress Grapple Buggy to E3 2009, giving Kotaku a hands-on demo of the adventure platformer, showing them around the world of VALD-END 317, its "terrifying xeno-fauna and sentient aliens" and just how the dual-armed buggy works.
This week, Don and…sometimes Justin are joined by Mommy’s Best Games founder Nathan Fouts to talk about how he’s been preparing for E3. Technical diffitulties plagued this episode, but as always, the show must go on!
Diehard GameFAN writes, "The Indie Games service is far from a failure. In 2009 it took small steps forward. In 2010 I'd like to see Microsoft start getting behind this venture and push it to the potential that I saw in the service in 2008."
Eurogamer writes: "With the games industry facing the jaws of recession, it takes an admirable level of commitment and self belief to walk away from a job at a major studio to set up shop as an independent games maker, yet that's just what Nathan Fouts did when he left Resistance developer Insomniac to form one-man code shop Mommy's Best Games.
Whether it was a financially shrewd move is something we'll leave to Nathan and his bank manager, but from a gamer's perspective it was certainly fruitful. His debut game, Weapon of Choice, was released in November 2008 to a warm round of applause and a bulging bag of awards. One of the first titles to shine on what was then known as the Xbox Live Community Games channel, thanks to its dazzling colour palette, innovative gameplay ideas and no small amount of old-school brio, it set a high benchmark for the homebrew service that has yet to be topped."
