Download Games Roundup

Assembly Line

• Xbox Live Indie Games - 80 Microsoft Points

Factory line drudgery is one of the more unlikely fixations currently occupying the minds of indie development. After the hectic multi-tasking of Production Panic, Assembly Line provides a welcome Condor moment by comparison.

But Lone Wolf's deceptively engaging effort is not short of blood-pressure-troubling moments of its own, as it tasks you with fashioning increasingly complicated items along an eight-stage conveyor belt.

With only a single picture of the reference design to go on, you have to essentially reverse engineer it and figure out all the steps required in the process.

The early stages go easy on you, with little more than a few shapes to cut out. But with every level comes a new task, be it rotation, painting or line drawing, and before long you're having to factor in two-sided designs while rubbing your belly, patting your head and playing harmonica.

Half the battle is predicting what effect your actions are going to have, and it's not until the finished article rolls off the conveyor belt that you can unpick where your plans may have gone awry.

And it's this combination of careful planning mixed with trial and error that makes Assembly Line so compelling. Were it not for the rudimentary presentation, it would be an easier sell, but look beyond the garish amateurism and you'll find the bones of a satisfying and original puzzler.

7/10

Moon Cheese

• Xbox Live Indie Games - 80 Microsoft Points

I'm not sure what Whampi was on when it fashioned Moon Cheese out of purest glee, but if I ever meet these bouncy Swedes, I'm certainly going to ask for some.

If the trailer hasn't already left you in a slightly altered state, this cheerfully relentless effort fully intends to sneak in, borrow an important part of your brain and never return it.

For reasons best left unexplored, you control a Goblin on a quest for, you guessed it, Moon Cheese, and the only way to get it is to bounce off the unfortunates who wander beneath you.

Landing on one of their heads gently propels your Goblin skywards, but the trick is to progressively charge up a power bar by continually bouncing around. Eventually you'll have enough powder to fuel your rocket, and be able to soar high enough to, hopefully, grab a slice of delicious moon cheese. Obviously.

And so it goes on in one fabulously carefree display of score-chasing nonsense. But with greater score comes greater difficulty, and, sure enough, the previously benign populace start getting fed up with being bounced on, and some start wearing spiky helmets to put a stop to your fun.

Of course, they succeed with irritating efficiency, but only irritating enough to keep you coming back for more punishment. You big daft idiot.

With a premise this daft and mechanics this simple, no-one will give a hoot on Xbox Indie, but sling it out on mobile phones and make a million. I dare you.

6/10