One of my favourite indie companies is Grubby Games (interviewed here). Not only are they lovely, laid back Vancouver types, but I rather like their games.

They tend to be quite casual in nature, so if you're after another Castle Crashers you're looking in the wrong place, and the artwork is probably more attractive to kids than to your average gamer. Still, if you want fun, challenging gameplay and/or games you can play with your kids, then all of their titles are well worth a look.


Grubby have just released My Tribe, their 'homage' - although some may say clone - to the casual sim genre. It's definitely up there with the Virtual Villagers games and follows their path with puzzles to solve as well as fairly simple sim elements. These games feel part virtual pet and part adventure, as your islanders carry on living and breathing, well... hopefully, even while you aren't playing.

Casual sims are strangely addictive. You play them for a while, get bored, do something else more important, then find yourself sneakily logging back on to see how they are doing. Then you hate yourself for being addicted to something so naff, rather like Hollyoaks (I didn't say that, shhhhh).

Still, with artwork by Braid's David Hellman, it's a somewhat new direction for Grubby artistically, but still recognisable theirs. It's not up there with their wonderful FizzBall, which I would recommend to almost anyone who isn't obsessed with zillions of first person polygons or grinding with elves, but it's a tidy effort.

I must be honest, however, I'd like to see Grubby take a leading role in a genre rather than following others. They know & understand about gameplay, perhaps they could try something a little more out there, even as a side project.