Indie Royale launches Defense Grid and Hack, Slash, Loot headlining 'April Fools Bundle'

Gamasutra's sister Indie Royale game bundle site has announced its return with the April Fools Bundle, including five big independent games led by Defense Grid: The Awakening and Hack, Slash, Loot. Headlining the bundle is Hidden Path Entertainment's Defense Grid: The Awakening, an acclaimed, futuristic tower-defense game for Windows on Steam, Desura, and DRM-free direct download. GameSpot calls it a "quintessential example" of the genre that is "compulsively playable" for newcomers and skilled players, as they attempt to fight off hoards of increasingly complex alien assaults. Defense Grid includes the free Borderlands expansion built into the main game, and Indie Royale is also adding Steam keys for all four Resurgence map packs as a special bonus. (They're also bundled into Defense Grid Gold, via Desura key and DRM-free.) Next up is Gooey Blob's accessible, retro turn-based dungeon crawler, Hack, Slash, Loot for Windows and Mac in a Steam debut, Windows and Linux on Desura, and Windows/Mac/Linux DRM-free. True to the Roguelike genre, dungeons randomly generate, providing a unique experience every time, as players uncover thousands of items to loot and monsters to hack and slash, accompanied by attractive retro pixel art. PomPom Games offers a pair of frantic shooter titles in the form of Alien Zombie Megadeath and Astro Tripper for Windows on Steam, Desura, and DRM-free. In Alien Zombie Megadeath, players attack, dodge, and perform gloriously intense tasks while playing as 'ill-fated spacemen'. And in an update for to the award-winning Space Tripper from the talented UK studio, Astro Tripper affords players a tiny ship against hoards of other crafts and big bosses. The final featured game is Curve Studios' incendiary 2D platformer, Explodemon for Windows on Desura and DRM-free. The title is an explosive homage to SNES-era platformers mixed with a modern physics-puzzle twist - and this hidden gem actually started development before the similar 'Splosion Man was revealed. And watch out for an Indie Royale-exclusive bonus related to this game a little later in the bundle. Those who pay more than the minimum for the April Fools Bundle receive an awesome vocoder-heavy bonus: Sexy Synthesizer's Japanese '80s-style chip album Rock, available in .FLAC and HQ .MP3 file formats. Those who pre-ordered the bundle also received this bonus. Indie Royale, which continues to use its innovative 'price gradually increases with purchases, bigger pledges drop the price' model, was co-created by Gamasutra sister site IndieGames.com and independent game download service Desura. More information on the April Fools Bundle, including real-time statistics and its current price, is available at its official website or via its Facebook and Twitter pages.