The Games Developer Conference is this week and everyone is about to get more familiar with all the indie games that are associated with the Independent Games Festival. The IGF is a body of gamers that assess indie games and give nominations and awards to the best ones in categories such as art, design, and  the Seamus McNally Grand Prize award. 

You can get a head start here and now, when I introduce you to Rocketbirds: Revolution!.

That is how you make a game intro. The confidence -- or maybe it is false-bravado -- is often my favorite aspect of an independent game. Rocketbirds has that bravado in spades. It is confident in its own absurd premise, and absolutely sure that it is cool and worth spending time with. Super Meat Boy is another game that has that cockiness. Both games are full of themselves in a genuine and fun way. If Rocketbirds were a person you know that a night out with them would be a good time. 

When it comes to the parts that make up that personality Rocketbirds happily checks each one off: indie art style, focused gameplay, over-the-top violence, and excellent music.

You play as the Cock-of-War, a special agent rooster, who hates and must bring down the evil Putzki, a soviet-style penguin with an army bent on doing evil things. It is tongue-in-cheek and really runs with all the silly things that this premise allows for.

The Cock-of-War must use guns, grenades, and even mind-controlling bugs to traverse a 2-D Prince of Persia type world. This is all done with the arrow keys and two buttons, which keeps things simple, except for when it doesn't. Occasionally, the cramped controls will cause the Cock-of-War to shoot when he should be running. It is something you get used to, though. The movement controls are very reminiscent of the original Prince of Persia and Blackthorne, but it also has the same problems those games had -- specifically that the controls don't feel precise.

The imprecise controls are the biggest drag on Rocketbirds. Once you get grenades, the game doesn't wait long before expecting you to make accurate throws with a touchy throwing system. That is forgivable, but what is a little harder to forgive is accidentally jumping over a crate three times in an attempt to jump onto the crate. Thankfully, there aren't any bottomless pits, and any missed jump didn't set me back anything more than a couple of seconds. I did miss jumps, though.

The art is precise, though. It is a flash game and uses the advantages of that platform. The animation is really lively and interesting. The levels are varied with some of the earlier, underground areas using shadows really well.

The character designs are the game's high point. Putzki is hilarious as a soviet Penguin, and the different infantry designs keep things fun and interesting throughout the game. 

It isn't a long game, but it is sweet. The game starts off with a shooter, with some light puzzle-mechanics, but that changes quickly when the Cock-of-War gets the mind-control bugs. The mind-control bugs allow the Cock-of-War to take over enemy characters and to solve puzzles in ways that he wouldn't be able to do himself. 

A few hours into the game the Cock-of-War is in a jail cell and he has to throw the bugs out of the cell and take over the guard character -- who shits himself when the bug takes effect -- and run that guard character around collecting the key that Cock-of-War needs to go free. The other guards will leave the mind-controlled guard alone, unless he fires his weapon. Once Cock is done with the guard, well, the player just needs to press a button and that guard won't be a problem anymore. Moments like that present themselves throughout the game.

The music -- as with many indie games -- is excellent. From the music was always great, from the intro to the atmospheric pieces in later levels. 

As a cheap, flash game that can be played in the browser Rocketbirds is a quality experience. The controls are frustrating at time, but they are worth overcoming to experience the interesting world that Ratloop Asia created.