Bugs

Remember a few years ago when there was a spate of animated movies featuring bugs? There's a reason for that, actually; it's fairly easy to animate chitonous creatures in 3D, since the body sections are rigid. And it's also fairly easy even for an indie developer to use 3D, if what they're animating are bugs. Which no doubt was one of the reasons Wahoo/NinjaBee chose insects for the heroes of this title. The choice is a fortuitous one, though, since it lends itself to the developers' light humorous touch -- which was very evident in their earlier (and excellent) tycoon game, Outpost Kaloki.

Like Toribash and Rag Doll Kung Fu, Triachnid is based on ragdoll physics -- that is, the character you control is a jointed model that behaves according to the rules of physics. In Triachnid, you move your three-legged character by picking up its feet in turn with your mouse, and flinging them against a surface -- since your character is bug-like, the feet can adhere to almost any surface, and you can climb sheer cliffs, or even hang upside down.

Magnant is a charming little indie real-time strategy game in which you control a colony of intelligent, technologically sophisticated ants waging battle against other ant colonies and the evil bees and beetles. It has all the usual RTS tropes--resource extraction, building construction, and real-time combat--as well as a pretty cool version of online play.