Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:59:00 GMT
I think this is the seventh Ikiki game that’s been posted, but who can tell? I won’t rest until I’ve played them all!
Teppoman is a simple run and gun platformer. Visually it’s very similar to Nikujin in that no one likes to wear shirts or pants. (I wonder what it feels like to wield a gun without pants on? It probably feels pretty good.) The game itself is very straightforward: shoot at everything that isn’t completely naked, and take their gun. Rescue the naked men who are bound in rope.
It’s much more forgiving than either Nikujin or Hakaiman in terms of the difficulty.
Controls in the extended:
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Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 4 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:38:00 GMT
My Ikiki obsession continues. I was looking for Teppoman, because I’d heard good things about it, but ended up finding Bimboman (direct download) instead. You know how that is.
It’s a platform commando game, thematically very similar to Hakaiman. In this one you’re armed with a machine gun and a timed explosive. The explosive doesn’t actually do any damage, but knocks people (including yourself) around. You can use it to scale walls and gaps and other obstacles.
It’s good. Definitely not as good as Nijukin or Hakaiman, but it’s fun. The game crashed on me in zone 4 and I didn’t feel like playing through the first 3 zones again so I quit.
3 Ikiki’s out of 5!
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Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 15 comments
Posted by ithamore
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:13:00 GMT
Meril is Sasakoge’s (translation) latest game. The main character is a little Japanese girl who must use her trusty clover chain to swing her around to collect all the durians (which look more like dust bunnies) before time runs out. There are 24 levels that incorporate just a few obstacles and badies well enough to keep things interesting. Each level requires a slightly different strategy to complete, and each feels like it has its own flow.
The gameplay is more intuitive than in the Vertical we covered last September, which was the first game I thought of when I began playing Meril. Some time ago, Alan Gordon released Vertical 0.6a with some nice additions such as space mode, but Meril is still more complete and fluid especially with game pad support. So, it would be better to compare it to Bionic Commando or to using the grappling hook in Super Metroid.
Source: Vector-Game Reviews
Posted in Platformers, Videos, Windows, Physics, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Sasakoge | 17 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:05:00 GMT
Some of you may remember the hullabaloo surrounding the legality and morality surrounding Variant Interactive’s Cave Story PSP port (as well as the fatality of originality). It was never verified whether Variant got Pixel’s permission, or if they did, whether he would see any money, but something definitely stank up in there, and it was Variant that was whistling and looking in the other direction. Case in point:
“We want to be as faithful as possible. We are upgrading the graphics and the sound to more ‘modern’ levels, mostly for marketing concerns and platform requirements.” -Christopher Boyer, CEO of Variant Interactive
“Faithful,” “upgrading the graphics and sound,” and “marketing concerns…” which one of these does not belong with the others? So yeah, I find it really hard to believe that Pixel would go for anything like that, and even if he did, I still say fuck ‘em for doing it. “Upgrade the graphics and music?” Eat a shit sandwich, asshole.
Which is why it makes me really happy to announce that there’s a fan-made, homebrew PSP version in the works! Yay fans!
“Finally got Pixel’s approval and the source code. It looks doable, but at ~50000 lines of code it’s a little daunting.
This is the preview version that I sent to Pixel, so it’s mostly guesswork and buggy and certainly feels different from the original. Playable up to the first boss fight. Dual-language English and Japanese :) Tested on 3.10, should work unmodified with most custom firmware.”
Word. You can download a buggy, early version of the port from the link above. And while you’re at it, check out this DS port as well (different author).
(Source: selectbutton.net)
Posted in Mobile / Handheld, Platformers, Remakes, Homebrew, Previews, Doujin | Tags Pixel | 69 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:09:00 GMT
Still playing through all of Ikiki’s games! This one’s number five for me, and boy, it’s a doozy. I was attracted to it by the small thumbnail on the games page – it looked like a fun game in a cave. You know, maybe something like Spelunker?
Little did I know they were caves of smelly SHIT.
Tarenagasi, which I think translates to “Poo Cannon” in Japanese, has you flinging excrement all over the walls of what appears to be Mario’s house, covering his lovely entrance room with your gut garbage, which is fired in prodigious amounts via a large cannon attached to your bum. That’s basically the entire game.
Is it some kind of commentary on how the commercial games industry craps out sequel after sequel? Who knows. But it’s funny as hell!
Use ESDF to move and Space to jump, while aiming and firing using the mouse. Left-click will shoot a load out of your cannon. Right-click will make your player, er, fill the cannon back up. The three modes you can choose from on the title screen only change the time limit. Mode three is the unlimited time mode, which let me create this masterpiece right here.
3.5 smelly Ikikis out of 5!
Posted in Platformers, Unique / Bizarre, Windows, Action / Arcade, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 12 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:44:00 GMT
The fourth of Ikiki’s games that I’m trying. Gonbutoman (direct download) confused the hell out of me when I started playing, mainly because I thought it was going to be a lot like Pro Wrestling for the Nintendo. Instead, it’s more like that Japanese flash game Nanaca Crash.
This one’s pretty fun – certainly a lot better than Bokusin. 2 and a half Ikiki’s out of 5! POW!
How to Play: Press Spacebar to start running back toward the ropes, then slam it as many times to build up your power. When you get near your opponent, hit and hold down the button to wallop him. It’s a game of timing and button-mashing. My best score is 64. Which is pretty damn good, I think!
Posted in Casual, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 8 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:35:00 GMT
I continue on my quest to play all of Ikiki’s games and chronicle them. With Bokusin (“Boxing”), I discover that not all of Ikki’s games are created equal. This two-player boxing game must be one of his earlier efforts. I give this one 1 Ikiki out of five, which is about 20 on William Usher’s rating scale.
Still, the title screen music is pretty awesome.
Direct download here.
Posted in Multiplayer, Fighters, Windows, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 11 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 18 Jun 2007 02:19:00 GMT
Return of Egypt is a pretty competent Castlevania: Symphony of the Night clone that has you playing as frickin’ Moses! I’m not really clear on the story, but who cares. You’re Moses, and you’re back to kick some undead Egyptian ass. Just like in the Bible.
The author definitely intended this one to be played with a gamepad, and some of the special moves are tricky to pull off on a keyboard. Gamepad is the default control scheme, too, so hit F4 to change your control if you need to. Spacebar reveals the map.
EDIT: Changed the link the Acid Play, since people were having problems with the Underdogs.
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware, Doujin | 21 comments
Posted by ithamore
Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:02:00 GMT
Crostar (translation), the creator of rhacp, submitted another cute and simple platformer, Nori Kuro Cat, for the 13th 3Punge contest (translation), which won 4th place. It is similar to his first 3Punge entry, Supa Kingu Rato (pictured below), in terms of aesthetics and level design. But but this time the main character is a ninja cat that belches fireballs instead of a puffy, pink head that plows through enemies with its pointy ears.
Each shot that scores a consecutive hit increases the range and strength of the cat’s firepower and fills one unit of the 3-level gauge. A miss zeros it out. Once the gauge is full, it slowly drains until the another successful shot replenishes. While at full power, a special burst attack can be preformed by pressing the down arrow and X, which is practically necessary when a wolf wearing a wood mask is hit by fully powered fireball and for finding hidden objects.
After completing the 3 levels of the easy mode, the normal mode is unlocked. However, it is necessary to do more than merely completing the 3 levels of the normal mode to unlock the hard mode, which is the only one with a boss.
It is interesting how most of Crostar’s 3Punge entries have evolved as games with a similar look and feel but each with its own unique gameplay elements. The past stages of the evolution in order of release: Supa Kingu Rato, a momentum-building platformer; Sky-Whirling Geo, an auto-scrolling, sword-slashing, wing-flapping platformer; and Round and Round the Tsuchiyui, a difficult, experimental shooter that requires lining up an enemy within the epicenter of the two circling heads to shoot it.
Tangent: entry number 2, Spirit Collect, was a challenging shoot-em-up with mediocre graphics that won third place. Some shmup fans might enjoy it, but I gave up on playing any further than a few games after watching the included replays.
Posted in Platformers, Shoot-em-ups, Windows, Competitions, Doujin | 6 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:49:00 GMT
I had no idea that developer Ikiki is one prolific motherfucker, since all I knew of his work was Nikujin. Check out this page of all this games. Holy hell, this guy is like the Takashi Miike of indie games. And I vow that I shall play them all and review them on this site!
Hakaiman (direct download), the second of his games I’ve played (and considered to be one of his best) is a top-down espionage game. There are six missions in total, that have you stealing the plans, infiltrating the base, etc., with nothing but a machine gun, a handful of grenades, and your gigantic brass balls at your disposal.
Whether you want to go in guns blazing or silently snap necks is up to you, but guards are thankfully quite simple-minded and, unless they see you, will not actively seek you out (and even then, for only a short while). They will also respond to loud noises, like explosions. It’s not very realistic, but it makes the game infinitely more fun and playable.
The lowdown is that this game is really, really sweet, and the many ways you can kill your opponents and yourself make it very replayable. There’s even a high score system that tracks your speed and other factors (types of kills, perhaps?). And unlike Nikujin, which is the gaming equivalent of trying to pick up a glass ball with chopsticks, Hakaiman is totally beatable.
I loved this game so much that I even made a walkthrough for it, with screenshots of every level, before and after the carnage.
(Thanks to raigan and Jon Mak for the link to all his games and for giving me heads-up on this one in particular!)
Controls and hints in the extended.
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Posted in Highly Recommended, Stealth, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware, Doujin | Tags Ikiki | 29 comments
