Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:29:00 GMT
Qwak is a pretty cool little homebrew platformer for the GBA, developed by Jamie Woodhouse. The first thing I noticed when I played the demo (requires a GBA emulator) is that the game is pretty fast-paced. The second thing I noticed is that you’re a duck who wears armor and throws its own eggs to kill furries. The third thing I noticed is that I was having a pretty good time.
Bottom line: 15 GBP for a fun platformer for your GBA (comes in an actual cartridge).
EDIT: Yes, this is a remake of the Amiga game from 1993.
Posted in Mobile / Handheld, Platformers, Remakes, Homebrew | 7 comments
Posted by Tim
Mon, 01 Jan 2007 01:02:00 GMT
I’m actually quite tempted to use it’s acronym as the post title.
In Super Haunted Insomnia Tower, a little yellow mouse like thing with blue pants is hellbent on climbing up a haunted tower. The tower isn’t only a tad haunted, it’s SUPER HAUNTED, and uh them ghosts are insomniacs thus the forcibly made title.
Anyways, our little protagonist must climb as long as he can before the inevitable death picks him off. A total of 10 different fiends that chill out in the tower all have unique powers and they aren’t too happy about that damn climber. And they’re insomniacs so they are very cranky too.
The higher you get the more frequently the ghosts appear. After a certain time there can be numerous spirits bullying you at a time. Also the more higher you get the less blocks to stand on appear. So with time the difficulty increases.
Like in Ice Climber and Kid Icarus, you can warp from the left side off the screen to the right side and vice versa. This will prove handy no doubt.
While playing you get a randomly picked tune to play in the background. There’s only two so don’t wet your pants over the amount, but rather, the quality of the tunes.
Click here for the direct download.
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware | Tags Lazrael | no comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sat, 30 Dec 2006 16:32:00 GMT
Alright, Christmas has been over for a few days now… I guess it’s about time to start posting again!
Here are a collection of Christmas-themed games that came out this month. Because it’s never too late for Christmas, amirite? No, seriously, these are all pretty good – you should try them out.
“Merry Gear Solid: Secret Santa is a top down stealth action game in the vein of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series.” And that’s really a pretty accurate description of the game, I’d say. Here’s a YouTube vid of the game in action. It’s by Podunkian, the guy who’s making that Cave Story “homage,” Underside.
Holiday Hills is a fun SkiFree clone by Johan Peitz. I don’t know if there’s a Yeti in this game. I hope there is (but there probably isn’t). There needs to be an option to flip the controls in this one.
Winter Bells is an Orisinal game that has you hopping on bells with a cute little bunny. It’s basically the video game equivalent of a shining snowflake being caught by the little hands of Baby Jesus… and when Baby Jesus opens his hands the snowflake is gone and there’s a miracle to take its place.
And don’t forget this one! All the levels should be unlocked by now.
Posted in Platformers, Browser Games, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags FreeLunchDesign, Orisinal, ThePodunkian | 13 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:33:00 GMT
Nintendo’s advent calendar/flash game Mission in Snowdriftland is simple and fun and extremely cute. God, that snowman is just adorable, amirite?
Posted in Platformers, Browser Games | 6 comments
Posted by Tim
Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:51:00 GMT
Sure looks pretty.
Get Daniel Remar’s original black and white version here.
Posted in Platformers, Remakes, Windows, Freeware, Previews | 3 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sat, 16 Dec 2006 01:53:00 GMT
Riah’s a TINY little Castlevania-esque game that has some cute graphics. The gameplay is pretty stiff, which I wouldn’t necessarily say is a bad thing. Just don’t expect it to move like Symphony of the Night. The keys are your typical Japanese setup: Z and X to attack and jump, respectively. You can double-jump, too. Press C to cycle between your various weapons.
The game, despite everything else being very simple and cute, has some really brutal sound effects. When you hit a bat with your Ivy Valentine-esque sword-whip, it honestly sounds like someone’s dropping a truck onto a garbage bag full of bricks and medical waste.
What’s nice is that the game comes with a little editor that you can use to make your own levels. It’s all in Japanese but since I’m a nice guy I made this little diagram explaining what everything does:
(Source: selectbutton)
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware | 1 comment
Posted by BMcC
Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:50:00 GMT
About a month ago 4cr made a post about an indie game demo called Twinsen, which I guess is based on the Little Big Adventure games. The screenshot looked wonderful and everyone seemed to be drooling over the game, so I eagerly downloaded it.
I was immediately impressed. The title and credits were sharp, and although the story was pretty weak, it quickly moved on to the game, which was beautiful. I mean, real excellent art direction and effects while still maintaining the whole hand-pixelated feel. I thought to myself, I’m in for a treat.
Well, all good things must come to an end, as they say. The gameplay… was pretty rough. Clunky movement that made platforming particularly painful along with vague combat and a general aimlessness smothered any enjoyment I might have had.
But I’ll say it again—the art and art direction is excellent. Which is good, as the game’s artist is up for hire.
Check the demo out for yourself if you’d like.
EDIT: An updated version of the demo, including an additional level, is due very soon. Check this thread for more info. (Thanks Ithamore!)
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware, Previews | 9 comments
Posted by ithamore
Mon, 11 Dec 2006 04:29:00 GMT
Now that the 10th competition of
Now that the 10th iteration of the 3 Minute Game Contest
(a.k.a. 3 Punge) has been declared
complete, its results have finally been given an
official page
(roughly translated from Japanese to English by
Google’s Language Tools). Each
game is suppose to be based on a 3 minute theme, but longer mini-games have also been
accepted. The winner is suppose to be "3 hours" worth of play and, from what I
read, pretty funny, but it was created with RPG Maker. I usually don’t bother with
any of the games requiring RPGM’s RTPs.
As for the non-RPGM games,
Crostar released another cute platformer, Sky-Whirling Geo, which didn’t
fare as well as his entry for the
previous contest, Supakingurato. I prefer the gameplay of Supakingurato, and
it’s more forgiving than its successor.
Granspope Frial is TERU-soach’s best effort in
most ways. The graphics have a clean,
interesting style, and the design’s concept has some good potential. You race as a bird
against the clock by pressing a single key (‘Z’ or ‘Space’) to fly through a course covered with
acceleration bars, which boosts you at the angle at which you touch them as long
as your momentum is increasing. The problem is that the timing is quite tricky
and that there is little room for error when it comes to hitting the 90˚
direction switching boosters. Course 0 took about 10 tries before I got the hang
of it and unlocked the next. 
Although it might have been because I’m a bit
rhythmical challenged, it took me much longer to get past Course 1. I tried 20
or 30 times at first and several times more since September, but it wasn’t until
yesterday that I was able to shave off those last 10 seconds I needed loose in
order
to progress. Course 2 was a good change of pace with new layout elements, but Course 3
is currently frustrating me. Still, I want to get into that sweet spot of the
game’s flow, which makes Granspope Frial so mumy favorite of the entries for the 10th
contest. But it’s not recommended for those low in patience.
Probably the easiest entry to get into, however, is
Y. ABE’s Whirlwind. Its
semi-auto-lock aim and invincibility probably made it seem too easy to most
voters and earned it a shared rank of 11th place. As a 360˚
turret-like mini-STG, however, it’s rather decent.
Back in October, Tim posted Sky-Whirling Geo, Whirlwind, and a couple more 3
Punge games at Independent Gaming. You can head over
there
to get more details on them and his opinion.
Recently, the number of decent games submitted to 3 Punge has been improving.
There still haven’t been any gems to match the sparkle and shine of
Omega’s
Every Extend and
Dan! Da! Dan!
from the 2nd and 5th contests, and there still are several disappointing
submissions. However, one of the best things about the site is
it also serves as a portal to other games made by its contestants.
The newcomer who took 3rd place,
nemu90kWw, has created several
Flash games. The best is a remake of Flixx,
FliFlixx, which originally appeared on the wonderful
PC98. He also made a
Parodius inspired STG and a cat bouncing game, but you can read about those and
his 3 Punge entry in
Tim’s posts. Then there’s
Disorder Island: a simple platformer during stage 1 and 2, but stage 3 is
infuriating. (Controls: hold ‘Shift’ to run with the arrows, up jumps, down
crouches or drops through the platform, ‘Z’ swings the sword, and ‘X’ throws a
bomb once you’ve defeated enough enemies.)
Y. ABE, for whom the 10th contest was also a first, has 2 other STGs on his
site. Electrical
Bird, which Tim
found disappointing,
offers more play and challenge than Whirlwind, so
I prefer it. But I also have a soft spot for graphics and music that have a
computerized or electronic aesthetic,
which makes me a bit biased. The new 1.0 version is even better than 0.9 was.
Scene1 hasn’t changed much and Scene3 has been tweaked, but Scene2 has had 4
elevator columns added to it, which can raise both the player and the enemies.
And the best change is the lightening attack has been replaced with jets of plasma
that shoot out like wings. It works very well with the new energy chain scoring
system.
On the other hand,
Marsenary (direct download) is different from his other 2 games. The environment is a 3D sim, and it
has arena play (which has been abandoned), a story/mission mode, an online high score mode for each area, and ship
customization. Even with all that, though, I found it less enjoyable than Electrical Bird.
Last week, the deadline for the 11th 3 Minute Game Contest was
announced for December 24. A prize won’t be awarded to a winner outside of Japan, but that
doesn’t exclude any of us from entering for bragging rights. Just be sure to follow the rules
as well as you can to keep your entry from being disqualified. As for myself, I’m looking forward to more
3 Punge gaming in January.
Posted in Platformers, Remakes, Browser Games, Shoot-em-ups, Competitions | 7 comments
Posted by dessgeega
Mon, 04 Dec 2006 05:47:00 GMT
nifflas, developer of within a deep forest, has just released a new game: knytt.
the titular knytt is a little pixel ratmonkey who shimmies along walls trying to find the pieces of the spaceship that can take it back home. the pieces are just an excuse to explore a beautiful videogame landscape. the jumping and climbing puzzles that are here are simple and straightforward; the real goal is simply to find and see lovely things.
i’m posting this because i think some of you will love it and some of you will hate it. download already, nifflas is your pixel from the west.
Posted in Platformers, Highly Recommended, Metroidvanias, Windows, Freeware | Tags Nifflas | 27 comments
Posted by Tim
Sat, 25 Nov 2006 23:54:00 GMT
Darkside Adventures is the latest platformer by Bernie where… who am I kidding, does anyone actually require an explanation of what this game is about?
Bernie is your Pixel from the West. And I’m officially the laziest TIGSource editor around. Plus it’s amazing that you’re still reading this article instead of going over to origamihero.com and grabbing the sequel to A Game with A Kitty.
Okay, since you’re still here – how about we review TIGSource’s Titanion high scores? Your top five:
1. 452327 crackers
2. 259536 raigan
3. 246838 dessgeega
4. 235026 Dylan
5. 178552 mmodule.com
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware | Tags Bernie | 59 comments
