Posted by ithamore
Sun, 17 Sep 2006 18:43:00 GMT
The
Maze of Cheese (which won 2nd place last year at
Stanford’s annual student competition for their Intro to Computer Graphics)
is akin to collecting games such as PacMan and Katamari. But instead of
collecting, you must roll the jiggly Baron around to touch every yellow piece of
cheese and turn them blue as quickly as possible. The longer you take the more platforms, corridors, and stairs will grow into
structures similar to M. C. Escher’s
"Relativity" and
"House of Stairs" especially in higher levels.
The game play is simple (maybe too simple) and straight-forward, the Baron never dies, and the levels are infinite in number. It feels much like an Atari 2600 game re-envisioned for the 21st century.
Since no documentation is provided with the game, you might want to continue
reading if you don’t want to hunt for the controls. Movement is made possible by the arrow keys or with
W A S D, the space bar jumps, and
gravity is rotated 90 degrees forward with Tab
and Enter.
Other useful keys that
should be mentioned are R to reset the
Baron to his starting point, holding Ctrl
brings up a map, holding the left or right mouse button and dragging it
moves the camera, L skips the level, P pauses, the
scroll wheel rotates gravity forward and backward (rapid scrolling is useful
for "flying" through large mazes), the -
key flattens the Baron, and the = key
un-flattens him (the other keys: 1-6, H, M, `, and Esc). Flattenning the Baron and warping him around himself by jumping a few
times while rolling will make him mutate and grow into a hypercube-like form that
shows the Maze who’s cancerous.
I like the idea of having extra controls to experiment with and to discover
different ways to play a game. Mutating the Baron just a bit allows him to crawl
madly through large mazes that would take much longer to finish a piece of
cheese at a time, but it can also make him hard to control when he grows too much. What do you think of incorporating such non-traditional controls?
(Source: Slashdot)
Posted in Platformers, Unique / Bizarre, Windows, Competitions, Action / Arcade, Freeware | no comments
Posted by Eos
Sun, 03 Sep 2006 23:10:00 GMT
A retro platform/puzzle game by Monokey made with Allegro, Bollen is simple and clean. The music is good. The goal is to move the pink/purple ball that you control to the red flags in each stage, collecting coins on the way.
The main feature is that your purple ball can only move fowards and backwards. So you must rely on the green Mr. Happy’s or the jump blocks in order to jump higher places. (The more I talk about this game, the more it’s starting to sound like a metaphor for life.)
The red Mr. Evil’s frown at you until misfortune dashes you against them. Then they laugh mockingly at you, pleased that you have failed miserably at life.
Posted in Platformers, Highly Recommended, Puzzle, Windows, Freeware | 24 comments
Posted by Tim
Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:06:00 GMT
Free Lunch Design of Icy Tower fame is currently working on three new games. One of them is Hodja and the Sleeping Eggplant. If you’re wondering why the screenshot is rather small, it’s because all three games in development are for the mobile platform! Here’s a description snagged from the web site:
“All Hodja’s sister wants for her birthday is a sleeping eggplant; too bad they’re almost impossible find! Hodja and the Sleeping Eggplant is a non-linear platform game of exploration and puzzles, power ups and surprises. Guide Hodja on his adventureous search for the sleeping eggplant, a journey filled to the brim with excitement! “
One player, with a 2006 release date. Could this possibly signal the end of free meals from FLD? Only time will tell, eh…
Posted in Mobile / Handheld, Platformers, Previews | 9 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:17:00 GMT
Ah, the Metroidvania / Castleroid / Roidcastle / Metrocastle game… when they were in vogue in the freeware community, you’d see announcements for one of these pop up like every month at least. But the projects got scrapped faster than you could say “non-linear platforming action-adventure RPG.” Seriously, where the fuck is Chaos Gate? That game looked pretty sweet.
Skyhammer is another fatality in the now-dwindling (I think) Castlemetro genre. Which is a shame, because like A Game with a Kitty (the creator’s previous release which you can find by the same link), this game boasts some very well-executed gameplay. The ~45 minutes that there is of it, at least. Check it out.
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware | Tags Bernie | 9 comments
Posted by Tim
Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:29:00 GMT
Does look like Invader, doesn’t it? Though both are charming in their own ways.
Poyo is a platformer consisting of fifty levels, which was created by Lazrael in under one month using Game Maker. Consider this: the only actions available to the titular character are walking, jumping and warping. Yet it will still stump a few players especially in later stages.
Warping is an essential skill to master, and most of the puzzles involve pulling off a succession of moves correctly.
Cave Story. Within a Deep Forest. Eternal Daughter. Poyo comes pretty close to joining this elite circle. Perhaps the author’s next attempt?
Other works include Pozzo – Jello Crusade and Flapper.
Posted in Platformers, Highly Recommended, Windows, Freeware | Tags Lazrael | 11 comments
Posted by Tim
Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:49:00 GMT
Certain indie game developers enjoy a challenge, for example limiting themselves in terms of development time (e.g. LudumDare) or working with a single theme (Monthly AGS Contest). They are then often critized for attempting incomplete, unplayable or buggy entries.
So it’s not surprising that games like Invisible Vision or Illegal Communication will be ignored by most. And only because they don’t look appealing at all from the screenshots. Style don’t get you points like they used to, back when the early video game consoles were popular.
This particular experiment from cactus is a love hate relationship, as evident from the following forum topic. I assume that most people will not enjoy playing it as well, which is a shame since the reward will only be revealed near the end. No instructions were provided, leaving you to discover or solve puzzles by trial and error.
Try it for yourself. If you dislike it, then there are always other quality indie games. Though there’s not many like Illegal Communication, that’s for sure. Except for CyberSpace Assault, perhaps.
Proceed with a clean mouse. What else can I say, a brilliant but misunderstood game.
Posted in Platformers, Puzzle, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags cactus | 28 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 14 Jul 2006 03:14:00 GMT
Bug-crushing, polishing, what’s next, and a really cool video of some of the special effects from the “ghost-hacking” portion of Mr. Robot. All this and more in the latest development diary from our friends at Moonpod!
Posted in Platformers, Previews | Tags Moonpod | 1 comment
Posted by Albert Lai
Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:29:00 GMT
Now, we’ve seen a few gems these past few days. To quote Derek:
Cortex Command is what I would call a … “gem.”;
Some of you might ask yourself, “What is left? How can I complete my line of
two begging to be destroyed in a fashion that Popcap games has cloned more times
than Hitler?"
Well,
ask no more! Lyle in
Cube Sector is a nifty game that should follow up nicely for fans of Metroid
and Cave Story. Lyle, you see, is an average boy of dark skin with neon green
hair, and has lost his kitten. To retrieve it, he has to go through all sort
of hijinks, throwing blocks, kicking blocks, jumping by throwing blocks while
in mid-air, and so on. All in the name of finding his cat again.
What a nice
boy.
Posted in Platformers, Highly Recommended, Windows, Freeware | 16 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:13:00 GMT
Cortex Command is what I would call a “hidden gem.” Or at least a potential one, since it’s not finished yet. BUT, the creators have recently committed themselves to working fulltime on it, so things are lookin’ up!
Think Liero meets Soldat meets some other stuff. There’s a basic demo of the game available (see the devlog) that lets you play two players splitscreen. Movement is fairly rough, but it’s impressive (and quite fun) to see the characters walk, crawl, and blow up using ragdoll-style physics. Support the development of this game!
Graphics are by the inimitable Niklas Jansson (aka Prometheus), of whom I am a huge fan.
Posted in Platformers, Multiplayer, Highly Recommended, Windows, Freeware, Previews | Tags DataRealms | 9 comments
Posted by Tim
Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:41:00 GMT
We all yearn for a sequel to seiklus. Fortunately the Virtanen siblings made one close enough to the real thing for a Finnish game competition. Painajainen tells the story of a boy trapped in his own dream, although the game itself contains platforming elements from both autofish’s famous effort and velella.
Finding and getting butterflies to follow your character grants you special powers, with subtle hints on each ability provided on the same screen. Press enter to access the map and a progress chart. A few bugs exist but can easily be solved by pressing the E key for a quick return to the starting point, while the save game area is located just next to it.
I was quite surprised to learn that it didn’t win first place in the contest. Must be rigged. Anyway, enjoy.
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Freeware | 7 comments
The Commonplace Book Compo is over! Voting will begin shortly!
