Tag: Free

2020 Doesn’t Deserve SPOOKWARE, but We’ll Take It

SPOOKWARE from Adam Pype and Viktor Kraus is a gift to a broken world. Easily gaining Halloween Classic status, SPOOKWARE imagines if WarioWare’s namesake was less of a stinky capitalist and more of a Jigsaw.

It’s one game of WarioWare with a high score of twenty, with one speed up at halfway. It’s tough! The microgames all only use the four arrow keys, but when you’re slamming all of them to rotate a garage door to stop THE GRUDGE from getting in, things start to get tricky. The horror inspirations range from Slenderman to your standard cow abduction, and after playing for an hour I laughed when I realized on their website there’s only ten in the mix. “10 BLAZING FAST MICROGAMES. EACH ONE SPOOKIER THAN THE LAST ONE!” as game’s page boldly states. I still haven’t been able to beat it.

Look at that little guy!

Adam Pype is currently teasing a follow-up to be featured in the Dread X Collection 3, so as SPOOKWARE’s protagonist so often rumbles, “hellll yeaahhhhh.”

Here’s a bonus directly from the Dread X Collection 3 page about the sequel, SPOOKWARE @ The Video Store:

I am ready for the skelebros.

Check out SPOOKWARE on its itch.io page!

September 25, 2020
Guardian Sphere – Healthy, Wealthy, or Die

Are traditional bullet hells not punishing enough for you? Would you like them to be even more hectic, so that you and your co-op partner scream for, let’s say, thirty minutes straight? Pixel-boy and AAA’s latest Ludum Dare entry might have made just the thing for you!

Guardian Sphere is one of the most frantic and fun shmups I’ve played. Each of you pick a character, fly through and shoot bug creatures, and keep a close eye on your health. Health is typically prety important in things like these, but when the Ludum Dare theme is “Your life is currency” things get a bit more out of hand. See, the only way to afford upgrades is to spend what remaining HP you have by the time you find a shop. Things got a little too wild and you missed the enemies’ HP drops? No money for upgrades. Took a couple too many hits from that laser mantis? Whoops, that new ability costs 5 hp and you’re down to 4.

The risk/rewards comes into play even moreso when managing health as currency, especially when you’re down to 5 hp but that upgrade costs…wait for it, 5 hp. Do you sink down to 0 and hope that you don’t take another hit before killing a few baddies? That’s up to you! Though the problem of the rich getting richer is definitely at play here, the game is short enough that if you’ve missed several upgrades due to poor play, you’re only out 15ish minutes to restart and use your new knowledge to play better.

Everything feels incredibly polished, and the art and music on display here goes well past what I’d expect from a traditional game jam entry, though the version I played had a few patches since the initial jam ended. The only “real” issue to find is a mistranslation from French to English where “buy” and “bye” are swapped. There’s even a robust character select menu with characters who all have unique abilities (which are, frustratingly, never explained to the player!!) that’s totally cool and unnecessary for a game like this.

If you’re down to blast some aliens and trade your life for new toys, check out Guardian Sphere on its itch.io page.

August 14, 2019
Super Weekend Mode – Tough Love

Don’t be fooled by the cute dancing girl on the title screen. Super Weekend Mode isn’t playing around. You’re going to die a lot in this game; those skulls on the backdrop aren’t just for show.

Super Weekend Mode exists as some kind of crossbreed between Galaga and Rock Band. You control two paddles which each can be moved between two positions. You’ll swap them around to collect hearts, shoot at the boss, and avoid obstacles that mean you harm.

The thing is, though, that the stuff coming at you moves fast and sometimes unpredictably. As you’re frantically switching your two columns around collecting hearts and fire beams at the boss, skulls and enemies are headed towards you. If you don’t quickly dodge out of the way, your screen size shrinks, giving you less room to see what the next barrage of incoming objects will be.

This is where I think Super Weekend Mode is a bit too difficult. I’m fine with the fast switching, even though some of the objects tend to swap lanes with barely a half-second to process and react to them, but making the game harder when you play poorly seems unbalanced. This leads to “the poor get poorer” effect of being hit a couple of times, having a very tiny window to see the action, and having little other option than to just give up and try again from the (much easier) beginning.

Super Weekend Mode feels like an old school arcade game from top to bottom. The chiptune tracks feel authentic and as poppy as they ever were. The hectic vibes beg for you to play just one more round, and the second paddle can even be controlled by another player huddled around the same screen as you.

But the downsides of arcades, namely the quarter-munching, is alive and well too. You’re given three lives and you’re out. No matter how many of the seven stages you’ve completed, there’s no continuing. I typically don’t mind this, but some of the deaths feel a bit cheap. (When the LEVEL UP text appears on-screen, it completely obscures the action and almost always leads to a death!) The developer page also kindly informs you right away that the difficulty increases even if you do well on any particular stage. Whether or not you’re succeeding, the game is determined to take you down as quick as possible.

I’m all for difficulty in games, but feeling fair is an important aspect in keeping players coming back. I’m still really enjoying my time with Super Weekend Mode, but it just feels like it’s a few small updates from being an instant recommendation.

If you’re up for some punishing pew-pewing, check out Super Weekend Mode on its itch.io page.

March 7, 2018
Butterfly Soup is 2017’s Best Visual Novel

There were a whole bunch of good visual novels this year! But out of Dream Daddy, Doki Doki Literature Club, Danganronpa 3, Tokyo Dark, etc., Butterfly Soup is the one I wish I had played as soon as it released. Not only is it my favorite of the aforementioned onslaught of 2017’s VNs, it’s one of the funniest and most genuinely sweet games of the year. Imagine Night in the Woods with more gays and fewer cats.

If you’re not hooked after the first five minutes of Butterfly Soup… I just don’t think this thing’s for you. The goofiest of its humor is front-loaded into the introductory scenes, and I was laughing out loud harder than I had at a game since Yakuza 0.

Not content with being just one of 2017’s funniest games, it decides to take the crown for being one of the most progressive as well; the game’s main cast is 90% queer women of color. It’s great! As a straight white dude, I was offered a unique perspective that I would rarely be afforded the opportunity to see otherwise. I 100% recommend it to anyone whose ever had a passing interest in visual novels, teen drama, or laughing. So go play it.

If you’re up for chuckling along with a wonderful group of high schoolers, check out Butterfly Soup for free on its itch.io page.

(Min-seo is maybe the best new character of 2017. She just rules.)

December 30, 2017
The Tomatoes are OK (But You Might Not Be)

So I went into The Tomatoes are OK knowing… not really much of anything at all. I hit the strange landing page after hearing that it was little unnerving, and jumped straight in. I suggest you do the same.

(more…)

September 9, 2017
Dead Horizon is My New Favorite Video Game Western

Every once in a while I stumble across a tiny game that I know I’ll remember for as long as I keep doing this. Remember Crawlies? I do… I still think about it a couple times a month. Level 2: The Virus Master? Yup. 2017’s excellent Baba Is You? That’s a hard one to get out of your head.

Let’s add @Matthewmritter‘s latest, Dead Horizon, to that list. I’m a sucker for Westerns, and this is right up your alley if you’ve ever romanticized the hat-wearin’, gun-totin’ cynicism of moseyin’ from saloon to saloon.

Dead Horizon is probably the most satisfying 10 minutes you’ll spend with a game this week. You’ll end the lives of several villains and possible heroes, point ‘n click your way through to the end of a well written narrative, and and remember the sweet sweet aesthetics of the Super Nintendo era complete with appropriately beautiful art and music. All of that in ten minutes. If you’re as much of a proponent of short games as I am, Dead Horizon is a godsend of an example.

There’s not a whole lot more that I’m willing to spoil, because the barrier to entry is so small. If you have a computer that can download a 50mb game and a few minutes of free time… I can’t think of anything else lately that I can recommend more than Dead Horizon.

Even if Westerns aren’t typically your thing, Dead Horizon is totally free and I urge you to give it a shot. It’s a surprisingly strong piece of art made my a tiny team of people, and they aren’t charging a dime. Check it out on the game’s itch.io page, and support this kind of talent if you want to see more of it.

September 9, 2017