9 Months In

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Peter (Devee)

Back in March, I mentioned wanting to come back to 9 Months In, a point and click adventure game about a pregnant woman in prison who claims to be innocent. I finally got around to playing it again recently and enjoyed it. Despite some minor flaws, I think it’s worth the hour or so to complete it. It doesn’t hurt that it’s free.

The protagonist claims to be innocent despite being convicted of attempted murder. She believes she was framed by someone because she made a lot of enemies working for the DA. When she finds her cellmate dead with signs pointing to her as the murderer, she investigates who could be setting her up.

Let me cut to the chase and say that I found out you can double-click to skip animations. I didn’t know that but read it in a forum. That would probably make things go quicker. The voice-acting also highlights the fact that it’s an amateur game. That’s okay, but I found it the weakest aspect of the game.

Anyways, I managed to get the end that hints at some interesting reveals, but with only 90 of 100 points, I didn’t earn the ending that actually revealed everything. I read some more information online that talked about the reveals – enough that I can infer it – but I didn’t actually find out exactly what was happening. Even when replaying the game, I didn’t get the 95 points needed.

If you choose to play it and want to try for the best ending, here are a couple hints. Don’t read them if you don’t want any spoilers.

Ready? Yeah?

Examine everything, and always tell the truth.

Trimming the backlog

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Peter (Devee)

In an effort to get through my backlog, I played a lot of my games in the last couple months. I found most of them boring and didn’t give them much time, but some were entertaining for a while. Let’s look at some of the games I tried and decided to stop playing.

Tyrian 2000

Tyrian 2000 is a scrolling shooter with nothing special about it. It didn’t grab my attention at all.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

I’d call this a run ‘n’ gun game, but I guess that’s not really a genre. It’s like a fast-paced Contra, only not as good as Contra. I do like the visual style, but there’s too much happening on the screen all the time. You control a rabbit who’s the prince of hell, and you travel around killing enemies in bloody ways. I know it’s trying to be over the top, but it felt too over the top.

Ben There, Dan That

This point-and-click adventure game obviously draws inspiration from Lucas Arts. It references a number of early, pioneering games of the genre, which I think is neat. From the few minutes I spent with it, I feel like it could be a good choice if you’re craving a point-and-click adventure game with some chuckles, but it wasn’t doing enough for me.

Time Gentlemen, Please

This is the direct follow up to Ben There, Dan That. As the first didn’t interest me, I didn’t give the second more than a minute or so before decided it didn’t interest be either.

Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel

This point-and-click adventure game was translated from a Russian game based on a Russian sci-fi detective novel (at least according to Wikipedia). It seemed very forced, like the game was dragging from to each scene, and nothing seemed particularly engaging. The voice-acting was odd too. Reviews claimed it was very anti-climatic, and it seems that some pretty major plot points were changed with negative consequences from the original novel. I decided to pass on this.

Limbo

While I probably put less than an hour into Limbo and don’t feel like playing it more, I’m glad I experienced it. This screenshot alone does a decent job of summarizing the feel of the game. It’s a strange puzzle platformer game that’s a bit eerie. Deaths are definitely gruesome as well without having too much gore and shock value. From what I understand, it’s a fairly short game too, which is nice.

Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami reminds me of Grand Theft Auto in a number of ways. You commit crimes, you beat people senseless, and it’s pretty brutal. It has an arcade vibe that I liked, but I just didn’t feel like I was getting enough out of it. My friend Michael loves the game though, which does push me a little bit more toward putting more time into it. I just don’t quite care enough.

Nidhogg

Duncan bought this simple game on his PS4. It doesn’t quite fit in this list because I didn’t really give up on it. There’s a single-player that mimics multiplayer, but it’s basically a multiplayer game. And I played it a bunch! In a pixelated, stylized setting, two players engage in sword duels in relatively quick matches. It’s great when people are at the house and has lots of settings you can change to mix the gameplay. It also supports tournaments if you have more than two players.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I’m not really sure how to describe Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. It’s definitely visually and aurally beautiful. From what I played, it was mostly an intellectual game. There is combat, but the game is mostly about exploring, figuring out what to do, reading minds, and dreaming. Oh, and music is important too. Yeah, it’s a strange game. Compared to most of the other games I discussed, this game appealed to me a lot more.

Snapshot

Snapshot is a neat idea for a platformer. You control the character with the keyboard but are able to cut and paste objects using the mouse. That’s it. That’s the idea. The visuals are neat, with a cute main character too. If I didn’t have so many other things asking for my time, I’d probably play this one a bit more.

Trimming the backlog with the AGS Bake Sale, Part 1

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Peter (Devee)

In an effort to get through my backlog, I’ve played a lot of games recently. I own a lot of games that I’ve even tried, so I decided to try as many as I could. Honestly, I prioritized games that I thought I wouldn’t enjoy so I could try them and cross them off my list quickly.

I owned a bundle of adventure games from the AGS Bake Sale from Adventure Game Studio, and I had never tried any of them. It seemed like a good place to start. Here’s my thoughts on the first half of them!

As these are all indie games, I feel the need to preface this post with an apology to some of the creators in case they happen to find this. I really do realize that I didn’t give many of these games more than a couple minutes of play. I own a lot of games that just aren’t my cup of tea, so sometimes I judge quickly.

9 Months In

9 Months In is the most interesting game of the AGS Bake Sale that I’ve tried. This adventure games stars a woman in prison who claims she’s been set up. The title comes from the fact that she’s pregnant. I like the art style, and I quickly found that I was interested in the starring character. I’m leaving this title on my backlog and plan to come back to it.

Escape the Barn

In Escape the Barn, you find items, clicking to add them to your inventory at the bottom of the screen and then figure out what items to use on what other items to escape the barn. It was pretty boring, but as it only took five minutes to beat, I decided to finish it.

Entrapment

Someone’s been repeatedly framing you for murder, and you have to get away and figure out who is doing it. It’s a much better premise than Escape the Barn, but it still pique my interest enough to get me to keep playing it.

Ben Chandler, Paranormal Investigator – In Search of the Sweets Tin

Honestly, I can’t really remember much about this AGS Bake Sale title except that it didn’t hold my attention more than a couple minutes.

Barn Runner: The Rich Dame Who Cut The Cheese

This is a pretty interesting world that’s been created. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity is contained to enclosed cities in which almost all work is done by robots. There are 11 titles in this series as of writing this according to this page. I like the idea of the setting, but I played for about five minutes and got bored.

Abner

In Abner, you play a character who appears to think he’s a heroic knight. It’s definitely full of comedy even though it starts with a tragedy – all the world’s color is gone! It was a cute idea and style, but it didn’t hold my attention.

Falling Skywards

Let’s end this half of AGS Bake Sale games on a high note. Falling Skyward is gorgeous. It’s set in the future after an asteroid has struck the Earth, launching chunks of cities into the sky where many still orbit. You play a young boy who scavengers these ruins that are, as the game describes, “perpetually falling skywards.” I only played for a couple minutes, but I couldn’t cross it off my list. I’ll need to return to play it more!

Fatal Labyrinth, Genesis roguelike

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

While going through the games I hadn’t tried in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, I stumbled upon Fatal Labyrinth. It started with a corny story for a minute or so before the action started (and even that minute of story could be skipped). Despite showing its age (bad music; can’t go back one level in the menus, so you have to close the menu), it was a very enjoyable game. Not only are the levels randomly generated, but the items are described by colors with each color corresponding randomly to a specific spell. On one play, a blue cane might do blizzard damage; on the next, it might confuse the enemy.

I’ll admit that I used save states to determine what each color did so I wouldn’t waste any items. I never did manage to get the best armor or sword in the game in spite of fully clearing every level. There were are also a couple of interesting tricks I found on GameFAQs. Cursed weapons are very weak, and a curse removal item can remove the curse, allowing you to unequip the weapon. If you remove the curse before equipping the item, it’ll say it has zero power while actually being devastating to enemies. Similarly, if you equip two bows back and forth, your armor will decrease by three each time until rolling over to an ungodly amount of armor. I tried the tricks because I was curious but restored a save because it made me too powerful.

Food was an interesting in the mechanic. While your HP will slowly regenerate, your food value will slowly decrease. You don’t die when you reach zero, but you’ll begin to lose HP. This would lead me to think that I should collect all the food I find, but too much food causes the character to move slower, and if a certain amount of food is eaten, the character die on the spot. Overeating is the number two killer of knights, you know (just after dragons).

It’s been a while since I’ve played a fun roguelike. It reminded me of Azure Dreams, one of my favorite PlayStation games. After playing the game on and off for the past four days, I beat it last night.

All done with Castle Doombad

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

When my friend Joe told me about Adult Swim’s new iOS game, Castle Doombad (developed by Grumpyface Studios), in February, I immediately bought it. I’m a fan of some of their previous games, so I was excited to play this new one. I don’t intend this post to be a formal review, so I’m not going to worry about going into too many details on the game. However, it’s a tower defense game in which you try to protect your captured princess from heroes. You can beat a stage by ensuring a hero never rescues the princess, but you can also crown a stage by keeping a hero from ever reaching her. You earn currency in the levels and can use it to purchase new traps or upgrade current ones. In addition, there are thirty tasks called “TO-DOOMS” that reward a second type of currency, used for powerful abilities.

Here you can see that I crowned every stage in the first chapter.

And here I crowned every stage in the second chapter.

I couldn’t leave the third chapter incomplete.

Every good game needs an endless mode, and of course, I played that too.

The Summer Slaycation update introduced a new chapter. In this one, there are two princesses you need to protect. I crowned every stage here too.

I had to ensure all my to-dooms were to-done.

If all the levels were complete, I didn’t really need to make my traps more powerful, but I did manage to unlock and upgrade every trap…

…which means that I earned every achievement.

Okay, Adult Swim, I’m ready for another update now.

Typing of the Dead: Overkill went overkill on being bad

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

What a disappointing game. I thought it’d be fun, and it did keep me entertained for the first half of the first level, but my attention declined quickly.

Obviously, the gameplay is simple – type words to shoot zombies. With such a basic mechanic, the levels should be kept short, but instead they continue long after I became bored. TotD:O presents itself in the style of a B-movie, but it’s over-the-top antics felt too forced. It was filled with cliches and sexual innuendo, and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Modern Dream developed The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, Headstrong Games developed the original, The House of the Dead: Overkill, and Sega published them. I don’t know who’s to blame, but maybe they wanted the game to be sort of meta. As the boring levels and grotesque cliches lumbered forward like a game idea that should have died and but instead was forced into this state between life and death, I can’t help but think the The Typing of the Dead: Overkill has become the very thing you’re tasked with destroying in the game itself.

Whatever. I’m not putting any more time into this game.

Polygons and Pixels

…the building blocks of games

Category Archives: Mini-reviews