Flatland
Mix fun game play, plenty of action and retro graphics and the name Brent Silby may come to mind. Authour of the previously reviewed Swarm, DNA and Replicator, this offering, titled Flatland, follows the same pattern of enjoyment.
In Flatland, it is your mission to destroy wave after wave of... things. You get points. OK, the idea isn't completely original, but the design is quite interesting. At first you start off in a tiny ship which has next to no armour and a miniscule weapon. With this weapon you are intent on destroying your anonymous foes. When you do so, they will explode in an array of large blocky pixels, the collection of which upgrades your ship. The interesting bit is that collecting an odd number of them gives you an odd shaped ship until you gather more and regain composure. Think of it like snapping Lego bricks onto your craft to grow big and strong.
After the first few "practice" levels you will more than have the hang of the very simple gameplay and will also have an understanding of the upgrade system. By this time the enemies will be coming in faster and you will find your ship rapidly inflating and deflating as damage/repairs are obtained in quick and often hilarious succession.
Although the game claims to run better in Internet Explorer, I actually found myself with more problems—such as jerky animation—in IE as opposed to Firefox, though with the latter I had no music. An incidental matter which in no way hampers an enjoyable game. It's still a bundle of retro goodness, no matter the browser. Click.
This is a great game. The idea for the blocks building your ship is really cool. I would've liked more guns, as the enemies really start to stack up.
Score: 280790
The book was better. ;)
I agree, the blocks were a good idea, but it needs power-ups. Weapon-power ups. Kind of like break-the-wall games, this genre is so completely boring that the only thing to keep the players interest is the possibility of getting that really great powerup that wipes out forty-seven ships at once. Then the player thinks that they are NOT wasting their time, they are actually SAVING time with these incredible powerups! Another good example of primo powerups is that farm animal game with the professor who collects them in the bubble. I really wanted that game! Oh well, I'll just wait for the next paycheck.
This game is fun. i agree with mike, more guns would be great.
Score: 304325 Wave:14
wave: 16 ^_^
214243 wave 11
Yawn. I made it to level 16 before I got board. After the first level there is not much challenge. Your ship reaches a maximum size, and there are so may blocks flying around that its hard to really get too damaged. Some more interesting power ups, and more of a challenge would make this game much better.
This game makes me cry.
What'd be really interesting is if the game played a little more normal with the Shmup section and all the pieces you collected could be put towards designing your ship inbetween levels.
Man this game is fun. I agree with Mike about the whole block building ship, but I would have prefered a sheild of some sort and some cooler weapons.
There is one upgrade for weapons, it is when you get big enough and get double shot. But that is it. More lives would have been better too.
Score: 267950
Wave: 14
Wave 14, when I got bored and wanted to see how long I could survive just holding down fire. Pretty long, actually.
I have Search As I Type turned on in Firefox, so it's not playable; I had to use IE. Meh.
I wish I had realised that the walls were just decorative earlier. I kept avoiding them, it was a hassle.
A similar game, which I enjoyed more than this one, was Tsumiki Fighters from a couple years ago. Anyone else remember that one?
the game ok
the book isd exellent
I think the game's most interesting gimmick (building your ship up with pixels from destroyed enemies) is also its greatest weakness, since as the game progresses it in some ways gets easier. On the higher levels there are so many enemies on the screen and so many stray pixels flying around that you don't even really have to maneuver, just bull straight ahead with the fire button pressed down. With so many enemies on screen, especially the larger, slower moving ones, you end up picking up pixels faster than you lose them.
This game is very original, but usually I'm romping around the screen, leaving a trail of 50's behind me, and desperately trying to avoid the huge clump of enemies that chase after me. However, on one level, I held "I" the whole way through... the ship was off the top of the screen, and apart from getting a big block of damage once, I pretty much survived. Too bad I was totally trashed in level 9.
I give it a 98.
Out of 140.
Yes the book was good ;0)
Actually, yes, Phoenix. Tumiki Fighters was the first game I thought of when I played it first, though as its not a jayisgames reviewed game, I didn't mention it as I felt it would distract or be confusing to those here who hadn't had the chance to play it. Highly reccomended, folks, by the way.
You know, I can't help but feel that this just half a game. I got bored of it around the seventh wave.
The basic idea is okay: when an enemy dies, it created a shower of blocks, which are used to enlarge and improve your ship.
Now, it needs expansion. Massive expansion.
For example:
Your ship just gets bigger and bigger. As you increase in size, so does the playing field and the size of your enemies.
Sort of like Katamari Damacy.
Weapon powerups. Guns that fire in more directions than "forward".
If you want to get REALLY fancy, you could have bosses and (gasp) being able to turn your ship. Now, a game like that would have held my attention span for much, MUCH longer.
Back to playing X-com for me. Why has jay never reviewed this gem? It's abandonware, and therefore the basic version can be downloaded for free off the internet. While it runs quickly on a modern computer, this isn't really a problem, and garbled graphics can be fixed by downloading a loader program...
Wave 16
422000
interesting concept...but, yeah. It is rather basic and dull. I like the Katamari-esque idea.
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