Link Dump Friday
December 22, 2006
Winter is here
Family coming into town
The snow keeps falling
Not making a sound
That's not really true
This is all a lie
I live in Florida
I'm going out of town
This link dump is quite short
So please,
Don't frown
Family coming into town
The snow keeps falling
Not making a sound
That's not really true
This is all a lie
I live in Florida
I'm going out of town
This link dump is quite short
So please,
Don't frown
Aah, Link Dump Fridays. Never has such an event been as hotly anticipated in the history of mankind. Check out our latest discoveries and see which ones you find worthy of a super sweet JIG review.
- Valo - Draw a line to pop blocks, but don't draw too fast. It sounds quite simple, but is quite an engaging little game with it's light feel and sound. It won 3rd place in the Mousebreaker competition.
- Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack! - There must be something about platformers that attracts stereotypical Italians. Carry pizzas while fending off pizzas to save people...from pizzas. It really makes sense...really!
- Phetch - The latest game from the creators of Peekaboom! Not only do you get to have some multiplayer fun, it actually serves a meaningful purpose - it's helping to create a more accessible web. The goal of the game is to describe an image so the other players can find it in a search. Do well and increase your points and rank.
- QuestForTheRest - An exploratory point-and-click that seems to be by the creator of Samorost. That's enough to sell me. It should be the same for you.
- Inner Play - A cute platformer where you play a bubble headed boy. Cute sounds, looks cute, cute game!
- Pianolina - I've found an orange and its name is Pianolina. It's a little sound toy which lets you make music from tossing blocks around. It doesn't have the best controls but it is quite neat. I haven't had as much fun throwing things around since playing Elebits.
Playing QuestForTheRest felt familiar... very familiar. Then at the end it says it was made in '04. I must have played it back then.
Good, but very short.
Quest for the rest was made by the samorost guy for the Polyphinic spree, one of my favourite bands! wooo!
Once I got past the first screen on Quest for the Rest, it was easy!
Pianolina is just a weird little thing. I didn't care for it that much. Not worth a review in my opinion.
Papa Louie is surprisingly Mario-like, and reviewable!
Valo's fun as well, score of 18545 on first try. The pink blocks are bad!
All of these are pretty great.
Now I know who does the music for the "ambition" series!
The best is...drumroll...Phetch. But not by a lot, they all rule.
err, there seems to be some explicit images in Phetch... just a warning
Quest for the Rest was extremely short and hardly a "latest discovery." It's just an interactive commercial for the band's music. It is decent music, though. Not my kind of music, but good nonetheless.
I found Valo interesting, but not very addictive.
To be honest, I haven't checked the rest out, yet. Although Phetch sound like it may be worth a look.
Yeah, Quest for the Rest is certainly not new. In fact, it was mentioned here on this blog back in May 2004, though it was never reviewed.
It doesn't realy matter how long the levels are in quest for the rest as you get to listen to FREE music.
So don't exspect an epic fantasy in a world like runescape's.
Just tried Valo and got 19. with 81,727
It was good, but very repeatative. not worth its own.
will post again after i have tried the others
QuestForTheRest was a game advertising the "Polyphonic Spree."
I played this game like... 5 months ago. And jay mentions it onthe Samorost entry.
I *cannot* seem to get Phetch to work when I am the seeker. I click once, twice, doesn't matter.. the game seems not to let me pick an image, even when I'm right! Most I can figure out about it is that on the status bar on the bottom of the window I get a "Errors on page" message. I'm running what should be the most current version of Java (5.0 revision 10, I think), since it wouldn't work at all with what I had so I had to download the newest.
Phetch should be the one reviewed. Its an original game, and it helps people.
Here's Meta's review of the games above:
Valo was quite a fun game. Didn't understand why I was losing until I realized you needed to get rid of all the BLUE blocks. :) Got 36367 as my highest score so far.
Papa Louie's just cute. I love Mario, and this made me feel like playing the classics (which I did right after I finished the last level).
Phetch wouldn't let me play - don't know if i's my computer or what. I really wanted to play. :(
The Samorost people did it again with QuestForTheRest. It was short, but it was still very beautifully done. The music's not overbearing, and the puzzles are fun.
Inner Play was friggin' adorable, but got hard after the first bad guys began to show up. Not really my cup of tea, but it's still quite cute and fun, for the few levels I could finish. :)
Pianolina was fun for about a half-hour, then it got annoying. It's fun to play - in moderation.
Well, there's my short reviews. :)
I've been playing Phetch and I must say it's been very fun and addictive. I've racked up 15,000+ points so far.
There are a few quirks that could be ironed out (I submitted a suggestion for them) but overall it is very entertaining. I've not really had any issues with it other than having the complete inability to be able to describe the incoherent image I'm given on occasion. Sometimes it's just a random splotch of colors. Other times its a picture of a person and you've got to start describing all the stuff you normally overlook (markings on clothes, background images, which way they're looking, etc...
One drawback is if you get stuck with someone who has no idea how to describe an image and they just keep passing after putting maybe one or two not-so-descriptive hints.
Anyway, signing up is bare-bones and playing is no-frills. I enjoy it. I hope you will too!
I can't seem to play Phetch. I log in, click play now and just see the scoring details and a grey box but nothing else.
Oddities about Phetch:
Tho it claims to pick the describer at random, I ALWAYS start out as the describer.
I have seen the EXACT same descriptions appear -- "it looks like parchment, some kind of constitution, old".
The seekers can seem very stupid -- making a dozen wrong selections for some very unique text
Near the end of some games where I'm racking up a big score, I suddenly get no result when I click on a picture. Timer keeps counting down but nothing happens.
I'm wondering if we're really playing multiplayer, or being matched with computer-generated results or some kind of selection of what others have typed in other games? So it's not real-time? Would explain why the descriptions sometimes come up in a bunch, rather than one at a time.
Update