It's got action. It's got puzzles. It's got zany... everything. The Tall Stump is an action platformer that feels like an adventure game laced with short puzzles. As you travel through the game you find strange items and learn to use them in even stranger circumstances, all in the name of working your way deeper into the stump. An exceptional game that won best of show in our 4th Casual Gameplay Design Competition, and now follows-up that achievement with being the top platform game in the Best of 2007. [review]

Link Dump Friday

March 21, 2008

Tags: blog linkdump

By JohnB | add this!

Link Dump Fridays

Dragons, towers of shaky steel, a pink octopus, and stuffy 18th century aristocrats. No, it isn't my last family reunion (steel girders were scarce this year), it's Link Dump Friday, the happiest weekly-occurring day of the year!

Dicing Dangers - A free browser-based MMORPG that keeps things nice and simple with a text-based interfaced sprinkled with nice-looking artwork. Exploration, quests, character management and interactions, inventory and role playing are all handled with clickable links. Its surprisingly slick interface and casual-friendly design make it worth a shot!
Bow Street Runner episode 3 - The third episode in LittleLoud's mystery adventure series commissioned by Channel 4 to promote the five-part City of Vice television programs. Set in the 18th century, you play a Bow Street Runner trying to restore order to the dirty streets of old London.
Insurgo - Similar to Tower of Goo in concept, Insurgo tasks you with building a wobbly structure as high as you can go. Move the mouse to a joint, then slide the cursor to another joint to see if it's close enough to build a connector. It takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, the sky is literally the limit.
Wonderful Sea - A much-too-cute Japanese point and click adventure game with hints of an RPG. Sift through the underwater environments for items you can use to free a trapped little octopus. To use an item, simply click the icon in your inventory, then the object you want to use it on.
JIG Poker Night - Don't forget the US is now on Daylight Savings Time, which means we're playing an hour earlier than usual. When is JIG Poker Night? Saturday (4:00 PM).

Comments (may contain spoilers)

Happy easter! Remember to eat lots of chocolate-eggs!

Posted by: Marianen | March 21, 2008 8:29 AM

you free the otctopus in sea of wonders by taking the stick found by using the chestnut on the seaweed in the little hole below the otctopus

Posted by: andy | March 21, 2008 8:51 AM

Wonderful Sea was short and sweet. Am I mistaken or the japanese text at the end says "continue"? I wouldn't min playing more of those games, they're good for a 10-minute break after lunch.

Posted by: Irene | March 21, 2008 9:20 AM

Dicing Daggers is fun, but it needs some work. My biggest complaint is that there's no sense of direction. You get like one quest at a time with no hints on where to find the items you need. Your only choices are to start at your hometown and fight level 1 monsters, or wander and fight level 10. Unless I'm doing something wrong here, you're going to be grinding at the starting town for a long time. I think once the game is cleaned up a bit it will be fantastic.

Also, only being able to deposit one gold at a time? What is up with that?

Posted by: blieber | March 21, 2008 9:41 AM

I'd like to point out, the link for dicing dangers is 'ww.dicingdangers.com' instead of 'www.dicingdangers.com'. You may want to fix that, Jay.

Posted by: Solanum Tuberosum | March 21, 2008 10:09 AM

I'm stuck on wonderful sea!

I have the:

chestnut, stick, savory fish, angler, telescope, and gold key. I gave the stuck clam to the seal, fed the dolphin, got the boat up close to me. I tried to open the chest on the boat with the gold key, but it didn't work.

If anyone could offer help, I'd be grateful.

Posted by: Ginger | March 21, 2008 10:47 AM

Ginger, how did you feed the dolphin?

Posted by: ace1217 | March 21, 2008 10:54 AM

I got it!

Posted by: Ginger | March 21, 2008 10:54 AM

ace1217:

Give it the savory fish.

Posted by: Ginger | March 21, 2008 10:58 AM

Ginger, don't know if you did this or not but, use the stick on the screen where the octopus was trapped, you get a stone, use the stone on the stuck clam.

Posted by: ace1217 | March 21, 2008 11:06 AM

And by the way, what is the inventory spot under the stone for, and the one under the angler?

Posted by: ace1217 | March 21, 2008 11:09 AM

I like the idea of Bow Street Runner, but any game that depends so much on exactly matching curves with a pointing device is no good for me--maybe it's easier with a mouse than a trackball, but still, it's annoying.

Posted by: svoight | March 21, 2008 11:20 AM

extra inventory spots:

one spot is for the key, which is what you're trying to ultimately trying to get

for the other item, you need the dolphin to help you out with something the octopus left behind

Posted by: Anonymous | March 21, 2008 11:27 AM

wonderful sea - so easy I completed it -lol- very cute and I agree with Irene, nice for quick breaks.

Posted by: hulakitty | March 21, 2008 11:54 AM

Wonderful Sea was great and so cute. ^.^

Posted by: JojoNoir | March 21, 2008 11:54 AM

Once the seal has beaten the clam with the stone it should become unstuck...oooh a pearl!

Posted by: phoenix66 | March 21, 2008 11:55 AM

Strangely enough, I've found that Bow Street Runner is actually easier with a trackpad than a tablet.

The only sticky part of this episode, for me, was figuring out the bricks.

Posted by: soleta | March 21, 2008 12:11 PM

how can i move the octopus from the chest? should i

wake up the shark?

Posted by: mariolinamay | March 21, 2008 12:29 PM

For once I have compleated something alone!! Wonderful Sea is a sweet little coffee break game that is (for once) quite easy. Lovely :)

Posted by: DeadlySaintJimmy | March 21, 2008 1:02 PM

I find the track-a-curve interface to not be that hard to use with a trackball. I haven't tried with a mouse.

But it's unusable with a trackpad.

Posted by: Peter Hosey | March 21, 2008 1:25 PM

mariolinamay, yes.

hint:

have you acquired a pearl yet?

Posted by: svoight | March 21, 2008 1:43 PM

Peter Hosey, maybe it's just my lack of dexterity then, but either way, I'm not looking for a game that tests my ability to stave off hand cramps. :-)

Posted by: svoight | March 21, 2008 1:45 PM

I found a bug in Bow Street Runner 3.

I got all the bonus esteem points in the game, as well as the regular, and I'm stuck in the gin shop. :( I grabbed Flannery's tools, looked through the hole, clicked on the document, looked at the gin bottle labels, and put the gin machine back together... and now I'm stuck. I can't get to the interrogation!

Posted by: Metanaito | March 21, 2008 2:10 PM

Ah, never mind. I forgot one piece of evidence. :) Jumped the gun there.

Posted by: Metanaito | March 21, 2008 2:27 PM

Bow Street Runner III was, I'd say, the easiest of the three so far - but still well within the range of not being too simple - so it was just as much fun as the previous 2 chapters.

I seemed to have a little trouble with the only scene where i had to follow the line with the mouse - I'm damn sure i did it right for about 6 times but it didn't accept it (it was a straight line, I have a good mouse and all the other such tasks I always did without a problem so I don't think it was me here either) until for like the seventh time it finally decided i was good enough :)

Well done job, I'm looking forward to chapter 4!

Posted by: bioLarzen | March 21, 2008 4:15 PM

Irene: when I finished Wonderful Sea, I got a screen that (in Japanese) said "Perfect Ending". Possibly you got an "imperfect" ending, and that's why it said "Continue"? I ended with every item in my inventory, don't know if that makes a difference.

Posted by: Xava | March 21, 2008 4:36 PM

thank you svoight, i finished but not perfect ending!

Posted by: mariolinamay | March 21, 2008 6:02 PM

now got perfect ending!

you need to have inventory full... get another fish, and the pearl back before entering the castle

Posted by: mariolinamay | March 21, 2008 6:07 PM

I think I got perfect ending too, I had gotten all items back. The text I'm referring to spelled "tsuzuku" in hiragana.

Now I'm fiddling around with Insurgo, but I'm not getting the hang of it at all xD;

Posted by: Irene | March 21, 2008 7:09 PM

Where do you get the chestnut in Wonderful Sea? I can't find it.

Posted by: Nick | March 21, 2008 7:13 PM

Wonderful Sea- I must have done pretty lousy because I got this ending:

"It entered the Palace of the Sea Goddess Castle for the reward of the turtle"

Posted by: Caya | March 21, 2008 8:06 PM

It's called a chestnut in the description, but it's not. It's a puffer-fish.

Posted by: Caya | March 21, 2008 8:43 PM

Aha! You can examine items in Wonderful Sea. In fact, you can't win if you don't know that...

Posted by: Parmeisan | March 21, 2008 9:02 PM

Hmmm... I can't read the text i see, but there is images of all the items there was in wonderful sea. Is this the perfect ending?

Posted by: ace1217 | March 21, 2008 10:15 PM

I don't understand how to get the pearl. The otter hit the clam shell with the stone. Nothing happened.

Posted by: AddyMuyo | March 22, 2008 2:42 AM

"I don't understand how to get the pearl. The otter hit the clam shell with the stone. Nothing happened."

Same thing happened to me - nothing happened. I've now tried every object in combination with everything else, and still nothing. I got the clam and stone back from the seal, but I can't make him take them again for a second try.

Is this a dead end - do I need to restart?

Posted by: RedTomato | March 22, 2008 6:06 AM

AddyMuyo:

Examine the shell in your inventory (highlight it and hit the big ? at the top).

Click the shell to open it and get the pearl inside.

Posted by: Neddo | March 22, 2008 9:48 AM

the Wonderful sea creator releases a game every week.

Posted by: reece | March 22, 2008 3:56 PM

here are the rest of the games:
http://mac.rash.jp/games/dasyutu/index.html

Posted by: camille-martine | March 22, 2008 6:12 PM

Was the sea chestnut in Wonderful Sea used at all?

Posted by: LSN | March 23, 2008 1:11 AM

Alas, Bow Street Runner, why must you break my heart so? This is one of those games that I absolutely love, along the same vein as 7 Noble Kinsmen, and other extremely polished and immersive BBC titles, if only it wouldn't decide to stall out on me just as I'm really getting into it.

Same thing has happened to me in all three chapters now, I get really enveloped by the game, and then I'll get to a section that refuses to load and I have to start all over again, which means I hold off for a few days so I'm not trying to run through the stuff I've seen before as fast as I can just to get back to where I was.

A really great game that has me wanting to know when the BBC is going to launch another awesome title.

Posted by: Grimmrook | March 23, 2008 5:39 PM

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