You like it old-school? That's good, because on this edition of Weekend Download, we've got a healthy dose of retro-style gaming ready to throw you back a decade or two!
Pittoch (Windows, 1.2MB, free) - A superb little puzzle game where you must gather keys to unlock the exit on each stage. Each blobby critter can hold one key, and in order to control extra ones you must link them together. Linked blobs move as a unit, so if you have two holding hands you can't fit through a single-spaced gap between blocks. Simple but highly entertaining and just the right amount of challenge.
CryptRover (Windows/Mac/Linux, 3MB, free) - A roguelike that puts you in the role of archaeologist trapped in an underground crypt. You have a limited air supply, which can be replenished by picking up canisters laying around the levels, and spiders are waiting to attack you at every turn. It plays less like a roguelike and more like an action game, but the concept combined with the ASCII graphics are great.
Big Building Boom Blues (Windows, 1.9MB, free) - After wiring a bomb at the top of a skyscraper, you must rappel down the side of what is probably the most strangely contoured building ever made. Can you reach the bottom before the explosion catches up with you? If you don't, the game calls you dumb...
Armand and the Foppish Hat (Mac, Windows, 20MB, free) - A short Zelda-like adventure where you help Armand on a quest to... save the world? No, not quite. Save a princess? Nah. Restore peace, honor and justice to the land? Nope. How about recovering his spiffy hat? Even better! Simple visuals but a nice sense of humor make this one a good afternoon diversion.
Pittoch has consumed my life for the past few days. Level B-6 almost broke me down into tears.
Now B-7 to do it again.
The website for Armand and the Foppish Hat doesn't seem to exist just now - it appears to have been conquered by domain name squatters. This disappoints me.
Sounds like a DNS problem you have, Ezra.
I recommend you look into OpenDNS
I just played Foppish Hat. It was so short I can hardly understand why there's a "Load Game" button.
I don't know about DNS problems but whatever it was it seems to have gone away now.
Pirroch is a real gem! Very original, very good puzzles, really nicely done. Only caveat, it would be even greater if it be flash, but thats all I could ask for. Otherwise it is perfect!
Big Building Boom Blues. Comes as a high contrast to this. I really wondere who is here dump? The player what the creator calls me, or the creator. I mean lets start with the having the strangest building on earth like the review said. Now next who brings on a bomb on the roof? And not on the groundfloor? Next who sets the timer so short he has a real problem getting down? And the most incredible part, if the building starts collapsing, on what magic air hook is the rope attached to? It just still attached to the well now collapsed building. So dump...
So for whatever reason, I can't get Armand and the Foopish Hat to run on my computer. The only possible reason I can think of, would have to do with OpenGL.
However I am fairly certain that my graphics can play OpenGL, but just in case, is there a way I can check it?
Other than that I can't see what the problem is. I have XP just like the author, and the game runs, but when I have Task Manager open I can see that it quits after a couple of seconds.
I like CryptRaider. It's a good game if you've only got a few minutes. Also, it's the only roguelike I've ever beaten so far, so it's not terribly difficult. I'd say it's good if you're just getting into the genre and you want a simple game.
I tried Armand & the Foppish Hat- it is real cute. But I wasn't reading carefully enough (I only caught "under the town") & didn't find out where the underground place was. I can't seem to find it by looking around in the game. I don't want to redo the whole dumb thing- would someone tell me how to find it, please? Many thanks-
@Caya - Here's what you need to know -
There's some rock cliffs over toward the eastern side of the map, down a screen or two. The catacombs are hidden under them.
@Emory: Are there any controls in Pittoch that aren't immediately obvious? I'm pretty sure level D-2 is impossible unless you can move clouds from below.
Armand didn't run on my computer also.
I like Big Building Boom Blues. It's interesting, and it took me a while to figure out that
jump when he's crouching to jump the highest.
The game isn't really based on plot, so the mystical skyhooks and unintelligent bomber aren't really too important. It's simple and too the point. Get down, and get away from the explosion.
Huzzah! I love it when you give me the completely free games. No half-assed demos for me!
Yay!! Thank you, JIGuest!!
I also need help to find the foppish hat..
I already found the entrance to the cave, but don't know where to get the key. Last thing I did was speaking to the priest about the golden statue..then he said something about "down the road" which I unfotunately didn't pay much attention to
Can anyone give me a hint?
@ omgitsgir,
Do you mean 2-d or d-2? I haven't found any letter-number levels (yet). For 2-d,
Move left, bring lone cloud up, move right, then drop down and left to get the key. Get the right cloud to lift you back to your starting height. Move all the way right, and lift the last cloud cloud you come across up to the top level, drop down onto the upper of the two clouds in the column left of the inactive blob. Ride the cloud down to merge it with the one below, and grab the inactive blob, and ride the cloud(2) all the way down. Get off and right and down and left to grab the key. Grab the aforementioned cloud(2) up to the top, and move right to merge the three topmost clouds in the column of 4 lone clouds. Move the cloud(3) up to the top again. Move right to cloud(2), and take it down to the middle opening in the middle column of blocks. Jump up the opening from the lone cloud to the left, and move left as far as you can. Then lower the top of the leftmost 2 clouds to merge them, and ride them to the exit.
Hard to explain!
Hope it helps :)
In Pittoch, what you can do with clouds seems to depend on how many of you there are and how big the cloud is. So far I haven't worked out the details.
Clouds:
If you are the same size as a cloud, you can move up or down. If you are bigger, only down. If you are smaller, only up.
I haven't played enough to figure out the reactions to stones yet.
Okay, today I feel sorta dumb. I use Vista, and was hoping that the bundled un-compressor utility would magically open that lzh file. But then there aren't any useful options when I right-click or double click the file. And I can't really figure out how to launch the utility independently, because it is so transparently worked into Windows Explorer. I tried searching on the M$ website, and couldn't get anything useful (it looks like somehow, somewhere there is a useful plugin/update, but every time I get close the pages turn out to be in Japanese). And I would rather not have to install Winzip, since it is nagware and I don't otherwise need it. Oh well. Suggestions?
I used 7-zip, its free (GPL), can do lzh files pretty well.
I'm stuck in Armand where:
After entering the catacombs and exploring both to the right and north. I find triangles which I cannot kill, and a place that has blocks obstructing my path. I've also spoken to everyone in town, to see if there was a speaking part, but so far I'm having no luck.
Kitty
You can push the blocks with the space button
Okay, so I made it to the last 6 level in Pittoch. The 7 levels I don't even want to look at.
6-D is seemingly simple, but my mind rolls everytime I try to play it.
Also, the important thing with the rocks is that you can push them half a block instead of a full block. Also you can jump under them if they are halfway over an edge. Although that's all in one of the 5 levels I think.
6-B was the hardest level I have played so far. Anyone need help with that one just ask me.
@Onikoroshi - Here's what you need to do:
Talk to the guy in the rare items store.
I found a secret in Armand. It nets you around 62 gold and a magic wand.
In the cellar where you are retrieving the logbook for the shopkeeper, go to the lower part of the right wall. There will be a passage.
Can anyone post a walkthrough for Pittoch please?
I've made it to Stage 6, but I'm stuck :[
nooooooooo! got to 0.51 on the bomb one, then died! More adictive then you think.
yes, I won!
secret:
try pressing k on the title screen for even longer game.
So I guess nobody has any idea why I can't get Armand to work on my computer? :(
ThemePark: Hi. I'm the guy who created the Armand game. If you go to my website (jhanson.com) and use the Contact Me page to send me a message, I'll get in touch with you and see if we can get it working on your machine.
By the way, if anyone has any questions about the Armand game or has found any bugs, please feel free to contact me as well.
Reading back through the comments, I noticed a complaint or two about the length of the game. You're right, it's a very short game. It was designed to be like an appetizer at a restaurant - tasty but it doesn't fill you up.
If you'd like to see a main dish in the same style, send me a comment to let me know. I have a couple of plots ready to go - one much longer than this with a tangentially related story, and one that's another short one like this but is a direct continuation of the Armand storyline. If there's enough interest in either option, I'll start working on it. If not, I'll continue on with my next game idea (something completely different).
Thanks for the help, Mordecai. Off to 2-b!
As for level notation, I was just following Emory's example so we'd be on the same page :P
oh lordy, Pitoch is great! I'm totally stuck on 4-b though. The levels are a great balance of taxing and fun but after breaking your brain over a level, when you see the next one you feel exhausted without even starting it. Which is no bad thing!
Jim:
Pittoch level 4-b. This one killed me for 2 days. I just got it now:
* Move the half cloud down one
* You must drop straight down and grow your blob diagonally like this:
*
*
* To get back up position the clouds like this: 1st (left) cloud, three up from bottom; 2nd cloud- one down from top; 3rd cloud 4 up from bottom, 4th cloud, 2 up from 3rd cloud.
* get left key
* go way right, go to top right, drop down toward the exit and pickup other 2 cloud - pull the 4-cloud back up.
* drop down and get the 2nd key.
Jeff Hanson, thanks for the goodwill, but I decided to try something just now.
Turns out the partition I installed the game on, must have some problems. I tried installing it on the C partition instead, and it worked like a charm. But thank you for wanting to help. :)
Hello !
I'm a french player. I dont know if it's because my english is bad but I don't find catacombs in Armand !!! Where is the entrance ? I've got the key and after ?
Thanks to players which will help me !
I'm in the catacombs in the room with the blocks, but using space doesn't move them at all.. any suggestions?
nevermind, I got it. Kitty was wrong, it's the enter key, not the space key
Hello everyone! I've just started playing the Armand game, and I'm stuck. Is it possible to fall into a "lock mode?" I read something about underground in the comments but I'm stuck. Please help me!
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