Link Dump Friday
September 19, 2008
The plan for this week's Link Dump Friday was to have a ball/bouncey theme. Then all these non-bouncing games came along, I got carried away, and suddenly we're left with a set of games that are great fun but, sadly, do not adhere to my original plan. Next time I'm shooting for a theme along the lines of "idunnowhateverlol"!
Ball - Nice, simple name for a game, eh? In Ball, you have a ball. On a string. And you whip it around and around. The goal is stated in plain letters at the bottom of the screen: click the ball. When you do, it changes color. So... why aren't you doing that? And no fair using [tab] or right clicks to cheat!
Bounce Shot - New from Nigoro (yes, the Rose & Camellia team) comes a Space Invaders clone with a little extra... bounce. The aliens have constructed a bouncey wall and surrounded Earth. Fortunately you can use this wall to bounce shots and hit the aliens from behind, taking out special foes for special bonuses.
Secret Files - A great brain workout, this game drops words on files from the top of the screen and asks you to put them in the correct filing cabinet. The only problem is the cabinets aren't labelled, so you have to determine which drawer holds which category of words and click accordingly. Adjustable difficulty and settings make this one a big winner, and comparing your scores to other players makes you feel all smart and stuff.
Split Words - Another one to get your neurons going, you are given a category along with a series of words split into segments. Simply click sets of letters and combine them to form words.
Hit the Jackpot 2 - A detailed archery game with incredibly smooth gameplay, a leaderboard that pits countries against each other, and a simple experience system that makes the game easier as you play.
Play with Spider - Not a game, but an adorable web toy where you control a cute little spider that the equally cute doggy thing is curious about. Your reaction: AWW CUTEST THING EVAR!!! But if you want the creepiest thing evar, try playing with a realistic spider, see how things go then!
Oh my god, the puppy bird and the little bug are adorable (and a cool example of procedural walk cycles)
I managed to get a Gold Medal in the world cup in Hit The Jackpot! and my score was only 200 away from the masters table!
OMG does the ball game ever end?!?! I've gone through quite a few colours now (at least 20!) and no hint of whether there's any sort of ending to the game. Oh well... it's good fun anyway!!
secret files link doesnt work for me
Awwwwwww! Try left-clicking when the spider is right in front of the dog, or walking underneath the dog :-)
Vectorpark are the people who also made Feedthehead right? I'm wondering if there's any secrets in the Spider game.. I haven't found any, just walked around and sometimes scared the dog. Made him lift his legs by walking under him (man he's got some quick reflexes!)
I really think "Hit the Jackpot 2" should get its own review. Very nice gameplay. I really would like to know how people get to 3 or 4 thousand points. I won the gold many times an couldn't even make it to the list.
Any comments people?
Any other toxophilites find themselves controlling their breath and heart rate to try to steady the bow in Jackpot?
I clicked on Ball and I went to a page that only said "Yeah OK, DDOSing me is frowned upon." ???
Too bad Split Words is over at HAPPYNeuron which, while it has a free trial, is a pay site.
Sounds like either he or his script is misinterpreting what JIG is doing to his traffic :/.
Hit the Jackpot is pretty cool, but when you exit out you lose all the experience you racked up :(.
The ball thing is pretty cool, but its not really a game. Its a great start on a game, but for crying out loud, at least implement a score counter. Or a timer, so you can see who gets the most hits in a minute or something. Or moving scenery that makes you lose if the ball touches it, with laser beams you can only pass if you click the ball and switch colors. Just, something more.
Jackpot could have been one of my favorite flash games ever.
But when you fail to make a tourney, it erases all your progress.
That's inexcusable. I'm done with it.
aww... the spider's so cute! And the weird 6-legged doggy thing too. IT jumps away if you hold down the mouse button then let go in front of the dog.
I found Hit The Jackpot SERIOUSLY addictive! Thought i'd just check it and maybe play a couple of rounds... Aha... Been playing for 2 hours and will at least two more, I think :)
BTW, why are there so few sports games on JIG?
Wow I love Hit The Jackpot. The control system makes it really fun.
It can still improve though. F.x. I find it too easy to win the gold medal although I'm not that close getting to the Master Table.
It would also be awesome to be able to create a friendly league or something like that.
Can't stop playing splitwords...
Also: Play with the Spider is cute, and there's definitely room for that to be turned into a full game.
I really like secret files (at least for a little bit); my major problem with is that so many of the words have multiple meanings that could go in several categories, like cream being a colour and a sweet, or violet being a colour and a flower. Always messes me up.
I was quite enjoying split words... So I went up to difficulty level 6 and got the genre "fruits"... I wanted to play that level again, but got the same exact puzzle. So I thought it only had one puzzle--And went down to level 5. Got the same puzzle. So I went to level 4--And got the SAME puzzle. No fun, says I. No fun.
JIG: A DDOS attack to unprepared game hosters.
OMG, I've been looking for a good archery game for ages. Hit the Jackpot makes me want to dig out my old recurve and hit the range again.
Thanks so much John!
I had to turn off AdBlock to get Secret Files to show up. Just a note for anyone else who's wondering where the game is on that page!
Bounce Shot would be interesting if it actually worked the way it said it does. At least half of my shots were absorbed by the wall rather than reflected off it. At times I would fire six in a row and none of them would bounce back--making it extremely difficult (read: impossible) to kill the guys with the armored bottoms.
And I very much dislike the shot limit. You start out with only two shots. That is, you can only have two shots on the screen at the same time. I hate arbitrary shot limits like that, and I am guessing that they are a relic of days when you could only have a certain number of things moving on the screen at once. Anyway, the only power up is one that increase the number of shots you can fire at once.
WOW! That realistic spider is so amazing! And, of course, super creepy.
I jumped over to the full screen version of Hit The Jackpot and it helped my old eyes a bit.
Ugly/buggy alert for that version: the buttons slide off the sides (on my widescreen laptop anyway) but remain active, sort of. If you click "Next Trial" when you're supposed to click "Next Round" or "Next Competition", the game gets confused and does what you clicked but doesn't know how to handle it.
I got into a loop where it would launch the same shot over and over but it would never hit, nothing in-game was responding, and I had to re-load the page to keep playing.
Hit the Jackpot is awesome!
I shouldn't post this, but there is a sneaky way to significantly improve your "skills" on Hit the Jackpot.
Don't read if you like the challenge as is.
If you are using FF3, or another browser that scales the whole user interface, scale it up to as big as will fit the window. This was significant (2x) on my monitor.
Now, your mouse control is extremely smooth, and you can really see the target much better. It becomes trivial to get 10s on most of the shots, as long as you pay attention to the wind.
I didn't get on the masters table, but I only played through the World cup once. Besides, it's no fun winning if you cheat!!
On Jackpot:
I've been playing it for hours now. Eventually you get pretty good at hitting 10s. I managed to be able to hit them at the closer distances 90% of the time, and at 90m, around 70%. I managed to get on the Masters Table for about 30 minutes (until some guy in Spain knocked me off.. grr), and I noticed some things:
Speed = points. I could hit 10s all day, but it would kill the multiplier. You've got to keep your cursor on the targeting area as much as possible (click "next" and hurry there!) When I hit 2156, a lot of those shots were 7s and 8s, but they had x3.9 multipliers on them.
As far as experience goes. It DEFINITELY helps. Although I never got to 100 (it scales pretty steep towards the end, I think I was around 97% and it stopped moving), anything in the 90s and your aim will be much smoother.
I didn't notice a big difference in the different tournaments either, I'm not sure which one is better for what.
Good game though! I would love for some more people to comment on it!
I thought Hit The Jackpot was quite good...I got a silver medal and two golds in the World Cup, experience up to about 80% :D Secret Files was pretty neat too.
Ball. New version. When you click the ball it changes color AND gets smaller!
On Hit the Jackpot, are the other people in the tournament real?
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