Weekend Download
Two really fascinating blasts from (or to) the past this week: The Lost Snowmen, which spiritually resurrects one of my favorite games from the 90s, The Lost Vikings (link leads to a severely downscaled online demo), and Cavern of Doom, which takes pixelated graphics to an almost painful extreme.
Mystery Chronicles - Murder Among Friends (Mac/Windows, 50MB, demo) - Hidden object games are everywhere these days, and it seems like every developer is trying to out do the next by spicing up its item finding with one strange gimmick or another. Mystery Chronicles sticks to its guns and goes the old-fashioned route with a remarkably rich atmosphere and classic murder mystery storyline. Item hunting is fairly straightforward, the minigames aren't overdone, and the developer spent a lot of time making sure everything made sense in context of the whole experience. What it lacks in originality and gameplay variety it makes up in setting and story.
The Lost Snowmen (Windows, 25MB, free) - Remember The Lost Vikings? If not, you missed out on one of the best 2D puzzle platform games of the last 3,000 years. Seriously! The Lost Snowmen looks to continue the genre and puts you in control of three snowmen, each with unique abilities. Work together to solve puzzles and traverse the snowy landscape.
Cavern of Doom (Windows, 2.3MB, free) - Thou art Mo the Great! Hero of many a heroic deed, slayer of many a not so heroic thing! Cavern of Doom drops you in the most retro of retro settings and sets you to the task of delving deep below the dungeons of thy town in search of loot. And if you sit really far away from your computer, the images almost look good!
Goban (Mac, 10MB, free) - An elegant and simple implementation of Go for Mac users. Play against the computer for a single player challenge, or hop on the internet to challenge people from around the world. You can even observe pro (and amateur) games on the Internet Go Server.
I liked the vikings, that were times... *sigh*
The Lost Snowmen has it so you have to download and install a game driver of some kind. I'm not doing that. I trust Big Fish, not some smaller company.
Ooooooh, Go! But Mac only. :( Don't suppose anyone knows a good Windows one?
Corona:
The download link is near the lower-right-hand side of the page. You don't have to install the YoYoGames plug-in. That's just a way to play their games in a browser, and it's totally unnecessary.
I think that YoYoGames' download links are so confusing, we should display a reminder any time we link to them.
I like the game but find it frustrating not being able to restart a level. Or is it just me?
I was talking about the snowmen.
Soho: Hit esc to bring up the menu. Restart is one of the options.
I tried the first level for the lost vikings demo. I think lost snowmen is a better game. If I'm being ghasty in this judgement, please tell me.
I loved The Last Vikings. What a brilliant game.
I hope you notice that if you open the
readme file, it will state that there are secret codes
Press enter and type:
1) PECTUS - 99 Lives. But you can't beat level record after enter cheat.
2) IDIDIT - Complete level. But you can't beat level record after enter cheat.
3) ???
4) ???
5) INTRO - Play music from game intro.
6) ???
7) ???
8) RELOAD - Reload level )
9) ???
10) GRANNYTOMB - Biggest Secret Level
The rest are blocked for now.
Go is awesome. :) Only 'casual' in the same way that chess is, however.
I take coffee breaks at work playing blitz games on KGS, which has an excellent java client.
The thing that makes it "excellent" aside from being a decent board is the fact that is has very comprehensive teaching and review interface; a number of people even offer lessons for pay there and there are occasionally free lectures, some w/ sound.
The culture there is also pretty awesome: I've had a number of people play teaching games with me; and done the same for folks who are newer than myself.
This is very helpful for first getting started since although the rules are simple the implications are very deep.
It seems there was a lot of complaints about the graphical nature of Cavern of Doom, but that's not surprising. It loads up in full screen, which only makes it worse, but that can be remedied with a quick press of the F4 button.
Also, starting out is a bit of a pain in the arse. Instead of gaining levels naturally by just defeating monsters, you have to return to the Training House in town to receive your experience and level up.
I'm a little disappointed that a readme wasn't included, but to make it a little easier for some: Enter is your OK button and Esc is your Cancel/Menu button.
There also seems to be some sidequests, such as returning a kitten to some lady in the first cavern.
I can't open the mac demo of Murder Among Friends, it keeps "quitting unexpectedly." Anyone have any idea what might be causing it?
Is there a helpthrough for Lost Snowmen? Couple of places where I'm really Lost :-/
Also, wasn't there a sequel to Lost Vikings?
Yeah, I've made some headway with Lost Snowmen but there are a couple levels that look impossible.
The sequel to Lost Vikings was called "Norse By Norsewest". Both of those games rock pretty hard.
Any help with the lost snowmen? Great game and I just need help with ancient pyramid level 9.
Thanks.
Update