Weekend Download
When wacky games and serious, heartfelt games coexist, one never knows what could happen. This edition of Weekend Download pairs the decidedly quiet, thoughtful non-game Do You Remember My Lullaby? with two loud, zany platform action games. Why? Because we can!
Do You Remember My Lullaby? (Windows, 15MB, free) - From Kan [Reives] Gao, author of the haunting The Mirror Lied, comes a game that's not a game at all, even though it looks like your typical 16-bit-era RPG. Do You Remember My Lullaby? is a non-interactive short story following one woman's day during the Christmas season. It tells quite an emotional tale and does so with little more than a few sprites and a few sound effects. There's barely any dialogue to read, so just sit back and soak up the somber atmosphere. Afterwards, follow a few clues found in the forum to unlock a bonus.
FallOver! (Windows, 2.2MB, free) - An older platformer from Hempuli, this one has a nice little twist. Instead of running into spikes or flames or enemies to die, our bemonocled hero simply falls over. Yup, falling on your face (or back!) is your chief obstacle in this game, and everything from nudging a ledge to stones on the ground can cause you to topple.
Duck Fight (Windows, <1MB, free) There is a duck. You are some guy. Jump on the duck when it walks by. Avoid the duck when it is invincible. Repeat. Look at the tree. But wait, there's more! Duck Fight comes with not one but two games cleverly packaged together in one computer software file! It's the cutting-edge of technology. And ducks!
Note: All games have been confirmed to run under Windows Vista and are virus-free. Mac users should try Boot Camp, Parallels, or CrossOver Games to play Windows titles, Linux users can use Wine. If you know of a great game we should feature, use the Submit link above to send it in!
The Duck Fight...wow.
Originally I thought "Is there something I'm missing?" "Why am I playing this?" and "All it is is me jumping on a duck!"
And then I realized the true epic scope of its nature.
The moral ambiguity.
The concept of man vs. nature, and how the tides may suddenly turn, as was hinted at with
Robo Duck Fight.
And the possibility of there being an egg in Robo Duck Fight?
Ze awesome, it hurts my brain.
Likewise, I played FallOver a while back. It struck me as a competent platformer, but since I have difficulty staying on my feet in real life, the "falling over" mechanic made it a bit frustrating for me.
Heehee . . . FallOver! is pretty fun, although I feel the same way as you, Mythsage. I'm wobbly enough as it is. ^^
I'll play Duck Fight in a bit . . . right now, I have to go tell Reives the awesome news!
You know, I'm beginning to think that ratings for the Linkdump Friday and Weekend Download collections might not be a bad idea.
If we were allowed to profanity, one half of the words following this would be profanity. That being said - Fallover is an awful game built around a worse concept and then topped off with a healthy dose of awful glitches.
I really like Fallover. If only it was longer, and we could give a full review...
I'd like to try Lullaby, but I get "extraction failed". Fallover is an interesting concept, but poorly executed: ideally, you should be able to avoid the 'a' button altogether with careful planning, but it's not that well-designed.
i absolutely LOVE the duck one! what an incredible undertaking by the developers.
How big is the file size of the Lullaby file you downloaded, Crab? If it's less than the supposed size (15mb I think), then it was because the downloading process was corrupted and you need to redownload.
Fallover is a good concept, but there's a couple of nasty problems.
First of all, you can only jump if you're almost perfectly vertical, which means that you spend a lot of time wobbling back and forth mashing the jump button. One level makes you jump across some tiny poles, and it's almost impossible to climb up.
Secondly, physics changes abruptly and without warning when you fall over. You have very good air control when upright, but you lose all control over the player once you've tipped far enough. Even if you bounce around and land on your feet, you have to "stand up" before it lets you move again. It's like as soon as he tips over far enough to see the ground, he gets so scared that he becomes paralyzed.
I'm unable to extract "do you remember my lullaby." does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone know how I can successfully load this?
JIGuest, I just set the extraction place as "Desktop" and opened the folder.
I was in tears by the end of Lullaby. It did an excellent job portraying the mood through the music and the pictures, providing only what text was necessary. I thought it was very well done.
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