Link Dump Friday
September 3, 2010
As I sit here, barely coherent and adrift on medicine that will hopefully free my nasal passages, I reflect on all the good times we've had together. We've ridden around in tanks made of thread and shot money out of our foes. We've eaten raw meat off a dirt floor together while we flung pitchforks at squealing demon thingies. We've climbed enormous blue towers and freed our friends with our butts. Good times, my friend. Gooooood tiiiimmmes.
... what? Of course that's not the medicine talking! That's really how I feel! See for yourself:
Dream Tower - Visually impressive, if a little light on content, this adorable little platformer has you running around an enormous tower, gathering stars, bouncing on enemies, and freeing your fellow critters who have been caged. It's sort of Mario meets Kirby meets early Sonic meets d'awwwww. With a little more variety to the levels, this could have been a serious contender, but as it stands, don't you still want to hug it and pet it and name it George?
Stitchland Conflict - There's just something about a shooter that looks like it was made out of merit badges you have to love. Roll through the unique landscape shooting down enemies and earning cash for upgrades. It's a bit disappointing that the gameplay isn't as unique as the presentation, but who amoung you cannot tell me you have always wanted a merit badge for thwarting a missile strike with a shotgun?
AliBaba 40 Thieves - Minoto's surreal point-and-click puzzle-ish rendition of the classic tale features a monkey, a gorilla, a doll, and, of course, Santa Claus. Is it just me or does this sound like something Bugs Bunny might have come up with? It's cute, it's weird, and it's exactly what we've come to expect from Minoto, who should probably be illustrating wonderful, silly children's books right now.
Onslaught - While not the deepest game out there, this little retro arena game deserves some recognition for being made with HTML5. Survive as long as you can against waves of enemies, snagging coins to improve your score, hearty chunks of meat to improve your health, and various sharp implements to improve your face stabbing. The controls feel a bit stiff and the enemy variety is limited enough that you'll start seeing repeats long before you die, but who can say no to throwing pitchforks at squalling goblin thingies? I know I can't.
Fish - A very simple but very cute little game where you play the perquisite salty fisherman with an awesome beard and what I hope is a corncob pipe tooling around in his boat, using different lures to catch different fish. The variety of fish you can catch is unfortunately a little slim, but it's adorable while it lasts and could do with some more fleshing out.
Not mentioned in the Dream Tower description, but the rotating towers are based on Nebulus from 1987.
That'll show my age ;)
I love Minoto - that little square of chocolate, short-lived but oddly satisfying.
Fish was strangely addictive... hanging in to try and hook the BIG one...
although pulling them in was slow, and without the physical exertion involved it was not quite as satisfying as fishing for real.
@rc
Nebulus was my first thought as well... except it didn't have the enoying "double-jump" ;-)
Played a little longer. Double jump is easier when you leave a pause between presses i.e. jump again at the top of the jump. Nice game but feels like it needs a little spicing up. Nebulus had the time limits, the disappearing blocks and the enemies that would appear if you stood still too long, forcing you to move or at least use the doorways to escape. This one is almost too relaxed in comparison...
On Fish, Clear Diary means Clear Achievements... :/
Still plan to play a few more, especially Dream Tower, which isn't loading for me right now... Ali Baba was really fast, but fun.
Dora - Love your reviews, and you turn a pretty phrase... I'm fairly sure in this case, though, that the salty fisherman is a splash more "requisite" than "perquisite" :).
Fun set of games this week, even if Dream Tower is a bit easy and Stitchland conflict is a bit frantic.
I found the Minoto game charming as always, even if a bit on the easy side.
Has anyone else run into a glitch in Onslaught where it stops working right? All the doors are stuck open, and one solitary lonely bat flies through the middle one every few seconds. No other enemies anymore. It was fun up until that point, even if a bit repetitive (I was on the cusp of quitting anyway). With the triple-daggers and fireball spread you can pretty much clean up any wave of enemies in short order, and pick up enough extra daggers and fireballs for the next wave. Still fun.
The background to the entire site is an adlink? People use clicks on the background to refocus on the browser, allowing keyboard/mousewheel shortcuts for scrolling. Pretty greasy, especially coming off of the beach-themed contest background where we're used to it being a plain picture.
[Pure coincidence with our sandbox-themed competition, I assure you. But even that background was a link that took you to the CGDC8 competition page. Plus, ads help pay the bills each month so we can continue to bring you awesome free content every day. Please support our efforts. -Jay]
Dream Tower is nausea inducing.
Yeah, Nebulus comes immediately to mind when playing Dream Tower, and not in favor of the latter. Dream Tower is pretty, but due to the lack of diversity of elements and perspectives, calculating 3D elements in real time is unnecessary and makes my old computer suffer a lot.
Anyway, for fans of Nebulus, and people who'd like to discover this nifty game, you can easily find a Flash version here and there on the web.
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