It's been a long time since the king's forces destroyed my village. Since then, I've been on a journey that's spanned the world-map, searching for the six Medallions of Power. I've tangled with forgotten tribes in Jungle Land, punched a volcano in Fire Land, turned giant squids into sushi in Water Land, jumped mine-carts in Earth Land, and confronted my evil duplicate in Shadow Land. Now, as I place the final medallion, the Medallion of Light, I hold my breath as the stone gate slides opens... Revealing another edition of the JayIsGames Vault! Today we have a point-and-click puzzler you'll treasure, a pixel art space shooter that's the alpha and omega, and a roleplaying journey to the western coast that should prove most rocking... if your car doesn't tip whilst fording the river.
- Treasure Box - Treasure Box is two parts Rube Goldberg, one part surrealism and 100% fun. A mesh of adventure and art piece, Treasure Box plays like an interactive version of a typical ball-bearing roller-coaster, were it designed by Terry Gilliam. Beautiful in visuals and fun to play, it has just enough quirkiness to keep things interesting without becoming too cloying. In many ways, Treasure Box programmed for the sole purpose of engaging curiosity, and engage it does. It's not too long and not too difficult, and thus should keep you involved until you finally reach that treasure of the king. Not to get hokey, though, but you'll find the journey is treasure itself.
- Gamma Bros. - Think your daily commute is hard? Do you work on Jupiter and blast aliens to get home? Then don't complain to the Gamma Bros. : you'll get no sympathy from them. This arcade shooter may revel in its simplicity, but the combination of the old-school aesthetic and deliberate pacing screams ambiance. Gamma Bros. feels so well composed that there isn't a pixel out of place, my friend. Throw in some subtly chirpy tunes, a nice selection of power-ups, and a couple of truly nightmarish bosses, and you've got a shoot-em-up for all skill levels and one of the few games that somehow captures the imagined grandeur of a long space journey. A word of caution: increased processor speed has noticeably quickened the pace of the online version. While some might consider that a plus, the download version does indeed run at the original speed. Now hurry! Buzz and Zap don't want to be late for dinner!
- Thule Trail - As opposed to the artistic glories of the first two titles this week, the work we conclude with, Thule Trail, is pure goofy fun... I offer you a poem to sum up my thoughts of this nostalgic Apple II parody:
I love me some Oregon Trail
But on Facebook, the concept is fail
a much better release
is this retro pastiche
'bout a trip to a rock festi-vail!
While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!
Because I'm such a TV Tropes buff, I took the liberty of adding relevant links to the first paragraph wherever I could (sorry):
It's been a long time since the king's forces destroyed my village. Since then, I've been on a journey that's spanned the world-map, searching for the six Medallions of Power. I've tangled with forgotten tribes in Jungle Land, punched a volcano in Fire Land, turned giant squids into sushi in Water Land, jumped mine-carts in Earth Land, and confronted my evil duplicate in Shadow Land. Now, as I place the final medallion, the Medallion of Light, I hold my breath as the stone gate slides opens...
SonicLover:
Lol. As a troper myself, I had considered including many of those very links, but didn't when I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to stop until it was an All-Blue-Paragraph.
Gamma Bros! :D Yay! I loved that game!
Second! Gamma Bros. was... IS awesome. Last boss is a bastard though. Upgrade draining nazi...
Yay! Thule Trail! Suddenly I remember playing it so long ago. Kind of wish there were more games like it.
Reibear:
Might I suggest the similarly parodying Organ Trail?
http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html
Zombies instead of rock festivals switches the focus, but it's still a great time. It is in beta though... and believe me, the second it comes out of it, I'm jumping on writing a feature for JiG about it.
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