February 2005 Archives

Although this Flash puzzler is similar to another sliding block puzzle game in its class, what I find special about this one is its presentation and execution. A name I will refer to as Orbox (Prachka), the game was developed by a Russian who goes by the name Rubilon (his real name is Arseniy Shklyaev), and he has made it available to play on his Gamebalance website along with several other games he created. Babel Fish translates the name as "The Laundress Game", though the meaning seems to have been lost in the translation.

On the opening screen of the game, click on "Начать игру" to begin a new game. The goal of Orbox is to navigate the blue and yellow blinking box to the red goal—in the fewest moves possible—using just the arrow keys for control. One key press will send the box moving in that direction, and it will keep moving in a straight line until another object deflects it or causes it to come to rest. If the box goes off the board, you must start the level again. Also, the game does not save your progress, nor does it provide a password system to start again at a desired level. This is the only significant downside to an otherwise excellent game.

The game is based on a familiar puzzle game that has been around for years. Although I can't place the game's origin, Rubilon has added his own designs and graphic effects that make this version all his own. A feature I found especially helpful was the little graphic bubbles that highlight the path you take as you move around the play field. This helps to orient yourself in later levels where the solutions are quite complex. The level design ramps up in difficulty at a very comfortable pace, allowing someone unfamiliar with the game to jump right in and begin having fun. As the levels progress, unique new devices and objects are added to keep the game feeling fresh and challenging. A fun little puzzler in a very pretty package.

Play Orbox

Update: Rubilon has also made an English version of the game, and called it Orbox. The review above was modified to reflect the new given name.

More BMX fun from David Thorburn, available on his Tea Games website.

BMX Star features an assortment of zones to explore. There are presently 12 different zones to choose from in a range of difficulties. The object of the game is to score points by performing stunts and collecting gold, silver and red stars that are distributed throughout the zones in hard to reach places.

Enter a name and click start, then choose a zone from the list presented. There is no time limit, but you do have a health meter that takes a hit when you land on your head. Right yourself and the bike before the meter depletes entirely, or you'll fail the zone. Collect the red star to complete the zone and save your score. A high score list keeps a tally of the best players and their scores.

Use the arrow keys to control the bike: up for pedal, down for brake. Use the left and right arrows for leaning either forward or back, depending on the direction you're facing. Press space to switch directions. You will need to lean just right to gain enough momentum to make it up the steepest of inclines.

BMX Star features the same realistic physics and animation as his other games. The graphics are appealing, yet simple enough to keep the framerate up and the game running smoothly on a wide range of computers. All you need is the latest Flash plug-in to play this well-designed and challenging game. And the best part is that David continues to add new levels each week. Click.

Be sure to check out all of David's excellent Tea Games that he designed and developed himself. He is a Flash game developer extraordinaire.

A remake of 2004's Penguin tossing games, Nanaca Crash adds depth to the original by featuring nine (9) different characters that affect game play in unique ways. The characters are originally from a Japanese PS2 adventure game called Cross†Channel: To All People, developed by Flying Shrine and targeted at the mature market. This game, however, is definitely safe for all ages.

Nanaca Crash begins with a click of the mouse. Simply click and hold the mouse when the meter shows the desired angle, release it at the desired power. Nanaca will then come barreling in on her bike from out of nowhere to send Taichi flying via her AERIAL CRASH! ability. The object is to make Taichi travel the farthest.

Once in the air, Taichi's flight may be influenced by any of the characters standing on the ground when a collision occurs, or from additional aerial crashes you can activate with a click of the mouse. When the word "AERIAL" highlights in red or blue, clicking the mouse will summon Nanaca to teleport in and give Taichi an additional boost. Red aerial crashes launch him upward, blue aerial crashes boost him at an angle towards the ground.

You have only three (3) Red AERIAL crashes, use them wisely. You may use as many Blue aerials as you wish, but they take some time to regenerate.

Under certain conditions, when Taichi hits Miki, Kiri, Touko, and in rare occasions, Misato, an alert signal will sound and the word "SPECIAL" will appear. Clicking the mouse within this special condition will activate that character's special ability. Some characters summon other beings, others use the character following her for a special combo. And there is much yet to discover about this very unique and unusual game.

Each character will affect Taichi roughly according to these rules:

When Taichi hits Kiri, she gives him a boost. Her normal boost accelerates him up at a 45 degree angle.

Misato will usually force Taichi to stop, so avoid colliding with her if at all possible. However, if you are able to activate her SPECIAL, she will boost him with the highest power of all.

The first time Taichi collides with Youko, she does nothing ("Through and Run"), but the next time Taichi hits a female character, Youko will block that character's effect.

When Taichi collides with Miki, she gives him a boost at a high angle of elevation. Power is a little stronger than Kiri.

Hitting Sakuraba Hiroshi simply changes Taichi's angle. There is no change to his speed.

When "AERIAL" highlights in red or blue, click the mouse to summon Nanaca to boost Taichi using her AERIAL CRASH ability.

When Taichi collides with Touko, she gives him a boost at a low angle of elevation. Power is a little stronger than Kiri.

When Taichi hits Tomoki, he just slows him down. Avoid the male characters if possible.

There is a lot of fun packed into this deceptively simple looking game. Summoning, combos, special abilities, and some real nice graphic effects. My record so far is 7,650.16 meters. How far can you make Taichi fly?

Play Nanaca Crash

Thanks are in order to Danj for translating most of the instructions to the game. The game author's site can be found at here.

Jumping right into some addictive gameplay after finals is just what I need to escape from all the stress and pressure. I want something fast with lots of action and adrenaline, lots of explosions and particle effects, and a rocking soundtrack.

Brent Silby's DNA delivers on all of these fronts. The unique game is a fast action arcade hybrid that mixes elements of a shooter with that of a collection-oriented game. The object is to collect all of the 'DNA' fragments in play, and deposit them into the sequencer while avoiding all the 'free radicals'. Once a level is cleared, you advance to the next with more fragments to collect, and meaner and more intelligent radicals.

Use the [I][J][K] and [L] keys to guide the 'ship' around the play field, press [Z] to fire the weapon from both sides simultaneously. Once you have collected some fragments, simply navigate the ship into the square labeled "sequencer" to automatically deposit them and to form them into DNA molecules.

The gameplay of DNA is quite gratifying as you move the ship around collecting fragments like a magnet. The laser weapon fires rapidly catching most enemies in their tracks. The soundtrack features motivating techno tracks that are well-suited to the fast pace of the game.

Brent Silby offers up several excellent arcade action games on his def-logic website, and all are written in DHTML (Javascript). If you are on a PC, you should use Internet Explorer to play Brent's games. If you are on a Mac, you can use the latest version of Safari—however, you will hear no background music, and the only sound effects you will hear will be Safari complaining when you press any of the action keys. Firefox does not presently render DHTML fast enough to play these games. Brent says that the Firefox developers are aware of the situation (documented in bug 234233 on bugzilla) and are working hard at improving the Firefox rendering engine.

If you want excellent arcade-style action games to play in the convenience of your browser, Brent has enough to keep you busy and coming back for more. Original and unique, DNA is a good example of an original game design implemented with the power of DHMTL and Javascript. Click.

Been swamped with course work lately as the winter quarter at RIT comes to a close, and final exams and final projects due next week. I haven't had time to play any games, not to mention even reviewing them, too. Another update is coming up soon, I promise. =)

The über-talented Preloaded folks have done it again and released another Flash game to promote their own skillz, and this one does a fine job of showing off the Flash magic they are capable of.

Appearing on their wedonicethings website, Heart Attack is an arcade action shooter in which you play as Cupid trying to save the love from the darkside by shooting arrows at little devils and other assorted gremlins.

There are 8 hearts you must protect on each level, and several orange devilish sprites who have their hearts set on stealing them from under your nose. Liquidate the evil bastards with your arrows before any of them grabs a heart, or shoot it down before it makes it to the top of the play field. Then, catch the falling heart to be justly rewarded. If a devil makes it to the top, the heart is converted to the darkside and comes after you with a vengence. Use the radar screen below the action to aid you in your quest.

Arrow keys move Cupid up and down, left and right—if you're left handed, the [W][S][A][D] keys provide respective functionality. Space bar shoots an arrow from a limitless supply. Pressing [B] drops a smart bomb that kills any enemy within a city block. You are given only 3 smart bombs to begin the game, and you earn an additional one for each level you complete. A scoring bonus is also awarded for each heart remaining at the end of a level.

Heart Attack is an adorable little shooter filled with charming graphics, earth shattering explosions, and exquisite particle effects. Detailed animations and sound effects make the game shine, and multiple layers of parallax scrolling adds a nice touch to a very pretty game. The enemy AI is also well-done, thus providing a hearty challenge for anyone turning their nose up at the game's cute exterior.

Kudos to Squize and all of his hard working mates across the Atlantic, Heart Attack is 100% pure love from Preloaded. Share the love. Click.

Digital media artist and UC Davis student, John Cooney, has produced this highly addictive Flash action arcade game, and he has made it available for the world to play on his website, jmtb02.com.

Ball Revamped: Metaphysik is a game of dexterity and timing, requiring the player to guide a multi-colored ball to the goal to complete each level. Score is tallied in seconds, with the lowest score being best.

The starting point for each level is the top left corner of the play field, which is represented in 2D and viewed from the side. The vertical orientation of the game suggests a bit of gravity physics influencing the ball, and this fact can be seen as the ball accelerates down as it is released.

Using just the arrow keys for movement, you will need to press the up arrow just enough to suspend the ball's rate of fall and balance it in mid-air. Some levels are maddeningly difficult, requiring you to make complex horizontal movement whilst balancing the ball's vertical position. And if that weren't enough, there are a variety of devices, timers, switches, and other objects that exist to thwart your advancement through the levels.

In Metaphysik, there is no concept of a 'life'. If the ball hits a wall, or most any object except the goal itself, you simply restart the level again. You may try as many times as you wish, although your score will continue to increase as the seconds tick away. The game features 125 different levels and a final boss. And if you need to see how any of the levels is completed, John has a video on his site of someone completing the game in 346 seconds—which would be unbelievable if it weren't for the video.

As I mentioned before, the game is difficult, and yet it is built upon a simple and basic core gameplay mechanic. The ball physics make the ball behave as if it were super light, and the lightest touch on the keys will affect it slightly. As it is, I had to use both hands on the arrow keys to be able to get up to level 40. There is no way to save your progress, so if you get tired and want to come back to it later, you will have to start from the beginning all over again. A little effort with Flash's local shared object could have avoided this one significant flaw.

All things considered, the game features nice visuals paired with excellent level design that together forms an addictive little Flash game that's hard to put down.

Play Ball Revamped: Metaphysik

Thanks to Capuchin for suggesting this game.

So, as I mentioned, here is a very cool little Java-based game, written by Christian Hvid of Denmark, called Erik vs. Erik. The action arcade game is a cross between Pacman and Qix, where you must run around the maze avoiding bad guys and collecting dots, all the while building rectangles for scoring points and owning enemies.

Use the arrow keys exclusively to move Erik around the play field, to collect dots, and to avoid the other Eriks. Yes, everyone is named Erik in this game, hence the name. There is Speedy Erik, Angry Erik, Slacker Erik, Hophop Erik, and Mornin' Erik. Collect all the dots around a rectangular section of the play field to fill that section and score points. If any of the other Eriks are around a rectangle when it's filled, they are sent home. New Eriks appear from time to time preceded by a short animation warning of their impending spawn. Be alert for these and steer clear. Complete all the rectangles to get to the next level, and with each new level the size of the play field increases—however, the size of the game window does not.

The game is nicely designed, as are all of Christian's recent games. He demonstrates that you can take successful gameplay ideas from other games and build unique new experiences from them. Erik vs. Erik is instantly familiar and yet offers a fresh new game play experience filled with a variety of enemy types and power-ups to keep the action entertaining, accessible and fun. Click.

Take to the streets to compete against and win your opponent's vehicle in this street racing Shockwave 3D game. Redline Rumble features eight (8) souped-up racers of increasing grade of speed and style that you must earn the right to drive. The game starts you off on the low-end of the bunch and you work your way up from there.

At the beginning of each race, select your vehicle and the street racer you want to race against. Initially you have only one choice of car to drive, though you may select any of the opponents. The race is along a straightaway stretch of 3-lane freeway traffic that you must navigate through by changing lanes along the way to the finish. If you take any damage, simply drive over a repair wrench power-up to fix it on-the-fly.

Control is with the right and left arrow keys for changing lanes, up arrow for accelerating, and down arrow for braking. Change gears with the space bar: with up arrow for up-shifting, without up arrow for down-shifting.

Redline Rumble is an excellent Shockwave 3D implementation, and is a lot of fun to play. You will have to sit through a random commercial before the game starts, but this little racer is worth it. The game even remembers your progress, so you can come back to it later and continue where you left off. So, why are you still here?

Play Redline Rumble

A veritable Flash music construction set, Drum Lab features a wide assortment of phat beats and other percussion sound samples and a unique interface with which to manipulate them.

In Basic mode, simply mousing over each of the various instruments will play the associated sound. DJ Stain, an animated character from the world of Paper Islands, operates each instrument as it plays.

Once familiar with the palette of sounds available, constructing loops is a breeze using the Drum Loops feature. Up to two sound samples can play at a time, and there are 16 steps per measure with which to lay down your beats and riffs. Simply click on an instrument and drag the numbered icon that pops-up into position. Once you have a pattern set, click the plus "+" icon to create another. You can create up to 10 unique drum loops.

After the drum loops are set, use the Sequencer to create a composition with your loops. Just drag each numbered drum loop into position, and then press Play. The sequencer can seamlessly string together up to 32 of your drum loops in any combination.

Dave Jones of Transience has done a really nice job of creating his Paper Islands site and populating it with interesting characters in a unique and original style. I especially like the animation of DJ Slain reading and flipping through the pages of a magazine at the game's start screen. And while the samples, drum loops and sequencer are all solid in their implementation, the timing within the Flash Player will yield somewhat imperfect results. Furthermore, there is no way to alter the tempo of your creations, or even save them once you've finished a masterpiece. Still, it's a fun toy to play with and to exercise the creative parts of the brain.

Play Drum Lab

Deep from within the bowels of the seriously twisted mind of Robin Allen comes this brand new Flash game simply titled Hapland. He claims that it is "more an interactive world of bizarity" than a game, yet there is indeed a 'win' condition and it has something to do with lighting both torches to open the stone portal and thus unleashing the power within. But it's damn hard to do.

The gameplay consists of clicking the mouse to trigger events within the world of Hapland. Events may require clicking things multiple times, and some events may involve precise timing. Little stick figures will react to your actions and sometimes be killed in the process—make that, will many times be killed in the process. If you're the least bit squeamish about violence against stick figures, you had better pass on this. The graphics, animation, and sound effects are all nicely done and serve to create a very compelling, and puzzling, experience.

Play Hapland

Hungry for more Hapland?
Play the entire Hapland series...

• The original Hapland
• Hapland 2
• Hapland 3

Similar games:

• Rob Allen's Banner Game
• Escape from Rhetundo Island
• Cowabanga

NiLS has created this Flash version of the classic puzzler and it looks and plays just like the original. Use the arrow keys to aim, and press the space bar to shoot. It's just that simple to play.

The object is to clear each board of bubbles by using the special bubble launcher. Shoot the colored bubbles to link 3 or more of the same color, thus eliminating them from play. The faster you clear the board the higher the bonus points awarded. Take too long and the play field inches ever closer to the launcher. If the bubbles reach the bottom line of the play field, the game ends.

The music is a bit repetitive, but otherwise the game plays great.

Play Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move)

A fun little Flash piece by deviantART contributor, Mark James, of the UK. Grid Game is more of a Flash toy than a game, really, and yet the score tally gives this mesmerizing diversion an addictive quality.

Simply click anywhere in the grid to activate a cell. Doing so causes the cell to rotate clockwise one-quarter turn. If the light blue curve segment connects with the curve segment of any adjoining cells, those cells are also activated and rotate clockwise in succession. The chain reaction continues until subsequent rotations yield no further connections. One point is scored for each cell rotated, and the score is reset for each turn taken. Your highest ("Max") score is recorded locally and only for as long as you keep the game window open. Beautiful, simple, elegant, and addictive. What's your highest score?

Play Grid Game

Moritz Post, a computer science student in Trier, Germany, has created a Java clone of Q Entertainment's PSP launch game, Lumines. Available to play as a Java Web Start application, Moritz' version is a welcome introduction to what this new falling-block puzzle game is all about.

In Lumines, each block (quad) is comprised of 4 smaller blocks arranged in a perfect 2x2 square. Each quad is made up of a random combination of blocks in 2 colors. The object is to align groups of like-colored blocks together in minimum 2x2 sized rectangles. These groups are then wiped clean from play by a timeline that sweeps across the play field continuously. The more blocks you remove in a single sweep of the line, the more points you are awarded. Completed groups will remain on-screen until the timeline sweeps past, thus clearing them from play.

Once the game loads, just press Enter to start a new game. It is very simple to begin playing for anyone even remotely familiar with Tetris. The controls are basically the same: move the blocks right and left for positioning, rotate the blocks to match with other colors. In this version, arrow keys control movement, press up arrow to flip a block, down arrow to accelerate falling.

Moritz' v0.2 version is rather plain to look at and there is no sound, and yet the game play is solid and the Java app is well coded. Mortiz has even made available the entire Eclipse project for anyone interested in knowing how to build a game like this—or even as an example of how to build a Web Start app in general.

For those who are unfamiliar with Java Web Start, it is a technology by which standalone Java software applications can be deployed with a single click over the Web. What appears to be a Java applet loading and running in your browser, is actually a standalone Java application being downloaded and run on top of your browser. It's very cool, though it does comes with some inherent risk. For example, when clicking a webstart app link you will be asked to accept a certificate of authenticity. If the owner/author of the software did not purchase a certificate from a Certificate Authority, which is likely since we're talking free games here, then Java will complain and advise you not to run the application. Coming from a fellow student developing games, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that Moritz means you no harm and his software will not compromise your computer. Still, it's something to consider whenever installing any software off the Web.

This pretty Flash puzzle game is oddly titled Bear & Cat, and yet it is really just a clone of PopCap Games' popular game of Zuma from a couple of years ago—which itself was a clone of Mitchell's Puzz Loop game from 1998.

The player shoots colored balls onto the play field containing a spiral of balls inching closer to the center. The object of the game is to create groups of 3 or more of the same color, which are then eliminated from play. Clear all the balls before the train reaches the bear to move on to the next level. Power-ups and combos add a little spice to the mix.

The graphics in this version are very nicely done, and the soundtrack is mesmerizing. And yet this version is but a cheap imitation of Puzz Loop's excellent class-defining spin on the classic game of Bust-a-Move from 1994. Still, Bear & Cat is a pretty game that is good Flash fun for what it's worth. Click.

Bear & Cat originates from Flashempire.com, the first and largest Flash portal website in China. Bear & Cat is a series of games available on Flashempire.com, to which the game above belongs.

The Flashempire site must get beaucoup traffic, because it took forever for pages to load—that, and maybe because China is half-way around the world from me. I would have preferred to link to the original game, and may in the future if the link above is moved or otherwise disabled.

Thanks go out to Nowak for setting me straight on the likely origin of this class of ball-popping puzzle game.

I just came across this multiplayer, online version of Capcom's X-Men vs. Street Fighter arcade game and it looks very impressive. Available as a Shockwave version to play in a browser, or as a download in executable form, Street Fighter Online features a chat room interface for creating and joing games with up to 4 other street fighters. A single-player story mode is also available if you're not up to playing against real people. The game was started a little over 3 years ago, and has amassed quite a large following as evidenced by the game's active forum. Some say the reason for its popularity is because it's free. That, and because "people really tend to like street fighter." You be the judge. Click.

Arguably one of the greatest video games of all time, and certainly one of the classics, Asteroids was released to the arcades by Atari in 1979. Twenty-five years later the game is still captivating gamers with its gameplay and its physics.

But Belter is better.

From creator Russ Duckworth's Truantduck Games comes this Flash Asteroids clone that offers the same gameplay as the original, yet in glorious full-color with lots of new roids, 99 levels, boss stages, and high score lists.

Belter one-ups the granddaddy of vector-based video games by featuring an eye-pleasing interface, a variety of colorful backgrounds, and some highly entertaining asteroids to shoot into smithereens. Now there are dark matter roids, droid roids, ice roids, time bomb roids, gas roids, smart roids and, of course, asteroids. Each one differs in mass and in behavior, and when hit with your laser cannon, each has its own point value.

Use the left and right arrow keys for controlling rotation of the space craft, up and down arrow keys for forward and reverse. Two difficulty levels offer game play for novice or expert gamers. There is even a wireframe mode for the video game purists.

The game is beautiful and breathes new life into a classic game formula that has been around for a very long time. The in-game sound is minimal and leaves some to be desired, yet doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of reliving one of the greatest games of all time.

Play Belter

Tanks features classic projectile gameplay in a Flash game package that ups the ante with tank, ammo and weapon upgrades, and even multiplayer action to boot.

The object of the game, of course, is to blow up your opponent(s). You can play against up to 4 other humans using the same computer, or against the computer. Each player takes a turn firing at an opponent by selecting cannon rotation, fire power, and even which weapon to fire. Following completion of a game, each player is awarded cash with which to buy weapons and upgrades, and this is where the real fun begins. =)

The up and down arrow keys control the cannon rotation, while the right and left arrow keys move your tank accordingly. Page up and Page down keys are used for controlling fire power. Press space to fire.

The interface for Tanks leaves much to be desired, and yet it is unnecessarily complex. The gameplay is actually quite simple and, if you can get past the interface, there is a fun little game lying in wait. Concentrate on learning how to aim and hit opponents first, then begin to explore all the options available to help get the job done. Click.

The game was developed by Khayam Ahmad, and is hosted on freeonlinegames.com. Be forewarned of the many ads you will receive when visiting that site.