Welcome back! If I'm here and you're there, this must be Link Dump Friday, and as usual we, your humble servants at Jay is Games, have brought you a selection of games from the oftentimes frightening dark alley known as the "interwebs". This week we offer you a balanced diet of turn-based strategy, physics, and platforming. And then we kick it up a notch Lagasse-style with a zombie restaurant right before we jazz things up Bourdain-like with an appealingly noir superhero parody.
Special thanks this week to Andrew, who was nice enough to send me a link to The Case of Samuel Gregor, an interactive fiction title after I mentioned last week I was hoping someone would make a game similar to my favourite Kafka story, The Metamorphosis. We're buddies now, whether you like it or not. Yes, folks, we do read the suggestion box, so if you see something you think should be here, drop us a line.
Da Vinci Cannon - Some might call it "a physics puzzle where you shoot a steampunkish cannon at a fort of dudes", but I call it "Crush the Castle minus the trebuchet." There are some differences, and it's certainly well made, but for the most part Da Vinci Cannon will probably give you a serious case of deja-vu. Of course, if all you really want is to fire cannon balls at helpless stationary people that squeal obligingly when crushed, it's pretty good at that, too. Which I guess makes it a success, if not a particularly original one. Kind of like every Disney teen pop star, ever.
Heaven or Hell - An angel accidentally drops a halo that conks a demon on the head. Naturally, this can only be resolved in WAR. War with zombie snot and water pistols, but WAR nonetheless. Initially I was very excited about this adorable little turn-based battler that has you picking between angels and demons to duke it out across a map while you upgrade and unlock new units because it reminded me a bit of Ogre Battle. Instead, you get some grinding, and you get to make your clicker finger fall off; a lack of hot keys for the various actions can make battles pretty frantic.
Orton and the Princess - There's a lot to like about this simple, twitchy little platformer, from the bouncy soundtrack and simple presentation to the progressively more mocking tutorial text that follows you as you play. And then your latent psychic abilities kick in and your monitor combusts from the sheer force of your hatred. Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration; surely some of you possess digits dexterous enough to finish it easily and will brag accordingly in the comments, but the rest of us will be over here. Sulking. No, don't feel bad, it's actually pretty nice over here; we've got Scrabble and Stan brought chips.
Feed Mee! - This is a game about a zombie king who kidnaps the winner of a cooking competition to eat her, who in turn volunteers to cook for the undead horde as long as they promise to free her after. That might be the single awesomest idea I've ever heard for a cooking game, but unfortunately it's more similar to a time management title a la Diner Dash. It's super cute and easy to pick up, but unfortunately gets repetitive fairly quickly. Does this represent a new trend in gaming? In which case, I can't wait for Zombie Salon and Undead Tetris. Which will honestly just be like regular Tetris, only squishier.
I Am The Night - [Warning: Not for children and requires Unity plug-in.] I admit I was hoping for Darkwing Duck, but this very short platformer with its amusingly growly protagonist is still fun. Clamber across rooftops taking down criminals, provided you can get around the pudgy controls. Vigilant reader John who was good enough to submit this says it isn't intended to play particularly well, which I suppose makes sense once you discover the ending, but still; does whether its intentional or not make up for clunky controls? YOU DECIDE. ... no, not you. You. Yeah. I don't trust that other guy.
RE: I Am The Night
Oh my...
Y'know, me being the 80's nerdling that I am, I was flashing back to the original Casey Jones from the TMNT comic book series while the character was doing his "I am the night" rant, without realizing how the game was going to end.
You do have to wonder, why *didn't* anybody ever put the cuffs on Batman, hmm?
"...a game similar to my favorite Kafka story"?
Dora, have you played Kafkamesto? https://jayisgames.com/archives/2005/11/kafkamesto.php
Orton is sadly just a poor copy of meat boy or jumper
Orton and the Princess has a ridiculous final level (the real ending), but it's one of those things where you just do it over and over, and there's some small but finite chance you'll make it each time, and you gradually learn to time things to improve your chances. I eventually got it. :)
OK, what the CRAP. Orton PHYSICALLY CANNOT JUMP HIGH ENOUGH in level 4!
Orton and the Princess was amazing ;D
I had a problem with Orton and the princess. I couldn't jump high enough to get past one of the levels. I use FireFox on a mac, but when I changed to Chrome, I had no problem. Anyone else have the same problem?
Orton and the princess was hard, especially the last level. I think i died about 30 times there. More than the rest of the game put together. But it was fun :)
I didn't find Orton and the Princess too hard even with the real ending, wasn't enough of it for the difficulty to get annoying.
note that Orton and the Princess behaves differently in different browsers, so if you can't, for instance, get past level five because you can't jump high enough, try another browser.
I AM THE NIGHT! *rushes off into the night*
Regarding "I Am The Night":
I have mixed feelings. It's fairly well-executed; I liked the shadowiness of the colors, the trash blowing in the background, the sort of ridiculous superhero costume. Regarding the somewhat non-responsive controls, though, I don't think they added anything in particular to the gameplay. The voice acting was generally pretty good, especially the main character, though the cop at the end sounded like Jay Leno trying to play tough and failing (the profanity sounded less "gritty and realistic" and more "I'm a tough guy, right? I should swear some?").
I found the ending kind of predictable, possibly because of the "when you discover the ending" part of the review, partly from the self-righteous narration and the fact that the "criminals" weren't fighting back, they were just huddling and letting you punch them (which was a nice touch). But I also saw it coming because it felt like familiar ground to be treading: guy in superhero suit, is he a vigilante or just a nutcase, right, right, I've seen various Batman films, I read Watchmen, got it.
All in all, not bad, but I think it was about the right length; any longer and I might have quit before getting to the end on the grounds that I'd gotten the point, thanks.
Lol Orton and the Princess was pretty good, but I gave up trying to get the final ending
Jay: In fact I had not. Thanks Boss!
In case anyone is wondering how come Orton is so hard on the Mac Firefox - the jump height is different!
I couldn't even get past the 3rd level in Firefox because he can't reach the floating block.
Chrome seemed to work ok.
Orton and the Princess... I almost wished I hadn't found the real ending... wasted an extra 5 minutes! Thanks again for the best games on the net, Jay!
Orton and the Princess managed to both amuse me and drive me completely insane at the same time. xD
@kule...
Lifesaver, thank you. I was getting frustrated though I believe the level you speak of is the fifth one?
Well no matter, it works wonders on Safari too.
Seriously, Dora, your reviews are a unique genre of short prose. And the games usually rock too. Link Dump Friday has become my favourite day of the week. Yes, you are blushing :)
The ending level of Orton and the Princess is hard for the sleepy players (like me) but I found it really fun... :)
Haha, I love Orton.
I find it impossible to be mad at Orton with that catchy tune.
Anyone else finding the tempers on the customers in Feed Meee to be ridiculously short? The food appears, I cross the length of the restaurant to get it, and they're already mad at me! I bought the patience upgrades, but they seem to do very little. And I've found the clicking controls to be a little off at times (click customer, click booth, ... why is my waitress the one going over there?!?).
i wanted to play into the night, but it kept getting stuck when i tried to wall jump and just sort of...jittering for a while. im using firefox, is anyone else getting this problem?
I'm having the same problem as ruthieness-- firefox (mac) seems to hang when I try to wall jump. It's done it twice now and I give up. I guess I'm not the night after all...
Firefox on linux also has problems with orton jumping in level 4 or 5(lost count). It was incredibly frustrating, since I played for ages thinking it was my error.
Can anyone get a Gold Medal on Da Vinci Cannon level "Long Shot"?
You've got arrows and a Spear, and I can get MOST of the knights with the spear via Domino effect, and the dude up top is almost immediately lined up with a Spear at the beginning, but I can't get all of them killed with the one shot, and I can find no place on the tower to hit to collapse it at all--let alone in a particular direction.
Or am I going about this all wrong?
Ohhhhkay NOT a fan of Da Vinci Cannon.
Note to all:
ONCE YOU COMPLETE THE LAST LEVEL, YOU START ALL OVER. Yes that makes sense, but if you have unlocks you're trying to achieve, it's no good when they are all immediately wiped. I even clicked "Continue" on the menu, saw no unlocked levels, and had all of my Achievements repealed.
If you have Achievements, they shouldn't erase themselves ...ever. Not even a warning.
So again,
WHEN YOU BEAT "DA VINCI CANNON" ALL OF YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A WARNING.
When did Link Dump Friday start becoming "Games we don't like and why"? Surely there are enough casual games out there you do like to fill one of these?
Da Vinci Cannon is very Crush the Castle-y, but that's a good thing. Crush the Castle was awesome.
...However, I have a problem with it. If I kill everyone with one shot, I should get a gold medal. ...BUT: It sometimes pans back to the cannon before it tallies all the kills and decides whether I've beaten the level. So if I kill everyone with one shot, but it pans back, I don't get the medal until I shoot another shot (even if it misses everything), and I end up with a silver medal. This is annoying me.
Orton and the Princess beaten! ...In Safari. As people mentioned, I could not jump high enough on level 4 in Firefox (on Mac). Fun little game, catchy tune. Easy to die, but you start over quickly, and the levels aren't too long (except that last one).
I "beat" Da Vinci Cannon with all gold medals except for two levels: Long Shot, and the level where you only get triple-arrows and you have to kill the four people in the tower (one on each floor).
As far as "I Am The Night", I've found 3 of the 4 victims:
the obvious first one, the guy in the apartment, and the guy in the sewer.
I'm having trouble finding the 4th one...
@V2Blast
The other guy is on the roof of the same building as the guy in the apartment. Go into the apartment and beat that guy up, then get out and jump to the top of the building and go back.
Gotta ask though
Where's the guy in the sewer?
Oh, never mind, found him!
Into the Night is really buggy. I'd jump into a hole and can't get back out. When I'm next to a wall, if I press 2 buttons at the same time, I'd get stuck on that wall, not being able to move.
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