If you guys are out getting in fisticuffs with people at Best Buy or Walmart for Black Friday deals instead of sitting snug at home playing games, I am going to be so disappointed. Unless you're getting me ponies. Then I understand completely.
The Narrow Path - (Potential Trigger Warning) This stylish but creepy real-time strategy game by Beavl took home top prize in the official The Walking Dead All Out War Game Jam, which is pretty darned slick. Crafted in just two weeks, you control a madman who's happy the zombie apocalypse is in full swing and fully intends to repopulate the world with his two unwilling female captives, but first he has to get rid of all the remaining humans and zombies, which is done by building his own army of dangerous critters from the components both enemies leave behind. Despite its unsavory premise and a somewhat clunky UI, it's an interesting gameplay concept that'll take you a while to get the hang of. Unless you already have experience harvesting flesh and grafting it to stolen cell phones. In which case, please stop reading this because you're freaking me out.
Diggy - Vogd's cute but familiar little game sort of feels like Motherload as seen by Despicable Me's Minions, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. With your massive drill, you'll blast (I know I said it was a drill, but you blast with it, so shush) your way down through the earth until your energy runs out, picking up gems and other valuables to sell for upgrades to improve your tools and help you get deeper. It's cute as all get-out even if it doesn't feel like anything we haven't seen before, and come on... you totally want to find out how a sentient "wandering truffle" is going to keep the lava from getting you, don't you? Is this like South Park's "stop, drop, and cover" in the face of volcano?
The Spandex Parable - The narrator for this very silly, short little platform game knows it doesn't look that great, but he assures you it's for good reason... mainly because there is the single best animated sex scene ever done in a game as a reward upon completion, and that's what the developers spent all their money on... allegedly. This was originally crafted for the first Molyjam, and as a silly parody of The Stanley Parable, it's entertaining while it lasts thanks to some excellent comedic narration... especially if you go for its TRUE ending. What... you didn't think a little badonkadonk was the whole goal, did you?
Legendary Escape - I like any excuse to use the word legendary, ideally in my best Thor voice while flipping over a table. (A very small, light table. I have weak arm strength.) Abroy serves up this multi-stage escape game that gradually gets more difficult as you go through a series of rooms, but still probably won't pose too much of a challenge for you seasoned "lock myself in a room for funsies" weirdos. You'll hunt for clues, use items, solve puzzles, the whole shebang, and you'll discover what the fire extinguisher I chose to use as the icon is for! Is it for fending off an alien home invasion? Does it contain an elaborate chemical compound you'll need to re-freeze the neanderthal you found while digging your background pool?!... nah, it's just another puzzle clue... probably.
Legendary Escape is not a bad game per say, but it would be a lot more enjoyable if it was actually obvious what the objects I pick up, are supposed to be, and if they had an About Item, which the dual colour used when selecting an item in the inventory suggests. Like
did I just melt a plate of chocolate in the oven, or was that a piece of paper that turned magically brown instead of burning to a crisp? And why does the power cable look like a pair of tongs?
Alas I am stuck.
With a brown paper with some faint traces of digital numbers, and 4 coins, I have no idea what to do next, nothing seems to be reacting with the coins, and clicking the paper just brings up a close-up.
As for The Spandex Parable...Oh my. I feel so violated, yet turned on by that ending.
And that voice-over is amazing. <3
For all its talk about resisting shallow rewards, The Spandex Parable is a lazy, shallow satire. The idea that you're supposed to disobey the narrator might've been interesting or surprising were it not one of the biggest video game cliches of the last few years. And the message of the ending is nonsensical, because there's no reason to have the tiniest hope that the game would actually provide a sex scene. Which does raise the question of -why- the game is so poorly made, not to mention unbelievably buggy, to the point that I got stuck twice in the process of trying to play it. The whole game is nothing but a threadbare skeleton used to drive home the intended message with all the subtlety of an anvil to the face. And a puritanical condemnation of sex is not a terribly original, interesting, or clever message to begin with. As if it's possible to draw a sharp line between 'sex' and 'emotion', as if sex cannot be intensely emotional in its own way. Of course, making good use of sexual themes in games is enormously difficult, and that would be an issue worth exploring, I think. But this, this is just a lazy excuse for the developers to pat themselves on the back for being so high-minded. And I also don't agree with the model of game design the game espouses, but this rant is already getting a bit long, so I'll just say that any game that calls its players losers to their face is most likely doing something wrong.
Well ffivfan, I may be shallow, by I thought it was hilarious.
Hi ffivfan. As stated, the game was made for the Molyjam, which means it was made in 48 hours and is a deliberate parody of both The Stanley Parable, and a tweet from a fictitious Twitter account (http://www.molyjam.com/about). It's not supposed to be legitimately deep and involved and thoughtful. That's sort of the point. :)
@ThemePark
when you are looking at the brown/chocolate paper, try using items from your inventory on it
the white paper/cloth
I'm on stage 2 of Legendary Escape. I have
a hand-crank and 4 colors and directions, but they don't seem to correspond very well to the colored knobs on the wall above the car.
Any hints?
Well, carp. I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the details. Feeling foolish now.
devron, that's not helpful
when I said I had the brown paper and 4 coins, never said I had that tissue.
I found the solution on another site that usually has walkthroughs up before the games are even reviewed here. And for my problem, the solution
was to check out the chair on the right.
In Diggy, I am kinda wondering how to get from the lava back up to the surface for that achievement. The only other ones I had left were pure luck (finding the special items).
In Legendary Escape, Stage 4:
I have opened the central drawer in the cupboard - but I can't see anything there! Am I missing something?
Welp, power of post, I guess.
It turns out the key is behind the left-hand colour/toy puzzle. So what was the drawer code for?
Update