Happy February! The shortest month on the calendar happens to be quite special in 2008: it's a leap year! So from now until December 31, every time you see a Link Dump Friday on this website, you must leap. Not jump, not bound, not bounce nor hurdle or even canter. Leap. After all, each of these games is worth at least a tiny leap, right?
One Man Band - Another great musical webtoy by Luke Whittaker, creator of Sound Factory. One Man Band lets you put on a show by dragging and dropping instruments on the screen and starting sound loops. You can either create a surprisingly catchy tune or throw reason out the window and make a racket. Your choice.
Olla Podrida - A new take on the old jigsaw puzzle theme, this time with a little touch of pseudo-surrealism. Drag the pieces with the mouse and use the arrow keys to rotate, all in the name of fitting the pictures together. It's much harder than you think to solve, but it's so much fun at the same time.
Multiball Madness - It's Breakout, but with a sudden-death-style twist. Blocks slowly descend from the top of the screen. You must clear them with three bouncing balls and a paddle. Keep them in play long enough to earn extra balls. Fortunately the overly simple presentation doesn't detract from the raw interestingness of the gameplay.
Flip It - A simple puzzle game where you must match the mirror image using spinning tiles at the top of the screen. Sounds easier than it looks. (Or, looks easier than it sounds?)
JIG Poker Night - will make you smile (oh yes, it will!) every Saturday. Check this page each week for time of day (usually 4PM Eastern). Then make sure you're there in the JIG poker lounge because the tournament starts right away, and you can't join after it has started. The winner each week qualifies for a championship tournament in the spring where we'll give away an iPod Nano and a Nintendo DS!! Don't miss it!
Aaaaagh, there is no logic to this jigsaw, just a load of randomly interconnected pictures, they don't even have a sensible right way up.
but I did it :)
Olla Podrida is a great game. I love jigsaws with odd shapes.
This is the only February that will have 5 Link Dump Fridays until 2036!
I finished Olla Plorida and all I got was a CONGRATULATIONS sign and a block of compressed things.
Olla Podrida isn't implemented perfectly - in particular, rotating a piece out from under the mouse cursor while dragging it will leave it undroppable until it's rotated back - but it's a great little puzzle if you ignore that bug.
I'm liking Olla Podrida a lot, but the pieces keep getting "stuck" to my cursor (as in, I can't drop them when I let go of the mouse button, unless I click on another piece). It's also hit-or-miss sometimes whether pieces will connect even if it's correct. These are just a couple of minor points, though, since it's fun and especially challenging.
Yay! I finished Olla Podrida!
Here's a sort of walkthrough for the desperate out there
I'm only giving you the edge though.
Start with the monkey pointing up
on his face is the penguin (you can figure out how to rotate it)
In its beak is the vole-like creature's tail
On its head is the baseball-man
On his right side is the bird
Curled around his head is the curly cat
Now we change directions
Eating the cat is the alligator (call it a crocodile if you want, I don't care)
Attached on its tail is the mermaid's harp
The lounging kid with his face in a book is on the tip of her tail
Going down again
The umbrella man is at his head
He's walking on the pig
The bikini lady and the fish connect on the pig's back
The horse's head forms the corner
The boy with the binoculars is staring at its neck
His feet are behind the desk
And the man with the backpack puts it all together
And that's all I'm going to give you
I don't understand what's happening in Flip It...they kept breaking the first time, then they didn't, then they started doing it again. What's up with that?
Multiball Maddness is dishearteningly hard - at least for me. I gave up after 3 minutes and like 5 plays. Also, the fact that you cannot drag the paddle once the cursor arrow leaves the play area added some more challenge potential - the paddle is on the very bottom. I either keep the arrow some millimeters above it and then it keeps bothering me there or keep the arrow on the paddle and risk it sliding out of the play area with each sudden move and thus render the paddle paralyzed for half a sec.
Also, I think the blocks descend too quickly.
The idea is nice, though.
Wow, I just realized the in the Multiball thing you don't die when a block hits the baseline, only when it hits the paddle.
Sorry, my previous comment with it's "too hard" statement is crap.
One Man Band has just made my day. I can only think of one improvement -- each instrument should get a Solo button!
Oh my god is One Man Band fun! I really hope it gets developed further.
olla podrida was a great way to kill 10 minutes
Not being able to put down your piece is not related to rotation. I'm not quite sure why but as Neddo said, you can put it down by clicking on another piece.
does anyone else notice the multiball madness blocks get smaller the farther up you go?
Oh, also - the piece gets stuck on your cursor when you drag and turn at the same time. This can be temporarily fixed by clicking, turning, then dragging. It has everything to do with turning, it just isn't fixed by it.
I think that Piano Loop 2 and Tape Deck Loop 1, with the Computer go well together.
To be honest I didn't think that one-man-band was worth to check - but now I saw it getting good feedback so I went and gave it a try.
6 stars out of 5 :D
I second Trystera's idea about a solo button for each instrument.
And maybe a record option would do good. I have a song that I'll be very-very sad to kill :)
WOW! A Link Dump Friday and I can play all the games listed. Theres usually one or two that I can't make heads or tails of. I'll be playing all of these games for some time to come!
Jay- you have the best casual game site on the internet. I hope you and your team keep up the good work for a long time to come.......
ARG!! I always miss the poker night.
Multiball Madness is actually pretty hard... this is MADNESS! (this is sparta :D )
One Man Band is adorable. I can't remember the last time a game actually made me laugh out loud. Kudos to the designer for a really delightful little game! :D
Oh, and I third Trystera's idea. Solo buttons for each instrument WOULD be fun!
I started off with Akvo's suggestion, and now I have
Player Piano - 2
Wheel-to-Reel - 1
Loop-o-Lin - 1
Cymbals - 3
Snare Drum - 3
Kick Drum - 2
playing, and I like it very much :)
I too was about to pass on One Man Band -- glad I didn't. My first creation:
Kick Drum: 3
Snare: 3
Cymbals: 2
Wheel-to-Reel: 1
Computer
Scratchmatic
Tubular Bellows
Steam Pipes
Bass-o-matic 2 and Clockcordion seem to complement each other pretty well, too. Song 2 (woo hoo!):
Clockcordion
Bass-o-matic 2
Kick drum 1
Snare 2
Cymbals 3
Wheel to Reel 3 (2 was also nice)
Going to try a piano-based one now...
I found my piano piece shaping up much like Psychotronic's, so I dropped the Autolin and started with a Piano 3 Bass-o-Matic 2 combination:
Piano 3
Bass-o-Matic 2
Wheel to Reel 2
Snare 3
Cymbals 1
I wavered between tossing a Kick drum 1 in, but I think it added more clutter than anything.
I got a really good beat on one man band with:
Piano - 1
Kick Drum - 3
Snare Drum - 3
Cymbal - 2
Computer
Wheel-to-reel - 1 (or not on at all)
Steam Pipes - (also optional)
heres a cool one! it's called: The Computer Did It!
Computer
Scratchmatic
Snare Drum on 2
Cymbals on 1
Player Piano on 1
Hope you like it!
snare - 3
bass drum - 3
cymbals - 3
piano - 2
loop o mattic!!!
:-)
x
Managed to get all of the instruments in One Man Band playing together quite nicely... Well, almost. Had to take out the Clockordian - it just didn't fit :).
I think your timing when hitting the 'play' button must make some difference, in terms of tying the instruments together.. as adjusting the timing seemed to affect how good it sounded.
Here's the order I added em in..
Computer
Snare - 3
Cymbals - 3
Kick Drum - 1
Scratchamatic
Piano - 1
Tubular Bellows
Steam Pipes
Wheel-to-Reel - 3
Bass Machine - 1
Loop-o-Lin
Update