This week on Link Dump Friday: Nitrome likes boogers, your castle is being attacked by evil letters, a centipede is after you, and we trap you in a burning Atari 2600 house. Fortunately you have your glamorous life as a video store clerk to recharge your batteries while you contemplate the origin of life as we know it.
Snot Put - The latest diversion from Nitrome is all about flinging the gooey green stuff from a giant nose and seeing how far you can throw it. It's a pretty basic game with some wobbly liquid physics, but it's the only place you can play with snot and not get in trouble.
Alpha Assault - It's Bookworm meets strategy RPG in this unique blend of word spelling and Risk-like tile domination. Create words to keep the evil red tiles away from your castle. Earn gold to buy letters and power-ups to help you along the way.
The Life Ark - For anyone who had any doubts about how life began on this planet, Free World Group has the answer to it all as explained in The Life Ark, an amalgamation of On's Grow graphics and Rob Allen's Hapland gameplay. Apparently the Earth was a dry and barren land before aliens came and populated it using an ark and several ginormous tea pots.
Survivor? - What better way to learn fire safety than with four color visuals (ok, maybe there's a few more than that) and blocky graphics? None, I say! Survivor? is a short but tricky game where you must escape the burning house with your family. Very Atari-age. Warning: this game makes the most annoying sound possible for like 30 seconds straight when it loads.
Race to the Bottom - A one button game where you pivot around a constantly shifting point to evade the centipede and reach the bottom. Sounds easy, huh? It's not. The techno soundtrack is a great touch.
Video Store Clerk - Live the glamorous life of a video store clerk, just like you've always wanted! Try and guess what each customer rated the target movie by looking at past films and their scores.
(Oh no! Link Dump Friday on a Thursday? Madness!)
However, I like the Nitrome game.
isnt it still thursday?
Snotput is going to be a great hit with every 9 year old.
That "survivor" one has got some serious problems. It comes up with a "404" message at first, and then if you go to the main page there it has some really weird nonsense message.
Alpha Assault is an interesting spin on the old wordy word word games, except you don't want to clear all of the bad tiles; it inexplicably refills the board with them, usually surrounding your castle.
Huzzah.
Video Store Clerk looks like a sneaky way to improve their score in the Netflix Prize.
Alpha Assault looks interesting, but it needs to go back to beta! There are some serious bugs, such as tiles with the value "undefined" which can't be used to spell words and even scores of NaN! In addition, the "help" contains very little information about what the various options do. There's a good game here, but it's very much unfinished.
Umm, due to timezones, there is difficulty presenting the correct day for everyone. But I rather enjoy Link Dump Friday on my Thursday anyhow. Btw, the life ark is a really hard grow game geeze.
No wait, I got it^^
I got to the alien gets abducted and then the guy comes out and gets stuck after doing the thing with the plant.
You have to do the rock puzzle, charge the cloud, unplug the cloud, then zap the rock, click the door, click the button until two fires are rolled, wait until open and pedestal and click the fire, move the cloud to the steam click the steam and water the pond into a lake. The click the alien then the apple then the guy then the plant then the lowest puddle. I don't know what to do now stuck badly.
Life Ark walkthrough
1. New game
2.
Tablet
Choose symbol that fits sequence - the dot transitions across the shape
Click cloud cord.
Stop cloud over white thing (outlet)
Click outlet
Wait for cloud to get black, then click plug to release. (If smoke starts venting from cloud, unplug immediately!)
Move cloud over mountain, click rock
Click door in mountain
Hit button in center until both disks show fire at top
Click on fire
Move cloud over mountain again, if it moved
Click steam rings
When cloud is dark grey, move over pond
Click pond
Click trees (formerly dead), apple will fall
Cave
Apple, man eats
Antenna, wait for spaceship
Cave
River, caveperson will dig channel, plant will grow
Climb plant, collect blue thing
Click on fire, pot turns into UFO
Picture of UFO
Red teapot
Hatch - another sequence puzzle. I find the plus easiest to look at, rather than the arrow - it rotates around the corners.
3. Profit
Ok let me preface this by saying I love you guys and I love LDF, but you seriously gotta put some kinda warning when a game is about to make the most annoying sound possible for like 30 seconds straight when it loads. (Survivor.)
Also, it's not entirely obvious from just playing the game, but in Race to the Bottom if you start by pressing two keys at the same time you can control two little bars (one with each key.) I guess it's a two-player mode.
What?! The warning is there, didn't you see it? ;)
LS I was about to post a walkthrough as well. But aside from that, are you a farker?
aww. Survivor won't load for me. It's not the kind of game I'd usually play, but I was intrigued to find out just how annoying the most annoying sound ever is. Grin.
I can't find the wet cloth in survivor. I've done everything but found the wet cloth, and the first aid kit does nothing.
couldn't get survivor to work either from the link, but found it on newgrounds.
the most annoying noise is even more annoying when you used to sit through an hour of it on the zx81 or c64 etc and then the game failed to launch. great memories, heh.
Hmm. Did you guys take a look at the main website of Survivor? I don't mean the game link but the main url? Suspicious...
Themepark, it might be something to do with the domain being registered to the scottish government, allthough can't say i have come across anything like that before, especially the latin and greek myth stuff, heh.
it does seem a bit much if they are gonna port scan you etc though, especially when you are direcetd there after the game fails.
"Ginormous"? JIG should invent a new word every Link Dump Friday!
Yeah, I can't find the wet towel for Survivor either.
the towel
is in the cupboard next to the sink
I love the simplicity of Race to the Bottom. And not only is it a 1/2 player game, if you press up to 5 keys you can have 5 players (or if you're like me and have no friends you can give yourself an extra challenge and control all 5 yourself!)
Alpha Assault is a fun game.
Let me rephrase my opinion on Alpha Assault: it's a damn hard game. And seems like the creator's wish was to punish the player for completing a level: not only do you have to start from where you left off - for me it's usually my castle tile(s) thoroughly surrounded by the enemy but sometimes you even get one more tile to defend.
It's serious stuff for the mazochist.
Shame, because it would be an excellent wocab game if it was a bit less punishing and a bit more rewarding - I would even recommend it to my high school students.
Should have read "vocab", of course...
ok so I'm probably the only one trying to fling the Snot Put but I just don't get those high scores, 8000? the best I've been able to do is almost 3,000.
I seldom see games with scoreboard where the first couple of scores are not cheats. What those guys love in cheating? Who knows.
Ok... in defence of Survivor? did anyone notice the skip button the lower left hand? It allows you to skip the intro, and thus the annoying noise.
Lol thanks for the warning Jay :)
Ok... in defence of Survivor? did anyone notice the skip button the lower left hand? It allows you to skip the intro, and thus the annoying noise.
I don't know about getting 8,000, but I've been able to get 4,100 a few times. One thing I noticed is
that i get the best distances by whipping it back and forth at about a 45 degree angle, as opposed to moving in a circular motion.
Do I understand that I actually have to know the films to have any vague chance to guess correctly in the Video store clerk game?
If i gather it right, the task is to guess how a certain costumer rated a certain film. My guess should be based on how the same costumer rated other films. So, it means i have to know these films, right?
For the video store clerk game, you don't necessarily need to know the movies, though it helps if you "know" it's a really bad or good movie. I found it's much more useful to look at the overall distribution of the customer's ratings; many customers seem to either hate all movies, or love all movies (which makes me seriously question the utility of movie recommendations for these people) and you can just go by their most common rating. Also, some categories seem easier than others, like "animation" -- everything gets 5 stars!
How exactly does the door on the volcano in The Life Ark work? I click the button in the middle, and then the disks start rotating, but a couple of seconds later the thing disappears. I have no control over it at all.
On Survivor? I couldn't open the door in the upper right. Am I missing something or just not playing it right?
As for the other games:
The life ark was cute and kind of quirky. Like all of the grow games, it took me FOREVER to figure out what to do.
Snot put was kind of fun (Like Jay said it was the only place I could play with snot and not get in trouble. ^__^) I didn't come close to the top scores though. I think I had like 500 or something when I quit *Sob*
Race to the Bottom was fun in that I was running from a giant caterpillar. (For those of you who don't live in the woods, the caterpillars are ATTACKING!!)
Those were the only games I've played so far. Just wanted to give my input. ^__^
Ohz kay. So if you're like me and seem to get NO ANSWERS for Survivor? Just delete everything after the second backslash. (everything after "friesafety"
For Snotput, I was able to get in the 5000s by simply grabbing the snot and whipping it... none of this spinning business.
bioLarzen - I actually thought Alpha Assault was too easy. Since changing a letter to a different one only costs one coin, and it seems that any 6-letter or longer word will earn you a coin, it's pretty easy to find "almost" long words, complete them by spending a coin, and immediately earning that coin back. Also, there's no reason to ever get rid of that last evil space. I must say that overall I enjoyed it very much though.
Snot Put at first seemed a terrible effort, then sort of OK, and now I love it.
The physics are alright, the music (by Dave Cowen...)is cool, and I love the visuals.
My hiscore is 4487.5 for now. I also find 'whipping' it helps, even though an overarm motion works, if done very vigorously.
Ok, Survivor is a pretty interesting game except I can't beat it. I have gotten the towel but I can't put it in front of the door, closed or open. Any ideas?
For snotput I too have had trouble getting very far put it is a unique game and fun to play.
Wait I'm a liar. Go to Newgrounds and type in Survivor. It will say Survivor (fire) on it.
Hmmm...anyone else having trouble with Video Store Clerk freezing? I was doing so well!
Video Store Clerk says its a test to see if humans are more accurate than computers. I'd like to see the results of their experiment.
when i click on the link for survivor? it says url not found!
Try it again. I just checked it and it seems to be loading just fine.
I have to say...Me being a big movie nerd...video store clerk is rather addicting. And it also makes me realize not only what bad taste people have in movies (Who gives Rear Window a three and Tommy Boy a five???) It also makes me realize I should get out more with all the movies I have seen...My skin at this point is about the color of Nosferatu's. It is a little predictable as arto said, when people like a certain genre...they just 3 or five everything...But if you know your movies, you know which they will choose as five and which will be the three...So, your guess people... ) I give Sunset Boulevard 5 stars, Network 5 stars and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 5 stars... What do I give Point Break. (I mean come on! "The Swayz" throws a DOG at Keanu Reeves!)
Oh, and by the way...are there THAT few documentaries that the only ones that show up are Super Size me and the Michael Moore films? (A Rhetorical question...and by that I mean, no...there are tons of great documentaries...just too few watched and I'm in the wrong business...oye.) Here's to rhetorical questions that are answered. CHEERS!
Survivor walkthrough:
First, rescue Gran from the kitchen because you don't have much time there (run down, open door with z, call her with x until she follows). Don't forget to shut the door behind you.
Head into the lower right room and grab the phone, and use it with 1. This wakes Mum and she unlocks her door. You might be able to avoid tripping on the toy by crawling (with c) but you have to pass it twice, so it's not really a time saver over just tripping and moving on.
Grab Gran if you lost her, bring her to the middle floor, and dump her while you head to the bathroom. Crawl past the water (c toggles), grab the first aid kid if you feel like it to heal up from tripping, but more importantly, hit z on the cupboard to get the towel...
... then hit 2 to use it by the dripping tub to get it wet.
Now head left, grab the key and scream at Dad until he's following. Take him up to Mum's room, drop him off, grab Gran and haul her in too.
Now head left, grab the inhaler, call sis into following you, use the inhaler on her when she drops by the stairs (4), get her into Mum's room and shut the door.
Towel goes under the door with 2, 3 uses your key on the window, z shouts for help, you win.
Survivor skateboard:
press z to kick it out of the way
Hm... what kind of "video store" has has information about how much its customers liked the movies they rented?
As a previous commenter said, it's obviously someone's attempt to get the Netflix Prize. I'd rather not play games whose goal is to make someone else a million dollars, unless I'm being paid to play them.
I don't know, maybe if they were upfront about it...
By the way, Mirriam-Webster apparently has a late 40s citation for "ginormous", and my five year old uses it pretty normally.
regarding life ark walkthrough... ok, i actually got to the point where i'm supposed to click steam clouds on my own. But for the life of me, I can't see any steam clouds. Hrm.
[Edit: Would "smoke rings" or "steam rings" mean anything to you? -Jay]
i reped JAYISGAMES with my high score of about 4500 in snotput
Alpha Assault has a fatal flaw: the strategy of saving the castle destroys the word-creation process; can't make long words when under attack. Stick with BookWorm.
Affa, after you make set the two fire symbols on the door, hover over the fire with your pointer until the door opens. Then click on the fire.
With Survivor, if you can pick up a phone, wouldn't you call the Fire Dept straight away, and THEN get your family?
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