Let me tell a parable
(I swear I won't babble)
Of heroes named Tealy & Orangey;
Their courage profound
Appearances round
Will surely have players roarin' "Gee!"
A platformer, yes,
Was the difficult test
For protagonists orange and blue,
But there was one catch:
Their moves had to match;
When one moved, the other did too!
...What? Okay, fine, I'll just tell you about the game without the rhyming verse. Spoilsport. Maybe I'll post the whole thing in a spoiler tag in the comments later.
As I've said, Tealy & Orangey is a retro platformer with a twist. You use the arrow keys to navigate the two colored protagonists from start to finish in each of twenty hazard-filled levels. The thing is, you can't control just one or the other; you always control both characters, whether you like it or not. If you want just one to move, you'll have to stop the other against a wall.
It won't be a cakewalk, so don't rush right in. You'll see all manner of arrangements of spikes and guns out to kill our two protagonists. They won't even always stay on their own color-coded sides of the game world (which is good, since they're immune to hazards of each other's color).
Analysis: As you may have figured out already, T&O is not an easy game. Exceedingly difficult platformers seem to be all the rage nowadays, but this one adds a new double-dip flavor to it. To be honest, the reason I was asked to review it was because I was the only person on the JIG staff that could beat it.
The presentation is nothing special, with minimal sounds, no music whatsoever, and low-bit graphics. That's because the game's author, Anthony Gowland, wanted the main focus to be on the gameplay.
It's difficult to design puzzles around the two-character gameplay, but Gowland did it. You'll see all manner of ingenious setups designed to scratch heads, which is good when said heads have gone rough from all that banging against the wall at difficult jumps.
I won't keep you longer;
You won't get much stronger,
So go guide our two colored balls;
Use the arrows to move,
Get into the groove,
And make clever use of the walls!
The entire verse I wrote for the review text, for those interested:
Let me tell a parable
(I swear I won't babble)
Of heroes named Tealy & Orangey;
Their courage profound
Appearances round
Will surely have listeners roarin' "Gee!"
A platformer, yes,
Was the difficult test
For protagonists orange and blue,
But there was one catch:
Their moves had to match;
When one moved, the other did too!
This was not convenient,
For not very lenient
Was the one who designed all these halls;
They faced levels twenty
And hazards aplenty
Like sharp spikes, and swift cannonballs.
You say you're not scared?
You think you're prepared?
You'll take on this game and defeat it?
How's this for a laugh:
Of the whole Jay-Is staff
Only I had the skill to complete it!
This game is quite tough
It quickly gets rough
So don't try it if you're too wimply,
But use lots of thought,
And plan, scheme, and plot,
And maybe you'll clear this game simply.
There isn't much sound,
No music around,
But maybe it's better that way;
The gameplay's the focus,
The big hocus-pocus,
And there I would give it an A!
The game's main mechanic
May make people panic,
But after that, it brings a smile;
The use of the gimmick
Is quite hard to mimic
With puzzles of devious style!
I won't keep you longer;
You won't get much stronger,
So go guide our two colored balls;
Use the arrows to move,
Get into the groove,
And make clever use of the walls!
I didn't find it all that difficult, but I think that had more to do with the setup of each level...the objective was straightforward and how to get there was also fairly plain to see. Execution is where I died...a lot...but not enough to give up. It's a very well done game for a ten minute diversion.
Wimply is not a word! - but the poem was awesome :)
Beat it, that last level was completely sadistic.
Btw, I lurv the prose.
I can't get to the game. :( I get a white screen instead of the game.
Yes, i have an ad-blocker, but no, it's never enabled on JIG. I'm running the most recent version of Chrome on a Macbook running OS X 10.5.8.
Edit:
Gave Firefox a try, and it works fine.
[Try it now. -Jay]
I did eventually beat it. I found that in the later levels, it was less obvious exactly what you had to do, but that added a nice puzzle aspect to the game. Overall I liked it very much. Difficult, but not TOO difficult. When I got frustrated I would just pause and walk away, but I always came back.
Brilliant, sonic lover!
Finished it! Forty minutes, three seconds! Maybe not the most impressive score around, but I feel proud of myself.
I felt kinda bad on that last level, putting Orangey down there in that corner so Tealy could get to the objective first. I did kinda favor Tealy over Orangey overall. I think that makes me colorist.
I still cant play it. my screen doesnt even show a white box. just background and ads. no swf file at all.
[The game loads for me on both Mac and Windows in all major browsers. Try emptying your browser cache and reload the page. If that doesn't help, try updating your Flash Player and disable your browser extensions. If you still can't get it to load, please list your browser, OS and Flash Player versions you're using and I'll try to reproduce the problem. -Jay]
All right you freaking geniuses that already beat the game. How in the world did you get through 13?
I really liked this one.
Pure fun :)
I didn't expect to like this game but I thought I'd give it a try. I had trouble at first because it seemed to just jump when it felt like it, so I loaded the page in Firefox and it ran smoothly. It clearly doesn't like IE, not that I blame it.
I'm surprised by how addictive it was. And both insanely difficult and obviously easy simultaneously. I spent ages trying to get past the last level and then I just stopped and stared at it and then got it in 30 seconds.
*cue facepalm*
12 minutes and 50 seconds.
Not too great, but not too bad.
26:45. That was insanely difficult.
There are definitely little tricks and strategies that you need to figure out for some levels—you need to maneuver the balls into just the right spots, or else you'll get stuck.
Also wondering about level 13. Do you have to use the ceiling so that the balls are jumping in opposite phases?
For people stuck on level 13, here is a method to do it:
Do a single jump and hold down right to get Tealy over the first set of spikes.
Jump over the Tealy wall and get Orangey to the top of the staircase at the same time, BUT make sure Orangey stays to the LEFT of the spikes that come down.
From here, we are just getting Tealy to the end - do as high a jump as possible, THEN hold down right so that orangey does not move but Tealy DOES.
Using the above tactic (with a bit of practice - if you find Orangey is getting killed by the vertical spikes as you try to do this tactic, after every jump move slightly left) you can get Tealy to the end, and then it is a simple few jumps just controlling Orangey to the end.
Hope that helps, those that are stuck. I'm sure there are better alternatives, but I found this to work.
I'm stuck on level 14. Have been for about 3 days now. Any hints, people?
Right, I'll do level 14 as well:
Run right and then left, to get them both at the same place on the bottom.
Run right until Orangey gets to the spikes and jump to the barrier.
Hold down right at the barrier to get Tealy to the orange zone.
Jump Orangey over to the blue zone, disregarding Tealy as he can't be hurt where he is, BUT leave orangey in the blue tunnel in the top right.
Now that Orangey is in the blue tunnel, navigate Tealy to the blue zone at the bottom. The arrows might accidentally kill you in the spikes, as you have to hold down left, but try and get on the top of the stairs just to the right of the spikes.
Jump Tealy over the spikes, under the star, over the next spikes, and then move left as small amounts as possible to get Tealy to drop below the second star.
Get over the spikes, and to the Tealy finish.
Then navigate Orangey to the orange section, drop down, jump onto the spike platform and into the finish.
Power of posting solved it for me.. but thanks anyway! Puzzling my way through level 20 now. @__@
You know what's the oddest thing about this game? After playing it for a few minutes, if I get frustrated and go do something else. Then I find myself thinking, "Wait, if I'm scrolling down and clicking on this tab, what am I scrolling down and clicking on the other tabs?"
Whew, made it. Only took 31 minutes, 23 seconds, and 2 computers. (Uhh...don't ask.)
Update