A bountiful harvest of platform games? Sure, why not?! They're sort of the trail mix of the gaming realm. They're everywhere, and there are so many different flavors you can barely choose one to munch on at a time. Some of them have unsavory elements (like coconut flakes, who puts that in trail mix?!), but others are irresistibly delicious with all those banana chips and almonds and tiny bits of chocolate...
Bomb Detective (Windows, 4MB, free) - A very retro-looking platform game that emphasizes exploration. Your few abilities include walking, jumping, and throwing bombs. You use said bombs to open new passageways as well as defeat some seriously sinister-looking enemies. Work your way through the tight corridors as you hunt for switches that open doors so you can keep digging deeper into the planet, investigating the heck out of its blocky pixel interior.
FOLLY (Windows, 2MB, free) - Short, easy, and interesting to look at, FOLLY is the sort of game you play when you aren't sure what kind of game you want to play. It's a platformer at heart, but the puzzles require a bit of random chance instead of actual brainwork, so as long as you keep pushing forwards and aren't opposed to continuing the game, you'll make it to the end. Sometimes a cute little action game that's low on challenge is exactly what you need!
Seraphim Flame (Windows, 4MB, free) - One of those deep platform adventure games with layered gameplay that only gets better as you keep playing. Even the storyline is dense, featuring a tale about the Grand Duke of Hell waging war against the Seraphim and you, a single Serafin, breaking into the underworld to save his race from destruction. Serious stuff, and the gameplay is serious enough to match. Fly, dash, and attack your way through layered puzzles and dangerous corridors in this exploration- and puzzle-rich game.
Note: All games have been confirmed to run under Windows 7 and are virus-free. Mac users should try Boot Camp, Parallels, or CrossOver Games to play Windows titles, Linux users can use Wine. If you know of a great game we should feature, use the Submit link above to send it in!
Hm, kind of stuck with Bomb Detective, which is a pity, because it's kinda cool :-)
I'm in the
spaceship
, but I can't seem to get out where I have to. Anyone there too? It's right after
the second big boss, the one hanging on the ceiling
You need more headroom to get out. Just back up a bit first and exit in mid-air.
Thanks, was about to try that, but now when I load my savegame I get a bunch of errors, starting with this one:
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: Room Start
for object obj_controler:
Error in function real().
If I just click ignore a few times, I end up respawning outside of the room of the start of the game. Bummer, I'll have to start over again.
FOLLY was nice despite being simple, with good music. Though, as I got to the end with the
4 doors
I was unsure whether I just got the right one by accident or all of them led to the end screen. Too lazy to re-play, though :P
2 problems I have with the enemies in Bomb Detective:
1) They scare the bejeezus out of me every time one appears.
2) I have yet to survive an encounter with any of them.
In summary, this game is just as awesome and terrifying as Metroid II: Return of Samus.
Oooooog. I wanted so hard to like Bomb Detective, but so many things were wrong with it:
Poor checkpoints (or slow running speed or too large areas, or too little health). The space you have between each areas gets pretty nasty when you die a couple times and have to repeat that area over. This was especially noticable between the first and second bosses, especially when I died because I didn't realize I could throw bombs upward. There's a long and uninteresting trek back through familiar areas.
Poor camera - when you jump or fall, the camera adjusts. Unfortunately, it adjusts so shakily that it makes the world hard to really see, and also made me a little ill (and very few games can manage that). Not only that, but it leads into the next issue,
Poor physics - The way the camera moved, I suspect, was to hide the poor jumping, which is a constant velocity straight up, followed by an immediate shift to a constant velocity straight down. I have a feeling that the purpose of the camera was to make the jumps looks smoother, rather than to fix the jumping mechanic. Additionally, the springs had a weird hit box, that made it particularly hard to jump over them during the last boss fight. Several times I died during that fight because I couldn't jump over the spring to get to a place to avoid his shots.
Also, that boss had a couple of bugs - if he kills you and you are too close to the door to the boss room, he appears OUTSIDE the boss room and the fight starts there.
(amusingly I beat him from there, rather than inside, because his spray shots don't pass through the ceiling in that room)
Additionally,
if you kill him, but die at the same time, the countdown keeps running during the respawn, and when it reaches 0 you die.
Lastly, and this was only slightly disappointing because I actually LIKED the design of the level, I expected more exploration rather than a linear set of levels. However, I liked the aesthetics of them, and the simple graphics still felt engaging. I think that the developer of this could make something excellent with a little more playtesting and refining - if there were solid physics and a stable camera, that would be a HUGE step towards an excellent little time waster that could, as stated by another, evoke the same emotions that some of the earlier Metroid games have. I look forward to the next creation from this person, and hope that they've learned a little from this game.
Got to say that camera on Bomb Detective made it unplayable. Had to stop before the jumping gave me an headache.
Update