Archive for May, 2009

Evacuation by jsb

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

MiniReview7SS Well this was a no brainer.  The ADVANCING WALL OF DOOM in jsb’s Evacuation for the Ludum Dare 48 hour competition number 14 was just that.  It is a wall of doom that just keeps bouncing.  All the villagers are idiots, until you come show them the way.  Move your guy around with WASD keys, and round them up by going toward them.  A little exclamation mark appears above their heads and they follow you.  If they get too close to the wall a frowny happens, and when that happens you better round them up quick or they become pancakes.  Little tiny pancakes.  Once you get them near a bunker they turn to smiley faces (above their heads) and they automatically go into the bunker.  I only played the game briefly, and there were 300 people to rescue, but you could only let 10 die before the game was over.  So I don’t know if there was more than that one level, if you could call it a level.  Oh yeah if you get a powerup you can hit ‘E’ to use it.  Spacebar is supposed to show you where your little guy is.  This game is so simple even a 5-year-old could play it.  And yet not easy to master.  Got to hand it to the author for making it so simple to play.  A good pick-up and play game.  The graphics are neat.  It’s overhead view so there was no need to make everything so detailed.  It was almost impressionistic but still pleasant to look at.  There was only sound a crushing down of the wall coming down every so often, and a few beeps when, well i don’t know, not sure if it was guys going into bunkers or just being aware that I was there showing the way.  In any case, give it a shot.  Click the name after the actual umm name, of the game, to get it.

Name: Evacuation

Developer: jsb

(xblig) Orbyx – The Orbyxal mystery tour is here to take you away…

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

May28 What happens when you take shiny balls, magical symbols, interesting combos, and large numbers?  Probably the lottery, but in this case I’m talking about the XBLCG (Xbox 360) game Orbyx by HemiGames.  Orbyx is a combination of Pachinko and Pinball.  I don’t really know how to say this, so I’ll just come right out with it.  Orbyx is a Peggle clone.  What is Peggle?  Peggle is a game by Popcap Games where you shoot a ball from a canon mounted on top of the screen to hit pegs in order to gain points.  To advance to the next level you have to remove certain colors of pegs.  In Peggle’s case it’s the orange ones, in Orbyx’s case it’s the golden ones.

What I think of it: Other than the obvious clonage, it’s a slick, well presented, game, and good as an alternative if colorful magical unicorns and cute animals isn’t your thing.  It’s not that original, but the game still seems like a good value, considering Peggle is about 10 dollars (800 microsoft points) verses Orbyx’s 5 dollars (400 msp).  Read more when you click, uhh, read more.

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G.W.A.T. (Gratuitously Weird Automated Toys) – bot vs bots?

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

May26 What’s the world’s fascination with bots?  Do we see a future where most machines will take over tasks we find mundane, boring, or dangerous.  Or Tiny droids that will enter our bodies and repair us or augment us?  Virtual pets or companions where the real thing is just not practical or safe?  All these things and more.  I think we’re mostly in convenience.  So what are the main sources of bot love?  Firstly Star Wars, with those loveable droids C-3PO and R2-D2.  Ever since the late 70’s they’ve been ingrained into our consciousness.  Movies, cartoons, toys, even cereal has had these two little guys.  We can hardly think of a world without them.  Secondly, the Japanese.  Their love of technology has spearheaded efforts to make robots, walk, talk, and even think, and inspired the world’s culture.  Granted things like Transformers was a Japanese and American co-creation, there’s no doubt about the influence the Japanese had on them.  In fact it was a Japanese toy line that some guys from Hasbro bought, and based a whole franchise around.  Okay with that spirit I present my next review for a game called G.W.A.T. which stands for a Game Without A Name.

What I think of it:  GWAT needs a lot more work done on it before it can be thought to be fun. Edit:  After playing it a little bit more I started getting the hang of it.  It’s not really a bad game, but there are some things that could be improved.  More after the break.

The Break.

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