Archive for the ‘strategy’ Category

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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Triumph of Time by Muku

Monday, May 25th, 2009

MiniReview6SS Here’s an interesting and original game.  It’s called the Triumph of Time by muku for the Ludum Dare 48 hour compo #14.  Place pylons around a sun to build up barriers against a purple anti-matter cloud.  The only thing that can stave off this onslaught of the ‘purple cloud’ are particles through each of the barriers using the pylons.  The only way to get the particles is by placing pylons around a sun.  Place pylons by left clicking.  Space to pause/un-pause.  You can also scroll and zoom.  The graphics are somewhat abstract but makes you think of older games that didn’t have the graphics power.  I could see this game run on old consoles and computers if the author chose to write it for them.  There’s some background music, but apparently not really any sound.  The version I played was the post-competition version, where the author added a tutorial mode and a level editor.  The thing is very very simple to play but is also very difficult to master.  I couldn’t even finish the first tutorial level.  Thankfully, the first actual level is a little more forgiving, probably because of the shape of the game board which can differ from level to level.  I still didn’t “win’” in the sense of actually accomplishing the goal of the level (save 60 quadrants) but I did manage to save something like 35 or 36.  If he could ramp the difficulty way down I think it would be a really fun game.

Name: Triumph of Time

Developer: muku

Preview: G.W.A.T. review

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

GWATSS01 Just so you don’t feel as though I had dropped the ball, I’m going to give a little preview of my upcoming review for the game G.W.A.T.  by Westcoast-Games(west coast of England I believe). My first impression: I’m sorry to say, it’s not a good one.  Firstly the demo installer installs to your desktop.  And you can’t just pick any folder to put it into. Also it takes way to long to start up. That was the first strike against it.  Secondly I couldn’t just start playing it, as there was no tutorial to tell me what I should be doing.  That was the second strike.  I had to actually pull out the manual.  Third strike was an un-intuitive interface.  You need to use WASD which is only proper for games that use the mouse as a secondary controller (ala mouse look).  You also need to use the numpad with numlock on.  I read this and didn’t think and used the numbers at the top of the keyboard and wondered why I wasn’t doing anything.  I was skimming and thinking “Oh, 0-9, got it.”  It would have been better if the demo had an instruction screen.  It would also have been nice if you could move with the numpad with or without numlock and change weapons and items with the regular number keys.  There is one point for it though, and that is you can modify the controls to your liking.  I will still be doing a full review for Tuesday and maybe once I’ve read the manual I’ll have better luck and have a better experience.