19 articles Tag 2D

Spacetacular Voyage

June 6, 2009, 0 comments

Spacetacular Voyage

Wait, come back! Spacetacular Voyage by Sash MacKinnon might be cursed with a teeth-clenchingly awful name. And some equally bad puns, eg “It’s a sine”. BUT it plays a blinder. Your spaceship’s just a glorified mouse cursor, and to survive you have to dodge, push past or blast through a waterfall of falling geometric shapes. It just works, and it’s not short on ideas: one minute you’re using brute force to wade through a hailstorm of clonking great balls, the next you’re negotiating a twisting path of innocent-looking squares. One of the few games of late that has the decency to weave physics into its play, rather than half-heartedly sellotape some gravity algorithms to its head and saunter off for a coffee and biscuit. I like it. Play Spacetacular Voyage (Flash)

Tokimeki Kikoriaru

June 1, 2009, 0 comments

Tokimeki KikoriaruLooks like I picked the wrong week to give up silly microgames. Yoshio Ishii’s Tokimeki Kikoriaru lasts approximately three-and-a-half seconds. But I can’t help but love the little thing. That’s about all I can say. Viel Spaβ, as they say in Germany. Play Tokimeki Kikoriaru (Flash)

3 games from Andrew Brophy

May 27, 2009, 1 comment

Andrew Brophy has released three games in one go — which means to find time to play them all through in one day, I’ve had to give up sleep, naptime, mid-afternoon naptime and late evening snooze. You’ll understand if I’m a bit crabby.

3 games from Andrew Brodny 1 Back To The Laboratory. Dodge your pet monkey’s flailing fists — while protecting those very same fists from the evil army fighter jets. The anguish! Below-average shooter, but 10/10 for the monkey drawing. His spiralling eyeballs will haunt you in your sleep for decades to come.

2 Takishawa Is Dead! A visually appealing 3D platformer, ostensibly about the search for the eponymous Takishawa. Mainly notable for having to wait 30+ seconds for your hero to very slowly descend to the first level, which is right up there with the queue at the post office on my Fun-Time Things list. Other than that, Takishawa Is Dead! is strangely alluring stuff, despite its obvious simplicity and insistence that this time, buster, you’re gonna be the cameraman.

3 Sworrd Buster. Andrew, I like this one, I really do. But. You grab the sword, you wave the sword, you shoot astonishingly pretty laser death from the sword… what’s not to like? Answer: INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES THAT MAKE PLAYING IMPOSSIBLE. Tch. Perhaps you’re supposed to stay near to that ‘base’ at the bottom of the level? I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt: those rainbow lasers really have put my eyes in a very good mood.

Play Back To The Laboratory, Takishawa Is Dead! and Sworrd Buster (Windows download)

RepliCat

May 26, 2009, 0 comments

RepliCatRepliCat is a bit like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise stumbles across a time-shifted doppelganger of itself. Yes, I know — wasn’t that EVERY episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Forget that for now: just focus on this very clever, very compulsive little game. All you have to do is fly from planet to planet, dodging the ghostly shadows of your own past — who have the really annoying tendency of doing exactly what you were doing, three seconds ago.

RepliCat is, curiously, both fast-paced and brain-frazzingly cerebral, and the mouse-only ship control really works. The music (Chaoz Fantasy by alextheDJ) is terrific, too. More of this kind of thing please. Play RepliCat (Flash)

Heavy Weapons

May 25, 2009, 0 comments

Heavy WeaponsStarts off slow, this one. Roving spaceship, short waves of enemies, seems a bit easy… and did the developer not get the memo that all shoot-’em-ups need to have glowing neon lights now? But then Heavy Weapons goes shopping. Grab cash from dropped enemies and you can spend it on 20 bigger, beefier guns — the details of which are all hush-hush until you can afford them. The lure of what’s behind that $500,000 slot is too much to resist — and with only three weapon slots, you have to be intelligent about your choices as the 60 levels get more varied, and tougher, and better. Who doesn’t love a field full of retro robots with orange heads?

Good stuff, then. Especially level 15. We eagerly await the sequels, Heavy Weapons 2: Heavier Weapons and Heavy Weapons 3: Ooh No, I’m Not Lifting That, I’m Worried I’ll Put My Back Out. Play Heavy Weapons (Flash)