This Kung Fu Rabbit will save every single sparkling carrot

This month’s buffet of PlayStation Plus games is indie-themed, and while many in the comments are crying foul–or just plain crying–over the lack of AAA quality free digital downloads of brand new $60 retail releases, I’m more than thankful for the bite-sized adventures. Right now, with my backlog as large as ever and my current pipeline of in-rotation games all still vying for my attention, I’m more inclined to try something teeny yet satisfying than dipping into Batman: Arkham City or Thief and knowing that I have a long road ahead to finish them off. Which brings us to Kung Fu Rabbit. The game, not the animated feature.

It’s a cute platformer starring a rabbit that evidently knows Chinese martial arts, and I do not mean that condescendingly. It’s cute, it’s a platformer, and there are kung fu moves to use against dark, shadowy enemies. All of that is fact. For the titular kung fu rabbit, life in the temple hangs by a thread, with Universal Evil, represented as a big black orb-like being, striking again and kidnapping all of your disciples. Somehow, only you managed to escape, and you are now on a quest to rescue everyone, while also collecting as many carrots as possible, since they are the currency to buy upgrades and one-use items. I think that’s right; I stole some of that from the game’s description page, as the plot is revealed via wordless comic pages and be a little tricky to follow.

In Kung Fu Rabbit, you can jump…and that’s more or less it. Just kidding. You can also wall jump or lightly cling to walls, sliding down them slowly. Also, when you get near an enemy and its weak point, the rabbit will automatically do some kung fu maneuver and take it out. There are a bunch of levels separated into three worlds and a bonus cave, each requiring logic, precision, and agility to complete. There are three small carrots to gather, as well as a larger, shinier carrot worth double, which always respawns if one wanted to, or needed to, grind for currency. Every now and then, one of these carrots is hidden or harder to grab, requiring some extra attention.

What kind of magical things can one buy with lots of carrots, you surely ask? Let me tell you. First, I got my rabbit a new Mexican-themed outfit because…well, I don’t have to explain myself to you. There’s also one-time use items that can clear away enemies from the map, as well as other martial arts moves you can equip. To be honest, it’s not entirely clear what everything is as nothing has any kind of descriptor attached to it, just a button to press for purchase and donning. Seems like you can only equip one artifact–or artefact as the game likes to spell it–and I have no idea if the ones I bought prior are stacking on top of this. Again, some words would help, and not just on the loading screens.

Kung Fu Rabbit opens innocently enough, but the levels do ramp up in difficulty over time, introducing elements like vanishing platforms–everyone’s favorite, right?–and skybound enemies that can only be taken out by dropping down on them from above. Still, I’m chugging through this game relatively fast, popping lots of Trophies and getting perfect runs left and right. This is not me bragging, but questioning the touted “hours of gameplay” promised. I suspect I’ll be done kung fu-ing in another night or two, which again, is fine for me right now.

This Dragon Quest also requires keys to open doors

All right, a slice of honesty here: I didn’t play Dragon Quest the other day in what one might consider…a legal manner. I gave it a fair shake through browser-based emulation that I will not link to here. That said, while performing a Google search for this possibility, I stumbled across another game called Dragon Quest, playable over at the Armor Games website. Here, I’ll happily link to it. To me, it is a big and bold move to name your game the same title as that of a beloved franchise some nearly 30 years in the making. Either it’s a quick grab for knowledgeable gamers’ attention–hey, it worked on me–or there’s a specific and unchangeable detail to the plot that requires such titling.

Here’s the gist: in this Dragon Quest, one must explore a deadly castle on a mission to get back a stolen best friend who was kidnapped by a dragon. I mean, if that stolen friend was named Princess Gwaelin and change the dragon to the Dragonlord, then we’re one in the same with that other mega-popular Dragon Quest. Still, this isn’t an RPG where you have to select the stairs menu option to go up or down staircases, but both titles do have a fixation on finding keys to open locked doors. In fact, that’s the only way you’ll save your stolen friend here, as well as dodge that dragon’s attacks in three separate boss battles.

I’m going to use quotation marks to highlight the descriptive text the creator of this Dragon Quest wrote when describing his or her creation. Basically, there are over 20 levels of “insane physics puzzles” that you need to solve using the “twitch reflexes of a platforming game.” I take issue with both of these claims. Insane is a descriptor better saved for puzzles like late-game Portal or Fez or Silent Hill‘s poetry riddles, not figuring out how to smush the skeleton to get a key to pop out; there’s only one way to do it in each level, and the solution is visually telegraphed based on whatever new elements are added each time. As for the twitch reflexes, you move no faster than Mario without the run button, with none of the momentum. You can jump and change direction in midair, which helps once or twice, but otherwise there is no need to keep your finger hovering over the keyboard for the swiftest of key presses.

For a soldier decked out in shiny armor and wielding a sword, the hero of Dragon Quest is quite the pacifist. He never directly kills a skeleton with his blade, often using the environment around him and the skeletons’ dim wits to do away with them. You use the sword to hit switches or cut ropes mainly. When it comes to battling the dragon, which you do thrice, the soldier must avoid the dragon’s fireballs and attacks, using them against him to deal damage. I’m not here to say I need man on dragon violence to satisfy me and my dark desires, but thought it was an unusual observation nonetheless. I wonder if it was a conscious choice or something that happened due to the nature of the puzzle mechanics.

In the end, Dragon Quest is a mediocre way to kill fifteen minutes and mildly flex your brain muscles, but it probably should’ve been called something more like Door Key Quest or The Mighty Quest to Smush All Skeletons. Here’s hoping that the next time I’m talking about Dragon Quest on this blog of mine, it’s related more to that Enix joint, even if I have to admit to being killed again and again by red slimes. I’m okay with violence against them.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #52 – Dragon Quest

Not the Dragon Quest
We all know, find stolen friend
Through physics puzzles

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

Tiny Barbarian follows after Conan the Cimmerian’s larger footprints

At some point, I won’t feel the need to address how long the current blog post’s subject has been sitting idle in my hands, but I can’t help and show the world that I’m a pretty slow gamer despite the swath of titles I seemingly touch over a year’s time. Heck, we’re almost past the 50 mark for 2015. You may notice that not many of these are what people would describe as “current,” and so far the newest titles I’ve played this year include Super Mario Maker, the full release of Broken Age, and LEGO Jurassic World. Everything else has been from years past, which does not bother me in the least. Anyways, Tiny Barbarian has been twiddling its puny, barbaric thumbs in my laptop’s videogames folder since…well, early 2011.

To tell you about Tiny Barbarian is to tell you about Robert E. Howard’s short story “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” which was published after the author’s death. It’s set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and details Conan pursuing a spectral nymph across the frozen snows of Nordheim. It got rejected as a Conan story, and Howard changed a few names to get it to print, but at its heart, it’s an early adventure of the young barbarian. The game does not have any text, except for the very start, where it mentions being inspired by this short story, and you can see its influence as this wee barbarian travels across a cold landscape, little hearts appearing about his head as he spies that spectral nymph too far off in the distance. Unfortunately, the love doesn’t last long, and everything from skeletons to wolves to even the spectral nymph herself set out to kill this small man with a burning passion.

All in all, this is an action platformer, and a short one at that. I found a speedrun-like playthrough on YouTube where the player didn’t die once and finished Tiny Barbarian in about nine minutes. Kudos for them. For me, it was more like half an hour and multiple deaths, especially against the end bosses. Your tiny barbarian can move to the right, do a single jump, and attack with his sword, doing a three-hit combo if the key is punched in succession. That’s it. Along the way, you need to jump over pits of spikes, watch for falling icicles, and kill enemies in your path. There are coins to collect and, naturally, glistening Thanksgiving-worthy turkeys to refill your health.

The checkpoints are fairly forgiving, but the difficulty really ramps up right at the last few sections, where timing–and hiding–must play with each other, and I nearly walked away out of pure frustration. It also didn’t help that I was using a keyboard to play a platformer. I eventually developed a strategy that saw me charging forward at full steam, with little care to how much damage the tiny barbarian took, so long as he crossed that checkpoint and could restart there with full health. Yeah, I’m pretty heroic. See, there’s no way I can move on from this to things like Volgarr the Viking or even that dusty copy of Maximo: Ghosts to Glory for the PlayStation 2.

Evidently, a successful Kickstarter that I knew nothing of helped bring about Tiny Barbarian DX, which looks bigger and better from all corners. I’m digging the colors, and a lot of the barbarian’s animation looks untouched, which is great to see. Slice up those monsters, little man! Still, perhaps if I’m feeling like a masochistic dip back into the retro worlds inspired by pulp fiction I’ll give this a shot. Until then, remember–it’s not the size of your barbarian that matters, but how he handles himself when stuck between a pack of wolves and an angry, fireball-tossing spectral nymph.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #49 – Tiny Barbarian

Chase that spectral nymph
Across a deadly tundra
For love, delusion

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

Sound Shapes begs you to relax against it

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been chiseling away at Sound Shapes. Its campaign is not extremely long, consisting of 20 levels spread across a handful of themed worlds, dubbed “albums” here, that can be completed rather quickly if one just kept at it. That said, I was in no rush, and I didn’t actually want the levels to end, as I found myself shuffling over to the game in times of stress and panic, when I need a moment to calm my nerves or just forget about the drama of the world. Not every level helps in this fashion, but the majority of this rhythm-driven platformer forces the player to relax, to lose themselves in drum-beats and cartoonish side-scrolling goodness.

For those that know, I did the albums in order, level by level, every few days or so, finishing up with the one featuring music from Beck. Yup, that loser, baby. His first track level is amazing, and I found myself knocked back by how good it was, fusing platforming with both music and vocals, creating yet a still dangerous environment to roll and jump around in. The same can be said of the previous albums too, though they all feel different, and not just because of the visual style or drum beats, but some levels are more about timing-specific jumping while others have you avoiding rockets or enemies. A handful of earlier levels are happy to let you stroll through with no obstacles, and they are just as enjoyable. Before I discovered Beck’s album levels, I was madly in love with the album designed by Capybara Games, featuring music from Jim Guthrie. Y’know, the folks behind the fantastically moody and unnerving Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.

Sound Shapes, from what I can tell, is twofold: basically, the straightforward campaign, and a level creator. Once you complete the game’s campaign, two other modes unlock, which play heavily into unlocking the majority of Trophies. That said, the “death mode” levels are extremely challenging, like late-game Super Meat Boy-esque, seeing as it took me upwards of thirty tries to beat the first take on this theme. I don’t know how many others I’ll go after, but I will try out “beat school” at some point, though I kind of feel like I got my fill of Sound Shapes. It sated, if you will.

Sound Shapes‘ gameplay is fairly straightforward. After all, this is a side-scrolling platformer, a genre that will never not be strong, where you can move your little eyeball critter and stick it to surfaces to climb or descend through the level. Each stage is packed with collectible circles that add musical components to the background soundtrack, such as an additional guitar lick or hi-hat tap. As you collect more, the level’s soundtrack evolves. Your goal is to get to the end and jump through the magical boombox. It’s pretty linear, but that doesn’t mean it is less magical as you watch a level’s geography twist and turn with the tunes, funneling you one way through its audio-video journey.

Unlike Super Mario Maker, which I have and have been tooling around with over the last week and will eventually do a post on, I have no interest in making levels for Sound Shapes. Zip, nada, none. Or playing others’ levels, if that is something you can do. I’m not sure, as I didn’t even dip into the level creator menu to find out. I’m not really sure why, but some games simply don’t entice me in the same way that Super Mario Maker has, or, if they do, they are a bit too complicated to figure out, like LittleBigPlanet 2 or any of the LEGO games. I’m sure there’s a ton of cool stuff being made–or was made–for Sound Shapes, as one can already tell from its mishmash of a campaign in terms of style and substance, but those twenty-some levels were all I needed. Truly, if I want more, I’ll just replay them.

Look, if you like music and games, you should play Sound Shapes. If you love music and games, boy oh boy, you should play Sound Shapes. If you’re a big fan of simplistic, forgiving platformer, at least until you clear the campaign, you should play Sound Shapes. That’s as best as I can sell it. I’m off now to listen to those three Beck tracks on loop, just because.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #45 – Sound Shapes

Musical platforms
Create, absorb every beat
Move a little, ahhhh

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #36 – Out There (Somewhere)

Time those jumps, fix ship
End boss is out there somewhere
Don’t ignore the trees

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

Your broken spaceship’s parts are Out There (Somewhere)

Well, the Steam Summer Sale kicked off the other day, and so far, I’ve produced a haiku about it, as well as bought a bundle of four games for $0.74. I’d also like to note that the money used to purchase this bundle was generated from selling digital trading cards on the Steam marketplace, so this is a big win–in my mind–from multiple angles. The Developer Alliance bundle, which was marked down to 95% off, contained the following, all of which seemed interesting and were not already in my library at the time of purchase: Polarity, Beep, Camera Obscura, and Out There (Somewhere). Today, I’ll be waxing on and off about the last listed title there, but I do expect to try out the other three sooner than later.

Out There (Somewhere), a name that feels like it should be attached to a long-lost Asimov short story, is an action-based puzzle platformer clearly inspired by adventures like Cave Story, Super Metroid, and Portal. See, you play an explorer named Yuri stranded on a dangerous alien planet after your spaceship is damaged. Low on fuel and in desperate need of key spaceship parts, your only hope for escape is to explore and see what this planet holds. Thankfully, you have a teleportation gun, though its use is limited based on your environment. I’ll explain.

In this platformer, you can jump, as well as shoot your teleportation gun, which fires a ball of blue light. Technically, that’s you. Once that blue light hits a surface, you’ll be instantly transported there. Of course, there are some exceptions, as different colored beams of light will get in your way: red cancels your shot, blue will teleport you like any other surface, and green takes you for a ride first. This is where a lot of the puzzles come into play, figuring out how to get from one place to another using your gun. Often, you’ll have to factor in momentum too when landing a teleporting shot. Fairly early on you’ll acquire a more weapony gun, a real pea-shooter, which will help you take out enemies like bats and monster slime thingies; alas, having two different guns confused me at first, and I ended up firing the wrong one at the right time far too many times.

Evidently, I’m a sucker for games where every screen you traverse gets a name. I loved this in VVVVVV and You Have to Win the Game, and I like it here as well, though the screen names, so far, are not highly titillating (for example, Basement). The story is fairly thin, but enough to go on. As you explore, you’ll come across NPCs in the form of alien treefolk; they don’t say much, but there’s an Achievement for speaking to every one of them, and so I’ll do it. However, Out There (Somewhere) is more about the action and nifty mechanics, and the difficulty curve is surprisingly tough–but rewarding.

Part of me is bummed to learn that Out There (Somewhere) was released back in 2012. That means I’ve been missing out on this good, wholesome, teleport-your-body fun for three years. There once was a time when only a handful of games came out, and you could keep track of them all; now, not so much. Well, I’m glad then that this Developer Alliance bundle for the Steam Summer Sale caught my eye, and I’m looking forward to checking out the other titles, but only after I finish Yuri’s mission. For the meantime, I have to get back to work, and by that I mean collecting those vital spaceship parts with style.

Kram Keep is a tiny yet towering take on Metroidvania

In a different life, one where maybe I didn’t try to have a career or binge-watch TV shows via Netflix or sleep or, heavens no, make a name for myself through art and writing, I’d be covering every Ludum Dare that happened, deeply examining all the themed creations, whether they got voted highly or not. Alas, that is not me. Instead, I kind of stumble across a Ludum Dare jam game months or even years after it was born. Well, with the topic du jour, I’m not terribly late, seeing that Ludum Dare 31 went down back in early December 2014, its jam theme being “Entire Game on One Screen.”

Kram Keep certainly meets that requirement. It’s the age-old classic tale of a blue-haired vampire hunter, a massively large castle full of traps and projectile-shooting enemies, and an evil master at its top, awaiting your blood. It’s a Metroidvania-style game, stuck on a single screen, meaning you can press the Shift key at any time to zoom out the map all the way and see everywhere you’ll eventually be going; I liked this, as it proved useful in guiding me to the next area, as well as keeping me informed about what was to come and the locations of vital power-ups. If anything, this seems sides more with the vania part than Metroid, but it is hard to say. As you go, you can collect hearts to increase your life bar, but you really want those special abilities–wall jump, double jump, and spread projectiles–if you are going to make any significant progress. Little crosses act as both checkpoints and health refills.

There were perhaps two or three tricky spots in Kram Keep that involved precise wall jump timing, and using the letter X and the arrow directions on the keyboard complicated things. As always, I prefer my platformers with a controller in hand, but sometimes you aren’t allotted such a benefit. In truth, where I needed a controller the most, was against the final boss. He has a pattern, so it eventually comes down to memorization and quick reflexes, but I still managed to put him six feet under with only a sliver of health left. Once you kill him, spoilers, much like with the end of Super Metroid, you have a limited amount of time to escape the castle, which means reversing the way you came in, though some routes are now closed off; I failed it the first time, but by hitting continue on the main menu, you can give it another go, and from what I can tell, it only changes a small part of the credits. Overall, the experience is tough, but fun, something I’d definitely recommend platforming fans to check out.

Since I love statistics and games that spit them out at the end of your run, here are my final, less-than-impressive tallies for Kram Keep:

• Time played: 0:42:51
• Deaths: 52
• Enemies killed: 160
• Crystal Hearts: 5/8
• Difficulty: Normal

Ludum Dare 32 is coming up in the middle of April, though there’s no listed theme just yet. Until then, I think I’ll snoop around a bit more in Ludum Dare 31‘s entries, as I’m almost positive there are a bunch more innovative takes on the “single screen only” theme. Hopefully I can find a few other titles to highlight like Kram Keep, that do a lot with very little.