The Half-hour Hitbox: February 2014

Ahh, February–the shortest month of the year. As well as the snowiest, at least for 2014, that is. Last year we barely saw any snow, and this year we’re quadrupling down on that cause, and I have to be honest. I’m done. Truly and terribly. No quibbles about it. I’m tired of my car getting stuck in the snow, I’m tired of shoveling snow, I’m tired of walking like a penguin so as to not fall in the snow, and I’m tired of hearing nearly every day on the radio about the potential coming of even more snow. I really don’t mind cold weather, as I’m all about layering and being warm, but there’s a difference between cold weather and stress-inducing snow. Bring on March and green grass and the chance to not wear socks in the house. My body is ready.

That said, here’s a handful of games I played a little bit of this month.

Lyle in Cube Sector

This little indie thing from 2006 is self-described as a block-throwing action adventure game, and that’s exactly what it is. Lyle’s kitty cat has been stolen by some robed witch, and he’s off to rescue his furry feline. Unlike other Metroidvania games, Lyle doesn’t have a weapon–no whip, no gun, nothing. All he can really do is pick up blocks and throw them. Sometimes this is done to damage enemies, and other times it is to create a path from point A to point B. I had trouble balancing the timing of avoiding incoming enemies and picking up blocks, meaning I didn’t get very far, but it seems like an overall good package. You can grab Lyle in Cube Sector for free over here.

Under the Garden

Right. In this open-ended indie survival game, you are out in the middle of the wild nowhere, tasked with staying alive. You’ll need to eat, create shelter, find fire and essential tools, and so on. A bit like Minecraft, but the controls are kind of iffy. I ended up surviving for around 15 days or so, but gave up playing when I reached a part where you have to cross a body of water on floating crates, and the physics of everything coupled with the janky jumping proved too much. Without exploring, you just end up spending a lot of time standing around, waiting for something to happen. Most often, nothing does.

Pale Machine

More like an interactive music video, Pale Machine is kooky and crazy and completely worth the five or so minutes to go through it. You’ll do ordinary things, like brush your teeth, but also rock potted plants back and forth and stick your tongue out very far to cause some cereal-based chaos. The song is peppy and bounces around from mini scene to mini scene, which means you’re not doing any one specific action for too long. In fact, I played through Pale Machine a second time while writing this little blurb up, and it’s still a bunch of uninhibited fun.

Maverick Bird

Terry Cavanagh strikes again! Maverick Bird is a fan game for the much-talked about Flappy Bird, and though I can’t say much about the game that this draws inspiration from–remember, I have a Windows 8 phone–the concept is simple, but so very addicting. In Maverick Bird, you are…well, a diamond-shaped being, and you can fly up using the up arrow and dive down with the down arrow. You never stop moving, and so the goal is to see how far you get without hitting any walls or traps. It’s tough, but I like it, though I turned the music off right away. Despite the screenshot above, my highest score so far has actually been…17. Take that!

Monaco – What’s Yours is Mine

Yup, I bought the newest Humble Bundle, and got a handful of new indie games to play. So far, while I’ve installed all of them, I’ve only loaded up one, and that’s Monaco – What’s Yours is Mine, a strange title for a stealthy game about…well, cooperative stealth? I really don’t know. There’s some light story setup in the beginning about breaking a fella called The Mole out of prison, but that’s all I recall at this point. I like the aesthetics very much in this and the retro-ish graphics, though it’ll take me some time to get used to the lack of vision and fog of war. Lockpicking feels good, having you press against a door or computer for a short period of time to pick it. Rubbing ain’t picking.

Galaga Legions DX

I was drinking a hot toddy and getting buzzed and thought this would be funny–not fun–to experience a little on the tipsy side. Turns out, I was right. Maybe. Hmm, maybe not. I had no idea what I experienced. I was a spaceship, and I shot bullets, and a blizzard of colorful lights and objects filled the screen, and there was some crazy music bumping in the background, and I did this for a little bit until I cleared the first section of levels. Most likely never going back.

Payday 2

Hmm…this game is described as so:  an action-packed, four-player co-op shooter that has players donning the masks of the original PayDay crew–Dallas, Hoxton, Wolf, and Chains–as they descend on Washington D.C. for an epic crime spree. That may all be very true, but I still can’t get past the first mission, and if one can’t successfully pull off a jewelry heist, well…maybe a life of crime is not the right path to walk. My problem is someone in the store notices what’s going on too quickly, and I don’t yet know how to corral everyone away from the bank-opening action without alerting them or the cops.

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The Half-hour Hitbox is a new monthly feature for Grinding Down, covering a handful of videogames that I’ve only gotten to play for less than an hour so far. My hopes in doing this is to remind myself that I played a wee bit of these games at one time or another, and I should hop back into them, if I liked that first bite.

The Half-hour Hitbox: January 2014

I know, I know. Technically, the month isn’t over, but I really don’t see myself dabbling in anything new over the next two or three days, and so here’s the newest edition of The Half-hour Hitbox. You’re welcome, and all that. Right. See, the dayjob has been pretty crazy these last few weeks, and I come home from work with only enough energy to do a couple of Spelunky runs and then pop upstairs for the heated blanket and some quick-but-quality Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Pokemon Y time. I think I’m nearing the finish line for that latter title, though Victory Road is proving to be a swift kick in the rear, as my collective team of pocket monsters is still not high enough to make it through in one go. I’m not worried. I finally caught a Garbador, so really, all is fine. I’ll get back to EXP grinding after I’m done stuffing its face full of colorful Poké Puffs.

But enough of that. Here’s a sampling of a few other games I played in January 2014, but haven’t gotten to talk about them yet here on Grinding Down. If we’re lucky, I still might further down the road.

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Fountain

Last month, I tried Terry Cavanagh’s Oiche Mhaith, and found it upsetting and disturbing. Fountain, made for Ludum Dare 28, is not so in-your-face depressing, but it is shrouded in inevitable sadness. You start out as an old woman near a fountain, which, when you touch it, restores you to a younger version of yourself. Now you can explore the map faster and push away the fog of war. Everything is also more vibrant, the music a bit bouncier, but after awhile you have to return to the fountain for more youth juice as age sets back in. With each return trip to the fountain, your youth fades faster, and you must be young and spry to find all the hidden items. I was not able to get many and found it frustrating that your first trip out into the wild is generally the farthest you can go before the fountain binds you to it until time stands still for our leading old woman. I guess something is being said here.

Heroine’s Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok

Hmm. Heroine’s Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok is as old-school as the oldest school can get, and by that I mean that Bianca, the name I gave to our leading, blonde-haired warrior, froze to death in the forest in the game’s opening fifteen minutes. And no, I had neglected to save at any point. Yup, this is the sort of point-and-click adventure where you can die left and right, so that’s always hanging over your head, along with trying to puzzle out where to go next and how to get there. I’ll try again, as I love its look and the dry voice acting, but it’s not the easiest game to get into and stay in.

Kingdom Rush: Frontiers

It should come as no surprise that my return to some casual time with the RTS genre is with the sequel to the only RTS game I’ve enjoyed over the last several years. Yup, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, now totally available to play online, in your browser, for zero dollars. I’m down with that, and yes, it’s still a complete package, even if it isn’t technically complete, as some bells and whistles are only available for those that pay to play the game on their iThing or sign up for an online save slot. I’ll stick with the bare bones, thank you very much, because it’s still a fun, bouncy campaign built around constructing towers and fighting off pre-determined waves of enemies. The real trick is to learn when–and how–to spend your money, as a simple upgrade to a specific tower can be the key to victory.

Rogue Legacy

Last year, everyone was talking about Rogue Legacy. And playing it, too. Well, now so am I, but let it be widely known I’m not any good at it. Complete rubbish, actually. I think the longest I’ve stayed alive is two minutes, maybe three, but I’m slowly accruing gold, enough to unlock new parts of the castle and upgrade all the various helpful merchants. It’s a great game when you have a few minutes to kill and absolutely don’t mind getting nowhere fast. I have not yet found a specific build that works well, and the timing for jumping with your sword blade pointed down to activate those platforms is quite tricky.

Spelunky

Speaking of getting nowhere fast, yes…I’m heavily into Spelunky. Giant Bomb‘s Patrick has been playing it every day now for about three weeks, and at first, I watched the videos just because I always watch everything that goes up on the site, regardless if I’m immediately interested in the game in the limelight. It looked like fun though. I played a bit of the freeware version before finally biting the bullet and grabbing the PSN version for a sick three bucks in their 14 in ’14 sale. And now I play it every day, hopefully getting better with each run. I made it to the first level in the Temple section, which I’m pretty proud of. It’s a tough game, but very rewarding in its own way, and I like the Daily Challenges aspect very much. Also: bats are the worst.

Jet Set Radio

Originally, I wrote Jet Set Radio as Jet Moto. My bad. Remember that game? Anyways, in this one, which is a high-definition port for the PlayStation 3, it is all about gaining control of Tokyo-to through graffiti and sick skating skills. The music is rad, upbeat, and heavy on pulsing drum beats and record scratches, and all I’ve done so far is skate through the tutorial, but I’d like to get back into this as it’s such a weird mix of mechanics and a fantastic use of cel-shaded graphics, the kind that tugs at my artistic heart.

EnviroGolf

This is a bad golf sim that attempts to make you feel bad about playing golf. The jokes are kind of funny the first time you see them, but the experience is lacking overall. By the time I got to the third hole, the jokes were repeating themselves. Also, could really use some copyediting.

Facade

A small indie thing made for the MiniLD 48 jam. You basically walk to the right, read some words, go through a cave, open a door by collecting light-bugs, learn that you can’t go on the rocket that is going to get everyone off this desolate hunk of junk…and do it all over again. The second time gives you a more final reason why you can’t leave the desolate planet with everyone, but then that’s it. Game over. Some extremely iffy writing, but very pretty to look at.

Scaling the Sky

Scaling the Sky could also be called Swimming the Sky, as you’ll be doing a lot of that, and it’s fantastic. I mean that from an enjoyment standpoint and a remote from reality kind. It’s a platformer at heart, but you’re going up, up, up, using clouds for a boost and rainbows to transport you to the next scene. The first few sections are pretty simple, with a clear path to follow, but the later ones ask you to puzzle out the best way to reach the rainbow, and you have to sometimes use the push of a chain of clouds to gain great height. That might sound kinda complicated, but it works wonderfully, and I found myself bouncing in and out of clouds, gaining momentum and playing with it. Eventually, all this climbing comes full circle in a moment that makes you smile.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

I will most assuredly being writing about this at greater lengths, as it took me by complete surprise, but let me just say that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a hypnotic ride, one that seems to fuse some of my favorite elements of Fallout 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I’m mad at the world because nobody told me that earlier.

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The Half-hour Hitbox is a new monthly feature for Grinding Down, covering a handful of videogames that I’ve only gotten to play for less than an hour so far. My hopes in doing this is to remind myself that I played a wee bit of these games at one time or another, and I should hop back into them, if I liked that first bite.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #50 – Oiche Mhaith

An abused young girl
Unhappiness breeds more pain
Beyond disturbing

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These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #33 – VVVVVV

You flip up, flip down
Find crew members in tough spots
Die oodles of times

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These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Flipping and flopping in VVVVVV

I had to double-check, but I don’t think I’ve written about playing VVVVVV on the Nintendo 3DS yet. Sure, I excitedly put down some words when it was announced that it was coming to the little-handheld-that-could, but that doesn’t really do the thing justice, as that was more about me moving from playing a control-heavy puzzle platformer on my lackluster Mac’s mouse and keyboard to on something a bit more viable, like the Nintendo 3DS. Yes, I like jumping by pushing a button, not clicking a mouse; don’t sue me. Though, in VVVVVV‘s case, it’s more like flipping than jumping.

I’ll do y’all a solid and re-summarize the short, but sturdy story: Captain Viridian has to both save a dimension on the brink of collapse and find his spaceship’s missing crew members–all of whose names begin with the letter V. There’s six of ’em. See the connection to the game’s title yet? No? Well, just keep trying, and remember that it’s always good to have goals. Anyways, you save friends and the dimension by having Captain Viridian traverse around a somewhat Metroidvania-like map, flipping to the ceiling and across moving platforms and avoiding deadly spikes and getting lost. A retro-inspired chiptune soundtrack fuels the wind beneath Viridian’s feet as you explore space and the weird rooms and buildings filling in the gaps.

I’ve definitely gotten farther playing VVVVVV on the 3DS than the computer, and that’s to say that I’ve rescued a total of four out of the six lost crew members, as well as found three trinkets (out of twenty), which I’m not actively hunting down. Flipping gravity on its head is a simple button press, but there have been a few tough spots that have taken time and practice to nail perfectly, especially when the levels move and you can’t see what is ahead of you before you jump; thankfully, just like in Super Meat Boy, death is quick, and the music never stops, so you always feel like you’re progressing, even if you’re technically not. It definitely helps to keep you in the game, as a long death and reload animation would have been both cumbersome and off-putting. Instead, you just get up and try again.

However, I’ve reached my “stuck” point, and that is the levels called “Do As I Say” and “Not As I Do”, which involve Captain Viridian leading a found crew member to, hopefully, a teleporter that will bring them back to the ship’s control room. Unfortunately, any time Captain Viridian is standing on the ground, the crew member will walk over to him, and you have to lead them across moving platforms and over spikes–and it is no easy thang. I watched someone on YouTube do it in about 45 seconds, but I spent about ten minutes alone going at it, only to frustratingly give up and turn the 3DS off before I threw it in a blender and went to Smoothie Town.

As with my recent roadblock in Mutant Mudds, I’ll just put the game aside for a bit and come back to it later with a clean aura. Only two more crew members to save, and one is currently following me around. That has to mean I’m close to the end, right? Well, time will tell, unless I can’t get past this part, in which case I’ll just have to track down that person on YouTube, invite them over for dinner,  beg them to do it for me, and the shove them in a special barrel and dissolve them into goo so no one will ever know….oh, sorry about that last part. Been catching up on Breaking Bad, you see. I would never do that. But the problem is that I can’t go back and explore more of the map until this part is complete, so it really is this or never seeing any more of VVVVVV, which would be a bummer.

A young boy, a forest, and a hero’s adventure

Adventures are the foundation of RPGs, the stuff to build upon and keep everything standing mighty and tall, especially those romps from fonder times when graphics alone could not carry a game. Think about titles like Chrono Trigger, Grandia, Mother, Secret of Evermore, and Breath of Fire II. Any similarities? All open up with a young boy off on an adventure, his parents strangely indifferent to such careless actions, wishing him all the best, but to be careful. Same thing goes with Hero’s Adventure.

Created by Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV fame, Hero’s Adventure is actually not an adventure at all, especially one starring a hero of some sort. Instead, it’s about a boy who goes off into the shadowy forest, returning home after a hard day’s work. What happens in those woods, stays in those woods…but you can find out by playing the game itself. It’s about a minute long, cynical, and disturbing, with evocative music and really fast battles that, upon popping up, initially scared the crud out of me.

This is the second indie game I’ve played as of late that is short and sweet, but manages to leave a strong impact regardless. The other game was BATHOS, a neat little thing created in a single weekend. I highly recommend y’all checking both out; I know you have the minutes to spare.