Second Hiatus

Unfortunately, once again I must take a break from the daily reviews. While they are fun, and I'd love to invest more time into making videos once a week, I have a large interview on Friday so I've got to prepare. I'm also going out of town on Saturday, so it's going to be a busy weekend. Thanks for your patience, and hopefully I'll be posting reviews again by Monday.

Daily Flash: Experimental Shooter

It's like WarioWare rules, all in the style of a top down shooter. Each level has it's own unique rules. From putting a timer on your clearing time, to forcing you to hit two targets per shot, the only rules that remain the same is that all targets must be destroyed to continue. Does the game make sense, or is it too scatterbrained to be fun?

Presentation:
Very minimalistic designs, the only things on the screen are your targets and yourself. It's pretty effective, and it's easy to figure out what's going on. Since half of the game is trying to learn how to beat the level, that's pretty important.
3.5/5

Gameplay:
For veterans of any shooter, the rules for each level shouldn't be too difficult to deduce. And, if you ever needed a hint, the name of the level pretty much spells out what you have to do. But, while trying out new rules every level is fun and refreshing, some of the games had rules that just made it frustrating to finish. For example, I had several stages reset because I missed the final shot because I had to shoot from across the stage.
3.5/5

Overall:
While levels can be frustrating, the good news is that they're never around so long that you stop playing. As soon as you get tired of one level, it's over and it's time to go onto the next. Experimental Shooter is a mix of ideas that are genuinely fun, and others that are just new and different. As the title says, it's an experiment, and one that I kinda liked taking part in.
3.5/5

Play Experimental Shooter Here!

Daily Flash: Flur

A game created in three weeks by a team of two, Flur is a "progressive casual adventure with engaging and nonthreatening gameplay.” The only controls are to move your mouse for direction, and to click once you've leveled up enough to use collectable power-ups. I've said before that games today add achievements to try to superficially extend game time, like a cripple hooked up to a machine. Lets just say that Flur has 85 achievements to get.

Presentation:
Visually, the game starts out looking pretty nice. The menu displays a beautiful fairy, with the entire game sticking to a greenish-blue hue that brings everything together. Unfortunately, that's all you have to look at for the entire game. The background never changes, and neither does your character. The only other things that exist are green and red glowing orbs, though they do manifest themselves in amusing patterns.
3.5/5

Gameplay:
The only thing that kept me going was my curiosity. Yes, the glowing lights appear in increasingly complex and elaborate configurations, but that's about all you get. After leveling my way up most of the way, I still hadn't gotten any feedback that I was doing better. Make my wings grow, make me glow a different color, make something happen that tells me I'm getting stronger. The 85 achievements are mostly shallow and pointless. The addition of red orbs makes the game partially interesting, but it's a long time until any of them pose any threat.
2/5

Overall:
Nonthreatening? Yes, they did that pretty well since getting hit only means a temporary phasing out of the world. Engaging? Hardly. As I played, I waited for something fun to happen. The game feels like it's unfinished, like there was some goal to reach or other levels to add, but they're all missing. Leveling is pointless, and gathering orbs doesn't give you any rewards except more orbs to gather. Yes, there are 85 achievements, but I don't expect anyone to get close to getting them all.
2.7/5

Play Flur Here!

Daily Flash: Escaping the Prison

Ahh, stick figures. Popular about five years ago, who knew they were still around? Escaping the Prison is a choose your own adventure style game, filled with the many dead endings you'd expect from similar games. Less of a game than it is an interactive movie, if there's one thing I know for sure, we love to watch people get hurt.

Presentation:
Smooth animations, great expressions, and plenty of color. While the characters may be thin, the quality here is rock solid. There's plenty of personality in the animation and the drawing, and trying out each of your options is plenty of fun.
4/5

 Gameplay:
 I'm not really sure we can classify this as gameplay. You watch a sequence, then you select your escape tool. There are a few God of War style quick time events, but that's about it. At least it's obvious when you need to make a decision, and they don't expect you to try a thousand times just to figure out what you're supposed to do.
1.5/5


 Overall:
This is a hard game to recommend. While it was interesting, it's not really engaging. Truly an evolution of the choose your own adventure books of old, Escaping the Prison makes it fun to fail. The retry option is nice, and makes it easy to see everything there is. Play it once through, and try all the options you want, and be ready to watch some poor stick figure fail countless times.
2.8/5


Play Escaping the Prison Here!

Daily Flash: Use Boxmen

 Simple graphics and silly faces everywhere. Once again, a game with silly humor in everything from the between stage text to the walls of the levels, Use Boxmen has you using, abusing, and sacrificing your clones to finish each level. A platformer with cloning, how does this one stand up with other puzzlers out there?

Presentation:
I'm a sucker for cute aesthetics. All the faces of the boxmen and even the faces drawn on the foreground are simple, yet adorable. There's nothing like watching your boxmen run into a spike wall or down a pit with huge, innocent smiles on their faces. The hand drawn look is simple, and never really draws too much attention to itself.
3.5/5

Gameplay:
The puzzles are simple, with only one or two levels that required a bit of out-of-the-box thinking to solve. Pun intended. Using your Boxmen in different ways is fun, and intuitive. If I see a cliff I can't quite jump, have a Boxman do it. Have to leave someone standing on a button? No worries, he'll spend the rest of his life holding down that button. The levels are fun, but could be harder.
3.5/5

Overall:
While there are other games that have you creating copies of yourself, Use Boxmen is one of the few that give you the freedom of letting your copies do things that you can't do. While it's not as complex as controlling several characters at once, it's gameplay is similar to lemmings in leaving your limited supply of characters standing around to reach a goal. Plenty of fun to be had, but the 13 levels end quickly.
3.5/5

Play Use Boxmen Here!

I'm Moving!

No, the blog will stay right here, but I'm moving into my first apartment today, and unfortunately Comcast hasn't gotten around to getting our internet up yet. Until that point, I'll try to get some Daily Flash's up, but no promises. Anyways, after a long day of moving it's time to go to sleep.
See you later my good people!

Daily Flash: Gap Monsters

A puzzle game should tug at your mind, make you think in new, imaginative ways, and it should feel good when you figure out the solution to a problem. Gap Monsters is one heck of an amazing game, using negative space as a simple, but incredibly deep mechanic in the same way Portal did with teleportation.

Presentation:
Music that fits the gameplay, a most elegant navigation and level design. The levels are a bland black and white with shades of grey, with all the important things in bright red, but what more could you want? The notes on the right side hide a huge variety of humor, and the sound effects when you slide one of the monsters into a gap are priceless. This is a game with personality, and it's always an enjoyable experience.
5/5

Gameplay:
A puzzle makes you think. A good puzzle gives you a sense of accomplishment just by solving it. The entire gameplay revolves around clever use of negative space, where separating a space suddenly makes a brand new object you can manipulate. While there were plenty of levels that were straight forward and just fun to complete, a hefty section of the puzzles forced you to put on your thinking cap and really study the map. I haven't felt so genuinely clever about solutions in a long time. I can tell you, there were plenty of times when I smiled and thought to myself, 'oh, now that was clever.'
4.9/5

Overall:
Everything today has achievements that say, 'good job, here's a shiny sticker for your wall' and there's a loss of playing games just to have fun. I don't like giving away perfect scores, because I feel like somewhere you can make a better game, but this comes as close to perfection as I've seen in a long time. If you have ever enjoyed a puzzle game, this is one that you'll love and be comparing games to for a long time.
4.9/5(but pretty darned close)

Play Gap Monsters Here!

Daily Flash: Magnet Towers

Sometimes, after a long day, we need something mindless with flashy sounds and lots of points to pick us up. Magnet Towers has a simple concept, roll your mouse over the similarly colored tokens, and avoid tokens of other colors. A fun game, but one fatal flaw puts a huge dent in it's entertainment value.

Presentation:
Two large problems stand out for me with the presentation. The first, and it's mostly just a personal preference, is that the music is a generic techno mix and is ridiculously loud. The second, and here's the big crutch that is holding the game back, is that the colors are too similar. This is a game where quickly distinguishing between colors is important, letting you figure out which tokens are safe to touch, and which aren't. Unfortunately, neon green and neon yellow are just so close together, that it takes a lot of focus to tell them apart. A color-blind option would be nice, or changing one of the colors to pink would work just as well.
2/5

Gameplay:
Don't get me wrong, the game is plenty fun by itself, but it just suffers from the poor color decisions. There's satisfaction in whisking around the level, narrowly avoiding tokens you don't want. But, once again, there are problems that could be easily fixed. There's a problem with the interface hiding tokens in the bottom left and bottom right corners. Several times, I finished off a stack thinking I got every piece just to discover that I missed one sitting perfectly under the Mute button. Increasing the number of colors in later levels would also be nice, instead of only raising the number of tokens on the screen.
3/5

Overall:
DO play this game. Just turn the game on mute, and stick around for a minute or two. It's a prime example of how a game could be so much more, but got lost somewhere in the polish stage. I wish there was more to get out of this game, but as it is, the game is just a shadow of what it could be.
2.5/5

Play Magnet Towers Here!

Daily Flash: Soul Tax

An amazing blend of 8 bit graphics and quick puzzle solving with a unique twist, Soul Tax brings you in as a ghost who must gather enough souls to avoid damnation by killing everyone around. Your only weapon? The ability to possess anyone in the game with a pulse. The game may sound like a walk in the park, but clever mechanics and level design show that there's lots of depth to be found in this killing spree.

Presentation:
Oh do I love me some old school graphics. While a change in location would be nice, this is a game about haunting an office building so I can't complain. Everything from the sounds to the artwork hark back to the days when games were all about mechanics and gameplay.
4.5/5

Gameplay:
Snatching the body of anyone in the world makes for interesting puzzles. The first few levels are introductory, and while they have the difficulty of squishing a fly with a ghostly rocket launcher, there's fun in experimenting with the many different things you can do. The level design is excellent. There are several ways you can beat each level, and I'd argue that it takes too long for the game to throw you a puzzle that actually makes you think. There are a few reflex puzzles thrown in there for variety, and it's always a nice to have a change of pace.
4.2/5

Overall:
The fresh gameplay that stealing bodies provides is a breath of fresh air in a world of Super Mario clones. While the ideas were there, I felt like something was missing. Maybe it was a lack of challenge from the early levels, maybe it was a cry for more difficult puzzles in the later game. Some puzzles made it obvious that there was only one solution, and those were nowhere near as fun as the levels that just allow you to work your creativity. Definitely worth a try, Soul Tax gets my approval for originality.
4.3/5

Play Soul Tax Here!

Daily Flash: Top Defense

I love me some defense games. Top Defense brings you in as the commander of a space station, but who cares? This game is about the tedious destruction of thousands of enemies who will mindlessly follow the arbitrarily indirect paths towards your base. Is this game enough fun to play to the end?

Presentation:
Everything from the explosions to the enemies look pretty good in Top Defense. The intro has some wonderful images that suit a sci-fi universe, and you actually see several diverse environments as you progress through the game. No matter how busy the screen gets, all the weapons have distinct effects, and although things can get frantic when the tough enemies come out, everything is clear and the game never slows down.
4/5

Gameplay:
Once again, this is a game that would benefit from a Start Next Wave button. There were plenty of times where I just wanted more things to kill. I like that the different weapons clearly have their pros and cons against different enemy types. Your main cannon can hit hard if you upgrade it, but it can be a hassle to destroy the smaller, quicker units. Your several area attacks can decimate small units, but have a long time between uses.
3/5

Overall:
There are small improvements that could have been made to the game play, and many of the levels just felt drawn out. The earlier levels suffer from easy enemies that are quickly destroyed by anything I threw at them, but there were moments later on that genuinely had me scrambling. If you like defense games, this is an okay way to waste your time. Otherwise, maybe try to find something with a little more action.
3.5/5

Play Top Defense Here!

Daily Flash: Darkness 2

If you've ever thought, "There are just too many colors in the world." then Darkness 2 is perfect for you. A simple concept, everything in the world is dark and you have a limited supply with which you can paint that world. A world of light/dark has been done before, but can Darkness 2 shine a new light on the concept?

Presentation:
While the graphics aren't much to look at, it's loads of fun to paint the walls. It's a simple pleasure, drawing on the idea of making a mess with no consequences. Everyone will agree that finger painting and drawing on things you shouldn't is fun. Some levels mix up the color palate which is a refreshing change of pace, but this doesn't happen often enough and the rest of the game does get stale quickly.
3/5

Gameplay:
Most of the game feels either too simple, or arbitrarily hard. While you have a limited number of paint balls to paint the environment, you never get close to using up your regular paint so it might as well be unlimited. Many of the levels are simple, and rely on you not being able to see the walls. The levels that force you to go off screen are annoying since you get so close to the sides, but at least not being able to see everything brings some sort of new gameplay.
2.5/5

Overall:
Refreshing at first, and there are a few moments that make you appreciate the mechanics, but the level design is lacking. There just aren't enough moments that actually make you feel clever because you solved the level. Most levels could be solved by throwing paint balls everywhere until it just becomes a normal platformer. Try it for the novelty, but don't expect anything too clever.
2.6/5

Play Darkness 2 Here!

Daily Flash: One Button Bob

You're at your friend's house, and there's something suspiciously sticky about his keyboard that tells you that if you touched it, you'll probably have to cut off your fingers. Thankfully One Button Bob brings us a delightful game using, you guessed it, one button. The many modes there are reminiscent of the Wario Ware games, with the difficulty ramping upwards as you go along.

Presentation:
8 bit graphics, simple images for a simple game. The entire game feels like you're playing an old Indiana Jones movie, back before we had aliens and Shia Labeouf. The main character is adorable, and you I feel sorry for all the pain I must have put him through with my failed attempts.
4/5

Gameplay:
For a single button game, there's a deceptive amount of gameplay here. From outrunning boulders to throwing boomerangs, jumping gaps and avoiding arrows, it's all done with one button. If there's one thing I wanted from the gameplay, was more of it. By the time it was over, all I wanted to do is see how much deeper one click could take me.
3.5/5

Overall:
Much shorter than most games, One Button Bob will only last upward of 5 minutes. (I finished the game in under 400 clicks, so there's a ballpark for how look it took.) If you have the time to read this review, you have the time to play the game. It's an amazing example of mechanics so simple a child can understand it, but it takes quite a bit of timing and reflexes to make it all the way to the end. Tell me how many clicks you finished in.
3.8/5

Play One Button Bob Here!

Daily Flash: Diamond Hollow

Another example that exposition isn't everything, and fun, tight gameplay can really make a game, Diamond Hollow is a scrolling platformer where the only goal is to survive as long as you can. Your only story is a quick Zelda reference, "Its dangerous to go alone..." and you're on your way. And the best part is, the game was created in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 20.

Presentation:
16 bit graphics at its finest. There's nothing about this game that couldn't have been made 15 years ago. But that's not a bad thing. The simple aesthetics make the world colorful and fun. There are too many games out there today trying to be realistic and gritty, but playing the game will remind you that there's nothing wrong with lime green grass with purple and blue monsters.
4.5/5

Gameplay:
Jump! Shoot! True to its roots in classic gaming, you're not playing to beat the game, but to beat your own high score. While the game is technically endless, getting diamonds allows you to level up in a sense, gaining better abilities as you go along. Most of the upgrades feel great, except for the dash that can be difficult to use at times. You won't live for too long, but going higher and higher feels like you're accomplishing with your hard work.
4.5/5

Overall:
Oh boy did I have fun with this one. Expect to finish all your upgrades before you hit 1000 meters, but you'll have fun the entire way. My only complaint? There are a few cheap deaths here and there if you're rushing it too close to the top of the screen, but as long as you take your time and don't get careless, you've got your 30 minutes of fun right here.
4.5/5

Play Diamond Hollow Here!

Daily Flash: The Company of Myself

Following K.O.L.M. in the artsy platformer trend, lets look at another platformer with a unique playstyle, The Company of Myself. It's no looker, but it gives us a brand new mechanic, you can repeat a level, and your previous attempts become shadows that you can use as platforms for future attempts.

Story:
There are few games that make you really think out there, but the ones that do can leave you with a profound sense of discovery. The game starts out as a regular platformer with a unique twist, but as you go further into the game you learn about the twists and depth to the meaning of the character's unique powers. I can't say anything about the story, but you definitely should play all the way through, and read everything there is to read.
4.5/5

Presentation:
The game doesn't look too amazing. There are never any moments that will get close to pushing the boundaries of a web based flash game, but do we really need that? You can clearly tell who you are and where you need to go. The aesthetic isn't even unique or memorable, but it's functional, and plays to the style of the gameplay.
3/5

Gameplay:
Tight controls combined with good platforming. The cloning gameplay makes for some unique puzzles, with gates that either you or your shadows can't pass through. The levels never get too difficult, but I guess you'll have to settle for unique gameplay.
4/5

Overall:
It's another come for the gameplay, stay for the story. If you like a good platformer, you'll love The Company of Myself. Even if you only want to just see the puzzles, it's definitely an experience you'll want to try out.
4/5

Play The Company of Myself Here!

Daily Flash: K.O.L.M.

Ahh, a good old platformer, K.O.L.M. isn't focused around quick paced action or beautiful aesthetics, but is a simple puzzler with a great story attached to it. You start out seeing nothing but a blur, and as you read the messages on the bottom you learn the controls slowly. As you explore, you repair your broken body, while your mother berates you at your every action, and belittles your attempts at escape.

Story:

Everything is a mystery. Your mother talks to you in the bottom left and is an amazingly nice touch to set the atmosphere. Throughout the game, there's something unsettling about the situation you're in. You slowly learn bits and bits of what has happened as you repair your body, but you never learn the full story. The more you play, the more you want to find out. The ending is quite surprising.

4/5

Presentation:
The entire game is set in single tone levels with pretty much everything that moves out to kill you. You eventually gain a gun that basically lets you belch a pixel that leaks rainbow sparkles everywhere. Some of the levels are zoomed out so far that it's hard to tell exactly what's going on, and it'd be nice to be able to zoom in on the minimap, but these are just nitpicks and in no way take away from the gameplay.
3.5/5

Gameplay:
The game is a standard platformer with good controls, and fun upgrades. It's great to be able to unlock little parts of your body at a time, and the power-ups feel great. It can be easy to lose yourself in the world, which could have been remedied with an easy way to zoom into the minimap. It's fun to kill enemies, and make your way through, and the game lasts just long enough to keep the levels fun, and leaving you waiting for more.
3.5/5

Overall:
K.O.L.M. is an amazing story. I wish more games could combine fun gameplay, with an engaging story that just makes you want to see the ending. It's a short game, maybe around 15 minutes of play, but I enjoyed the entire ride. I can't say too much about it, I don't want to spoil the surprises with what the upgrades are and what you can do.
4/5

Play K.O.L.M. Here!

Daily Flash: Dude and Zombies

Welcome, to the mindless zombie killing that is Dude and Zombies. You are a dude, all by yourself in the twisted woods of nowhere, and zombies are attacking! There's no story, there's no plot, but who cares? This is action zombie survival at it's finest.

Presentation:
The game has a very distinct art style. Pixilated backgrounds, enemies, weapons, it all works together perfectly to create an amusing and fresh aesthetic. The game UI is simple, and very easy to pick up, any veteran to games will quickly understand everything without any explanation.
5/5

Gameplay:
Guns that felt great, tight controls, an excellent difficulty curve even if it's a bit easier than I'd like, the game just feels... great! There is a leveling system, and you can buy new guns as you go along, and as long as you are smart with your skills and money, you'll do fine. I shot zombies, birds, and rabbits, and I loved it. My only complaint is that there's no "Skip to next wave" button. Yes, the chain gun is over powered, and makes the game a simple mowing down of zombies, but after I put in the hard work to get it, that's all I want from it.
4.5/5

Overall:
The game is very similar to another older flash game, Balloon in a Wasteland. Maybe I'll do a review on it later, but if you play both games there's one thing that Dude and Zombies wins out in spades, and that's simplicity and style. In the 15 minutes it took me to play this game to completion, I loved almost every moment of it. The later waves took longer to spawn than it took for me to kill, but the guns and killing felt so good I didn't care. And you know what? That's what's important. I cannot stress how important it is for games to feel good, and Dude and Zombies does this perfectly.
4.8/5

Play Dude and Zombies Here!

Daily Flash: Mechanical Commando 2

Today's flash game is Mechanical Commando 2! It was the featured game for Kongregate today, so why not let it be the first flash game for our daily quick review?

Mechanical Commando is your run of the mill top-down shooter who puts you as some regular guy, who happens to come upon an abandoned Mech laying in a warehouse. Why it has the keys to the ignition in there, who knows. The story doesn't really draw you in or ask you to connect with the hero, lets be honest here, we came to play a shooter and I don't remember the last time I stopped before playing Contra and actually asked what was going on. The story is just there to put you in a war zone, and give you a reason for slaughtering the thousands of people you are going to be killing. And killing we shall.

Presentation:
The game looks good, but lacks any distinct art style that sets it apart from other giant mech games. At times, the camera feels too zoomed in, and you can only see far enough to care about the 4-5 guys on the screen at a time. Bodies, footprints, and explosions stay on the map forever, which is a nice touch, but if you have an older PC be prepared to turn the quality to low to keep up with all the giblets being left on the floor. The aesthetics work, but they never pop.
3.5/5

Gameplay:
There's plenty of people to kill in this game, and I mean plenty of things to kill. Unfortunately, you don't get much variation in a top-down shooter when you basically have: infantry, stationary turret, flyer, robot, and large robot. The boss fights play just like any other enemy, but with a larger health pool and more bullets all over the place. The levels are longer than necessary, and incredibly repetitive. The game is tough, I couldn't make it through the second main story line level without going to do a side stage to get enough exp to make it through. It's not a hard game to play, but the health packs are few and far apart, and when you have several thousand bullets to dodge, they eventually whittle you down. It also doesn't help that if you die, you don't gain any exp for your hard work, and must start the level all over again from scratch.
2.5/5

Overall:
The game is boring and slow. You get new weapons, but all the ones I experienced played exactly the same, but with variations in speed in power. The game was fun for the first fifteen minutes, but the repetitiveness of the enemies and boring level design just couldn't keep me interested. Play the game to see what it's like, but don't expect it to keep you hooked til the end.
3/5

Play Mechanical Commando 2 Here!