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!

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: 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: 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: 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!