SLIMES! review of the hour

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SLIMES! review of the hour

Post by Baconlabs »

Where to begin? This here's a nifty li'l puzzle game made in the same genre as Lemmings and March of the Minis. The gist is very basic: Using a limited assortment of tools, guide a bunch of (somewhat) powerless/mindless critters (Slimes) through an obstacle course to a designated exit (labeled EXIT for your convenience.)
Perhaps the beauty of this game is its simplicity. The above is pretty much all you need to know for the bulk of the game. Aside from new tools, obstacles, and Slime transformations, nothing about your mission changes until the absolute last level (which I'll explain later.)

Brief diversion: Slime Transformations are as such:
:D Green-flavored, the default.
:devil: Red-flavored, induced by the Red Food Coloring tool, which makes a Slime invincible and fast. Watch out for fire though.
:angel: Blue-flavored, induced by the Blue Food Coloring tool, which makes a Slime immune to fire and gives it healing abilities.
:o Fire-flavored; a slime that touches fire will FLAME ON and run around like mad until it is healed or hits an Oil drum.
:zombie: Dead-flavored, the result of a Fire-flavored slime that hit an Oil drum. Immobile until healed.

As I say, it's so simple, it's very easy to get hooked in the first half of the game. This game has a wonderful learning curve and most of the stages won't take too long to figure out, even the later ones. (Exception is Level 34, which I spent days on until Spoons released a special walkthrough video.) The game can also be very forgiving, where if you decide that the "correct" way of getting through a level is too tough, there's often an easier but tricky-to-discover alternate path to take. You'll learn how to make the most of your limited toolset and even your own reflexes very quickly. In this way, it sorta reminds me of Portal.

By the way, let's talk about story for a while. SLIMES! seems to have no story, it's very arcade-like in that you have a goal, now go and meet it. Get those slimes over there. But, surprisingly, it turns out there is an ulterior motive behind this simple task! And it's evil-flavored! But you won't find that out until the last level, so I'll stop before I make a Another name for this game might be REVENGE OF THE SLIMES!
Next up is music. It's awesome, and it's all original to this game. Every 10 levels, the music changes along with the environment, and I'd say at least 60% of the tracks are worthy of repeated listening. (I really wish the game had an option to play any music that you've uncovered by playing.)
It feels particularly awesome when you hear the last 10 levels, then the credits, and then hear the first level's music again when you're going to the level editor. You start to understand that all of this music is related, and then you just might find that SLIMES! has its own melody! That rarely happens in any sort of game, OHR or otherwise.
Maybe the composers will open up a soundtrack for download in the future?

That's about as far as I'll go, the reader here ought to get on his tuchus and play this game. It's short and sweet, won't take too long to beat, and then comes the Level Editor. As James put it, "Making a game-editor with a game-editor is deliciously meta" and it is. It's about as meta as the OHRRPGCE has ever gotten; as we all know, editors are the epitome of the metagame. Make a level, send your SAV file to Spoonweaver, and he might just add it into the next update of the game! Give it a shot!

WARNING: SLIMES is not part of a balanced meal and should not be played in lieu of one.
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Last edited by Baconlabs on Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

On the topic of music, I feel it's necessary to credit the artist a little more. Andrew Potterton ( a.k.a. Dopekick ) wrote a lot of the music for slimes. One might have noticed his name in the credits. Here's a link to his profile on Soundsnap. (Which in turn links to his other sites as well. ) Here you can listen to the music of Slimes, plus more.

Andrew Potterton - on Soundsnap


You'll learn how to make the most of your limited toolset and even your own reflexes very quickly. In this way, it sorta reminds me of Portal.
It's VERY weird that you'd say that. I was playing through portal on the commentary setting and learned about their stepping stone difficulty ladder. I tried to implement that into the game, so I'm glad it worked. Did it really come off as THAT much like portal?
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Baconlabs »

Spoonweaver wrote:
You'll learn how to make the most of your limited toolset and even your own reflexes very quickly. In this way, it sorta reminds me of Portal.
It's VERY weird that you'd say that. I was playing through portal on the commentary setting and learned about their stepping stone difficulty ladder. I tried to implement that into the game, so I'm glad it worked. Did it really come off as THAT much like portal?
Probably for the sole reason that I've also heard the developer commentary, and fairly recently too. No, it's not overt at all, but the feeling is still there.
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

On the topic of music, I feel it's necessary to credit the artist a little more. Andrew Potterton ( a.k.a. Dopekick ) wrote a lot of the music for slimes. One might have noticed his name in the credits. Here's a link to his profile on Soundsnap. (Which in turn links to his other sites as well. ) Here you can listen to the music of Slimes, plus more.
Did he write original music for Slimes, or was this stuff he had already written? If it was original, did he seem like the kind of person who was happy to have his music used in an indie game?

I listened to his stuff back when I was searching for house music for some of the establishments in Powerstick Man: XE, and really liked it. Then again, I also really like Soundsnap.

Needless to say, Slimes has one of my favorite OHR soundtracks.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Did he write original music for Slimes, or was this stuff he had already written? If it was original, did he seem like the kind of person who was happy to have his music used in an indie game?

I listened to his stuff back when I was searching for house music for some of the establishments in Powerstick Man: XE, and really liked it. Then again, I also really like Soundsnap.
I got in touch with "dopekick" when I was about half way done with the game. I asked permission to use some of his stuff for my indie game and he happily agreed. I chose the tracks off of soundsnap myself. He didn't custom make them. Also, there's songs on the sound track not by him.

He would most likely be up for letting more indie games use his stuff.
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Post by Baconlabs »

Spoonweaver wrote:I chose the tracks off of soundsnap myself. He didn't custom make them.
Well, butter my corn. That kind of scraps some of the stuff I said about the "SLIMES has its own theme" thing. Even so, it's great that there's consistency in what you picked, intentional or not. I will continue to think of that one riff as the SLIMES theme.
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