The 2015 In Review Contest [Reviews: 74]

[Gizmog]

Review of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and vens

Game was on CastleParadox so I gotta review it like this. Not that it matters, there isn't much to review. The Little Prince is apparently an adaptation of St-Exupery's novel of the same name. I've never read it, but it was an answer in the NES version of Jeopardy! so I've heard a little bit about it. The main thing I know isn't about the book but about the author, a French aviator who went missing under mysterious circumstances during the second World War.

A playthrough of the classic novel with puzzles, custom outfits, and a few extra worlds.

So we've got four basic promises. We're going to hear the story, solve some puzzles, wear custom outfits, and see some stuff that wasn't in the book. Very simple, very nice. Does he deliver? Well, we'll go point by point.

PROMISE ONE: Play through the Classic Novel

We play the titular Prince, who is making the preparations for a trip away from his little homeworld. He's cleaned the volcanos, he's checked for baobabs, and now he must deal with The Flower. She tries to be brave but you can tell she's going to miss him.

You're then presented the option to go to one of about 10 planets, one of which bears a striking resemblance to Earth. Of course, only one of them is actually accessible, Asteroid 325. A king gives you a monologue about the nature of authority.. and then the demo is over!

The two monologues are good at least, and I've never read the book so MAYBE that's really all there is? Seems doubtful to me though, it'd be hard to stretch this over 10 pages, let alone a whole book.

PROMISE ONE STATUS: PROBATIONARY

PROMISE TWO: Solve some puzzles

On the Prince's homeworld, there's a maze of colored blocks. A signpost tells you what each block will do when you step on it, and it's up to you to step on the right ones to reach the goal. That goal is a scarf (See Promise 3) which does nothing in the course of the game. It is a puzzle, I suppose, though quite simple and totally pointless.

The King also asks you a philosophical question, but I don't think there's a right or wrong answer and a question doesn't really count as a puzzle, does it? The game was very linear.

PROMISE TWO STATUS: BROKEN

PROMISE THREE: Wear custom outfits

To me, this was the most promising of the promises. I love playing dress up. You have two kinds of sweaters to try on and a scarf.. though good luck taking them off and at a certain point they get scrambled entirely, seemingly from a scripting glitch.

WAs so excited to see the option for it on the menu and it just doesn't work as well as it should. Once you put a sweater on it never comes off, and the rainbow sweater covers the identity sweater entirely. I guess you can wear it though.. the game didn't promise stripping.

PROMISE THREE STATUS: FULFILLED?

PROMISE FOUR: Visit extra worlds

Again, not reading the source material has bit me on the butt. I can't say whether or not Asteroid 357 was in the book or not. But it promised worlds, plural! Not just one. And I think we can assume that the planet you start on is to be taken for granted. No need to think long about this one.

PROMISE FOUR STATUS: BROKEN

I hate that the game is so short because the concept is sound. Adapting a book or a film into a game is a great exercise. It lets you think more about why each scene happens, whether or not it's important, and whether or not it should be adapted as story or gameplay. I would've loved to become acquainted with The Little Prince book by means of this RPG but it just isn't there. Not even close. Maybe 5 minutes of gameplay? Ten if I'm generous?

He does some things right. The title screen is simple, but scripted. Shows more effort than a lot of 'em these days. And the menu stuff for the costumes does at least sort of work? There's some effort. Music is nice and fits with the cool tones of the maptiles to give the game atmosphere. Could've found a better font though. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless there was a major update.

[Feenicks]

Lab Rat, by BlurredVisionGames

This is a puzzle game in which you guide a rat to collect 1) a key, 2) several pieces of cheese, and then 3) get him to the exit door. The rat in question moves on its own, turning left when you hit a wall and turning around when it hits a dead end. To help in guiding the rat to its goals, you put down tetris blocks, which can be rotated (neat), but only before they're placed down (not neat). There's a whole bunch of levels to get through, but I ran into a script error which killed my desire to go forward.

I'm going to have to be blunt and say that these puzzles felt less of the 'oh, so that's how it works' variety and more of the 'this works, somehow' sort. Part of the issue comes from the UI - you can't pick up obstacles you've put down and move them elsewhere. Instead, you have to press the back button, which is a pain even in the case of wanting to move the most recent block you placed; if you want to shift the first block you placed and have placed other ones in the meantime, you have to rip out the work you've done so far.
I'm not sure what the other part of the issue comes from, but it's probably a few sources. To name a few:
1) The puzzles sometimes having more pieces than necessary, leading to a case of being unsure on all the other ones if that's the case.
2) It was mentioned in tmc's review, but the way the game's set up means that there's an awful lot of nearly-there solutions for each level, a lot of which don't actually lead to full solutions.
3) Honestly, as neat as it is I almost want to say the fact that the pieces can be rotated makes things harder than they need to be. There's already a ton of ways to [s]mess up[/s] put down pieces without rotation taken into account, after all.

It's neat, but awfully difficult/rough around the edges. It's something I can definitely see expanded upon (and reading your posts, I see you have the same opinion).

Also, two of the times I started the game back up the mouse pointer simply refused to work, getting stuck in the top-left corner, and that's awfully lame.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Allu in the Demon's Cave
5. Lab Rat
6. Painted Space
7. Phlan
8. Linear Quest II

[Gizmog]

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 641#120641

Late For Work, the Three Minute game is reviewed! Feels so weird to have freedom of choice.. dunno what I'm gonna choose yet but I'm sure I'm gonna feel guilty about it! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Gizmog]

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 644#120644

Wasn't expecting that at all... and I don't feel guilty! WOOOOOO

[kylekrack]

His enemies don't have guns and instead cowardly try to ram their mechanical shells into his fragile body.

This is the level of prose that keeps me reading Gizmog's reviews.

You know, my game design prof. just assigned a reading from a book that was talking about narrative in games. It mentioned the argument that vidya games are too simple to tell a story, but here Gizmog clearly shows us that it doesn't take a Final Fantasy XX-VII-IV with cinematic cutscenes to tell an exciting story. Thank you.

[Gizmog]

Time Twister by slaymarc7

Did someone have a Terrible Games Contest without inviting me? This game has that kind of TGC Surrealism all over it.

Educational Game for TSA

What the hell does that even mean?! I had to find out. When I opened the zip, the game's filename was even better.

recovered1 - copy.rpg

How crazy can one game get without even being played? I love it!

Playing the game was fun, but not as fun as not playing it had been. The music was fun.. a Greatest Hits of OHR Game midis past. It's got that triumphant one everyone used to use as victory music, it's got that one that sounds like the Lunar Overworld from FFIV, only not quite. The wacky one everyone used on their title screens is there too. Quite the nostalgic trip, those public domain midis.

At any rate, apparently the game is simulating a field trip gone awry. You go door to door, map to map, having textboxes poorly explain the situation to you. It does have more puzzles than The Little Prince, so there's that. At one point Albert Einstein shows up.. why he's haunting an art museum, we'll never know. There's transitions between "Levels" which kinda remind me of the corridors in the first Duke Nukem where the bad guy would taunt you. There's not a bad guy in Time Twister though, so you just read signposts.

I got no idea what the guy was going for here. It's weird, it's kinda wacky. I laughed near the end when he sprung a pop-quiz on me. Thankfully it's not too strict. The game's over at the signpost for Level 3. I was kind of sad it was over, but I'm not sure that I'd go out of my way to play it again. One of those "You had to be there" kinda deals. I do feel more educated after playing it, but I still have no clue what TSA is. I hope it's like being down with OPP (Funfact: I am).

[Gizmog]

His enemies don't have guns and instead cowardly try to ram their mechanical shells into his fragile body.

This is the level of prose that keeps me reading Gizmog's reviews.

You know, my game design prof. just assigned a reading from a book that was talking about narrative in games. It mentioned the argument that vidya games are too simple to tell a story, but here Gizmog clearly shows us that it doesn't take a Final Fantasy XX-VII-IV with cinematic cutscenes to tell an exciting story. Thank you.

Hehehe, thanks for reading! Glad to keep people amused.

[The Wobbler]

I haven't played more than two of these games this year but yeah I want to chime in and say I'm really enjoying the Giz reviews too.

[Feenicks]

Charbile's Lovely Home, by Charbile

A review about a review game feels a bit wonky... but at least there's more meat here than some of the actual games.

Here you control charbile's persona/fursona, a hat-wearing fox, as he reluctantly goes out and reviews what 2014 brought in. As the name suggests, it's styled after Samanthuel's Lovely Home, both in terms of the graphics and the overall layout of the game. After mucking about in Char's (samanthuel's?) house for a while, you go out into the forest and get a sort of final thought on each of the games (a joke about the inevitable script errors in Carcere Vicis, a general statement about his lack of interest to get anywhere in Mr. Triangle's Adventure... his desire to see harpy tits in Winged Realm - to give three examples).

As the title screen says, though, this is a review of Samanthuel's Lovely Home, and as you progress through the forest char says a few things, which become more and more obviously about Samanthuel (and I'm assuming echo where stuff is said in the original game); these all lead up to a fairly substantial final word, after which it's time to go home.

It's pretty entertaining if you're aware of the stuff actually being reviewed, and the scripting is as usual really impressive. Even if it's more a walking/running simulator than anything else (whether or not those count as proper video games is up to you), but this gets what it set out to do - review a game - done, and I can applaud it for that.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Charbile's Lovely Home
5. Allu in the Demon's Cave
6. Lab Rat
7. Painted Space
8. Phlan
9. Linear Quest II

[Feenicks]

Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer by Mogri

Here, you play as the 8th president long before his election, ridding a mansion of the monsters that inhabit it. It initially presents itself as a sorta typical RPG as you defeat a zombie, but immediately after it shows its true colors as a puzzle game that uses RPG mechanics.

I know that this was for a contest that gave half a week for completion, but I almost want to say that a format more typical to puzzle-y games would work better - a UI where you have all your items together, and some sort of method to go about the mansion that isn't the typical walking around. I saw 'almost', though, because there's something about the battles as-is (probably the fact that you can lose them) that makes the puzzles work.

The puzzles are of the 'use the correct item on the correct enemy' variety, beyond the ghost which requires other methods. I'd have had a bit more trouble with them were it not for the fact that I played the game back around Halloween and spoiled myself even then. I'm going to have to be honest and say I'm not really a fan of puzzle games of that variety, but at least everything felt like it could be figured out fairly easily. And yes, first time around I got eaten by the grue.

The graphics are fine; they're a bit bare-bones to really get across the general horror theme, but beyond that they're fine. All in all, it's a good end result for half a week's work, even if it is only 5 minutes long if you've been spoiled.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Charbile's Lovely Home
5. Allu in the Demon's Cave
6. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
7. Lab Rat
8. Painted Space
9. Phlan
10. Linear Quest II

[Mogri]

I want to say that the grue is one of the few encounters you can flee. It's kind of inconsequential, since death is such a minor setback in a game that A) is ten minutes long and B) lets you save anywhere, but an unprepared player doesn't necessarily have to get a game over from trial and error; if you played very cautiously, you could conceivably win on your first run of the game.

I really like MVBMS as a concept, and I'd like to have made the game about three times as long, but I didn't (and still don't) have the ideas to fill out a game of that size.

[Feenicks]

Devs Like Waffles by Bob the Hamster/Gizmog

All the other contestants from the past summer's collaborative contest are in some poorly-lit basement making games (yeah right), and who else but Giz comes around to relieve them of their fate, getting them into the lucrative business of waffle making. As the game's tutorial explains, making a waffle fit for serving customers requires three things: the actual waffle, butter, and syrup. All three fall down from the top in a tetris-like fashion (only here it's 3 blocks at a time instead of 4), and matching a full row summons the spatula to go and collect all in that row, hopefully getting something fit to serve in the process. Of course, as the title implies, all the devs (that typically get buried in the heaps of waffles/butter/syrup) like waffles, and will go out of their way to eat waffles that haven't yet been picked up.

As-is, the game's pretty neat, but there's a few things that make it a bit obnoxious. There's nothing that indicates what ingredient or shape you're going to get next, which makes planning ahead difficult: getting waffles out is difficult when all you're getting is butter and syrup. It also has Tetris's Game B issue, where the random waffles at the start have the potential of being in a position such that it's really difficult to get to the base. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't skip the tutorial that plays at the start of each round. Some difficulty options (height of starting waffles, number of devs) would be nice as well.
Even with all this quibbles, it's a pretty fun(ny) puzzle game, all in all.

I think this is the last puzzle game I need to review; if it isn't, that's alright, but if it is, it's a pretty fine one to end on.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Devs Like Waffles
5. Charbile's Lovely Home
6. Allu in the Demon's Cave
7. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
8. Lab Rat
9. Painted Space
10. Phlan
11. Linear Quest II

[Feenicks]

Mr. Triangle's Adventure by RedMaverickZero

I reviewed this last year, and seeing as I have word from the author that it's the same thing as before I'll go with that one.

But I want to revisit one point.

Look at the first part of your overworld. Then look at the first part of Final Fantasy 1's overworld. I attached them both to this post, so that it's easier on people just reading through. Notice something the actual commercial game's overworld has that your game doesn't?
But seriously, is there any particular reason why the overworld map is so barren and - dare I say it - lazy?

Hell, even just looking up overworld maps brings up many more interesting examples than what you have here, even just on the first page. The vast majority of them have had some effort put into them, because they are a major element of what binds together their games. Is your square-edged, featureless peninsula seriously the best way you can open up your game?

And from the hour of the game I played - the hour in question probably being the hour the most time should be spent getting right, in my opinion - that lack of effort shows up in nearly every map in the game. Do the maps get better as the game goes on? Would getting to these decent maps justify trudging through the early game again?

You've been doing this for... how long now? You should be better at this now.

[Bob the Hamster]

Adding the sticky to this thread, as it seems to be the contest du jour :)

[Gizmog]

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 843#120843

Sprout is reviewed! I gotta quit reviewing stuff from people who are nice to me or people are gonna find out I'm easy.

And damn, KyleKrack's got like 5 more games on the list! If I wasn't pretending that whole retarded "Let's make a game every month!" post had never happened, I bet I'd have to declare him the winner.

I haven't played more than two of these games this year but yeah I want to chime in and say I'm really enjoying the Giz reviews too.

Glad to hear it! When Walking Dead starts again, I hope to return the favor