Pillage the Village

By: Derek Yu

On: August 22nd, 2007

Pillage the Village is the spiritual sequel / literal prequel to Defend the Castle. The story explains why your antagonists in DtC are angry with you in the first place… apparently you went around throwing people into the air and slamming them into the ground, occasionally crushing them with their own houses and casting wicked spells on them.

And that’s how the game plays, basically. Prevent the villagers from escaping to the left and right sides of the screen by hurting them mercilessly with simple physics. In between rounds, you can buy magic spells with your dirty blood money. It’s fun, it’s simple, it’s relatively inventive. And the game does a good job of introducing new villager types to make your life harder (God how I hate those dopes with the parachutes).

Beware some of the technical issues, though. Occasional ads displayed between levels can cause the game to hang if you have Firefox with Adblock, or Safari. The game will also churn on slower computers. Look out! (XGen Studios has since contacted me to tell me that they have since fixed these problems.)

By the way, Jay is Games (source) describes this game as “a smashmortion of click-tastic mayhem!” (Snicker, he said smashmortion.)

Least Best Room v0.1

By: Derek Yu

On: August 20th, 2007

I do declare that Tim W. has been chosen as the Prophet for the Great Wazoo, Kenta Cho. All hail Tim! All hail Kenta Cho!

But yeah, Timmy found a very early version of a very unconventional Flash shoot em’ up, called Least Best Room. (I wonder what the name means. I imagine it has something to do with math? Or is it just the lack of space?) I really like the basic mechanics of the game, which have you squeezing past red “balloons” and dodging mines. You can press “z” to inflate the balloons and burst them. All the while you must replenish your green energy bar up top.

The squeezing concept and the ticking timer do a good job of inducing panic. It hasn’t felt this good to make my way through a crowd since Dead Rising… I’m looking forward to v1.0!

Gameplay video courtesy of Adigun Polack!

The YouTube of Games? (Question Mark?)

By: ARelativelyHotGirl

On: August 18th, 2007

Gamasutra has a Q&A with Jim Greer, one of Kongregate’s founders, on its plans to invest millions in independent flash games.

Could this be the XBLA of independent flash games?

Or is it just tears. In the rain.

DISCUSS.

(but only if you wanna)

Tactics 100

By: Derek Yu

On: August 11th, 2007

Tactics 100 is a fun, fast-paced tactics game with some pretty sweet pixel art. You start the game with an army of knights, rangers, mages, and clerics, which all work about as you’d expect. The default army is pretty strong, but you can create your own, as well.

Like most games of this ilk, it’s all about micro-managing your moves and out-maneuvering your opponent. Moving and attacking your enemies from different sides all affect how much damage you do to them. Troops can also gain “veteran” status during battle by eliminating enemies, making them more effective combatants.

One thing that kinda sucks is the lack of options in terms of the battlefield. Would have been cool to see at least some levels where the “high ground” was in different places.

The single player campaign consists of 10 levels of varying difficulty. Multiplayer is also available (but I haven’t tried it).

Casual Gameplay Competition 3: Results

By: Derek Yu

On: August 2nd, 2007

Jay is Games has released the results of its third Casual Gameplay Competition, where the theme was “replay.” Specifically, Jay was looking for games which have a lot of replay value. The winner, Gimme Friction Baby, has a genuinely interesting concept behind it, but its replay value would benefit a lot from a little more speed, in my opinion.

And there were some games in there that I felt had even better ideas, like Timebot, but perhaps less replay value. Seriously, try Timebot out, it’s a hoot. (I also reminds me, when is Braid coming out?)

The Casual Gameplay Competitions are great because it’s obvious there’s a lot of enthusiasm behind it and the games are always interesting and fun. Great job! But if we’re picking a game for having the most replay value, I’m going to have to posthumously nominate and vote for Benzido’s Too Many Ninjas (WIP), which has basically turned our Feedback forum into a crackhouse…

Daymare Town

By: Derek Yu

On: July 29th, 2007

Man, I am terrible at adventure games, and Daymare Town is no exception. I just don’t have the patience for all the hovering and random clicking to uncover hotspots. This one seems especially devious about it.

I notice a lot of flash adventure games that have this sort of dreadful, creepy, lonely atmosphere about them. It’s not a bad thing and this one does a good job of it. The doodley, pen n’ ink art style is wonderful. (Wish there were more “music” options, though.)

Here’s a walkthrough, if you get stuck.

(Source: Game|Life)

Rose and Camellia: English Edition

By: Derek Yu

On: July 28th, 2007

The elegant art of feminine combat… now in English.

(Source: Indygamer)

Uchuforce 2

By: Derek Yu

On: July 25th, 2007

Uchuforce 2 is an easy, rather repetitive shooter that you collecting letters to spell out “UCHUFORCE” to upgrade your ship (and gain extra lives). You will collect “UCHUFORCE” so much that eventually you will just start peppering everything you say with the word “UCHUFORCE.”

Control with the mouse. Left-click to fire a powerful laser. UCHUFORCE.

Flash Games Competition

By: Tim

On: July 17th, 2007

Competition entries for the latest Casual Gameplay Competition are coming thick and fast, and as is the norm with these sort of contests there are bound to be several standouts among all the submissions. (Sprout was Derek’s favorite from the last one.)

The “Replay” theme was imaginatively applied to at least one entry so far (Super Earth Defense Game, not unlike Historica), and if the rest of the submissions are anything like it then we’re in for a treat.

Rose and Camellia

By: Derek Yu

On: July 17th, 2007

What can I say about Rose and Camellia other than that it’s a girl-slapping game from the creators of La Mulana!

I love how insanely creepy and awesome your opponents get as you get further. The general theme / atmosphere of this one is spot on.