Now that the 10th iteration of the 3 Minute Game Contest (a.k.a. 3 Punge) has been declared complete, its results have finally been given an official page (roughly translated from Japanese to English by Google’s Language Tools). Each game is suppose to be based on a 3 minute theme, but longer mini-games have also been accepted. The winner is suppose to be “3 hours” worth of play and, from what I read, pretty funny, but it was created with RPG Maker. I usually don’t bother with any of the games requiring RPGM’s RTPs.
As for the non-RPGM games, Crostar (now Qrostar) released another cute platformer, Sky-Whirling Geo, which didn’t fare as well as his entry for the previous contest, Supakingurato. I prefer the gameplay of Supakingurato, and it’s more forgiving than its successor.
Granspope Frial is TERU-soach’s best effort in most ways. The graphics have a clean, interesting style, and the design’s concept has some good potential. You race as a bird against the clock by pressing a single key (‘Z’ or ‘Space’) to fly through a course covered with acceleration bars, which boosts you at the angle at which you touch them as long as your momentum is increasing. The problem is that the timing is quite tricky and that there is little room for error when it comes to hitting the 90˚ direction switching boosters. Course 0 took about 10 tries before I got the hang of it and unlocked the next. Although it might have been because I’m a bit rhythmical challenged, it took me much longer to get past Course 1. I tried 20 or 30 times at first and several times more since September, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I was able to shave off those last 10 seconds I needed loose in order to progress. Course 2 was a good change of pace with new layout elements, but Course 3 is currently frustrating me. Still, I want to get into that sweet spot of the game’s flow, which makes Granspope Frial my favorite of the entries for the 10th contest. But it’s not recommended for those low in patience.
Probably the easiest entry to get into, however, is Y. ABE’s Whirlwind. Its semi-auto-lock aim and invincibility probably made it seem too easy to most voters and earned it a shared rank of 11th place. As a 360˚ turret-like mini-STG, however, it’s rather decent.
Back in October, Tim posted Sky-Whirling Geo, Whirlwind, and a couple more 3 Punge games at Independent Gaming. You can head over there to get more details on them and his opinion.
Recently, the number of decent games submitted to 3 Punge has been improving. There still haven’t been any gems to match the sparkle and shine of Omega’s Every Extend and Dan! Da! Dan! from the 2nd and 5th contests, and there still are several disappointing submissions. However, one of the best things about the site is it also serves as a portal to other games made by its contestants.
The newcomer who took 3rd place, nemu90kWw, has created several Flash games. The best is a remake of Flixx, FliFlixx, which originally appeared on the wonderful PC98. He also made a Parodius inspired STG and a cat bouncing game, but you can read about those and his 3 Punge entry in Tim’s posts.
Then there’s Disorder Island: a simple platformer during stage 1 and 2, but stage 3 is infuriating. (Controls: hold ‘Shift’ to run with the arrows, up jumps, down crouches or drops through the platform, ‘Z’ swings the sword, and ‘X’ throws a bomb once you’ve defeated enough enemies.)
Y. ABE, for whom the 10th contest was also a first, has 2 other STGs on his site. Electrical Bird, which Tim found disappointing, offers more play and challenge than Whirlwind, so I prefer it. But I also have a soft spot for graphics and music that have a computerized or electronic aesthetic, which makes me a bit biased. The new 1.0 version is even better than 0.9 was. Scene1 hasn’t changed much and Scene3 has been tweaked, but Scene2 has had 4 elevator columns added to them, which can raise both the player and the enemies. And the best change is the lightening attack has been replaced with jets of plasma that shoot out like wings. It works very well with the new energy chain scoring system.
On the other hand, Marsenary (direct download) is different from his other 2 games. The environment is a 3D sim, and it has arena play (which has been abandoned), a story/mission mode, an online high score mode for each area, and ship customization. Even with all that, though, I found it less enjoyable than Electrical Bird.
Last week, the deadline for the 11th 3 Minute Game Contest was announced for December 24. A prize won’t be awarded to a winner outside of Japan, but that doesn’t exclude any of us from entering for bragging rights. Just be sure to follow the rules as well as you can to keep your entry from being disqualified. As for myself, I’m looking forward to more 3 Punge gaming in January.