…but you have. Dinosaurs Didn’t Have Keyboards is a small platformer, with an experimental game mechanic. You move your dino with the keys 1-2-3-4 to move right, and 0-9-8-7 to move left. To jump you have to press 4 + 7 at the same time. This experiment consist of one level, that isn’t too hard. You have to make the time-record in running from start to goal. People can get very quick on the keys, and after a while the fingers really work physically on the keyboard. Best play it with friends!
The game was made by Sophie Houlden, who also did the Boxgame, that was unconventional and experimental in its nature, too. Cool stuff, she makes. Unfortunately made in Unity, that requires the Unity web-plug in. Wouldn’t it be at the time to completely move to Flash for compatibility-reasons for the next iterations of experimentation?
(via Superlevel)
Queue
Increpare Games has an interesting slogan: “Let’s try something out here…“. If you expect experimetal works now, than you are absolutely right! The stuff I tried so far on the site are explorations of narrative forms, somehow in between storytelling, classical writing and game interaction. If you got 10 minutes of time, checkout for example Queue.
Pixelprospector was to kind to put me at the blog zolyx.com. There you can find reviews of all 73 games, that were made during the Assemblee Competition (at zolyx search for TAR, a tag for this would be useful!). With that help, I discovered a game, that is so cute and so fun, so I want to share. And here it is: Oh Crackers, Not Again!
You play a girl’s dog (no, really!) with the mission to protect the girl from the evil monsters everywhere. You do so, by running fast and destroy the obstacles, before the girl runs into. Lovely, indirect gameplay and well designed sprites make this a fun game, that’s more than just a little distraction of the day. Here is the TIGthread, with all the details about the game.
Cream Wolf: Aaaooouuuuuh!
Sometimes only the lineup of the game reads really promising. Cream Wolf is such a case. It is an “Ice-cream-man in disguse cannibalism-game“, where the indie-makers Pixeljam and Messhof teamed up to get the game done. Both gameplay, as well as aestetics look absolutely retro. But this browser-game is also full of modern graphic- and soundeffects, that support the gameplay really well (and to be honest, we didn’t expected anything else from Pixeljam and Messhof).
About gameplay and story: You drive an mad ice-cream man and have to collect cones, play music with your ice-cream van and attract children in the street, in order to sell them your ice cream. The more ice they eat, the fatter they get and more addicted to ice. If it gets full-moon, the fatter kids will follow your ice-cream van. You have to try to get the kids to your homebase… where they then support the ingredients for more ice. Weird story, weird game. Just one click away. (via)
Short update on TRAUMA. I know things are getting a bit silent here. That’s mostly because I’m trying not to get swamped in work and get TRAUMA as much done as I can before the IGF. I’m still working on that Intro. I think I will wrap up some of the more complex CGI scenes [...]
i’ve nearly finished my new game: monster guard.
it’s an online strategical game, some sort of tactical rpg … but without rpg depth and no tactics, either
i’m pretty tired right now and just want to give you the good news quickly.
you can read about the game, see (more) screenshots and view a qucik how-to-play video [...]
Zoo Transport is lovely. You play a penguin, that has to do animal-transposts for the zoo. Your truck get equipped with various animal-loads, like parrot, dolphin, zebra or monkey. Don’t loose your load on the way from zoo to zoo! Every animal-package on your truck has different properties. Zebras for example love speed, while parrots begin to fly from time to time. In combination with the road, interesting combinations of levels are possible. Thumbs up for Zoo Transport. Music and style are relaxed sporty.
A really entertaining and laid-back casual.
Somewhere in the deepest guts of the Global Game Jam, I discovered the game “Resonance” (Global Game Jam Entry). It has a decent poetry, and also a little bit of innvative gameplay. Resonance is basically a puzzle-platformer, where you have to reach the exit of each single-screen level. In order to do so, you will collect clefs (Notenschlüssel). This will unlock notes (actually sounds). Every time you play thouse notes, special colored platforms appear. A little bit of a very classic gameplay. But… the note you play merge with the harmonics of the background music. In some levels, just triggering the sounds is a bunch of fun – more like playing music, than a game! I could imagine, that some “timing-based levels” cound increase the fun of playing this music-game much, much more, giving the feeling of playing a score. Another plus of Resonance: the graphics are really, really nice!
(I should be writing my thesis but a man’s gotta let off steam sometimes, right?)
Bayonetta is supposed to have this perfect score combat gameplay, and it IS pretty fun, but the game doesn’t do any efforts to lead the player into the depth. I’m sure there’s audience that takes great pleasure in exploring that depth on [...]
Dot Dot Dot is the third from an ongoing series of 6 games, that has a “dot” as its main character. Each one of the games is made in 48 hours (a little bit like the global game jam) by the team at UsTwo. This game is a small casual game with a very simple idea and a short playing time. Your aim is to “flee” the dot from reaching the top. In order to do so, you have to every time reach the hole in the ground as fast as possible. What makes the game so interesting is nicely executed sound-design and the monochrome graphics. The game was released for iPhone (0.99 cent, Entry at Playstate.org), but you can also play it for free in your browser (in Flash, click on the 3 dots).
I’m currently helping out organizing this year’s Global Game Jam in Cologne. The first day was very exciting. But now it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired. However I have plenty of time to catch up with some to-dos. For example to share with you two interviews I had recently.
One of them was done [...]
The Global Game Jam 2010 also started in Cologne. I attended the kick-off, which was more like a gentle breeze of air. The project-brainstorming and the forming of groups was absolutely accurate and on time. The games that are going to be created as part of the Global Game Jam 2010 have to stand under a certain topic: “deception”. I personally did not liked the topic that much, but nevertheless it lead to more or less robust project-results. There were also another constraint: the game had to include minimum one of the following: key, monkey or donkey. I had the impression, that monkeys clearly dominated the show. Anyway… first thumbs up for the organisation-team from the Cologne Game Lab and all participants. Let’s hope, that also the game-submissions will be in between light air and stromy winds.
