VVVVVV

Website: http://www.thelettervsixtim.es/
Developer: Terry Cavanagh
Platform: Windows / Mac

VVVVVV is a platform game played with only one key (guess which one). Well actually one key plus the arrow keys for movement. It's great to have simple controls because anybody can jump in and learn to play in all of five seconds and when you think back to the days of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, those games only use a joystick and maybe an additional button. And if you think simple means easy, you're tragically mistaken. VVVVVV is insanely difficult and it is as fun as it is challenging.

The story begins with a ship crashing in space and the captain finding himself separated from his crew members, in a strange alternate dimension. The player moves the character with the arrow keys and flips his gravity with the V, Z or Space key. It is the only gameplay mechanic throughout the game but the developer finds many clever ways to play with it, mainly through the level design. Very often, you will flip the character and nudge him midair carefully with the left and right keys. The levels are lined with spikes and moving enemies, and you have to be very precise with movement and timing to navigate your way through these dangerous obstacles. Unless, you're used to doing timed runs on Super Mario games, you'll find yourself dying. A lot.

Even so, it's not exactly frustrating as I attempted for the 20th time in one of the more challenging rooms. The character is promptly returned to a checkpoint when he dies, and there are checkpoints in almost every room. It's one of those games where you can feel yourself improving with each failure and it makes for a very fulfilling experience. I eventually learned that it's more about timing your keys right rather than concentrating too much on what's going on in the screen.

The game does a great job of bringing to life characters and a world rendered in very simple 8-bit style. The retro look brings a kind of unique style and charm with it. My teal-colored captain has a big smile plastered on his face, never mind that he suffered a hundred deaths on my hands. The enemies are really bizarre and fascinating at the same time. A few of the ones I remembered (and laughed at) are the Yes Men, Stop Signs and the red bus from the demo level. The humor in VVVVVV is very tongue-in-cheek which is evident from the title itself. The funny room titles make it more fun and interesting as you explore rooms that aesthetically, aren't very varied. The chiptune music I really love. It's funky and catchy, and goes along with the humor of the game.

The developer described the game, "In VVVVVV there are no locks, no powerups, no switches, nothing to stop you progressing except the challenges themselves." He chose to focus on the flipping mechanic and that is where the game really shines. It pushes at limitations with creativity instead of throwing a bunch of gimmicks at the player. I know I sound like a broken record player but I am honestly sick of how many games these days just copy an existing one and slap on a bunch of "features". If we want to see a new trend of fun and original games, maybe we should stop playing the crass titles big publishers push out and pay a low low price of 20 bucks for a shiny indie title like VVVVVV.

-- BBBBBBenjamin (See what I did there?)

2D.2.5D.3D

Harvest Moon,  Country Story or in fact many other farming and even RPG games, make use of the Parallel Landscape to create the illusion of 3 dimensional floorplan. Parallel Landscape on the other hand, is not even close to 3D but a completely flat 2D tiles which do not even make use of shadow or size to emphasis the idea of space.

It is very interesting to see how the human eyes can be 'tricked' through the placement of objects in creating a spatial landscape. Comparing to Tetris, the concept of creating the floor plan is very much similar. Tiles after tiles are placed on top of each other in an orderly manner. The only different is, the type of tiles. For example, in Harvest Moon, the soil will be brown colour while the grass will be green. Other than this, the same application is used. So what makes Tetris 2D and Harvest Moon 3D, or 2.5D, or maybe 2D but looks 3D.

I personally find this form of landscape is extremely clever. It is almost minimalist and effortless to create but pleasurable to the eyes. I guess, one of the reason is the mixing of the 2D and 3D sprites involved on the landscape.

For example, in Harvest Moon, although the map are flat, the plants, trees, characters, animals are somewhat 3D. They only have 4 directional images ( up, down, right and left ) but there is good use of shadow and size to emphasize the spatial relationship. The character for example is not purely flat with one colour filling in a specific body parts, but the cap for example, ranges from dark blue to blue to light blue. Even with this minor details, the idea of space is achieved in the simplistic 2D flat background.

Creating such landscape is easier comparing to Isometric Landscape such as Restaurant City and Theme Hospital. However, similar effect can be achieved, in fact a slightly more interesting effect is resulted. Parallel Landscape is not boring but giving players another layer of creativity in exploring the game as a whole. While on the other hand, Isometric Landscape provides the space for exploration thus limiting the self-creation in gamer's mind.

Kelvin

Continuity is a platform, puzzle game created using flash. It a very direct game, once you see it, you know what to do and it also has very simple control. In the game, there is only 4 element, a red door, a red key to the door, the character itself and the shift-able space. I felt this game is cleverly made because you have the solve the puzzle of shift-able space of platform in order to create a continuous platform for the character to move through.

Mechanism

The controls are the usual arrow keys and the space bar, the space bar is to zoom in and out to view all the movable space. The arrow keys can be used to shift the platform together and also to move the character in the game. Not all the spaces match, the shapes of the side must fit together and its not just a left-right way thing, character can also jump up a space or fall into one, which I felt the level design is really meticulous created.

Even thought the control is easy it still require you to have a certain level of coordination skill in jumping platform and pausing the fall while you change to another space. In case your jump isn't successful, you will be revive at the same platform, save the frustration of having to restart and you have infinity life. You can take your time to solve each level as there isn't a timer.

Game Play

Even though the game play is direct but it require the player to have a different way of seeing, you will know what I mean when you play the game. Every level seem solvable, you can feel the solution is close by, just a little more thinking will solve it, unknowing you will keep playing level by level, within a few hours, you can complete all 32 level, its almost an effortless play compare to other puzzle game.

Aesthetic

Its a simple black and white design, important clue are in red, simple and straight forward. The current design works, if its too colourful, likely will cause a headache when you stare at the screen for solution.

Sound

Through the game, there is 2 types of background music played, when u zoom out, there will be a slow pace music and when u zoom in to move the character, an action sound effect is played, personally I find the music quite distracting but lucky they provided the mute option. A game won't be complete without a music after all.

Conclusion

As the level increase, the numbers of movable space also increase, even though it gets harder, you will feel that its not much of a challenge, especially if you manage to complete the game but I have to kudos to the level design in this game, that lots of thinking :D

Play: http://www.continuitygame.com/

Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game, based on flash. In the game, you play a lone robot thrown out of the city working his way through deserted machinery wasteland. Solve puzzles, find and combine items, and encounter loads of creative characters in your quest. The illustration is beautiful and the animating and personality of the robot is cute.

Everything is handled with a click of the mouse, you can explore the environment using the cursor, if the cursor turn into a pair of walking feet, mean you can walk to that direction, if the cursor turn into a pointing finger, mean you can interact with that object. You can only adjust the height of your robot in order to get to hard reach object. You also have an inventory, so you can collect and combine item within your inventory. There is also a quick hint to help you get out of the place, just mouse over to the top right corner. If you are still seriously stuck and couldn't think of any ways to move to the next level, there is a walk-through solution of that level, but before you are able to read the solution, you have to complete a mini game. When you click something that the robot can't do, he'll shake his head which is kinda cute. Sometimes when you idle, the robot will start to wonder about his girlfriend which often end with a cute giggling.

After solving the first 3 level of the game and you still haven't give up, you are hooked to it. Its a pity that the demo only has 3 level to play, I'm addicted to it after solving the 3rd level :(:(:( Pay $20 for the full download, anyone wants to share? haha

Some reasons that this game appeal to me is the storyline, artwork, animation, personality of the character and the cute sound he always make. The puzzle solving by exploring the environment and combining item is really engaging and makes you devote all your attention to it. I wonder what is the ending of the game.

You can play this game here : http://machinarium.net/demo/

Ping Ting

What??
A 1 player RPG game where u control a fighter aircraft with missions ranging from dogfights, ground assault, escorting fleets and defending your airbase.

Is iT good??
By far the best air combat game i ve ever land my hands on. The different levels of difficulty caters to all category of skill. The graphics are awesome with no latency whatsoever. U will have career advancements with the ability to purchase state of the art jets and go up the rank. As always, the levels get more challenging and better enemy planes will be in the midst. There are even stages whereby you will be guided through landing procedures which are tricky but very much exhilarating without crashing though.

Why??

The controls are easy enough to understand and use but you do need a getting to use to especially with the vertical controls where by pressing down manuoevers the aircraft to go up n vice versa. The controls will enable you to perform moves just like you would in a real plane.

Is it bad?

If ure not a fan of fighter planes this might seem a little too much for you to handle. But as for me, its the best games i ever played as it makes me feel close to what i dreamt to be which is a pilot. So it kinda takes me into a virtual escapade from what it could be if my dreams were to come true.

Ratings
10/10 ok im being biased here!

Hasbullah

This is an avatar dress up site which has become the obsession of females interested in fashion or shopping.

The site is @ http://pupe.ameba.jp .

'Poupee' actually means doll in French thus this is somehow a digitalized, more techy version of the paper doll dress up cutouts girls used to play but with wayyy more functions, capabilities and interactions.

I'd consider it a game as members/players are driven to collect enough ribbons, the currency the use, so that they are able to buy items to dress their dolls up.

And how do they get ribbons? By uploading real photos of their clothes, accessories, makeup items etc which will then be voted by other members. So ribbons will be collected from uploading pics, getting votes and selling avatar items... OR even by paying real money.

Sometimes you will find shells at random places such as the doll room and once 5 are found or bought from the marketplace, they can be thrown at the Shell Spring to get a surprise dress up item of varying values.

Poupee Town shows all the places you can visit such as clothes shops, the marketplace where real-time haggling of dress up items occur, cafe where you can see other avatars who are online at the cafe, the amusement (a game where you will control a bird to avoid contact with balloons to win items), Beauty Poupee (kinda like a plastic surgery place where the features of your doll can be modified by paying ribbons), etc.

The front page will show your poupee doll, the list of friends, favorite items, calendar and message updates.

This game allows interaction with other payers so it encourages communication and binds people with similar interests.

There is a daily cute ranking which is updated daily to show the most popular items that received the most number of votes for the day.

An item that received lots of votes.

This is the dress up contest winner for that session. The contest is held at different schedules and contestants compete for votes.

The drawback of this game is that some parts of the website are in Japanese characters and you'll just have to guess what's happening. Even some of the English they use are confusing probably due to direct translation. Some messages by users are in Japanese so you'll have to use a translator generator. However this is understandable considering the origin of the game. And you'll most probably get the hang of the system after some time.

Time for a classic!!!! Has anyone ever played this before?

Haha... I get back to this game once in a while when I'm tired of 'new' and complicated games.

SO WHAT IS ALCHEMY ALL ABOUT??

It's a simple match-and-coordinating game. It's a computer puzzle game and is web-based so it's easily accessible with internet connection.

TELL ME - WHAT'S THE OBJECTIVE?

1) You have to change fill up the board and change it from lead to gold

2) How to do this? You will need to place randomly generated symbols that will appear at your mouse's cursor on the board

3) Same colour symbols and same symbols match and can be placed side by side

So.... what makes people like me get addicted to this game??

Honestly it's a simple and straight-forward game.

You can't really go wrong with this game. 

It provides a simple platform to explore yet there are simple rules to keep you from doing too many things at a time.

So is this game tough to play?!

Nope! Not at all actually.

It may get tricky as you proceed on but it's not tough per se.

Flaws in this game??

The only flaw I can think of is the attention span it can hold for a player.

You might get bored with it after a while.

But what keeps you going is the level indicator.

Each time you reach achieve a certain level, you get a new rank!

Who doesn't want a better rank?!

Okay come let us see... how to play this thing!

Random symbols will appear at your mouse and you can place them on the board.

You can only place them anywhere around the grey box or beside an identical symbol or a symbol of the same colour

See here - purple symbol cannot be put beside green

But purple symbol can be placed around the other purple one.

When you hover over a place that you can discard your symbol onto, the square will glow.

Sometimes a grey box appears as well.

And you can put this box wherever you like, as long as it's beside any symbol and not an empty area.

 

Okay once you build up your board.... you need to start eliminating the lines one by one.
Keep your eye on the line with the blue symbol.
I place one more at the end....

And voila! The whole line eliminates
You need to keep doing this for every line

And once you're done with the whole board, you can move on to the next level!


Happy trying!!!!


Here's the LINK!

I know everyone here expected me to review this game from day 1 because I'm playing it all the time and it's completely obvious why - this.game.fucking.rocks.

The game is played in facebook. Iphone and Ipod Touch users (the many unoriginal and similar looking lot of you) are also included in the fun.

How it's played:

The level starts with the gems nicely lines up in a grid for you. Like this:

Player next get to swap the positions of the gems to create 3 of a kind. When this occurs, the gems disappear from screen, points are awarded and new gems fall from the top to fill up the grid as the rest of the gems move down to fill the void.

At certain times, special gems are generated. The following is possible:

• When 4 gems line up, a flaming gem is produced which denotes and destroys the gems around it when detonated.
• When 5 gems line up at a right angle, a supercharged gem is produced which takes out the entire row both horizontally and vertically when detonated.
• When 5 gems line up in a straight line, a hypercube is produced. When a player swaps a hypercube with another gem, say a green one, all the green gems on the board will be taken away.

Here's an example of a flaming gem exploding:

And here's another one of a hypercube going off:

At the end of the game, the points are tabulated and a score is shown. The scores are tabulated against the high-scores of other players also playing.

Why it's fun:

The game is particularly engaging because of the simplicity in how it's played. Also, as the player has to obtain the highest score in 1 minute, the game is fast paced and exciting. Further more, the game is accompanied by extremely awesome sound effects.

There's only so much I can write about this beawesome game. So, go play it and experience the fun for yourself. (Except Weiwen, you need to srsly get facebook first.)

Rating: 9.7/10

Website: http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en


Overview
Okay okay, I'm sure most of you would have realised by now that I'm tend to lean more towards experimental, trippy games. Daniel Benmergui described his latest experimental/art game as being “about the daily choice of waking up in the morning”.

Today I Die is a whimsical, pixelated little game where the player has to interact with not just the objects in the game, but the text as well. The initial page just shows a girl underwater in a sort of comatose state, attached to a weight. She is surrounded by dead jellyfish, a couple of piranhas and a very depressing poem.



Gameplay
This game relies heavily on the player's thought process. You start off the game not knowing what to do, but after awhile the pieces slot into place. When I first started playing this game, I was like, "OhmigodwhatthehelldoIdo?!" You can move around objects, as well the text and for a few moments the player literally has to stab in the dark to figure out the exact point of this game. For example:

Interacting with text:
You can replace the words with other of a similar corresponding colour to change the scenario. If I swapped the word dead with the word dark, I'd be taken to the following scene:




Interacting with Objects:
After awhile of random clicks, I realised that clicking and holding on a jellyfish would cause it to light up, and if I keep it away from the piranhas for long enough, it stays lit permanently, and I also gain a new word to mess around with! Voila!



After awhile, you'd get the general gist of how the game works and the rest of it would pretty much be a breeze. You just need to figure out how to activate certain objects, and what to do with them in order to progress on to the next change of the poem.

In short, the whole point of the game is to turn the suicidal poem into one of optimism.



There's actually a fourth line to the poem. However, there are two possible endings, so I'll let you guys play it and won't spoil it for you. :)


Why I like this game:
Today I Die’s mechanics still provide an interesting glimpse of an approach to game design where the influence of the written word doesn’t end at the title screen. I love the fact that it's a feel-good game, and very gently touches on the topic of suicide. At first, the pixelated graphics didn't sit well with me, but after awhile I realised that it added a whole new feel to the game. The poem is short and uniquely powerful, and allows the player to feel as though they've somehow managed to help that character to escape.


Why I DON'T like this game:
Threewords for you: TOO. DAMN. SHORT.