Defend Your Castle (Browser Flash Game, iOS, and WiiWare)

An army surrounds your entire fortress nation, the enemies are at the gates. As they marshal their forces you must make use of your castle’s ancient guardian, the mysterious cursor spirit. It has the ability to manipulate things in reality, sending them flying into the air and then crashing back down. Otherwise unprepared for the assault you must manage and build more defenses using the blood of your enemies to fuel your war machines. — By which I mean I made this all up in order to justify the rules of a flash game.

History

Defend your Castle was made by XGen Studios, a Canadian indie game studio lead by one Skye Boyes. Fully founded in 2005 after Boyes’ browser games began to accumulate acclaim. Skye also took this time to drop out of the Computer Science field. XGen would go on to attempt to port Machinarium to WiiWare, an enterprise which would ultimately fail due to WiiWare’s resolution and memory limitations. Xgen would go on to release an updated multiplayer version of Defend Your Castle to WiiWare.

I would say that it looks pretty nifty… but a little too messy.

Defend your Castle was fully released in 2003. It’s competition was Samorost (Browser Flash game), .hack//infection Part 1 (PS2), and Call of Duty (PC).

Experiences

One of my favorite things in games is creating a perpetual motion machine. I know that sounds weirdly paradoxical, ‘your favorite part of a game is the part where you don’t have to play it anymore?’ And the answer is, yeah kind of. I love the point when the castle becomes this sort of self sustaining engine. With enough archers to defend the gates and enough engineers to repair it I kind of don’t have to do anything anymore. I let it go and watch the points roll in. There eventually comes a point where even the engine gets clogged and overwhelmed by the sheer number of attackers. But that just reveals the experience of watching entropy take its claim.

Gameplay

Defend Your Castle is a point and click browser game in which an array of stick people invade from the left side of the screen. Using the cursor you can move and manipulate them, sending them hurtling into the sky where they eventually land in a bloody fanfare. Every level they send more enemies toward the castle and eventually send different and more advanced enemies.

Ah, the days of the early castle before things spiral out of control.

Every one you destroy awards you with points — not dollars, gold, gems, or any other form of currency… just points — and these points can be spent to repair and upgrade your castle. Allowing you to build building like the Temple which allow you to brainwash — I MEAN — convert your enemies into loyal minions — I MEAN — citizens who can be put to work as archers who occasionally dispatch enemies automatically. Or to the mana pool where they can become wizards capable of casting devastating and useful spells.

The Gush

The sound design is really good. From the way the ambient music clashes with the sound of stick figures falling to their doom. To the annoyed plop they make when they survive a fall or the bizarre cackling laughter of the death spell. It all just sounds good.

To me, this game is all about that point the castle doesn’t need me to babysit it anymore. I kickstarted the engine and now it’ll run until it’s out of gas. The real challenge of the game is figure out how to reach that point.

The Kvetch

Trained archers, engineers, and wizards take a toll in the form of upkeep costs. Every day they cost points, and that’s fine. The problem is that you need enough points to cover their costs at the beginning of your day, not at the end. If you train too many archers then you’ll get charged for upkeep costs, and then lose all the archers you couldn’t afford to pay with the points you had at the beginning of the day. I don’t know how many you lose, I’m not sure if it’s proportional, but they still charge you the cost of the people who leave. It’s really frustrating and it can kill a good run if you spend too much on wall upgrades buildings.

Escalating enemies are the only thing this game has in terms of a difficulty curve. Now, the guys with the battering rams, they’re cool. The problem comes with the giants. They can only be slowed down with clicks and cannot be flung so you either have to wait for a lucky arrow to dispatch them or have a mana pool to cast the instant death spell. If you don’t have the mana pool by the point they arrive — and you, the player have no idea when that will happen — then you’re basically screwed.

They also do a lot of damage, as you can imagine.

Speaking of different enemies. There’s one that sort of rubs me the wrong way. There’s a suicide bomber enemy because this was 2003 and we all thought it was cool to be edgy. But the thing that really bothers me about them is that every other stick figure is white with a black outline and the suicide bomber is all black. They’re apparently referred to as suicide ninjas but it just seems really off-putting and weird. Why are these reported ninja blowing themselves up instead of sneaking in? Why was it necessary to visually differentiate them in this way?

The Verdict

First things first, I am SUPER nostalgia blind for this one. I’m certain that the only reason I went back to it is because I’ve played it before. I’d be genuinely curious what a newcomer thought about the game, playing it for the first time, because it’s really rudimentary. That being said, for the flash games of the time it’s a real powerhouse which comes at the great price of completely free. There are far worse ways of burning an afternoon than playing this. And the WiiWare version looks fantastic, I’d really love to go a round or too waggling wii-motes with some friends.

Next Week: Madness Interactive.

Pony Island (PC, Mac, and Linux)

After long days of purging the wicked it’s nice to just take a load off, walk down to the local arcade, and play some Pony Island. Let your worries slip away as you hop over gates and annihilate your enemies with deadly lasers. Some say the game isn’t complete but how can a game so perfect be unfinished? Enough talk of doubt. Now, insert your soul to continue and get lots of tickets from the Pony Island machine.

This new DLC policy is really anti-consumer.

 

History

Pony Island was made by Daniel Mullins for the Ludum Dare 48 game jam with the theme being ‘Entire Game on One Screen’. It earned high praise at the game jam and inspired Mullins to try to get it on Steam through Steam Greenlight. Mullins wanted to make a game that defied player’s expectations, a game that almost didn’t want to be played.

The Greenlight campaign was successful and Pony Island was released on January 4th, 2016. It’s competition was Oxenfree (PC, Mac, and XBox One), Darkest Dungeon (PC and Mac), and That Dragon, Cancer (PC, Mac, and Droid).

Experiences

Play this game blind, people. The less you know, the better. I watched Jesse Cox’s playthrough of it on an idle Saturday before I played it and it kind of ruined the experience for me. It’s a fine playthrough, that’s not the problem, the problem is that it’s a game meant to be experienced firsthand on one’s own. Naturally, this review will have the lightest spoilers possible and intentionally obfuscate anything important. So once you’re done reading this, speak of it to no one, immediately purchase the game, and then finish it in one sitting — the clock is ticking before you get spoiled from somewhere! Well, that’s a little extreme. What I’m really saying is be careful how much you look up about this game.

Gameplay

Pony Island is split between pony platforming sections and puzzle sections. Pony platforming consists of jumping, gliding, and shooting lasers at enemies — don’t fret if you die, it just takes you to the beginning of the stage. It seems simple at first but the mouse controls, left click for jump/glide and right click for lasers, can be a little tricky.

Puzzle sections consist of navigating pseudo-code segments. You can use certain commands blocks to change the course of the cursor through the code. Therefore changing the operations of the block and allowing you to do whatever it is you’re doing. That being said, why are you messing around in the code? Isn’t that, like, cheating or something?

Someone worked hard on this and you’re ruining it, you cruel thing.

The Gush

The developer of Pony Island — um, in the game canon, not Mullins himself — is a pretty tragic character. I was genuinely sympathetic to his desires to be loved and appreciated despite his methods and goals.

This game is weird and silly and fantastical. I almost busted a gut laughing.

Oops… um… may bad.

The game sits firmly in the Goldilocks zone of difficulty, not too hard and not too easy. The puzzles are quite intuitive and the platforming controls tripped me up at first but I eventually got the hang of them. The only thing that I needed outside help on was how to find all the secret hidden tickets.

Speaking of hidden tickets! For all you completionists out there, there are hidden secret tickets. If you’ve got the inclination you can get all 24. I’m certain something good will happen if you find them all.

The bosses in this game were fantastic. There’s a puzzle boss, a platforming boss, and then a boss who’s something different entirely. They present an incredibly fun challenge.

The Kvetch

There’s not a lot of gameplay that’s related to the story. It overall feels less like a game and more like a story with gameplay elements attached. The game is fine, I liked the story, but I’m not exactly certain what they’re doing in the same room with each other.

I’m just not exactly sure what all this has to do with itself.

Is there anything more annoying that being shown up by someone? There’s a counterpart character in this game who’s clearly more powerful than you and knows way more about what’s going on. He exhibits bizarre abilities but refuses to explain anything about his abilities or who he is. I guess that’s his character but I wanted to wring some truth or meaning from him.

The Verdict

I would say that Pony Island is well worth someone’s money and time. It’s only $5 on Steam and even though I was spoiled hard I was still able to have fun with it. I feel like it’s got a lot to say about game development and the act of creation. And if you don’t care about that then hey, at least there are cool puzzles.

Next Week: Defend Your Castle

Party Hard (PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, XBox One)

Sleep is important. We spend a third of our lives wrapped in dream’s sweet embrace. Without it we go mad. It is the year 2000 and your character just wants to sleep… but the party next door is so loud. He’d sworn he’d lain the knife and mask down for good but the sleepless haze clouds his judgement. His goal is simple, kill the party by killing its guests by whatever means at his disposal. And once he’s got the taste for blood back… he wants more.

Three in the morning? I’d be pretty steamed too.

History

Party Hard was developed by Pinokl Games, a small Ukrainian studio, and published by tinyBuild games — you might remember them for making No Time to Explain. Party Hard is their first major non-mobile release. Mobile titles they’ve released include Real Steel and Fruit Story — and they don’t look like games I would want to play.

Party Hard was released on August 25th, 2015. It’s competition was Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC, Mac, and Linux), Grow home (PS4), and um… Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PC, PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XBox One) — a bold move to go up against the biggest release of the year.

Experiences

Between the nonsensical story, the bizarre premise, and the simple visuals I figured this game was gonna be silly. One thing that I did not expect was just how difficult the game was going to be. I’m not even going to avoid comparisons with Hotline Miami because these games are similar in a lot of ways. Party Hard puts its own silly spin on the ultra-violence that Hotline awakened into the world. Where Hotline is visceral and personal, Party Hard is slapstick and absurd. But where Hotline was tight, smooth, and clean Party Had throws in a frustrating dose of ‘lol, so random’. Sometimes new guests arrive or leave, the character has a very slow movement speed, and restarting after level failure can take an infuriating amount of time.

Gameplay

Your goal is simple, be the last man standing on the dance floor, but executing it isn’t easy. Quick with a knife, most party goers don’t stand a chance against The Killer. The Killer might have a penchant for murder but he’s not actually too tough so police officers or rowdy guests can take him down pretty easily. He’s also more of the Mike Meyer’s stalker type so he doesn’t move too quickly, but he can use level shortcuts to escape or close the gap. Be careful, if you use an escape route too many times it’ll stop working.

Learning the map and character AI is imperative to your success. You’ll want to know your ins and outs to evade authorities and keep your activities quiet. The Killer can stash bodies in certain areas so use that to keep revelers in the dark about what you’re doing. You can also poison bowls of punch to kill surreptitiously, but once the well is poisoned they’re sure to know. It’s difficult to keep track of everything that’s going on but the more parts you eliminate the simpler the machine gets.

As you can see, it’s all a lot to take in.

Once party goers get keen to what’s going on they’re going to call the cops. Cops will arrest you on sight and if they run into a guest who’s seen you killing they will be able to track you down. Don’t bother fighting the police, I guess The Killer’s too rusty stab a battle ready foe.

You’d expect someone so intimidating to be better at fighting, not the case.

The Gush

The music in this game is positively dancy and 80s as hell. It really carries me through the experience. The sting of playing a level over and over again for 45 minutes is numbed by the knowledge that I will be listening to sick tunes the whole time.

I think I’m a sucker for unlockable characters. This game has got three characters to unlock and I’m instinctively excited. Only problem was that the game was too difficult for me to unlock any of them. The unlock mechanisms aren’t even difficult, just grindy. They all play differently for instance the Ninja is stealthy and the Chainsaw Psycho attracts cops like ugly on an ape.

The game frames the story as a police detective investigating the series of killings. It’s a campy romp through every Lethal Weapon cop story and I found it quite humorous.

Fantastic pixel art punctuates the silly story.

The Kvetch

The hit detection on the stab attack is dicey at best. I had a really hard time determining when I was parallel to a target or when they were near enough to attack. Brandishing the knife will also alert people to your murderous intent leading to police and other nastiness. Every stab needs to count but its hard to count on your stab.

It wasn’t immediately apparent when party goers could see me or what activities would alarm them. Poisoning the punch has no animation and would sometimes alert nearby guests and sometimes wouldn’t. It’s also difficult to determine what angles people can see you through windows.

I get this game is not serious but when I mentioned that escape routes can only be used so many times this is only because Mario, as in the Super Mario of Nintendo fame, breaks them. He comes out of a sewer line, either through a manhole cover or a toilet, bumbles over to the window or whatever and smacks it with his wrench and then it doesn’t work. I think it’s supposed to be funny but it just struck me as ‘LUL SO RANDOM’. It would have been just as easy for there to be an animation or dialogue box to explain the ladder is broken, or the tunnel collapsed.

Every level has a dance floor and I still have no idea how to handle it. It’s a lot of people all crowded together, so many watching eyes. Some characters leave but it seems like some never do. This leads me to rush in and invite failure. Either I luck out and kill them all before any of them can get to a phone or I get caught with a handful of victims left.

The Verdict

Party Hard is… okay. I found it fun, I don’t regret my purchase, I liked giving Pinokl 13 dollars because I can see promise in this game. A little more testing and polish would have turned Party Hard into a genuinely good and consistently enjoyable experience. As it stands though, I can only recommend it to someone who would appreciate the the LUL SO RANDOM humor and semi-puzzle mechanics. It’s also only 13 dollars so nothing ventured nothing lost

Next Week: Pony Island

The Consuming Shadow (PC)

Do you remember that part in the Call of Cthulhu when they said the Old Ones will awaken when the stars are right… Well, bad news, the stars are right and a Great Old One is poised to invade. You are a researcher at a UK university and you’re reasonably certain a cult devoted to this dark god is going to perform a ritual at Stonehenge and envelop the world. What you need is the banishment ritual and to understand which god is attacking, which one is backing them up, and which one is trying to stop them. But don’t dally, you’ve only got 60 hours before it’s too late. Stay sane, stay alive, and stay moving because town after town is already falling to The Consuming Shadow.

History

The Consuming Shadow is a game by renown game critic, Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw. Croshaw has been making games since 2008, small projects here and there, particularly point and click adventures. His games have often dipped into the eldritch, walking the halls of Lovecraft’s twisted manor. Playing Faster Than Light made him think about going up against a greater threat that’s constantly in pursuit. With the exception of the music and the testing the whole game was made by his hand.

The Consuming Shadow was released in full on July 28th, 2015. It’s competition was Rocket League (PC and PS4), Five Nights at Freddies 4 (PC), and The Binding of Isaac (XBox One, WiiU, and Nintendo 3DS)

Experiences

The Consuming Shadow inspires paranoia like a bad acid trip. Between the strange texts the player gets and the random events, anything can be good or bad. Texts come in patterns I.E. if texts from strangers are threats, the next stranger probably has a new threat. But if your family keeps wiring you money then it’s probably safe to accept the next text from Grandma.

Play it safe or get involved? The investment here could pay dividends… or not.

Gameplay

The game is basically split into three sections that work in tandem to make a spooky adventure. First, there’s the car. The Researcher has got to drive from town to town and that can take a lot of time and proper navigation — sadly it’s not as easy as just hitting the destination and letting the GPS choose the quickest path. On the road he’ll receive texts from various numbers including family members, someone from the Ministry of Occultism, and complete strangers. Some of these can be helpful but they can also damage your sanity. Occasionally the car will be beset by travelers or you’ll spot something on the road. Get involved at your own risk however. Besides that, this is basically the hub where you can heal thyself, check your notebook, and take sanity ‘restoring’ drugs. Should your sanity dip too low options in menus will be replaced with the ‘kill yourself’ option which will put you into the suicide minigame.

The more times you engage the suicide game the harder it is to resist.

From there you’re on to towns. Towns that are untouched by the shadow are hubs of commerce where you can purchase items, bullets, medical supplies, and drugs. When towns are tainted by the Old Ones they present the opportunity to delve into a dungeon. Each different type of dungeon presents different rewards and different challenges. Offices are more likely to contain clues but warehouses are more likely to contain items. There you will encounter monsters hellbent on… well their interest in you is sometimes secondary — some monsters are not malicious, simply deadly. That being said, any monsters you let live will take a toll on your sanity. So long as you succeed you will be rewarded with a piece of the banishment ritual needed to rebuke the Old One — but sometimes it is better to flee.

Ammo is limited and getting close to enemies is a dangerous preposition.

Now that you’ve helped the people and assembled the clues and rituals it’s time to figure out which god is which. There are always only three gods who have an interest in this world. One of them means to destroy it, the other is helping them but cannot enter for ineffable reasons, and the third is a sworn enemy of the invading god. Every god has a name, rune, color, aspect, and role. Certain clues provide certain pieces of information, some of which are reliant on others such as ‘the god in purple is enemies with the god in white.’ If you don’t know what the gods’ color is then that information isn’t useful… yet. You’ll need to determine the invading god to use the banishment ritual properly so happy hunting.

The Gush

As you kill more enemies the bestiary becomes more and more full with actually useful advice as to how to defeat them. The bestiary entries also include background information about the bizarre and insane attributes of the world beyond.

This game is hard… but that’s okay because every character can level up. Getting a star to distribute across the constellation grid to give them passive upgrades. Eventually, no matter how badly you’re doing in this game, you will get enough stars to get enough passive upgrades to succeed.

The dialogue ends up being a little repetitive but it’s well written and a joy to read when it’s fresh. I’ve got eight hours clocked and no longer read the dialogue. Still, at this point I do run into dialogue I haven’t seen before.

There are unlockable characters! Each of them has a different playstyle and I found them fun to experiment with. There’s the warrior who’s a well dressed criminal who shies away from guns but has a mean kick, a slick dodge, and a warrant out for his arrest. Then there’s the librarian who does not take sanity damage from casting spells but can only use runes so many times — oh and she can’t use melee attacks. And then the Ministry Man who only has 24 hours to save the world, but has the full banishment ritual from the get-go.

The later the clock ticks the more powerful the Shadow becomes and the more dangerous things get. You’ll also probably be getting pretty desperate at this point. But the thing is, The Shadow tips its hand — or tentacle — in a series of ways. For instance, the God’s rune will glow at Stonehenge and because the God’s rune is always part of the banishment ritual it offers a vital clue to the desperate investigator who’s at Stonehenge for a last ditch effort.

The Kvetch

One of the most useless clues I’ve found is ‘God 1 is the enemy of God 2’ because this does not clarify which one of them is the invader and which one is not. It simply clarifies which one of the three is the assistant which is one of the more useless pieces of information.

It’s sometimes unclear whether the character will elect to fire his gun or make a melee attack. Normally I’d chalk it up to the characters being unversed in combat with monsters. But the difference between getting hit or not hinges on me not clipping my arms through an enemy and firing past them.

Although the text messages form patterns, the random car events do not. Most of them are pure gambles. As such it’s really easy to get screwed over my RNJesus and end up in terrible situations by no will or volition of your own. My favorite encounters are the ones in which a secondary item would guarantee a positive result. Even if I don’t have the item I feel like I have agency. The pure toss-up ones really irk me.

The item events have clear criteria — have pads? Succeed — but the random ones don’t.

The Verdict

Once you figure out the games quirks, and even before then, The Consuming Shadow has a lot to offer for a fantastic price. For Ten dollars on Steam you get a decent value of eldritch delight. If you’re the sort of person who liked Dark Corners of the Earth and needs your Lovecraftian fix, or enjoyed others of Croshaws’ games then this is a title you should check out.

Next Week: Party Hard (The game, not the activity)