Posts tagged with “Bros”

It’s time for our annual “we’re too lazy to put up new content so here is a rehashed post” list of all the games we played this past year. Sweet! Here’s what we played in 2010.

Our year started off with one of the best games to come out of the Boston Global Game Jam, a highly descriptive and amusing platformer called RunRunRunJump that has one of the best soundtracks you’ve ever heard. After that we played Robot Unicorn Attack which since our post has become one of the best selling games on the iPhone (coincidence? I think not! Of course not all games on our blog get quite as much attention, and Paul Sztajer’s Particulars seems to be somewhat abandoned nowadays judging from the leaderboards. But hey, if you ever wanted to be #1 on some boards now is your chance! I’m personally at #2 of all time with 325K.

We laughed a ton playing Sydney Shark, one of the most hilarious games we’ve seen since Robot Dinosaurs that Roar. Where else can you chomp horse heads, killer whales, and nuclear missiles as a shark? Jay Pavlina’s Super Mario Bros. Crossover got a ton of well deserved internet attention, and since the initial release Jay’s been hard at work adding special new features for each character. We then looked at an artier game called Every Day the Same Dream, which still has a terrific ending if you haven’t tried it yet. I find it interesting that since that game came out a similar title called One Chance was released, which while somewhat derivative is also excellent with a fantastic ending(s?).

Of course if you aren’t feeling especially artistic and just want a fun platformer then Enough Plumbers was probably right up your alley. Any game where you kill clones of Mario and light yourself on fire with jalapeno peppers has to be fun. If you’re more of an RPG or educational gaming fan you’ll probably like CellCraft, a game which not only has “craft” in the title but teaches about both cellular microbiology and platypuses. And if you’re the type of gamer who care for roguelikes and has several days of free time then Desktop Dungeons is the game for you – I think I almost burned a week on that one before deciding I had gone “far enough”. I hope QCF design brings it to consoles!

At the end of the year we wrapped up the demo of the still-in-development indie game Planck by Shadegrown Games, a neat experimental music game with some fun shooting bits. We also played the phenomenal tower defense game Ghost Hacker by Core Sector, and then finally wrapped up the year with the engaging short interactive fiction title The Warbler’s Nest by Jason McIntosh. It was a good year!

If you haven’t played any of these games yet be sure to take a look at them over break, they’re a ton of fun and every single one of them is free to play!I can’t wait for the awesome games we’ll wind up playing in 2011.

A lot of times flash games have some sort of innovative, but ultimately gimmicky, central mechanic that doesn’t get used especially well. At it’s surface, Enough Plumbers would seem to be one of these games. You star as an overall wearing plumber trying to complete several levels by reaching the flag. The fun twist is that when you get a coin a clone spawns, which functions with the same keyboard controls as all the other plumbers (it feels a bit like Ninja Bros).

What’s impressive about this game is that there is actually a good level progression where the mechanic is explored nicely over 25 levels, and some of the later challenges are pretty damn difficult. It’s also got a lot of nice touches, including fun sound effects and music, cool power ups, and a terrific final boss battle. Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, the entire game is a homage to Mario, which is especially apparent in that boss battle (Miyamoto-Bowser!) Why are you still reading this? Go play it!

Incidentally, one of the guys that made this is Glen Forrester, the nut behind Gnilley.

Conventional wisdom is that the XBox Live Indie Games channel (XBLIG) is generally a grab bag of crap. The games there tend to be lower quality, have worse production value, have short gameplay experiences with little or no replay value, and frequently either lack in originality or are so far off the deep end in terms of creativity that they aren’t even fun. Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that Microsoft made a channel where anyone can create and post games (though I’m annoyed at them co-opting the phrase “indie games” for their own use), and I think that it can be a terrific learning experience for new developers to have to opportunity to commercially release a game to the masses through the channel. But the unfortunate upshot is that most users tend to regard XBLIG as home to garbage.

But there are good games there, if you know where to look! Recently we’ve been playing Ninja Bros at the office. It’s a short and fun puzzle platformer in which you control 2 to 4 ninja brothers in their never ending quest to push buttons, open doors, and then exit the level. The game is quite tricky though, as all the brothers move in unison whenever the left joystick is moved, and all have separate jump buttons. From this simple premise the game developers have crafted some incredibly fun levels that really explore the mechanic, and completing each level is quite rewarding. Add in some simple yet polished and appealing pixel art and you’ve got a real winner of a game.

Ninja Bros cost $1 (only!) and is a real steal. I strongly recommend picking it up and seeing what one of the best games on XBLIG looks like. You’ll have a great time playing!