Daily Archives: Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

The same game jam that brought us Whale of Noise and Pigeon Racing (and indeed Deltoid Onions) has inspired Edmund and My First Skydiving Academy creator Paul “Farmergnome” Greasley to contrive a side-scrolling survival-based take on Animal Crossing. At least, that was his stated goal. The end result is a highly original cross between Lost in Blue and Metroid. Sort of, not really.

You take the role of a middle-aged farmer whose house has collapsed. You collect your tools and you set out into the wilderness to gather much-needed supplies while your stamina drops from the cold. You chop and gather wood to burn and restore your stamina. You kill rabbits for meat. You chip at rocks to find, er, cookies and bullets. Never mind; you gather bits and pieces to help you rebuild your house, and to expand your range thereby to find more stuff, thereby to get hardier and further expand your range.

( Continue reading at DIYGamer )

Deltoid Onions, AKA Onion Warriors, is one of those single-player cooperative puzzle games where you play as a character then switch roles then switch again to accomplish tasks. In this case the enigmatic Fabienne has unleashed on us a Kwirk-flavored push-and-pull action-puzzler. In place of a tomato, we’ve three onions with slightly different mustaches.

To move forward you push rocks, stand on switches, plug holes, and lower barriers. The goal is to get all three onions to the goal, signposted with an energetic camel. Overall I’m pretty impressed with the level design. The game is a little glitchy and bare-bones, but it’s got oodles of personality and it’s legitimately clever.

( Continue reading at DIYGamer )

Kyle “Neonlare” Riley has reforged the baffling Action 52 opus Meong into a NES-styled action-puzzler reminiscent of Adventures of Lolo. The story involves a blue-robed thief who goes tomb raiding in China. Avoid traps and occasional mind games to get to the next screen.

The game uses just the arrow keys and a single button, which is used to reset the level when you get stuck. Unlike its older cousins, Meong comes from the modern indie school — so don’t worry too much about dying. You fail, you just try again from the start of the screen. Sometimes the music restarts; usually not.

As it stands, Meong has a great tone and some pretty good level design. It’s worth an eyeball!

( Continue reading at DIYGamer )