rainbowgames | Entries tagged with pc

Think back to when video games were primarily 2D and the platforms video games tended to be on had the tiniest fraction of the power they do today, all the while innovation being the name of the game. Video games were still fairly new, and ambition was high, ideas good and bad are being published and programmed all around. It's 1987, and computer users are still talking about the ambitious 1984 Elite, a game which seemed to, somehow and miraculously, cram all of outer space itself into their humble 8-bit computers. The polygons rendered in it were just wireframe, however. Were consumer computers able to render filled polygons?

It turns out, in a manner of speaking, they were. Thanks to the ingenious programming of Geoff Crammond,1987 saw the eccentric, first-person view, "consciousness transferring" puzzler known as The Sentinel.

( Screenshots and details under the cut. )

chocomarsh

Little Labyrinth is a freeware puzzle game made by LEN, a solo Japanese developer. It was made, kind of incredibly, in Danmakufu, a scripting program for bullet hell shooters. You play a vampire girl (maybe a touhou character?) who arranges mirrors to creatively redirect beams of light. But, of course, she has to avoid light herself, so to assemble the suitable light path while keeping yourself out of the way is a significant task. Later levels introduce elements like stones that block the light's path and gusts of wind that restrict your movement.

( Read more... )

tepidsnake

A small post for a small game. Endless Alice, a fan game based on the Touhou series (in short, flying girls throw colourful bullets at each other) is a cute little homage to single-screen platformers like Bubble Bobble, but with more of a focus on action. As the lonely dollmaker Alice Margatroid, you have to survive an endless wave of living mushrooms that sprout from the ground, and occasional attacks from Marisa Kirisame, a mischievous witch. There's 16 round layouts selectable before you start a game, but no end to each round- Alice can take 5 hits before the game is over, so it's just about hanging on for as long as you can! Alice can throw dolls to defeat the mushrooms, but holding the button down lets her charge an attack that causes an explosion, and any enemies caught in it blow up too, leading to a chain reaction and more points! She also has a slide and a jump, but that's about it.

It's basic, and the stages take a little time to get going as you wait for enemies to spawn (although once they do, it can get a bit stressful trying to keep up with them all) but Endless Alice is like a pocket-sized arcade game, with sessions lasting barely a few minutes. It's a good game to play for when you want something a little simpler Endless Alice has been released for free b its developers, Lion Heart, and can be downloaded from their website- click the Endless Alice banner on the right. They also released a version called Endless Marisa with the roles swapped around (Marisa must survive against waves of dolls with her star-flinging magic) but they don't seem to offer this one on their site.

moon_hotel

Forget-Me-Not: My Organic Garden is a visual novel/time management game by Cavyhouse, available from Playism. I was really enchanted with the art style and the idea of an organ harvesting nature game (you grow organs on trees and deliver them to customers), and I was really amped to play this, but it got kinda overwhelming kinda quickly. This post isn't really a review, though, it's a warning for some of the subject matter in the game that I wish I'd gotten a heads up on before I played.

I haven't gotten very far (I'm still in chapter 2) and I don't know how much more of the game I'll play, but here are some details. Warning: discussion of animal cruelty and death under the cut.

( Read more... )

moon_hotel

Artifact Adventure is a Dragon Quest-a-like for PC by Bluffman, available from both Playism and on Steam for USD $6.99. It is faaaantastic.

I grew up with the early Dragon Quest/Warrior games, playing them with my mom on NES, and my favorite part was going around to the different towns, poking through the overworld, looking for secret forests and ruined villages and learning about the different stories of everyone I encountered. I can take or leave rescuing a princess, but acting as a courier to send messages back and forth between towns, saving someone's child from bandits, or filling an order for weapons for the king's guard totally captivated me. If only there was a game that was nothing but little moments like that!

Well, Artifact Adventure is that game. Artifact Adventure is entirely sidequests, letting you go through the world and rescue people from evil fishmen, rouse a village of people from a curse of eternal sleep, decide whether or not to save a girl from being sacrificed to a volcano god vs. letting the town perish. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of decisions to make in the game, most of which (if not all, so far--I'm still working my way through it) seem to have permanent and lasting effects. There are very few objectively wrong decisions, too. For instance, the game starts off with you being tasked to unlock one of three doors, which lead to:

an airship (yup you can get an airship at the beginning of the game)
a set of four artifacts of great power
a Key of Time, which lets you visit different wise men scattered across the land.

So each one drastically changes the flow of the game, and things only branch out even further from there. (Your party is customizable too, like Dragon Quest 3 and FF1.) I'm super, super into this game, and I know some of my friends have started playing it because of me too, so I'd like to use this post and the comments as a way for us to record our progress in the game and ask each other questions. Let me know if you need any help and I'll do the best I can!

By the way, when you're commenting on this post, please hide spoilers with this (change square brackets to pointed ones):

[font color="white"]spoiler text goes here[/font]

Thank you!

modernmodron

One of my favorite concepts is "fortune telling video games" and there actually seems to be quite a few - there's just something about the concept that draws designers to it I think. I know i've tried my hand at a few designs of fortune telling games. I'm only going to pick out a few here to highlight, but will probably make replies to this post showing off other games as they occur to me :P

Taboo: The Sixth Sense

this one was interesting because it was actually released on the NES. I always really liked the aesthetic of it, with the figured popping up from the cards. and it also had you type in your 'question' for the reading, which as far as I know did nothing other than help you feel like you were interacting more with the results.

Electronic sweet-n-fun Fortune Teller

http://partytimehexcellent.itch.io/electronic-sweet-n-fun-fortune-teller
oh my gosh I can't tell you how much I love the look of this game, the colors are just so fantastic and cute, and it's an indie game that's an actual NES rom! I would love to try to get this on an actual cart or something.

I remember reading an article somewhere about indie fortune telling games, but for the life of me I can't find it right now.

and not to toot my own horn :toot: but I made a pixel art tarot deck that you can check out here
http://greedoslastwillandtestament.tumblr.com/tagged/tarot

peppertsuki

Rainbowgames seems like a good place to talk about weird children's games! I have memories of playing Sierra's Mixed-Up Mother Goose as a child... who was way too old to actually be the target audience (I was like nine or ten, I think, when the game is meant for much younger kids), but the game was easy and adorable so I ended up playing it more than a few times. The game is exceptionally simple, too. Just walk around, pick up objects simply by moving over to them, and try to find the nursery rhyme character who needs the thing you've picked up.

"Mixed Up Mother Goose" (Watch on YouTube)

(This is the version I'm pretty sure I played, the 1992 version made with scanned paintings and full mouse control. Incidentally, this is the only Sierra game I am aware of where the opening logo is blue, not green.)

Now that I'm looking back on this game as an adult, I'm impressed by just how welcoming this game is. Considering this was made by the same person who created the King's Quest series, which tended to have death traps on the first screen, the game actively encourages kids to just go and explore. The world is set up so that you can often see where you're trying to go in the distance. Forgot where Banbury Cross is? Just wander into town and you'll see it. (Or you can use the handy little map.) The interface has a similar feel to it. All the options are right on the screen as part of the chrome. You don't need to know which function key will mute the music, or type 'talk jack' or 'pick up little miss muffet' to play the game. You can adjust everything immediately.

One tiny little neat thing I like too: after loud and jolly renditions of a nursery rhyme, there's this tiny, soft, reassuring ding as you get an egg marking your progress.

(There are a lot of other versions of this game! For instance, there's the original, which isn't quite as inviting as it's entirely keyboard based. Sierra didn't assume players knew what a mouse was until 1990. There's also the Deluxe version, which appears to be the same as the 1992 version but with slightly prettier graphics and the ability to change song styles! Apparently Little Bo Peep raps? I'm not too familiar with either version yet.)

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☆ Rainbow Games ☆

for discussion & celebration of games

Entries tagged with pc

The Sentinel

Little Labyrinth

Endless Alice

Forget-Me-Not: My Organic Garden (PC) warnings

Artifact Adventure (PC)

Fortune Telling games

Mixed Up Mother Goose