SNWD #4: Space Funeral

So there's this guy, right. He calls himself thecatamites. This guy's a fucking magician. Srrsly. He made this game called Space Funeral using RPGMaker2003. Now this should set off alarm bells and stuff cause RPGMaker is founded on templates. Templates that build standard, tried, tired, formulaic JRPGs, but this is where thecatamites's magic powers come into play cause right from the main menu screen, he's already playing around with your expectations and assumptions of what JRPGs are.

And then you select "Blood," and you're tossed into a game world drawn in MS Paint with some awesome, fuzzy Japanese noise rock, and you notice that your character is always crying, and your dad's tossing you out of the house, but before you leave, listen to your JRPG instincts. Check out that chest looking thing off to the right.

Download Link for those that missed it the first time:
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/space-funeral/files/space-funeral-v1-1/download/3492/4619/

I wish thecatamites had a blog or something that I could link. He's too indie for that though. He just pops up every now and then with a new game release and disappears again. Doo's a fucking magician I tell ya.

Salutations. The Return (again)

So like, a decade has passed, and I'm officially a college graduate. Pretty sweeet, righ? Totally starting off this new decade with nothing to do. I'll get a job eventually, but for now, I'm a be bustin out dem drankz and binging on video games and hopefully making some too.

And since I've been playing so much, I got a top quality grade A list for you guys. I might do reviews. I might not. We'll see.

But yeah, first off we got Hydorah, a side-scrolling SHMUP, that takes influence from Gradius and R-Type. Work on them reflexes and stretch them fingers cause this is one tough cookie.

http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_hydorah.php

You should check out the making of PDF they have down at the bottom of their page too. Pretty fun to look through. Locomalito has done quite a few games though, so check 'em all out. L'Abbaye des Morts is another goodie by them.


Next up, we got Knytt Stories, a platformer, but of the atmospheric persuasion. Nifflas is known for lively worlds and this game is my favorite of the ones I've played. Knytt Stories is relaxed, and extremely pretty. Definitely a Sunday Night Wind Down candidate. I actually enjoyed standing around in game and just watching the scenery. 

http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt+Stories

Be sure to download the expansion too!

Last for this list is a flash game near and dear to my heart. This is definitely in my top 5 for 2010. Matt Thorson has spent years working on level design concepts and it really shows in Give Up Robot 2. Plus, the music is catchy, and the visuals are top notch. Everyone must play this game!

http://games.adultswim.com/give-up-robot-2-online-game.html

Check out his blog and other work at http://mattmakesgames.com

Anyway, yeah, hopefully I can do this more consistently. I'm actually starting work on a platformer, so keep in touch.

Super Crate (X-)Box

I've been pretty busy with school projects (OMGWTFFINALS), but in between my coding binges, I'm totally blowing shit up in Super Crate Box.

Totally going on a banana tear.

The flow and feel of the game is similar the original Mario Bros. Not the platformers with Yoshi or mushrooms. The arcade version with the "Pow!" box and the angry crabs. The difference is that this is single player only (although multplayer would easily put this in my top 5 games of all time) but more importantly, we totally get to go nuts on the green monster things with a diverse arsenal of weapons.

Looks the same, right?

See, the focus of the game is on these weapons. The point system isn't based on how many things you kill or how long you survive. Instead, it's based on how many crate boxes you pick up. A new crate box spawns at a randomized location on the map whenever you pick one up, and within these boxes is the weapon you get and use till you get to the next box. In Super Crate Box, there is no weapon of choice because you have no choice.

TACO SMASH DEMO

Personal projects always seem more interesting and much more fun when actual work/school project due dates get closer. I had a couple of drinks last night in anticipation of a ton of homework, but instead I worked on Taco Smash for a couple of hours.

So far, the main menu looks pretty sweet. The "Options" option actually doesn't do anything yet, but it will soon. As for additions since the last update, I added "Tommy", which is the sand castle building kid, and "Mommy" which is the evil witch oppressor. Senor Liberator has been granted the patent pending taco smash ability.



Previous TacoSmash posts:
http://thehappybuffet.blogspot.com/2010/10/senor-liberator-walks.html
http://thehappybuffet.blogspot.com/2010/10/taco-smash.html

SNWD #3: Return of The Happy Buffet

What a great day. I woke up after the nicest dream that I've had in a while -- quite possibly ever. In the dream, my friends and I were at the beach, we when we were about to leave, one of them picked up someone's shoe and we started playing catch with it. Everyone was laughing and smiling and the sun was out.

Then I woke up, and the day before, it had been raining throughout the day, so I was pretty excited to look out the window and check out the sky with huge, clean white, puffy clouds, and yup, great sky today.

Later on, in the afternoon, my whole family gathered at my cousin's house to celebrate her 21st birthday. No drinking or anything. Instead, we got together, nostalgia'd and laughed over pansit, tri-tip, and WingStop. My god that was amazing.

But during all of this, my blog came up, and it turns out, people really look forward to new posts, so yeah, I'm back with renewed blogging fervor.

And to my buddy that wanted MOAR GAMEZ, check these out. Still involves tons of jumping though. Will find less jumping games and will be posting reviews of these games soon.

Super Crate Box:
http://www.supercratebox.com/

RunMan:
http://whatareyouwait.info/

So I'm still waiting for Super Meat Boy

I might pick it up on a friend's Xbox, but yeah, while I've been waiting, I've found two (read: TWO) awesome games. Maybe it's a good thing that I haven't gotten my hands on SMB.

Yahh, we all want Super Meat Boy.

The first of the two is a rouge-like dungeon crawler. The twist is that the boys over at QCF Designs have turned each randomly generated dungeon into a single screen puzzle. The game's developers say that you'll be fighting "your way through a fantasy dungeon in 10 minutes or less," but my god. I haven't been so cracked out on a game since... ever.

See, the thing that makes Desktop Dungeons a puzzle (and so addicting) is that players are limited to a finite number of resources with which to solve how to level up and kill the boss.

Sunday Night Wind Down #2

This week I have a mesmerizing Minecraft video. Minecraft (for those of you living under a rock) is an online multiplayer sandbox game in which players build and destroy things with blocks. It's an extremely simple concept, but give people a chance to mess around with it and good things happen. It's amazing the things people come up with. I actually check youtube and reddit for Minecraft news just for funzies.

But yeah, watch the video. OH! but check this: When I first played the video, I was listening to "Lover's Carvings" by Bibio, and I thought, "Hey this fits pretty good," and then I listened to the actual music that Cresty (the video producer's reddit username) put on the video, and it made me wanna put on Yo La Tengo's "Our Way to Fall" especially cause of the night time parts in the video.

So like, yeah, try out some songs with the video and lemme know what you guys think fits well.



Past Sunday Night Wind Downs:
http://thehappybuffet.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunday-night-wind-down.html
http://thehappybuffet.blogspot.com/2010/10/small-worlds.html

Meat Boy

So Super Meat Boy has been released on Xbox Live Arcade, but not PC. That made me mad, so I decided to play the original Meat Boy online. It's still fun as ever, and now I'm less mad.

For those not in the know, Meatboy is this ultra simple platformer. You play a tender chunk of meat named Meat Boy who's trying to rescue the love of his life, a clump of bandages named Bandage Girl. You see, she was taken away by this evil flying baby in a machine that's in a tuxedo and bowler hat named Dr. Fetus.

The entire intro cutscene rahh here, brah.

To save Bandage Girl, you'll have to go to hell and back running over crumbling platforms, dodging buzz saws, and jumping over saltfalls (which are waterfalls but with salt). You'll need your brain and super quick reflexes cause this game is hard.

It's not as painful as it looks.

The strange thing is, despite all the deaths, the game is amazingly, ultra fun. It's like when I'm playing the game, I forget about the 27 deaths it took me to get to the end of a level. I only remember the badass wall jump (cause it truly was badass) I had to make between the saltfalls to get that bandage all while I'm dodging homing missiles. It just feels good.

The music isn't good though. It's upbeat and modern, but it's really boring and didn't add to the atmosphere in any way. In fact, it takes away from the entrancing gameplay. I recommend turning off the music and putting your own on.

Anyway, if you're fortunate enough to have an Xbox 360, get Super Meat Boy now, and tell me what you think. If not, here's a link to the original, and you can wait impatiently with me.

I wanna punch all you Xbox owners.

Meat Boy:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Edmund/meat-boy

Super Meat Boy:
http://supermeatboy.com

Nerf Air Tatsus #2

Aw, man, I love seeing Uryo play whether it's Viper, Sakura, or Chun-li (but of course, Sakura rules all). This guy's playstyle is so volatile that every match he plays is mad hype.



Anyway, no analysis this time around since I'm really busy with school.

Senor Liberator Walks!

So I started a tiny bit of work on Taco Smash (which is the tentative title) last night. I decided to write it using Python and the PyGame libraries. I figured it would constantly be changing and stuff so a scripting language like Python would be best. 

Anyway, basically all I have now is a static screen with grass and a sandbox drawn out in paint, and our hero, Senor Liberator, walking around in a tile based environment using the arrow keys. I'm planning on having a friend of mine work on the art, but my shoddy paint work will do for now.

Small Worlds

It's Sunday night, and it's that time again when you're just sitting at home, winding down before you have to get up to grind out the work week. This game is perfect for these mellow occasions.

Small Worlds was developed by David Shute, a well known name in the indie game community. The focus of Small Worlds is exploration. There really is no threat or any sort of action. In fact, the visuals in the game are pixelated and extremely primitive. Instead, your left with your imagination and mood altering music.

What sets Small Worlds apart from other adventure games is that the entire explored world is always fully visible on screen. Each map starts off as a few large blocky pixels, but as you discover your surroundings, the map starts to pan out and give the world new life, and your mind starts to wander. You start to imagine what the world would be like if it were real. You start to wonder what sort of life could exist there, and it gives you a glimpse into the imaginative mind of Shute all while calming, moving music is playing.

Small Worlds:
http://jayisgames.com/cgdc6/?gameID=9

David Shute:
http://lackofbanjos.com/

Nerf Air Tatsus

In an effort to imrpove my Street Fighter game, I'll be doing match analyses in a segment I'd like to call Nerf Air Tatsus. In the first installment, I'd like to commentate on a match played by one of my personal favorites, Uryo playing our heroine, Sakura, versus an online buff Markun playing Rufus.

So I'll spoil it for you guys now, but Uryo loses which isn't really all too important. The thing we want to do is figure out what he did right and what he did wrong in the Sakura/Rufus matchup.

TACO SMASH

I think I'm gonna design and publish a game. Now I've given this some thought, and I have a potential concept that I'm pretty excited about.

So like, check this: You're at a park or a playground or something and all these kids are having fun swinging and playing tag and storming the jungle gym and flipping through the spider web thing, but you notice that one of the kids's mothers is coming to pick him or her up, and this kid's mom is trying to pull him off of the monkey bars.

You are Senor Liberator (pronounced Lih-beh-rah-TOR) and you notice this oppression and will not stand for it any longer so you put on your poncho and sombrero and free this child by slapping away his mom or doing a taco smash or something.

You keep this up for every mom that comes by and gradually you gain the kids' trust and respect.

1156 deaths and counting

In vvvvvv, you play as the captain of an interdimensional spaceship. You and your crew are doing whatever it is that you constantly smiling dudes do when, oh noes! your spaceship crashes into what is presumably a planet lined with spikes and pitfalls in a dimension far far away. Your job now is to scour through and around this place in search of your stranded spaceshipmates, all of whom are named after colors that start with the letter 'v'.

That's Vitellary.

And after the extremely short introduction, you're tossed into uninterrupted, unadulterated platforming bliss, but the thing is, you can't even jump. Not even over that little box blocking that shiny trinket.