Holy shit it’s the
G&D Weekly Report


Screenshot of the week - Liman


FULL GAMES AND DEMOS:

Okay, here’s where you can find reviews of all the games that were released in the last week. First up:

Pirates: The Legend of the Silver Crescent by Carius



‘Pirates’ sees two buccaneers, Duck and Penguin, making off with a cursed ship while being chased by the ship’s vengeful guardian, who summons various local creatures to finish them off. This is a full-length shmup made in RM2k3.

First off, I’m pretty blown away by the fact that this was done in RM! I mean, yeah, I guess it can be a pretty versatile engine if you really work at it and people have made stuff like platformers or whatever in it, but it’s still pretty incredible that there’s realistic seagull physics or whatever on display here.
Anyway, about the game itself… ‘Pirates’ is a shmup with a difference, in that it has a more strategic element than the usual bullet hell stuff. Firstly, the bullets you fire are cannonballs, so they move like cannonballs: in an arc, instead of a straight line… And an arc with fairly limited range, at that. Then there’s the fact that you can’t have two cannonballs in the air simultaneously, and that the angle of your shot affects the rate of fire, and yeah, it means that you’re forced to take a more measured approach to taking down enemies instead of just blasting anything that moves. It can take a little getting used to, and it gets pretty fucking difficult on the later levels, but it does add a sense of depth to the proceedings and it’s pretty cool to have a shmup which isn’t just about spamming the fire key as much as possible.
The shooting sections take up the majority of the game, but they’re broken up by the occasional minigame… The minigames aren’t really much cop, unfortunately: the treasure-digging one especially was too easy and repetitive to be much fun, and the ‘choose which spot to dig’ thing just felt like filler. They were still a nice change of pace from the ship sections, though.
So yeah, I like this game a lot. The Warioland graphics are pretty cool and really help give a sense of personality to the whole thing, the electro soundtrack actually worked really well, and the gameplay itself was very fun. There were things I disliked about it: some of the minigames, the sudden jumps in difficulty, occasionally awkward controls (especially in levels like ’Onslaught’) and especially the fact that it was still possible to die after the timer runs out… But yeah, overall this was a pretty fun and weirdly compelling game, and I’d recommend that everyone at least give it a shot.



Pong2k3 by Gutts



Pong2k3 is the arcade game Pong, except made in RM2k3. Duh.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to write here because, well, it’s Pong. You pretty much already know whether you’re gonna like this game or not. Anyway, this is pretty cool because (a) it’s pretty impressive from a technical level, and more importantly (b) the game’s been fitted with options to control the computer’s reaction speed and the speed of the ball, so you have the choice to either notch up effortless victories against a ridiculously slow opponent or get your ass handed to you by a ridiculously fast one. So yeah, if you’re a rabid Pong-hater then I don’t think this will convert you or anything, but this is pretty fun if you get drunk and start playing on the highest difficulty, although even then it gets old pretty fast. Give it a shot anyway, I guess.



Aedemphia by Sylvanor



‘Aedemphia’ is an epic RPG that sees you play as Irzyka, a girl who was mysteriously transported into another world after her ship exploded in a battle. Now she must return to her world in order to aid in the fight against the mysterious Heartless Soul. This is the demo of an RPG made in RM2k3.

Okay, let’s get this shit out of the way early: ‘Aedemphia’ has really good graphics. Like, really, really good, better-than-most-professional-SNES-games graphics. So yeah, normally I dislike it when game topics are all just pages of “kawaii screenies! ^-^” over and over, but in this case I think it’s pretty justified.
That being said, though, the game itself is a bit of a let-down! I dunno, it basically felt like Generic RPG #2109 dressed up in a new coat of paint. I didn’t feel interested in the characters or plot or setting or anything, and while I agree that those things aren’t essential for every game I do think that making the player give a shit about what’s happening is pretty essential in a game filled with this much text and cut scenes. So yeah, once the initial wonder at the graphics had worn off, it was kinda hard to remain interested in this.
It’s a shame, really, because the game is packed full of genuinely nice touches: the reputation system, for one, where the choices you make in conversations affects how you interact with good and bad NPCs. There’s also the ability to converse with other members of your party, which is pretty cool and handy for when you want to figure out exactly what the hell you’re meant to be doing. Unfortunately, it appears that the game wasn’t really beta tested properly, so there are a lot of bugs, although none of them are really game breaking.
So yeah, I feel bad knocking it because it’s obvious that a lot of love was put into it, but yeah, I can’t honestly recommend this one to everyone. If you like mediocre RM games with great graphics then it’ll be right up your alley, but otherwise you should give it a miss.



Space! by Eyesore



‘Space!’ sees you take control of a spaceship pilot lost in, um, space. Help him navigate a treacherous asteroid field and defeat three unique bosses to escape! This is a full-length ‘space adventure game’ made in RM2k3.

First off, ‘Space!’ is an insanely great title for a game. I like that directness a lot: there’s no pussyfooting around with extended subtitles or imagery or any of that shit, the title just leaps out and smacks you right in the goddamn face. I think we should start looking into similar naming conventions for other games, like an RPG called ‘Swords!’ or a puzzle game called ‘Blocks!’, shit like that. This could be big. This could go places.
Unfortunately, the game itself can’t really live up to the awesome title… It was mainly designed to test the boundaries of the RM engine and, well, it shows: a lot of the ideas on display here are rendered virtually unplayable by RPG Maker’s blocky movement and shaky collision detection. Dodging through swiftly-moving asteroids while being pursued by enemy ships sounds a good idea on paper, but it feels incredibly awkward and frustrating in RM. I actually had to go into the game and delete a bunch of events, just because the clunky movement meant that there was no way past them, and even then I progressed through a lot of obstacles more through blind luck than anything else.
It’s kind of a shame, really, because you can tell that this had the potential to be a good game: the boss battles were pretty fun (especially Meteor Man) and some of the maze bits were quite well-designed. But yeah, I’d definitely recommend that the maker of this moves to another engine, because as it is this game is too buggy and frustrating for me to recommend to anyone.
p.s. Eyesore has also just released a small Guitar Hero test game made in RM, I haven’t had time to play it yet, but yeah, it looks cool so give it a shot.



Ghosts of Aliens by swordofkings128



‘Ghosts of Aliens’ sees you playing as Atum, an alien who crashlanded in Roswell and who has just died. Your first task is to get a body: after that, you team up with a talking snake and a humanoid rat in order to defeat the five Doom Beasts who threaten the world. This is a full-length RPG made in RM2k3.

Man, we need more games like this! It always kinda depresses me when people churn out shit that’s just a bastardised version of FF6 or whatever, so it’s really neat to play games that are just completely batshit insane and original.
So anyway, it’s exactly as weird as the synopsis suggests: your zombie alien teams up with a British snake (with top-hat and monocle, naturally) and they wander the world fighting Doom Beasts. A concept like that could feel irritatingly smug and wacky if used badly, but the thing is that this plays everything completely straight, from the bizarre dialogue to the even more bizarre settings and characters. Special mention should also go to the custom graphics and music, which make the whole thing come off as Earthbound on heavy drugs (this is a good thing).
Unfortunately, however, this game was kind of released in a hurry and so there are still some flaws present: there are too many battles, for a start, and too many instant-death traps, and it’s often hard to figure out exactly what the hell you’re meant to be doing. It’s kind of a shame, since it’s stuff like that that drags down the rest of the game and stops this from being something really incredible, but yeah, get past the flaws and you’ll find a deeply original and fun game that’s well worth a shot.



ADVERTS

Weirdly enough, only one advert was posted in the whole week. Could this be a sign that people are moving away from hype topics in favor of just releasing full games? I doubt it! Anyway…

Don of Mezir by Taylor Kaz



Beginning after Don’s Adventures leaves off, ‘Don of Mezir’ sees you control Don Miguel himself as he searches for his friends in the mysterious city of Mezir. This is an RPG/adventure game made in RM2k3.

Hey, what do you know, it’s a fairly light chapter-based RM game! I’m all in favor of people making shit like this, really, since I think that the RPG Maker scene definitely needs to start moving away from portentous 40-hour epics and all that stuff.
Anyway, the twist for the game is that it’s actually a kind of sequel to the sample game included in RPG Maker, Don’s Adventures: you play as Don Miguel himself, and apparently the game will be stuffed full of references and characters from the original game, except shoehorned into a generic-sounding plot. So yeah, that sounds a bit shit to be honest, like just an average bland RPG except with an added helping of “Hey look it’s that one character from the game! referencing things is fun”. ON THE OTHER HAND though there is the whole chapter-based thing, and I think all the chapters are set in or around the same large town, which is a pretty cool idea. I admit it, my mighty advert-analysing brain is sending me mixed messages here, but yeah, I’m withholding judgement until I see more info. Check out the topic, anyway.



OVERLOOKED GAME OF THE WEEK

It seems like there are a lot of cool games that get lost in the shuffle a bit and don’t really get the attention they deserve, so here‘s a brief look at some older stuff you ought to check out. This week’s overlooked game is:

Polarity by Bick



In Polarity, you control Petey, who can change his magnetism to negative or positive at a whim. Help him sneak into the top secret base by getting him to touch the blue line without hitting the blocks. This is a full-length, quick-paced arcade/puzzle game made in GameMaker.

I think this game got like three replies or something ridiculous like that, which is pretty insane when you think about the amount of responses generated by the average PkUltimaga topic. I guess people were turned off from this by the fairly crude MS Paint graphics, which sucks because this is actually a really fun and inventive little game. The premise is pretty simple: your guy is able to change colour, which attracts him to blocks with the opposite colour, and you have to navigate through the blocks to get to the end. In practice, however, there’s a lot of extra touches which make things more interesting: gravity, for a start, and momentum, and the way that there’s 15 distinct objects which all have their own special properties. So yeah, while it can take a few tries to get the hang of the controls, the simple mechanics and great level design mean it gets addictive pretty quick. Some minor issues aside (wot, no saves?), this was a really cool game that deserved more attention than it got, and it’s well worth a look. Download it!



All right, that's it for this week. I'll leave you with this piece of ABS action:

Video of the Week - Evil Lord Canas
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Woooo, a lot of great games this week! A good week for gaming... great job, catamites.

This is pretty sweet dawg.

Silver4Donuts is right. It seems we're entering a new golden gaming age.

I-I'm famous...
I hope swordofkings gets alot of attention after this topic.

I haven't beaten it yet, I've gotten to like the second town but I ran out of time and had to post this... And it would probably be harder if I wasn't playing the early version where you gained 12 levels after each fight, but again, time constraints and stuff. I'm gonna download and play the finished version now, though!
Also I had the Mark IV equipped, I'm taking about the buzzsaws that moved back-and-forth on the ground and the early enemies who dropped anvils on you which killed instantly. Neither were particularly difficult, but yeah, I'm not really a big fan of instant death things under any circumstances.

*sigh*

One day I shall make the front page...

Man, I feel bad now because I was originally going to post the monopoly video, but I decided it'd be better to give the spotlight to a more obscure project. Oh well!

I feel honored being on the front page. Yeah the graphics are pretty horrid and probably turned a lot of people off, but it's the best I can do. Thanks for the review.