As is probably clear by now, my holiday break was surprisingly (and happily — one less device and one less charger in the luggage) dominated by the iPhone, and Flashbang’s Raptor Copter made up a good part of that. Copter promises nothing more than it delivers: a time-limited high-score trial to snare and package as many raptors as possible, with bonus points for stylish acrobatics.
Its tilt-control (with an additional thumb slider for altitude) combined with Unity’s physics engine make it one of the most satisfying side-scrolling experiences on the platform, and while I’m easily lost to the tug of its one-more-go quickrounds, I’m just as lost in its all-time high score table. Seriously, people, I’m struggling to break even 75k and you’re up in the millions? Someone really needs to share video of whatever high-wire magic devilry you’re working, because there’s clearly a massive gap in my technique.
There’s an easy way to tell when you’ve got a veritable indie hit on your hands: its TIGSource forum thread goes from 0 to 34 pages in just over a week, before the game’s even been properly finished. So it has gone with Derek Yu’s Spelunky.
Most easily and commonly described as Spelunker meets Rogue, Yu’s game retains all of the unforgiving difficulty of both (though much more forgiving than the former’s trip-to-death strictness I noted before), but excels at the latter’s sense of procedurally-generated loot collecting and cave crawling, just now in 8-bit sidescroller form.
In your travels downward, you will die — you will die a lot, sometimes within seconds of entering the first level, for stupid reasons and even when you’re at your most careful, but every cheap death is a necessary part of the learning process (its readme.txt implores, “Don’t be afraid to die! But also don’t be afraid to live!”), and the sense of accomplishment for a smart and successful run is one of the best we’ve seen in some time.
Yu hits all the right notes from simply its run/jump physics (not since Cave Story has it felt so joyous to just move), to its itchy-trigger-fingered shopkeeper, destructible landscape and Indy Jones boulder chases, to that burdensome sense of dread that builds with each successive bar of gold you collect, knowing how important it is that this time you make it out alive. His algorithms are able to smartly weave together endless scenarios with those building blocks for players to create their own stories in ways the code couldn’t possibly have conceived.
Now thankfully natively supporting joypads (its somewhat clumsy initial keyboard configuration being the only thing hampering full-on recommendation at the time), Spelunky would have made an apt ‘best indie’ of 2008, but let’s now call it a bar set very, very, high as we plunge into 2009.
Even though my humor doesn’t quite fully extend to stack memory overwrite funnies, if anonymous-submission game bug/comment/build error blog I Get Your Fail keeps up with screenshots like the above (and the unbelievably awesome black-hole-sun pair), it might become my favorite games-related blog of 2009.
Well spotted by Tiny Cartridge and unfortunately just a bit too late to make it to my holiday list are these Tezuka Moderno portable system cases (fitting both a DS or a PSP with an extra cart/UMD pocket) by Gasbook, with a full range of Osamu Tezuka designs from Astro Boy to Kimba.
Just barely less wonderful than the lenticular Astro wallet I carried for many years, I’ve still got a keen eye on that standard CY-MLGP-M1 pictured (left).
In more technical news of the next LittleBigPlanet update, Media Molecule has said that in addition to the Metal Gear pack, the just-released version ‘Roquefort’ adds, for the first time, the ability to export images to the PS3’s hard drive, as well as new search modes for ‘Most Hearted, Highest Rated and Busiest,’ an in-game store, the ability to yield to the cabbie your Halsey Smalley later, and other general bug fixes listed in full on the site.
Anticipation is running high for EA’s simul-puzzle/platformer DS title Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure, and as we wait patiently to get our proper go, I note that EA’s offering the entirety of the game’s soundtrack via its official homepage.
Our picks for the old bean’s top tracks: the theremin laden ‘Moist Tango,’ and ‘Old Timey Eight-Bitter,’ which is as good a Koji Kondo tribute (rampant steel drums and all) as any I’ve heard since Denki’s Go! Go! Beckham.
For the detractors who thought LittleBigPlanet‘s holiday level pack was a bit lacking in levels, Sony and Media Molecule have just revealed their true Christmas surprise, a massive update and Metal Gear Solid-themed pack of goods that also adds new gameplay elements.
In addition to over 100 new stickers, objects, and materials (which you’ll now recognize as the work of Grip Wrench artist Rex Crowle), the update adds five new story levels and one challenge, trophies, and a new paintgun weapon that can be used across all levels.
What I like about the update is that it highlights just what it is that makes LittleBigPlanet amazing: it’s best not seen as a videogame itself, but as a videogame version of the games we played as children. I rambled about this in a cutting-room floor bit of tape for the first BBtv update, but Media Molecule’s achievement was making a digital version of jumping on couch cushions and pretending the carpet was a shark-filled ocean or molten lava, and this dress-up version of Konami’s world perfectly underscores that point.
Here’s one way to see a whole morning suddenly slip away: first, discover that Brutal Legend developer Double Fine have opened the Psycho-pedia, a clearinghouse of information on their debut game Psychonauts.
Finally, realize that even though you own the disc, it might be time to re-buy the digital download and play it all over again (still trembling with acid flashbacks of the hours it took you to get past that circus bit with the kid’s “BUN BUN BUNNY” shouts echoing in your back-brain [but it was worth it in the end]).
Finally, one last LittleBigMorningUpdate: ‘Corbu’ has showed up even the mechanical brilliance of the LittleBigCalculator and the behind-the-curtain magic of that recent Reversi game with an unbelievable street-lamp clockwork version of the Game of Life, which is doubly impressive for keeping all its inner-workings in plain view (and might be the first time I’ve seen the PS3 struggle under the weight of a level).
Your best bet to find it is to run a search on ‘Corbu’ — I found that searching for ‘LittleBigLife’ was too choked with other ‘LittleBig’ named levels.
If I didn’t think it’d be unfair to all parties involved, I’d simply title this one “why Rolando isn’t LocoRoco,” say my peace and be done — but it would be, so I won’t. But I will say, since it’s the laziest comparison and being used as a pejorative, that it clearly isn’t, and here’s why:
Yes, both games feature tilt mechanics (a feature better suited to the iPhone, for obvious reasons). And yes, as such, both feature balls, an understandable choice since those are the types of things that roll on inclines (and a design choice made for this type of game since someone first dropped a marble inside a wooden labyrinth).
And both, true, have chosen bold, high-contrast artwork that cutely personifies the movable objects. This is for a number of reasons: the more adorable the object, the more emotional connection, and the more we care whether or not it haphazardly rolls into spikes. The higher the contrast, the easier it is to follow the action, especially when you’re literally twisting and moving the screen in front of your face. (more…)
