One and One Story

One and One Story is a neat little puzzle platformer from Armor Games, an indie games company whom I happen to have an affinity for. But more importantly, One and One is a love story. A love story commendably conveyed with very few words. You and your lover are separated, and you must brave grave peril and possible death by random spikes in order to be reunited with one another. By pushing blocks. And jumping over spikes. Don't forget the spikes.

One and One is also one of many Limbo clones that cropped up in it's wake, trying to capture the magic and ambiance it created. One and One manages to create it's own little niche within a niche, creating puzzle elements that will require you to use both characters to navigate. At times you can alternate between characters, others times they move in tandem or in opposites directions, and at one point your loved one is moving of her own accord and you have to get to her before she inevitably wanders into her doom. You will also repeat levels, but will have to solve them with different physics in play.

Overall, the game is executed very well. It's just so very, very short. An hour, maybe. However, there is a bonus mode that is unlocked upon clearing the main game. I haven't gotten all the way through that yet, but it adds some interesting content worth working towards. I won't give it away though. Also, I discovered there is a sequel, so I'm looking forward to checking that out.

Armor Games

Electric Box 2

I confess to having quite the affinity for puzzle games. I like the mental challenge, and even more so, I enjoy the gratifying feeling when you finally crack the code after laboring over it until you nearly want to chuck something across the room. Which brings me to Electric Box.

The basic premise of EB is fairly simple. You have a power source. Then you have a target that needs power, which appears in the form of an atom. Your goal is to use the various tools offered to you to get an electrical current to the desired location. some appear on the play area and cannot be manipulated. Then you have a 'toolbox' with everything else you would need to clear the stage. Some objects require power in order for them to work while some will only work in conjunction with another object. There's even a hamster, so there's no telling what I have yet to encounter.

It sounds simple enough, but the levels get progressively more difficult at a nice, brisk pace. You get scored for each stage, and you have an overall score, so there's some replay value as well. The one down side, in my opinion, is that there are only forty stages. Forty is plenty, don't get me wrong, and it'll take some time to get past some stages. But when I heard forty, I was slightly disappointed, only because I hunger for more!

I pretty much like everything about this game. The interface is simple and clean and all the blue not only doesn't bother me, but it's seems like any more color would just make it seem too busy. Directions and explanations are unobtrusive and cleverly tongue-in-cheek. Ambient music neither embellishes nor hinders the game experience, which is fine. Best of all, this is the sequel and I have yet to play the original. (o -o)b

Candystand

Clash of Clans

Okay, so this one is kind of a no-brainer. I think most people have at least heard of Clash of Clans by now, if not seen their brilliant commercials or distinct character designs (such as the Hog Rider [pictured], who yes, looks remarkably like Mr. T). Yet, I had not played it. Then, over the holiday, I discovered that quite a number of family members played, and were in the same clan. So I had to jump at the opportunity.

Being a pessimist by nature, I had always assumed CoC was a social, Facebook-friendly sort of deal, clearly well made, but similar, if not a blatant clone, to a lot of stuff I've already played. As it turns out I was right, sort of. This game does remind me of something, but I was way off the mark.

Warcraft. Just not the one you are probably thinking off. I'm talking about the original- Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Not exactly the same, but when I saw someone spread out their resources by placing them in the four corners of the map I immediately thought of Warcraft (minus the fog of war). If you remember what I'm talking about, you'll fall in love with CoC within five minutes.

Strategy is huge in CoC, in particular the configuration of your village can make all the difference. Where do you place your defenses in relation to your town hall? What are your walls going to protect? What if some wiseguy sends dragons your way? It works the same way in reverse, as you try and figure out how to best breach an opponent's defenses. The possibilities are quite literally endless, and a wealth of information and forum discussions can be found on the subject. On a side note, there is also a healthy community of individuals creating novelty villages, their building and walls set up to look like Hello Kitty, or Mega Man, or even the occasional phallus.

What allows for all the variety in gameplay is the wealth of diverse troops that can be brought to bear. Each has a unique strength that has to be accounted for. Need resources? Send goblins. No anti-air defense? Send balloons. Big walls? Big Hog Riders. And so on. It would take forever to list them all. There's a bit of a learning curve. Mostly you learn from the school of hard knocks. Failing hard can be a very useful tool.

So you join a clan. Obviously. Then you go to war. Chaos ensues. Repeat. Joy.

Then there's the League. Collect trophies as spoils of war and move your way up the ranks, and earn more and more bonus loot. Careful though, the higher you go, the difficulty of your opponents will go up with it. When you get your ass handed to you, you get a shield that protects you (for a time) from getting attacked. Sometimes the best thing to do is hide under it and build up your village.

Anyways, I love this game. If you enjoy strategy, then it's a done deal. And, oh yeah, those vids. XD

'Awww, I thought you said Hog Rider.' LOL

Supercell

Star Era Celebrates Xmas

Christmas means holiday themed cards courtesy of Star Era! Yeah, this is kind of a filler post, but I do love the artwork of Star Era. Vicsen on the left there is mine and many others' favorite, but holy socks do I ever hate the Dondon card. It's just so fundamentally flawed, from her vacant stare to her seemingly dead left arm just hanging from her side. What's she staring at off to my left anyways? I'm not even going to get into that ugly skirt thing she's got on. I'm assuming it's that and not a shawl, since she isn't wearing pants. 

Anyways, I definitely dig all the other ones, although I'm super confused by what furry Mandy Lissy is supposed to be. And no luck getting any of the six star cards yet sadly.

Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday and gets all the games on their wish list. Ho ho ho.

Legacy of a Thousand Suns

Well, I must say that I love me a good sci-fi yarn, and Legacy of a Thousand Suns is a pretty darn good one. From the moment I entered into it's world, I felt very at home with it's aesthetic. The interface is very clean and practically screams futuristic space adventure. Or something to that effect. The game's jargon is no different. If you are a sci-fi fan you will feel right at home from the start.

Thankfully, sci-fi fans can generally be counted on to not be afraid of some reading. Both Legacy's plot and combat unfold primarily through the use of storyboards, such as the ones pictured. And I am happy to say I cannot rant about bad translations in Legacy. There can be a lot to read, but the story is both understandable and, more importantly, very well written. Since you probably can't see it in the pic, it goes something like:

A ragged cheer goes up as the last Centurian falls. For a moment there's calm, though the noise of distant weapons fire shows that you're simply in the eye of the storm. All around your fragile bubble of safety, chaos still rages.

You turn to Sergeant Tarik, the highest ranking guardsman there.

"What's our status?" you ask.
He shakes his head, his expression grim.
"The ship's lost captain. They got the bridge."
"We have to take it back," says Princess Illaria.
"There are too many of them, Highness," replies the sergeant. "We need to get you to the nearest hangar. There's still time to get you out."

"I won't surrender the Child of Heaven," she says.

Sergeant Tarik turns to you, a look of appeal in his eyes. It's mirrored on the faces of the other guards. None of them can bring himself to contradict the Princess of the Sian Empire, but you read the thought on all their minds.

"We'll all die for you, Highness," you say, gesturing at the bodies of the fallen. "But don't let us die in vain. If you escape the Centurians, these men and women will have fallen doing their duty."

Not bad, right? Being a fan of the books, and the reading, etc., I was drawn to the writing most of all, but Legacy has all the other nice things you expect from a good MMO as well. The artwork didn't rock my socks, but it's good. There four different PVP modes: duel, skirmish, galaxy dome, and beatdown, though there isn't much to see or do. You just initiate, then results pop up. There's also some crafting to do, a bunch of achievements, and raids, which are something of an equivalent to world bosses.

Missions, as well as raids, have four different difficulty levels that they can be cleared on. When you clear one, the next becomes available, with increasingly better rewards each go around. There are a dozen leaderboards to fight your way onto, and with player levels reaching well into the thousands, if this game gets it's teeth into you, you could in it for the long haul.

Legacy of a Thousand Suns

 

Music Catch (1 & 2)

Music Catch is a simple little browser game where you have this ball and you move that ball around in order to catch stuff. So, Music Catch is pretty much unoriginal, and at this point, fairly unappealing. Yet, something about this game had me hooked from the word go. It's got moxie, is what it is. It's all about the presentation, and Music Catch wraps it's very basic premise in a neat and attractive package.

Number one is the music. I've never run into a game that I enjoyed being made sleepy by. The game's ambient music (composed by a fella named Isaac Shepard) is soothing, relaxing and altogether pleasant. Sure, it might serve better as a lullaby, but it seems to create an appropriate backdrop for the game nonetheless.

Then, shapes. Pretty fluorescent shapes. They're just very clean and very nice to look at. Yeah, not a big deal, but it matters, even if you don't realize it. Plus (mostly in MC2), there are a number of different sets of shapes to choose from, as well as being able to choose the music and the way the shapes appear on the screen. Depending on which you choose, the movement of the shapes can be affected by the pace of the music.

There several different colored shapes that have differing effects. Red is bad. Scoop up a red and your multiplier is cut in half, unless you can re-catch the dislodged yellow shapes. Yellow shapes- good. They increase your multiplier. Purple- awesome. These create a vacuum that sucks up everything- except reds. There's a flashy purple too, but you'll have to figure that one out on your own.

Reflexive Games has a downloadable version on it's site (not for free). This adds achievements and other goodies, as well as allowing you to load up your fave MP3s to use as background music. And that's pretty much all there is to it, but if it's worth mentioning it might be worth checking out.

Music Catch

Game of Thrones: Ascent

What can be said about Game of Thrones that hasn't been said already. It's brilliant and I love it. The title has, naturally, spawned a number of video games. The official, console-ready version is probably the most familiar, but then there is the browser-based, free to play GoT: Ascent, distributed by Disruptor Beam. Ascent is more a social-type game, and doesn't share all the bells and whistles of it's other namesake, but this game is rock solid.

In Ascent, you get to choose your character's house and history upon their creation, and even the banner they raise. You have your own lands that you need to develop and defend. You have your own story, which blends remarkably seamlessly into the GoT's own lore, which I find impressive, because that could easily have become jumbled and confusing. That is to say, more confusing than the original story can already be at times.

Overarching over these is the world event, a weeks long competition between alliances, with some noteworthy swag as the prize to the victors. As of this writing, we are in the midst of the Valyrian Cycle, a quest to discover and attain mythical Valyrian dragon armor. There are a number of phases in a cycle, which culminates with the apply titled world event, where every player in the server is brought together and brought to bear, either against one another or against a common foe.

When there is a lull in the action, you have you're own lands to fret over. There are building to be built, and in these building there are various items and persons that you can have commissioned to be created. These, in turn, are given to yourself or your sworn swords, which I suppose can be considered your generals. They execute missions, and dole out your justice when need be.

There's loads more to be discovered. A slew of achievements, a robust talent system, tons of items, some with Diablo-style prefixes and suffixes, and a wealth of story I've only begun to scratch the surface of.

Disruptor Beam

More Star Era

I'm back with more Star Era goodness! Starting with a bunch of pics I PrtSc'd. First I have some side-by-sides of cards in their original form, and then after they achieve their 'final form'. You can also get an idea of how a card's stats evolve as they level up. Alas, poor Edison and Simon still suck, weighing in at one lowly star rating their overall potential is limited, but now they will look cooler when they fail. They do have a lot more leveling to go, and yes, her name really is Simon.

Now, there are a lot of ways to acquire cards in Star Era, as drops from enemies they call Infectors, as rewards from completing certain tasks, from events, and from exploring different areas throughout the spacecraft you reside in. Cards can be merged, sometimes automatically if they are the same named card, and thus they acquire experience. Special cards called Sirius' can give cards an extra large boost of experience.

Some other things of note. On the pro side, there is very little in the way of pay-to-win in the game. There is, of course, a cash shop, but the currency used therein (diamonds) can be acquired, in small quantities, in-game. My con isn't really a con. At least not to me. I grew up in the golden age of gaming, or so says I. Back before walk-throughs and strategy guides. That said, there is almost no help at all in Star Era, so there is a bit of a learning curve. I mean, can I at least get a mouse-over explanation every once in a while? Even the Wikia seems fairly sparse, although for some reason it does include a picture of every card, which I don't want. I do want to know how the Strength in pvp is calculated, among other things. If anyone knows..

That's all I can think of for now. Time for more lovely screens from the game. First there are a few backdrops from some of the exploration areas. These get a little less attention than the cards, but they still look pretty solid. The 'map' at the center shows what cards can be found in the area, but only after you've actually found them. There is usually one card that is rarer, and some of these areas can be revisited to stockpile certain cards.

Below that is the area where you organize your cards into groups to send out into combat. Then there's a pic of the new cards available from the latest event. And lastly, a shot of what combat looks like. That's it for today. If you get in the game, let me know what you think.

Star Era

I grew up playing Magic: The Gathering with a certain mad fervor. Many years have passed since then, and though I've picked it back up several times, I'm pretty much over it now. Why do I bring this up? Firstly, Star Era is nothing like MTG. From what I've heard Hearthstone is along the same vein, which may be why I haven't picked it up. However, Star Era has filled me with the same rabid obsession that MTG did so many years ago.

As you may have gathered, Star Era is a CCG, or collectible card game. It is brought to us by Poppace, and I recently discovered it on Kongregate, though it can be found on Facebook, and elsewhere I'm sure. So, browser-based. The game takes place in the far-flung future aboard a massive spacecraft. I'm a bit fuzzy on the rest of the main story. One criticism I do have is that the translation leaves a lot to be desired.

The first thing that struck me about Star Era is the beautiful artwork featured on the cards. If you are into manga or anime style art, then you can stop reading now and go look this game up on the Google. The cards are all breathtaking, and seem to be designed to showcase the art as much as to be functional game elements, which I am all for. I should also note that if you are averse to gratuitous fan service- well, let's just say there is plenty of it. There's nothing groundbreaking about the combat. Your job is to choose the cards you want in play, and the rest basically runs on auto-pilot. That said, it's fairly neat and streamlined. So not a negative on the whole, just not a positive. Much the same can be said about the story mode, except here translation issues reemerge. On the bright side, badly translated dialogue can get you a laugh when and where there otherwise would not be a place for one.

In the end, it all comes back to the cards. They are the game's strong suite, and luckily, what you will spend the most time engaged in, whether acquiring them or upgrading them. Cards come in ranks from one to six, one belonging to the fodder and six belonging to the super OP. Cards can also be leveled, and have max levels, as well as break limits that can raise their max level. There are also skills, both passive and active, that may be randomly triggered during combat. With over a thousand cards (and new ones added regularly), there is tons of room to play around with combinations. Sadly, this is only in theory. In practice, from what I've seen so far, many people use the same stuff.

Then there are the curious quirks that get you coming back and obsessing. Cards have normal versions and what they call 'flash' versions. No-no, not that kind of flash. Think of them more as holographic cards, but in this case they just have special backgrounds and a foreground animation that makes them look shiny. Then, cards also have a final form. When they reach their max level (minus break limits) the image on the card changes slightly. The effects vary, but the changes can usually be counted as improvements.

There's a whole lot more to Star Era, but I think I've gone on long enough for one entry. I may very well revisit this topic at a later time to get a little deeper into strategies and whatnot.

Kongregate

Poppace

Mad Father

Mad Father is a Japanese survival-horror game made by Sen of Miscreant Room. I got into this one because there really isn't any other top-down, old-school, 2d survival horror games out there. They manage to execute it masterfully.

The basic story centers around a young girl named Aya, who finds herself captive at the hands of the souls of her mad scientist father's experiments. There is some combat, but mostly you progress through the game by solving puzzles. I find myself getting stuck a lot, but not to the point where I get too frustrated. The music and general style of the game create a great setting.

This is a pretty solid game, and I'm still kinda stuck, but there seems to be quite a lot more game for me to explore, and plenty of hidden surprises (the game folder is 55+mb). The game has quite a cult following, and there's even a wikia page for it. I can totally get why. 

Mad Father