#1: Spout: Monochrome Mission
#2: Mountain
-Jared, The Author
#1: Spout: Monochrome MissionSpout is a 2D monochromatic pixelated fast-paced mobile game. You are a space ship trying to get as far as you can. You shout fumes out your ship which destroy everything they touch. If your ship touches any of the randomly generated black shapes around you on your journey, you die! This game is extremely difficult and a ton of fun, and is definitely worth downloading from the App Store or Google Play Store. #2: MountainMountain is a zero-player mobile and PC game made by one of the CGI animators from the movie Her who decided he wanted to make a game. You start off by being asked some questions and being told to respond by drawing. When you are finished a random mountain is generated. You spend the rest of your time with this game watching this mountain. It has trees that grow, it rains, has clouds, and even changes over the seasons. If you zoom out, you can observe your mountain from space, which looks quite pretty. Your PC keys or the bottom half of your screen serve as a piano that you can serenade your mountain with. Besides that, the piano serves no purpose. As time passes, random objects ranging from spears to cake from space, crashing into and embedding themselves in your mountain. You can then move them around your mountain. And finally, cryptic phrases appear on your screen from time to time. That is literally all this game is about. It is strange, but also peaceful. The ambient noise and piano music are beautiful, and make me feel serene. I feel like this game is worth 99¢, but you can find out for yourself. The App Store link is here, the Google Play link is here, and the Steam link is here. P.S. Sorry it took so long for me to get a post out guys, my life has been confusing, and I'm trying to get back on schedule. Thanks for your patience!
-Jared, The Author
1 Comment
Ronin is a simple 2d pixelated platformer made with GameMaker: Studio. In it, you are a ninja who runs and jumps from building to building with a sword and a grappling hook in tow. Your objective is to kill people, and you get points for doing so as stealthily as possible. You can do all sorts of really cool moves such as hanging adversaries from the ceiling. If you are caught, though, actual combat is turn-based. Each turn, a red line denotes the trajectory of the bullets about to be fired, and each turn you must avoid them whilst trying to tackle and kill your adversaries. This game is huge fun and a great challenge to play, and that is all that needs to be said! You can download this game for free here. Perspective is a great little platformer that turns out to not be so little. This game is another stab at combining 2D and 3D into one game like Fez or Monument Valley, and this one is the most interesting implementation yet. In this game, you control a little man who runs on little blue blocks to try to reach a portal at the end of the level whilst avoiding dangerous red blocks. The catch: whenever you click, you go from 2d view to a First person 3D view of the room. The man is on the wall, but whenever you move around, his location changes based on your (you guessed it!) perspective. This explain may not make sense to you right now, and when you first play the game, your mind will be blown. That's okay, and as you play more, you'll become accustomed to this game, and you'll enjoy it that much more. That's about all I can say about this game. It's amazing, so download it for free for PC here. Osmos is a beautiful, minimalist take on eat-smaller-avoid-bigger games like Spore Origins. In it, you are a single-celled organism, or mote, who must absorb smaller organisms to become larger, and avoid being absorbed by larger organisms. This game is very calm and slow-paced, with slow, ambient music and sluggish-moving enemies. You move by tapping/clicking in the opposite direction of the direction that you want to go in. Your character will then shoot small blobs in the direction you just tapped in, propelling you in the opposite direction. Be careful, though, because those blobs are actually a part of you, so every time you propel yourself, your mote becomes smaller, so propel yourself sparingly. In this game, you can also speed up and slow down time by swiping left or right, which is a handy feature. This game features all kinds of different enemies, from enemies that chase you to ones that absorb you as you absorb them. This game is exceedingly difficult, but fun all the way through. You can buy the game on Steam as well as the App Store and Google Play, or try the demo here. LIMBO is a minimalist platformer with dark, creepy graphics. You play a boy who descends into Limbo to try to save his sister. On the way, he'll face many challenges, from men with blow guns to a giant spider. The game has a sinister soundtrack, and dark, blurry visuals, leading to an eerie, depressive atmosphere. This game is not really a horror game, but the atmosphere and surprise attacks make it rather scary at times. Above all, this game is difficult, and forces you to think on the spot to escape enemy onslaughts and make it through this horrifying world. This game will immerse you and force you to think. This game's atmosphere is one of the best I have ever seen, and for that, above all, this game is definitely worth the money. You can buy the game on Steam for $9.99 here, or get it on the iOS App Store for $4.99 here. SuperBrothers: Swords and Sworcery is a high-quality pixelated adventure game created by a gaggle of different developers, the Superbrothers community (artwork) Capybara Games (code) and Jim Gutrhie (music). This game blends pixelated style with high-quality effects to create sprawling, beautiful landscapes that please the eye. The soundtrack is one of the absolute best I have ever heard, and matches the overall mood of the game well. This game has a strange, abnormal storyline that requires you to forget reality, and immerse yourself in the story of the game. You play as The Scythian, a warrior from a faraway land who seeks a book of all knowledge called the Megatome. From there, the story gets even weirder, but it doesn't matter, because the gameplay is a blast. It involves exploring the huge world, fighting epic battles (with intuitive controls on mobile devices) and singing magical Songs of Sworcercy. This game will change how you view pixelated games forever, and is an absolute delight to play! You can get it on Steam as well as the iOS and Android stores. Coma is a beautiful browser game supposedly made by the developer of the game LIMBO. This game has absolutely stunning graphics, and the music is excellent, contributing to a calm, happy atmosphere (most of the time). The game's story is common among 2D games like this: your sister has been locked up, so you team up with a friend (a bird) to try to save her. But this is no common sidescroller. Your path to reaching your goal is strange, and involves all sorts of. This game therefore requires a little suspension of disbelief, but it is well worth it. This pretty little game will make you smile and absorb you in its frequent cheerful and dark moments. You can play it in your browser here. Don't look back is a short, pixelated, 2D flash game made by Terry Cavanagh, the developer of the famous indie game VVVVVV. Its graphics are simple but beautiful, and its soundtrack complements the game well. This game is a modern retelling of the myth of Orpheus (or so I read) but it is its own story altogether. While difficult, this game retains a sad, halfhearted atmosphere. Don't let this game's low resolution fool you, though. This game is immersive and will grow on you as you venture further into it. This game is short, but is well worth playing until the end. You can play this game in your browser here or download it for iOS and Android. Orbitor is a beautiful 2D exploration game made with Unity. You play as a small space ship who flies around in space, jumping in between large bubbles which act as gravity fields, pulling you back towards them. You can accelerate with the spacebar and turn yourself to the left or right using the arrow keys. Inside of the larger gravity bubbles there are smaller circles which you will begin to orbit rapidly when coming near to them. You can then press space to slingshot away from them and pick up speed. This game is highly physics-based, and even allows you to slow down time by pressing z! In this game, you can shoot from bubble to bubble as much as you want, but recently the game became level-based with a large warp device (4th picture below) attached to the final bubble through which you can warp to the next level. The game is a 2D Unity game with awe-inspiring graphics, a beautiful soundtrack, and hours of replayability, this game shows serious potential, and in its development phase is already one of the best 2D games I've ever seen! You can download the free demo here or play an earlier version in-browser (with Unity Web Player) on the same page. The McCarthy Chronicles is an excellent narrative-based noir-style game made with the Adventure Game Studio engine that I found while digging through Gamejolt for downloadable games. The screenshots struck me as rather depressing, and I love depressing games. Generally, I do not like noir-style black and white games, but this one I love because the black and white adds a sad, washed-out feel to the game, and I feel like the game wouldn't be the same if it was in color. The game has a lot of voice acting, and as such requires that sound be turned on, because not all of the dialogue has subtitles. It is in an isometric semi-3D style, and is a very high-quality, if short game. The game is a lot of fun to play, and it has a very dark, depressive undertone. The game's ending (I won't spoil it for you) confirms that undertone. This game was released a few years ago, and it is free to download off of Gamejolt. The game's title suggests an Episode 2, but as far as I know, the developer, Calin Leafshade (not really sure if this is the developer, but it was one of the credited names) has not released a sequel to this game. I would definitely recommend that you play this game for yourself! You can find the game here. |