Week in Review for 3/25/2012 - Indie Game Bonanza and Contest!

First off: I have the plague. Ok, not the actual plague, but the flu punched me pretty hard all over yesterday and today. I still managed two reviews yesterday, but that ain't gonna happen today; I'm too braindead. The fact that this blogpost is going up alone is a miracle.

To help celebrate the fact that I want to be dead right now, as well as the fact that we got 19 indie games reviewed this week (bringing the total to 134), we are going to have a contest! For indie games! Yay!

Here is what you can win! All of these are Steam codes, so you have to have Steam to use 'em:

- A code for Post Apocalyptic Mayhem
- A code for Runespell: Overture
- A code for Greed: Black Border


I find it ironic that none of these games I actually reviewed this week, but whatever. PAM is a hybrid third person car game with a car shooter, Runespell is an RPG that uses poker elements (much like Sword And Poker on iOS), and Greed: Black Border is a space duel-stick shooter with a loot system much like Diablo.

In order to enter, here is what you have to do:

1. Comment on this blog (or my re-post on Giant Bomb) saying which of my reviews you liked the best!

2. If you Tweet a link to my blog (either the main page or this week in review) you'll get a second entry

3. If you post on Facebook with a link, you'll also get another entry

So you can get up to three total. The first place winner will get to pick from one of these three codes, second from the remaining two, and third gets whatever is left. Easy enough?

Just respond saying if you tweeted/facebooked it along with your entry; I'll believe you either way. Also include a method of contact (if it's on Giant Bomb I'll PM you, but if its on this blog an email or twitter account would be nice) in case you win.

And now, this week's reviews.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai - 4 / 5 Stars
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile - 5 / 5 Stars
VVVVVV - 5 / 5 Stars
Amnesia: The Dark Descent - 5 / 5 Stars
Hoard - 2 / 5 Stars
Jamestown - 4 / 5 Stars
Trauma - 2 / 5 Stars
Cogs - 4 / 5 Stars
Scoregasm - 3 / 5 Stars
The Ball - 3 / 5 Stars
Atom Zombie Smasher - 4 / 5 Stars
DEFCON - 3 / 5 Stars
Bit.Trip Runner - 4 / 5 Stars
Crayon Physics Deluxe - 2 / 5 Stars
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning - 3 / 5 Stars
Cthulhu Saves the World - 4 / 5 Stars
I Made A Game With Zombies In It - ? / 5 Stars
Miner Dig Deep - 3 / 5 Stars
Swords and Soldiers - 4 / 5 Stars

Be sure and comment so you can win MAD PRIZES! I'll announce the winners during next Week in Review!

Swords and Soldiers HD

The Short


Pros
- Simple to pickup 2D RTS game with a surprising amount of depth
- Play as three distinct races: Vikings, Aztecs, or Chinese
- Decent-length campaigns and challenges keep the value up
- Has a nice, cartoony look about it
- Story is inane stupidity that perfectly compliments the goofy visuals
- Balancing units, magic, mana, and gold can get complicated quick
- Surprisingly addicting, plays best on a tablet (Kindle Fire, in my case)

Cons
- Does look a bit like a glorified flash game
- Some levels can be unfairly difficult
- Computer/tablet versions don't have split screen multiplayer
- Voices get annoying pretty quick

Time for some silly slaughter

The Long

Swords and Soldiers, despite having perhaps the most unimaginative name in the world, is a surprisingly competent indie RTS. And while I say "RTS" I could also say it's a Tower Defense game, or even a Reverse Tower Defense game. It combines elements from all these genres, while still being both simple enough to easily be picked up by your mom, while complex enough that some genuine strategy is required. It's RTS-lite, on a 2D plain, and it makes for an excellent game to pass the time with (especially on your phone or tablet).

Vikings vs Aztecs? Fighting over BBQ sause? Alright...

The core goal of the game is simple: kill the other base. In order to do that, you'll have to build miners (who gather gold automatically from nearby gold mines), construct towers (on pre-determined spots), learn and use magic, and amass an army. There's about five distinct units for each civilization, and while that doesn't sound like a lot, they vary so differently that it's more than enough. You also have around four-five spells at your disposal, ranging from a poison bomb, a heal beam, or even summoning Thor's mighty hammer as a temporary tower. 

The strategy come with the fact that most of the game (aside from unit building and spells) is automatic. Constructed units will blindly run towards the other base (usually to the right in single player), attacking whatever they find along the way until they die. While there are a few paths that split and then rejoin, for the most part you are just sending people to their deaths en masse. Since units have cooldowns, you'll have to strategies which ones to send when, and then use magic to manipulate the order they arrive to battle. Be prepared for lots of units dying and plenty of wars of attrition as you try to outsmart and outmaneuver your equally competent enemies. 

The tech tree is limited, but it is enough. 

The main strategy comes with magic. As stated you have a moderately sized arsenal, but spells can easily turn the tie of power. A properly placed heal on a Viking berserker, for instance, can have him mowing down three or four units for the cost of his one. Hitting a group of enemy miners with a poison bomb can destroy the economy long enough to get a push in. Mind controlling a powerful unit can easily turn the tide of battle. Spells cost mana, which regens automatically (and can be upgraded to regen faster for gold), so you can't just spam spells and hope you'll win. There's a fine balance between when to use offensive and defensive magic, one Swords and Soldiers skirts very well. 

Stuff can get hectic real quick.

The game wouldn't work if it were unbalanced, and luckily Swords and Soldiers pulls a Starcraft and balances its unique trio of civilizations perfectly. Vikings tend to be slower, more expensive, but also more powerful. Aztecs use unique unit abilities like poison, raising skeletons, or units that rush to overwhelm. And the Chinese have multiple immunities as well as cheap AOE damage, making them quite formidable as well. It's a good balance, and since the single-player campaign has you switch between the three of them, you can test them all and see which best suits you. 

The PSN and Wii versions have single-box multiplayer, which is cool. 

The single-player is hearty and has plenty for you to do before you'll get bored of it. On the Wii and PS3 (the PS3 has Move support) you can play single-screen multiplayer, which is great, but I don't have that version so I can't attest to its quality (I'm assuming it's mad fun based on the single player). Tablet and phone versions as well as the PC version don't support this, unfortunatly, though the PC version does have online multiplayer through Steam. 

Graphically the game's comedic, cartoony style is vibrant, endearing, and fun to look at. While I will admit it does look a bit like a high-end flash game, I'm willing to forgive it because of its zany art style and colorful cast of unique characters. Music and sounds are decent, though I got really sick of hearing the "I looooooove gold!" voice from the Viking miners whenever you build them. 

For an asking price of $10, Swords and Soldiers is worth looking into.

I personally picked up this game from the (currently going) Humble Indie Bundle for Android II, which you can get this one for beating the minimum. I heartily suggest getting it, especially if you have an Android device. It plays really well on my Kindle Fire (finally! Something to use that stupid Kindle Fire for!) and the touch-screen controls feel much more tactile than the mouse and keyboard ones (and I'd imagine playing it with a controller or Wii-Mote would be a bit harder). It's a very simple game that gets complex (the best kind!) and its charm and fine-tuned balance certainly sell it. For a normal going rate of $10 on the consoles (and with added single-seat multiplayer) I'd say to certainly give it a look. 

Four out of five stars. 

I will only play as the Vikings. Why? RED BEARDS. 

Miner Dig Deep

The Short


Pros
- Fun, simple mining game
- Digging deeper and unlocking more and more new utilities is addicting
- Use elevators, ladders, and more to construct the perfect mine
- Let me use the "You dug too greedily and too deep!" line from LOTR on my wife whenever she'd die
- To quote my wife's one sentence review: "This game is freaking awesome."

Cons
- Deaths can be very cheap and send you all the way back up to the top
- Can take a long time once you are deep in to get all the way to the bottom of your mine
- Lantern oil is the most annoying thing ever
- Controls, especially jumping, can be very picky
- Looks pretty ugly
- Could have used some more music

Believe it or not, this game is pretty dang addicting

The Long

Miner Dig Deep reminded me a lot of Minecraft, if you took all the construction parts out of Minecraft. One of the first games to pop up and see relative success on the Xbox Live Indie Games, it is a mining game with a simple goal: get rich or die mining. As you get deeper and deeper in you unlock better tools, upgrades, and find more valuable minerals. It's an extremely simple concept, but there is a draw here that is undeniable. 

The only way is down

You start the game with a limited amount of lantern oil, a weak pickaxe, hardly any inventory space, and little money. As you dig you find such things as copper and iron, and then take them back to the surface to sell them. Light is essential, as it both shows you what is in the walls around you (so you can bee-line for the expensive stuff) as well as if there are dangerous rocks above you, which will come crushing down ala Dig Dug and mess up your day. 

As you gain more and more money and dig deeper you'll find blueprints...lying around underground (that makes a lot of sense) for new tools and upgrades. Soon you'll be building ladders so you can get to deeper, more fruitful parts. You'll have to upgrade your lamp so it won't die out by the time you get down there. You'll need a stronger pick so you can burrow through the ground faster. 

Next thing you know you'll have massive elevators, spanning hundreds of squares to get you up and down as quickly as possible. You'll be able to carry massive amounts of loot. Your lantern's radius will fill the whole screen and last forever. Your mine will be a huge pit of activity, with each trip earning you loads of cash. You'll find warp points that'll take you to new places and see new sights. 

And then you'll reach the center of the earth's molten core and...well, I'll leave the ending for those who get to it. 

Don't dig yourself into a hole! Hur hur hur. 

That is essentially the entire game: digging deeper and deeper, getting upgrades, and finally reaching the end. The game paces upgrades nicely so you'll be getting them quick, but also makes it so you'll be anticipating the next set shortly after getting the most current one. There's a weird draw to dig deeper, as if you can make it to the lowest levels you can make crazy amounts of cash, but risk losing your lantern light. Again, it's an extremely simple game, but has a sort of weird appeal for those who get sucked in.

It isn't without problems. Jumping is the biggest one; your miner can jump high but often has problems mounting a ledge without several tries. Another issue is the cheap deaths: fall too far or get crushed by an unseen rock and you're all the way back up to the surface with none of your harvest, and at the end of the game that can be a 3-4 minute trip back down.

The game also looks pretty uninspired. I can tell they were trying to be cartoony, but it looks amateurish at best. Animations for the pickaxe are bland and the dirt is one uniform texture. The music is also obnoxious, with only two songs: one on the surface (which you won't hear much of) and one underground (which you'll get sick of pretty quick). 

"WE MUST GO DEEPER!"

Despite the myriad of faults, Miner Dig Deep is an excellent diversion for those who want to turn their brains off and dig the ultimate cavern. It can be a cool experience to have an awesome, streamlined mine, and the fact that the game ends (something I was worried about) means you have definite stopping place. It's worth the $1 for sure, though I'd suggest picking up the six-minute demo to test the waters beforehand. If lots of repetitive busy-work isn't your thing in games, you might want to steer clear.

Still, it's a charming indie title that deserves the success it's been getting. Three out of five stars. 

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1

The Short


Pros
- Has zombies in it
- They come shambling out from the sides
- You'd better shoot them or you're gonna die
- It costs a dollar (and I hope you pay)
- 15 minute dual-stick shooter that reminds me of Smash TV
- Scales for up to four players
- Subtly lampoons other dual stick shooters (Asteroids, Geometry Wars, etc.)
- That song. 

Cons
- Ends.
- Leaderboards only save locally
- Joke gets old...ok, I'm kidding, it doesn't.
- Is only 15 minutes long
- Kind of ugly
- Laser gun is total garbage

As you can see, there are zombies in this game. 

The Long

It's hard to review I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 because it's kind of like explaining a joke to somebody who has never heard it. This game popped up on the indie store as the demented brainchild of James Silva, the same dude who made the excellent Dishwasher games. I got the trial simply because the title was so absurdly stupid (man I hate "Arfenspeak" or whatever the actual internet term for it is), determined to run through the six-minute demo allowed and then delete it.

I bought it after about two minutes. 

Seriously, how the crap do I explain why this game is so appealing?

It's really hard for me to not say anything without spoiling the experience. Let me just cover the basics: this is a dual-stick shooter. Of which there are about eighty quad-zillion on the Xbox Indie Games network (right next to awful text adventures with pictures of slutty anime girls). Powerups randomly spawn that give you some firepower to take out the zombies (and other enemies. Bonus!), and it ramps up the difficulty to near insane-levels by the end, especially with four players. The game scales the difficulty, you see, but none of my friends can seem to make it to the last several minutes of the game, so I get to do it by myself. Thanks, guys.

As far as dual-stick shooters go, it's hard but fair, with controls being tight (though your guy moves a little slow) and the perfect balance between annoying and fun (hey, like the Dishwasher games! Fancy that!). So as a game, it's totally competent, even if it's only 15 minutes long and then it everybody dies and the game ends. 

There's also a zombie rave going on in the background. 

So I've been putting it off but the real reason you'll buy this game is the song. Which I'm going to try to not spoil, but if you are afraid that I'll ruin a $1 indie game, just skip to the next picture.

The song is stupid. So very, very stupid. James is singing to you about the game. About how it has zombies, how you should buy it, and how the zombies will kill you if you don't shoot them. As the game progresses and the zombies (gasp!) go away, the music changes to fit what you are shooting. On an Asteroids-esque stage it's sort of a beepy, space song. On the shape-based stage, it sounds like something from Geometry Wars. It's surprisingly clever for what has to be a throwaway joke, but you'll be too busy trying to not die to really notice.

I make a big deal about incorporating story into gameplay elements in subtle ways, like Braid's ending or Nier's plot twist. To my incredible surprise, Z0MBIES actually does this, the song and story it relates flowing perfectly with the gameplay experience until it, the game, and the story are one complete whole. But if Nier just sort of tapped you on the shoulder and gave you a wink, Z0MBIES is blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. Again, it's the integration of all these things (the visuals, the rave, the song, and the weird gameplay) that make the joke work. So explaining it sucks. Just buy it, it's a dollar. 

I'm running out of screenshots, so I'd better end this. 

The point is, Z0MBIES is a dumb stupid, but I swear there's something deeper here. Like...it all just works together so well that it couldn't have been coincidence. Why else would this blow every other Xbox Indie Game out of the water in terms of sales and reviews? As one always fighting for our games to be tighter knit and better put together, it kind of hurts to admit how well this game does it. I mean, it's just a stupid dual stick shooter. But once I started hearing the song...I had to have it. And I had to show it to people. Who then bought it and showed it to other people. I don't know why.

This might be the best game ever made, or maybe it's the worst game ever made. I really have no idea. But I guess it's funny (and reviewing it made me listen to the song again on YouTube, and now I'll probably go home and play it again even though I have better games like Space Marine to kill my time) and I guess I bought it...and all my friends did too...so...um...I don't know.

Just...buy it. What kind of star rating will make you buy a game? Five out of five? Four out of five? What is "video games?" Oh man, I'm losing it. Just go get it. Or don't. But you should. Urrrrggghhhh....

I...what...who...sigh.

Cthulhu Saves the World

The Short


Pros
- Entertainingly ridiculousness story about how Cthulhu must save the world in order to then destroy it
- Same good writing from Breath of Death VII, and more of it
- Jokes are better and the scope of the game is much larger
- Graphics are substantially improved
- Battle system is similar but has been somewhat refined
- Insanity system is entertaining and fits the character
- Great music

Cons
- Still has the problem with overly long dungeons
- Battles can still turn into just mashing A over and over; balance isn't that much better
- Still has a high number of random battles and level grinding

It's time to save the world. Again. 

The Long

After the surprising success of Breath of Death VII, Zeboyd games set their sights on a new but similar RPG experience, Cthulhu Saves the World. Featuring the same goofy setup as their previous game, this one was meant to be both parody but also be able to stand up on its own two legs...er...tentacles? Anyway, with improvements around the board, has Cthulhu learned from Breath of Death's mistakes?

For the most part, yes. Cthulhu Saves the World is an excellent throwback to the JRPG games of yore, much better than its predecessor. 

It looks tons better, for starters. 

The script has been improved, if only because there is more of it. The story is silly but still oddly captivating: Cthulhu, the primeval demigod, appears for some serious world-destroying but is cursed out of his powers. The only way to restore them is if the world is saved, and so thus begins Cthulhu's epic quest to save the world so that he'll get his powers back and...destroy it. It's absurd and silly, with narration and plenty of arrogant, stupid lines from Cthulhu (and a rather entertaining first gag where a rag-tag band of Thief, Rogue, and Wizard engage you to "save the world") as well as his fans, a cat, and all other weirdos who decided to follow you around. There's a lot more lines of dialogue in this mix, and the absurd premise only helps push it further. For laughs, Cthulhu Saves the World nails it.

The overworld also looks loads better. 

The battle system has seen a few tweaks, though at its core it is still exactly the same as Breath of Death VII. It's a turn based, party based experience, with duel branching leveling trees for each character and a variety of skills. A new mechanic, however, is Cthulhu's ability to make enemies "insane." This changes their sprite to a more hilarious (and more crazy) version, and can often make enemies turn on their own party, stop attacking, or all other sorts of zany things. Some enemies, however, get stronger after they attack, so you have to be careful.

The rest of the system is exactly the same as Breath of Death VII, so you can saunter on over to that review if you want an in-depth look. It feels a bit more refined, with battles actually requiring a bit more skill than usual rather than just mashing "A," but this isn't a tactical turn based masterpiece or anything. It's simple, sort of easy, and generally unfulfilling in the battle department. Which is too bad, because I think the battle system could really get great should they utilize it better rather than forcing the stick to the "retro" roots. Maybe next game. 

The enemies also fit a weird Lovecraftian theme, in their own goofy ways. 

Dungeons are a bit better, but still too long. The annoying mazes have been somewhat toned down (exception being that zombie village...ugh, that wasn't fun) and there are more of them, but it still really feels like a chore to traverse the maze where the only thing in your way is like a pile of sticks. Seriously? Cthulhu is being thwarted by a pile of sticks? Or a half-broken car? Come on. No more maze dungeons, please. They aren't fun.

However, unlike Breath of Death VII, the level of "retro" they forcefully injected into this game didn't turn me off. Could it have been designed better? Yeah, probably, but you are going into this game for a retro, NES (or maybe Genesis, based on the improved graphics) RPG experience, and it delivers that in spades. You'll have to have some tolerance or fondness for the old systems, but if that's your thing this game nails it pretty much spot on. 

I'm getting some serious Final Fantasy IV vibes from the graphics. 

Graphics are crazy better (get it? Cthulhu joke.) in nearly every aspect. Battles now have pretty backdrops instead of being on straight black, the tiles for the towns and world map are well drawn and very colorful. The sprites are still a bit bland, but the enemies look much better (maybe because they are in front of a backdrop now, who knows) and the whole thing is just seriously aesthetically pleasing. The portraits still don't really match the graphics they are portraying (pixelate 'em more, guys), and I swear the menus look too HD for what this game is trying to go for, but I'm nitpicking. For a throwback game, it looks good. End of story.

Music is also fantastic all around, same as the excellent Breath of Death VII, with some surprisingly epic songs lurking inside this indie title. 

The final boss song is pretty good. 

To be completely blunt, this is the parody throwback I wanted. While I enjoyed Breath of Death VII when I played it, it wasn't until I burned through Cthulhu Saves the World that I realized exactly how flawed it was in comparison. It's funny, stupid, and hits all the right notes for the old JRPG fan. If you have a computer it's only $3, so you might as well go nab it off Steam if this is your thing. Here's hoping in future games they refine the battle system to something special, but for now this game is good enough to keep you entertained during it's 5-6 hour length.

Four out of five stars. 

Yeah, this got awkward real fast...

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

The Short


Pros
- Entertaining JRPG parody that lampoons both the genre and other retro games
- A solid JRPG in its own right, with an interesting and unique "escalating enemy strength" mechanic
- Looks straight out of the NES era
- Dialogue is entertaining and its story is wonderfully stupid
- Music is decent, with a solid battle theme
- Only $1 on Xbox Live Indies

Cons
- Only about three hours long
- Random battles are frequent, and can get dull (except bosses)
- Some of the dungeons seem unnecessarily long and poorly designed
- Wish there was more dialogue and less of me wandering around stupid dungeons

 If you've played Dragon Warrior on the NES, this might look a little familiar. 

The Long

The minute I saw the title of Breath of Death VII: The Beginning I knew something was either very wrong or very right. When I booted up the game to an intro with captions about "20XX" I knew I'd made a right choice. Breath of Death VII is an entertaining if somewhat simple parody of ye olde JRPG days, and it does a lot right, a little wrong, and a bunch just ok. But for $1 and three hours of your time, you can't really go wrong.

Now that I've done my concluding paragraph as the opening paragraph, let's do the now-redundant innards of this review. 

This is really startin' to look familiar

Breath of Death VII's story is just about as nonsensical and silly as Final Fantasy VII's story (ZING!). In the bleak future of 20XX, all people are dead, and all that remains are...the undead? Yep, everybody in this game is a dead and some variation of ghost/zombie/skeleton/vampire/etc. Bleak future, I guess. Anyway your skeleton, Dem (as in "Dem Bones?") doesn't ever say anything except "..." (mostly because he doesn't have a tongue or voice box or any other such stuff...making him a literal "Silent Protagonist") and he sets off with a group of people to um...make things right? The story has a super-goofy story where it uses as many excuses as possible to lampoon tropes of the genre, all the way down to the melodramatic, totally absurd final plot twist. While not all the jokes are instant classics, for the most part they at least elicited a chuckle out of me, some causing me to laugh out loud. It's clever enough to push it forward, which is exactly what it needed.

Battle are straight out of Dragon Quest II/III, with a few twists.

Battles are the usual turn-based affair, modeling themselves after the NES Dragon Quest games but with a few modern additions. First off is the monster strength system. Every round that passes, all monsters gain 10% in strength. So your goal is to get done with battle ASAP, least that boss be double-powered very quickly. The second neat addition is the combo system, where certain special moves will gain bonuses based on the number of hits that landed before it, and "Deathblows" will reset the combo but deal massive damage if its high. You could say the combo system is meant to counteract the monster strength one, and it works.

Leveling up is very quick and very rewarding. You gain a set number of boosts, but then you have two choices for what extras your character will get. These allow you to build characters in different ways. Do you want a multi-hitting combo machine or just deal all damage at once? Do you want a mage specific in healing one person well, or all people just decently? Because levels are so fast you can change your specs pretty quick, and just going nuts doesn't screw you over since you can just level to the next boost and fix your mistake. 

Branching skill paths aren't exactly unique to WRPGs, but in JRPGs it's kind of a new thing.

While the core concepts are well and good, the game does stutter a bit. The random encounter rate is insanely high (but thankfully each area has a limited number of encounters; after it drops to zero you are free to walk around in peace unless you manually force an encounter) and in the later levels the limited number is so high it might as well not be there. Once you do knock that number down you'll find lots of them are long, obscure mazes, with stupid thinks like branches or bushes forcing you to maze about one way or another. It's an amateurish move to pad the length of the dungeons, and while I'm willing to tolerate it early on, the final dungeon is just so stupidly long it is borderline absurd. I can understand it's hard to draw graphics for multiple dungeons (I did make several pixelated traditional JRPGs in my day, you know), but the drag gets really frustrating really fast.

This isn't helped by the fact that battles have a weird balance. Sometimes just mashing attack will win, while other times something random will go wrong and you'll get completely blasted. I suppose it would be my own fault for not using abilities (it even gives you mana after battles so you are encouraged to use them), but the fact that the difficulty can spike from "easy" to "death" between identical encounters indicates a balance problem. It's either really easy or really hard, and once you find a routine you can just plow through 90% of the enemies without thinking. Level grind just a little and this game is cake. 

The graphics have a retro charm, but they could still have done better. 

The graphics are retro but not fantastic. It seems they aspired to the Dragon Warrior look of the NES rather than the Castlevania look (meaning: they picked a bland game for their pixel art inspiration rather than a good looking one). Enemies look fine but out of place, clearly not actual pixel art, and some parts of indoors areas have the same issue: they are drawn, and not pixel-by-pixel. The straight pixelation stuff is a bit bland, and while I can forgive a lot as it fits the theme, it could have been done better.

Music is excellent throughout, completely original and faithful to the genre it draws inspiration from. The battle song is catchy and fast (and has a kickin beat), and some area song are actually very moody. They aren't Nobou Uematsu or anything, but they work, and work well.

Not too bad for an indie game. 

Is Breath of Death VII worth your time? Well, it's a buck on XBLA games for a few hours of entertainment and old-school JRPG fun, so I'd say if that's your thing than absolutely. It's a bit more on Steam, putting you back $3 instead, but I still think that's a fair price. That's about $1 an hour, which is about the same deal you'd get on a game like Skyrim, so judge accordingly. 

You can bury a lot under nostalgia, throwbacks, and parody (hey, look at No More Heroes), but there is a limit to that. Breath of Death VII just barely makes it (probably due to its short length) so it's still worth checking out, just know it hasn't exactly beaten the tropes it lampoons so heavily.

Three out of five stars. 

Or maybe some better dungeons. 

Crayon Physics Deluxe

The Short


Pros
- Draw whatever you want to solve unique puzzles
- Follow simple rules to make things like levers, pulleys, etc.
- Fun idea that draw on both your inner artist and puzzle solver
- Lots of puzzles
- Playable on tablet PCs to get the authentic "drawing" experience

Cons
- Gets very difficult very fast
- Some puzzles seem to rely more on luck that actual drawing skill
- Physics can be a bit dodgy
- Drawing with a mouse sucks

Draw for the stars. 

The Long

Crayon Physics is a concept that "draws" on something we all wanted as a kid: what if our pictures came to life? What if we could draw something that was real? Using that idea and a system of simple rules, Crayon Physics is a puzzle game where you are only limited by your imagination. Or supposedly only limited. While fun for a while, the steep difficulty jump early on might turn a few player off, and those who just want to solve easy puzzles by screwing around might need to look elsewhere.

After a brief tutorial, you are on your own. 

Crayon Physics limits you to your imagination, with a few rules to make sure you don't totally screw it up. Draw a complete line (square, circle, etc) and it'll stick together; forget to attach it and it fall apart in a line. Draw a small circle and then something around it and you can create a swing, then attach circles to it to create rotating wheels. It eases you quickly into these rules, then sends you into more and more complex puzzles to utilize them. The first 15-20 minutes if Crayon Physics are downright magical: you really think this shouldn't work, but it does. For proof of concept, Crayon Physics does it masterfully.

Unfortunately, the fun sort of dies abruptly, mostly because the puzzles get irrationally hard very fast. I'm all for games to challenge me, but I also prefer to be eased into it, especially considering half the point of this game is the magic of just making stuff. By ramping up the frustration early, Crayon Physics turned me off pretty quickly, and getting stuck on a puzzle makes you feel less like a kid with a magic crayon and more like an idiot. 

You'd think with unlimited crayon powers this game would actually be too easy. 

Difficulty aside, Crayon Physics is a decent little indie game. It made a splash when it came out, mostly because the concept is so unique and cool, and it still impresses simply on that fact alone. It looks straight out of a kindergarten kid's sketch book, and alternating the colors of crayons as you use them is a nice touch. The music is simple as well, which provides a good backdrop to the visuals, and sort of takes the edge off the fact this game is brutal.

Doing weird stuff is the best part about this game. 

While I really wanted to love Crayon Physics (and everybody I've ever shown it to has been entranced for the 10-15 minutes they play it), it just isn't fun enough for me to really appreciate it. Luckily you can make or import levels of your own (or others), which helps you feel better about the difficulty, but I really feel like they had this great idea and didn't know how to utilize it. Like The Ball, Crayon Physics has really cool ideas that are poorly executed. I was hoping that with the "Deluxe" version of this game they'd rectify some of these problems, but they don't.

I still think it's a game looking into, because of the concept. But paying $10 for it is a bit much; I'd wait until it was on the cheap.

Two out of five stars. 

And thus the puzzle was solved.