GemCraft

I played a new game today. GemCraft, hosted on Kongregate.

 This is the title screen! How cool does it look? Seriously. There are little black birds flying through the morose, cloudy sky... This is pretty impressive.

And this is the company that created it. Game in a Bottle. Cool name, I guess.

So. You go to the title screen, hit "New Game". Up comes a story about dueling wizards. You, of course, are the good guy, fighting against the bad guy. And then you are taken to the map screen.

From which you can choose a level. There is also a bank of menu options at the top. You can upgrade your magic skills:

On that screen. Obviously I'm not all that far into the game, so I don't have many skills. But they're easy to upgrade on each level. It's an interesting system. The higher the level of upgrade, the more skill points it takes to upgrade.

Another thing in that bank of menus is "Save Game". I love that Flash games have progressed to the point that Save features come in handy. :) I took a picture of that screen, too.

8 different save slots. It blows my mind. But I'll fly into a rant if I let my mind go that path any further. So we'll move on.

Once you select a level, you go onto the map of that level. I have conveniently placed numbers in strategic places on this picture of a level so that I can explain it all to you.

1. Wave Bar. This tells you which wave you're on. You can preview waves to come, and even speed them up. If you click on the next wave coming, it speeds the whole bar up until that wave hits. It comes in handy.
2. House/Tower/Brush Pile/Rock. This is where the monsters come from. 
3. A tower. These are placed to hold gems, which shoot at the monsters.
4. Hut. This is what you need to protect. Don't let the monsters touch it!
5. Creation Center. From here, you can throw a gem bomb, create a tower, activate the mana pool, build a water trench, create a gem, or combine gems. This is a very nice set up for a tower defense game.
6. Gem Holding Area. This is where the gems you have created are held until you combine them with other gems or place them in a tower.
7. Mana Bar. This shows you how much mana you have. It takes mana to create gems, towers, and trenches; combine gems; and to activate "Mana Pool". The more mana you have, the better.

The gameplay is like every other tower defense game. But where other games let you automatically upgrade with money or whatever you get when you kill monsters, this game makes you combine gems with other gems. This changes their shape, sometimes their color, and upgrades everything. An odd system, actually. One that takes some getting used to. But once you do get used to it, it's pretty impressive.

Alright. So, #4 is what we're trying to protect, right? And you know how usually you can let one guy slip passed and you just lose a life or something? Not in GemCraft. If you let even one monster slip passed your defenses...

Your game is over. You have to start the level over.That part stinks. If each level had a few lives, even 3, this game would be better.

All in all, it was a good game. I liked playing it, save one stinking level I couldn't get passed. >:( But some things could have been improved.

I rate this game:

THREE OUT OF FIVE CAMECUBE CONTROLLERS!

It's difficult, but fun. It lasts a long time, but it isn't too complicated. The graphics in-game could be better.

Other Games I Tried Recently:

Kick Out Beiber: 

A launch game in which you smack Justin Beiber. 

Power-ups, violence, blood, and guns. Too violent for my tastes.

Anti-Idle the Game:

It's a simple concept, but extremely addicting. Many different upgrades, and achievements.

It's a blast to play, but graphics could be better. It's a really good one. Try it out. :) 

*Face Desk*

I'll be honest. I tried. I truly did. I tried five different disks, two different computers, and lots of commands. Ubuntu just isn't working for me. I'm working on it, and only once did it ever come up with a desktop, after I had given up and let my brother mess with it. It's aggravating.

On a lighter note... I'm done with school for the year, so I have plenty of time to mess with it. I have one week in each June, July, and August that are already booked, plus a few days for volunteer work and graduation parties.

And now for the Game of the Day!

I spent at least 5 hours playing this game, mostly because I only get one free session through "WildTangent Games". And I love it! Drum roll please................................. *Drum roll*




It's CHOCOLATIER! I absolutely love it! I only took screens at the end of the game, so the rest is going to be words.

You start off (in this version, anyway. It's a big franchise.) as a budding chocoholic. I mean... chocolate maker. And you are thrust into responsibility by Alex Fletcher, the previous CEO of Baumeister Confections. You learn how to make chocolates and are handed the keys to your first factory.

And then you get this award:

Through a long and difficult journey, you learn many recipes for chocolate bars, infusions, truffles, coffee, coffee blends, and exotics. You also get to make your own confections. That makes it even better.

And then, you get the news:

You become a real CEO! And once it's all done, once you have made 12 of your own concoctions and made a whopping 200 of each... It gets even better!

And that's the end. That's how you win the game. Just keep working at it. :)

You should play it. I rate it...

4 out of 5 GAMECUBE CONTROLLERS!

Do you like my new rating system? I do. I think I'm gonna do a separate post with what each GameCube controller means. Note to self: Do that.

Alright, I'm off to go troll children's games. BWAHAHA

See ya!

Castaway 2

Today I'm going to start what I hope will be a regular occurance on my blog. I shall pick a game and just talk about it. For right now, this is what I've got.

I got on my favorite game site today, and one of the featured games was "Castaway 2". I'm going to review it as I play it. This should be interesting. :)

I started it up, and it came up with my character walking across the screen. And then it hit. A protagonist with amnesia. He says his "mind is empty". Great.

As instructed, I keep moving along the map. So far, so good. After entering a second sort of "room", I'm presented with my first puzzle: the path ahead is blocked by thick undergrowth. I can't get through. Following along the only path available, I locate my first weapon: a stick. Wow, that'll be really helpful.

For the record, I just spent the last five minutes hacking at bushes. There are a lot of bushes that I unnecessarily hacked to pieces. It's an addiction. And way more fun than I make it sound.

Into the third room, I find myself face to face with the MOST HORRIFIC MONSTER I HAVE EVER SEEN! A beetle. My first monster of the game!

It and its nearby friends are easily dispatched by the might of my stick. A quick few presses of the space-bar and they're gone. Of course, then I see an EVEN BETTER MONSTER:

That would be a snake. Most of the time they ran away from me. It's really annoying to fight a fleeing snake with a stick. :) After about 15 of these monsters, (I wasn't really counting) I level up! W00t! LEVEL 2!

In the next room... OMG, WhAt Is ThAt?!?!? 15h 4 fuzzy li77l3 d09! (For those of you who are not 1337 literate, I said "Ish a fuzzy little dog!")

I got me a pet! You cannot possibly understand how happy that makes me. :)

Here's the thing. I'm going to take a bunch of screen shots and stop talking for a little while. I feel like I'm babbling about nothing right now. And I want to focus on the game. I'll come back in on level ups and new weapons and pets. Let's do this.

Still in the room where I got the dog. Both myself and my pet leveled up! I'm 3, Castaway is 2!

Ooh, this seems important:

This statue just talked to me... Her name is Sigil. And she just told me I'm on the Isle of the Titans. Glad we got that straightened out.

Oh, and while I'm in the mindset of writing, I'd like to say this about the game mechanic: Half the time, I walk away from items that fall out of the carcasses of my enemies because I kill them, and they fade and I walk away, and then I look at the little map in the corner, and it shows an item. >.<

So the statue lady gave me two quests. One to make armor, and one to make a new weapon. Here's how they look equipped:

For completing the quests, I got a key to move on to the next room. And I did. I'm level 4 now, but so are the monsters. I plan to train up to level 5 or 6 before I move on to the next one.

Holy crud! Before I could move on to the next room, this happened:

I got swarmed. There were four of them all at once, all level four! It was mildly insane.

Speaking of... I flew through the next few rooms, not really fighting anything... 

Holy shiz. It's the first boss. I'm so pumped!! Imma use my newly acquired skills and my modified stick! FEAR ME, BIG BLUE!

He goes down without much trouble... And then I experience my first game over. Battling big blue dropped my HP a lot more than I thought it did... And then I had to battle my way to the next door. :( I didn't see it till it was too late.

I just got to the city of Bastion. It's the first city, and once again I'm greeted by Sigil. Sigil is everywhere. It's so weird.

The next step on my journey seems to be to seek out a monster by the name of "Sister Pedro"... Onward and upwards, I suppose.

After a whole lot of searching aimlessly... And a few game overs, I've found her.

Two things absolutely blow about this silly little snake. 1) She can poison you, so your health depletes while you aren't paying attention, and 2) she spawns little helper snakes to destroy you and distract you.

I must say that this is the most frustrating fight I've ever been in. This is too complicated for a flash game. I'm done.

And yes, seriously, I'm completely done playing the game for today, perhaps forever.

So... What did I think about it? 

I think the concepts are there, and pretty well done. There were some flaws in the background of the entire game, and there were a few mechanical issues I would've personally fixed, but all in all it's a good game.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, yes I would. It's a good way to waste about two hours, at least that's how long I spent on the parts I did. The art is pretty, and as far as I could see, it had a decent plot line.

And where can you find it to play it?

It's called Castaway II (2). You could probably just google it, or search for it on whatever site you play games on. I personally play on Kongregate, because it isn't blocked by my school's web filters... I mean because they have quality games. >_>

On a lighter note, I think I'm going to steal my brother's old PC so I can run Ubuntu. I'm so pumped for this!

Castaway 2 courtesy of Likwid Games, hosted on Kongregate.com. All pictures are screenshots from this game which I took myself.