Game Review: Mosquito & Cow

Here is a cute, quirky and FRUSTRATING game from petums.

You play a mosquito, and in each level you have to try and get your lunch from a funny little cow!

Look, he's so cute! And you should see it when he runs : D

You must complete various puzzles to make the cow snooze off so you can drink his blood. A worm pops up at the start of each level to give you a brief hint of what you need to do. If you get stuck there is a mini-game for each level (this is often almost harder than the level!) which will give you a (sometimes pretty cryptic) further hint. There is also a little star to find in each level. As mentioned above we found this game frustrating, but I guess Mrs Ferrét was pretty hooked, and determined to finish it!

The gameplay seems to lose a little with occasionally rather touch-and-go collisions which can make the teeth gnash a little, but overall this game is a lotsa fun! The graphics are just beautiful. They start off pretty much in black and white, and a little more color is added into later levels. Best of all, when you reach your goal and drink the cow's blood the screen slowly fills with a soothing red.  Mrs Ferrét loathes mosquitoes but even she was thoroughly into the vibe of this pretty, pretty game.

Play Mosquito & Cow

Game Review: MaXploder

MaXploder is a fun little game from Tom "Ninjadoodle" Vencel, done in a retro stylee:

You are the bandanna'd hero out to rescue 33 archaeologists foolish enough to have become trapped during an expedition. You must arrow-key-hop around the tunnels making holes with your bombs (spacebar followed by run like the blazes!) so that you can squeeze through and get those scientists out. This game has a certain appeal to Ferrets!

The controls are very simple, you can jump as high as anything and you have unlimited life, so you can even commit suicide if this helps you - you will come to no harm.  This makes the game pretty easy, which may not appeal to some, but does lend a lot to a satisfying 10-minute coffee break!  The same can be said for the simple graphics and jolly retro music, all very appropriate for a browser game. And of course there is a walkthrough in case you get stuck like Mrs Ferrét!

There is added challenge in trying to improve your time and score if you want to try again.

Anyway, two big ferrety thumbs up for this one!

Play MaXploder

Game Review: Snail Bob 2

Gotta love little Snail Bob in his 'desperate hurry' to get to his Grandpa's birthday party...

Here is the sequel to Snail Bob (strange but true :), lovingly crafted by Andrey Kovalishin (code) and Maxim Yurchenko (art).  It's just a delight, from the shiny graphics, through the laid-back game play, to the witty little animations you can catch out of the corner of your eye throughout; Mrs Ferrét found herself laughing out loud several times.

The caterpillars look so disappointed - bless them!

Simply guide the little snail away from ghastly death by burning, boiling pot, electrocution etc (all the usual hazards found in the day of the average gastropod) with buttons to push, cranes to lift, a gentle puff of air...

It's all here in this game!

Play Snail Bob 2

Game Review: Stunt Crazy

Here is a smashing, crashing, dirt-bike physics game from The Podge. You are a stunt person and must do your utmost to destroy movie sets to collect fame and fortune.

The graphics are completely gorgeous, and the game is fun fun fun! It's harder at the start, because you must collect cash and achieve stunts and colored film reels in order to upgrade your cars. The more you get the higher you can fly - and just look at all those beautiful dollars!! Mrs Ferrét admits to feeling a little at sea with upgrade-based games but even she was relishing the wanton destruction - and couldn't resist this opportunity to launch a frontier freight train at a building full of money!

Excellent therapy for those days when you need to get rid those built-up frustrations!

Play Stunt Crazy

Game review: Genospace

Hey it's Tuesday!

Just been playing a game called Genospace, it's by a guy called Ruslan Tsaruev. Mrs Ferrét has heard rumors that this game is a bit similar to some other game, but isn't imitation just the nicest form of flattery?

This is a simple game with simple graphics but WARNING!! It is SERIOUSLY ADDICTIVE!!!!!

All you have to do is move the green arrow around inside that red square, point it towards a colored ball and hit the spacebar. When you do that the arrow will fly out of the square and hit a ball. The next thing to do is aim at another ball that is the same color as the one you just hit (cunningly the ball you hit has already changed color!). When you hit the next ball it will smash into smithereens with a highly satisfying CRASH!! The balls start to advance with alarming speed, and your job is to keep them at bay. If you don't, then pretty soon you're out.

And that's the game! Go on, you have a go...


Play Genospace

Game Review : Warp

Warp is a short (30 levels) platformer by Daniel Weldink and Adrian Rypens.  It has marvellously simple and elegant graphics, mostly just black on green with tantalising splashes of red, white and ice-blue.

The object of the game is to move the little character to the glowing white portal (and so on to the next level). The twist is that you may need to 'warp' to do this - and to warp is to walk or fall off the edge of the screen. As Mrs Ferrét often does this anyway she found it a most appealing device! And you also reappear in a flash of light:

...how glamorous! You must avoid spikes on the ground, or you will become a ghost or angel and have to start again (but we liked very much the way that the game restarts immediately), and you need sometimes to interact with objects (pressing the Z key) to make the portal appear.

The music is soothing which is good because Mrs Ferrét became sometimes a little agitated because she kept hitting her head on tree roots when trying to jump (the collision is maybe a little off in places), so the music kept her calm : )

Play Warp

Road System Latest Addition

The Snake Engine Road System has gained a little feature which improves the look of Coaster Racer for very little effort.

We now have road thickness - this can be used for Coaster Racer's roads in the sky (as here, with a thickness of about 50 cm) or for roads on top of walls, for instance (think of the original Stunt Car Racer)

When drawing the texture mapped road scan line by scan line from the back (having done back face removal), the code works out which edges need drawing (if any), and fills in a rectangle to cover it.

I'm only handling colour fills rather than textures, but these can take the standard road-edge colours, so gradients can be used.

Thickness can be changed over time, just like road widths, using the editor.

It turns out that this is very fast (compared with drawing the road itself), so I'm pleased with the results. We should be able to use this to create raised bridges etc. in Heat Rush 2 :)

Jumping Box

Here is a little platformy launching game from EugeneK, the gig here is to get the little orange box to her little orange goal, avoiding or moving obstacles on the way:

It's a bit like golf in the sky!

The graphics are chunky and bright, and perfect for the retro feel of the game, as is the sound - I could get a bit tired of the music, but hooray there's a mute button clearly displayed! The controls are nice and simple - just click and hold the mouse and drag back further for more power, then release to launch (ok we're moving away from golf into bow-n-arrows territory here). A fun way to waste some time today!

Play Jumping Box