Act: Crazy Lunch [by Sigma]

One of the nicest surprises to come out of Indie gaming last year was a wonderful action game called Alien Shooter.  After hitting such high marks as winning the 2003 Game of the Year award in the action category, the indie world was left anticipating the next release from Sigma and now the time has come to wait no more. 

Taking a completely different approach to games, Crazy Lunch has to be one of the most original and different games that I've played this year.  The game seems oddly title when you look at the screenshot as the game seems to center around a bowl of cereal, which one would eat for breakfast.  In this game you find that many monsters have decided that they want to take your lunch.  In order to stop them, you must click on the monsters before they run off of the screen with a piece of cereal in their hands.  In addition, you have a health bar that will continually be drained down.  It will go down faster the more you click, but never fear!  Many of these monsters will give up fruits and snacks when you click on them.  If you click on the fruit or snack you will immediately get some of your energy back.

In addition to giving up food items, you will also occasionally get some weapons from the monsters such as chalk or DDT.  Apparently these monsters cannot pass over Chalk lines, so drawing them on the ground serves as a great deterrent.  The DDT is useful to just kill the little suckers.

Crazy Lunch actually has two more modes of play beyond the one stated here.  The other two modes are much more puzzle-game like.  In one you are presented with rows of monsters who are hiding items behind there backs.  You need to match up the items they are hiding by clicking on the monsters to determine what they have.  It is really just a simple game of memory using the Crazy Lunch creatures. 

The last mode of play places words over the top of the monsters as they try to steal your lunch.  In this mode of play you need to type the word that the monster has over their head before they get off the screen with a piece of cereal.  This really reminds me more of an exercise to learn typing, but it is a very effective one and perhaps something to use to encourage someone to learn to type.

Overall Crazy Lunch definitely is a bit odd.  The game seems to be a bit of a one-trick pony, and though it is a good trick, I think most gamers will find this one getting old fairly quickly.  The graphics are good, however, and the sound is reminiscent of Dr. Blob's Organism's stellar soundtrack, so those aiming for something that is definitely different from the rest of the crowd might want to give it a look.

Added: April 21st 2004
Reviewer: Russell Carroll
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