IGF 2005 - Preview (Part II)

Legion Arena

Lost Admiral Returns

For any who played the game Military Madness back on the Turbo Grafx or its newer revision Advance Wars, Lost Admiral Returns will at once be both inviting and interesting.  In Lost Admiral Returns, the basic game is set with you controlling a fleet of ships and attacking the enemy.  You have multiple ship types, such as subs, carriers, destroyers and Battleships, that you will engaged in combat with enemy vessels in addition to Armored Transports that allow you to take over ports and thus increase the land you have and of course build your own fleets.  The graphics in the game aren't quite up to Advance Wars' standards, but overall this is a great game that will provide hours of fun to strategy enthusiasts.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Lux

Mega Bloks Dragons, Fire & Ice

Yet another game by Fuel?  Seems they have been busy of late, and this adventure game based on the Mega Bloks world of Fire & Ice Dragons is really a pretty cool place to hang out.  You control a knight who must move around a maze and pick up crystals and a key to escape the level.  There are other power-ups, such as weapons that can be found in addition to some objects that you can interact with.  The Mega Blok inspired graphics are really pretty cool to look at and are probably the main reason why the game comes of as well as it does though the music is another strong point worth mentioning.  Will a knight running through Mega Blok land have enough clout to get into the finalist round at the IGF?  I'm still putting my money on Cowboys and Engines out of the Fuel web games that were submitted.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Micro-G Combat Arena

Mobiloid

Unfortunately I have very little information available on this game.  The website consists of little more than the picture I have shown here with the tag-line "Mobiloid is a physics-based construction kit. Curious?
Then enter your email here and you will be notified when Mobiloid is available:"

Well I was interested, so entered my email and I even tried some random emails to the domain, but to no avail.  So based on what we see, my guess is that this isn't necessarily a game in the typical sense, but more of an object-oriented experience where you build things and then see how they respond to different tests, using real physics...am I even close?  Guess we'll have to wait and see :)

Reviews:
None available at this time

Mudcraft

Mulligan's Isle

Unfortunately Mulligan's Isle is one of a few games that weren't ready for me to play and check out in time for our IGF Preview.  However, the developer was nice enough to get us an exclusive screenshot and a game description!  Without further ado, from the author: "Take a relaxing minigolf vacation on the lush, tropical sands of Mulligan’s Isle. The beautiful graphics and soothing music will whisk you away on tropical vacation from your own computer. Collect the coins, explore the island, or try and beat your best score. But most of all relax and enjoy!"  Aside from the definite developer slant on the statement there is a bit that can be drawn from it and the image.  This game definitely looks great with good detail, and with my love of sport related games I'm looking forward to playing it.

Reviews:
None available at this time

N

Pest

While there is a lot of history on the website about this game and the path it has taken over the many years that have gone into taking it to where it is now, there is precious little information about how to play the game and what you are trying to do.  Pest is available online through the website, you control the gnarly looking guy pictured here.  You have a mallet, which you can swing by pressing the space bar, and there are bugs running everywhere.  It would seem apparent that you should smash the bugs with the mallet, but after playing for awhile, running around trying to smash the bugs and watching my mallet again and again seem to hit the bugs to no effect, I started looking for an explanation of what I was supposed to do...and then gave up.  Graphics and music are fun if you want to play a web game for a minute, perhaps you will even be able to tell me what I missed.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Physical Ed

Pocus Hocus

Unfortunately Pocus Hocus is one of a few games that weren't ready for me to play and check out in time for our IGF Preview.  However, the developer was nice enough to get us an exclusive screenshot and a game description!  Without further ado, from the author: "Link up same-color caterpillars to release magic bursts and break through the weeds overgrowing the enchanted forest. Caterpillars change into butterflies - if you plan ahead, you can link up long combos for even more points! Have fun and relax in the Adventure or Puzzle modes."  Sounds a little like a sales pitch, but it also sounds interesting, we'll be looking forward to checking it out when it is available.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Pow Pow's Great Adventure

Protöthea

Very interesting top-scrolling shooter that instead of giving you the standard game play changes things up a bit by giving you full control over your spaceship.  Your ship can fly anywhere on the screen, but will always face towards your targeting cross-hair, which is controlled by the mouse.  The game offers a standard fair of power-ups, but puts extra emphasis on both air and land enemies, which much be destroyed in different ways, air enemies by lasers, ground by bombs, much like the classic Dragon Spirit.  All the menus and the website are in Spanish, so you may have a little trouble figuring out what you are doing, but shooters have always been pretty easy to pick-up in any language.  A nice little extra is the ability to slow down time by pressing the space bar, which can help you get out of the occasional jam.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Puzzled Crosswords

R/C Muscle

Reactor

Red Valkyrie

Ricochet Lost Worlds

Ricochet Lost Worlds has become something of an online phenomenon.  This very slick looking arkanoid / breakout clone offers up some very stylistic graphics and some of the better designed levels available in this type of game.  With good sound work and voices to top it off, Reflexive has created a winner that has sold like hotcakes since it was first released earlier this year.  Ricochet Lost Worlds features custom paint jobs for your paddle, a wide array of cool power-ups including laser blasters, missile launchers, and a fire ball to go along with levels that shine with moving bricks and clever brick order puzzles.  With more than 100 levels, this sequel to the original Ricochet has hit the mark for many fans.

Reviews:
"...there is no doubt that this game is a fantastic arkanoid game that should find itself a home in every gamer's library"

Rock Station

I ran into a bit of technical difficulty on this one, but I think I got the general gist.  The story is that Rock 'N Roll music was found to have the ability to make people travel and wonderful speeds and lead to peach throughout the galaxy.  While the story sounds a little like Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey at first, it goes down hill from there and it leads to our current situation where we are fighting for Rock Station.  The game is a space shooter where you do a lot of one-on-one dog-fighting.  The music in the game is run by a DJ, and it has to come from your own personal collection as there are no music tracks that come with the game (which is slightly odd for a game that is entirely based on Rock 'N Roll music).  Overall this is a fun space shooter that is freeware with LAN support for up to 8 people, so enjoy!

Reviews:
None available at this time

RocketBowl

Rotation (Revolved)

Wow!  I have to first off admit that I'm not a big fan of puzzle games and that I did find the music in this game to be a little grating after time, but other than that, this is a near perfect puzzle game that kept me playing for a couple of hours without blinking.  The concept is fairly simple you are working in a power factory, and you rotate the 4 different colored fuses to make a square with all colors being the same.  You can rotate fuses left or right to complete the squares.  Puzzle games rarely sound like much when you describe them, so let me just say that this is one that really works well.  There are of course power-ups and a few strategy points that will get you farther, but how you play is left pretty open to you, which makes the game even more exciting in my book.  About the only thing I can think of that would make this game better would be a two player co-operative mode.  A very well-conceived game.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Ruckus Buck's Dangerous Mines

Run & Fire

Saints & Sinners Bingo

Sector 13

For information on this game, please go to DIY games and read their portion of this joint article.

Silicon Magnus

Snow War

A rather simple flash game that pits you against another army of snowballers.  The graphics are clean and not very detailed, but they give a good feeling of the wintery surroundings in the game.  On your team you have kids who can do different things, from throwing snowballs farther, building snow forts to hide behind, umbrellas to hid under, lobbing snowballs and other specialist abilities.  The game requires a bit of strategy in using the different abilities of your kids to destroy the opposing forces with a a snowball barrage.  There is also a multiplayer LAN option in the game that will let you get the battle on with some of your friends.  The game feels distinctly like an online flash game and that is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your tastes.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Star Chamber

Star Sonata

Star Sonata is a really great universe to become a part of.  In Star Sonata you will join a universe of galaxies connected by wormholes.  The game is online and has a huge structure of players already in place.  You begin with a simple space ship trading between stations.  Working your way up, you will get enough money to buy a better ship and start out on your own to determine what type of character you will be in the game, becoming a specific character class, and working to take over and control the universe.  Along the way you can join a team, which works a lot like a guild, and even build your own space stations.  Certainly not for the faint of heart, Star Sonata requires a lot of play time to come to fully understand and appreciate the depth of game play that has been put into the game.  However, if you've ever wanted to roam the galaxy with tons of other human players, you should definitely give this game a look. 

Reviews:
None available at this time

Steer Madness

Stop Clock Drop

Super Chompers

Supremacy: Four Paths to Power

Supremacy: FPTP is one of the games that I've enjoyed most out of the 2005 IGF games.  This universe-builder game reminds me a bit of Oasis, one of last years winners, and that is a very good thing.  In Supremacy, you take on the role of one of four races vying for control of the universe.  The game has the look and feel of a game that will take hours to play, but the building and expansion segments of the game have been streamlined and simplified so that you get to spend most of your time focused on the battle portions of the game.  For example, instead of spending hours trying to improve the strength of your ships armour or attack power, you capture stations, which then give you the option to choose from a list of 25 upgrades.  Capturing several stations will give you more upgrades, thus making you more powerful.  The game includes space combat with your fleets, and then troop deployments on the planets where longer strategic turn-based battles occur.  The graphics and sound are top notch in Supremacy, which makes for a game with few holes in its armour.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Sweaty Palms

Takeda 2

The Dark Legions

The Witch's Yarn

The Witch's Yarn is quite unlike any other game at the festival.  It plays more like a book or a play than a game, and provides a very innovative game play that will likely get this game noticed.  In the game you don't control a character as you typically do in video games.  Instead you queue actors into the story.  So for example, the main character in the story is a witch who wants to open a store and join the everyday world.  Her mother, who disapproves of the store appears, and... Well the next thing that happens is up to you, though to some degree it isn't really.  You will be given several different characters or items to choose from, and after you choose one, the story continues around that item or character.  After a couple more moments of the story moving forward, you'll choose another object or character and thus the game proceeds with you choosing what item or character will be the focal point of the next portion of the story, but not really choosing exactly what that item or character will do.  This very different style of game play is targeted at female game players, but I think it is something that everyone can appreciate.

Reviews:
None available at this time (check back in the near future)

Transcend

TW-Light

I'm really digging on this one.  The game is called 'light' as it is intended to be a pseudo sequel to Star Control II.  In this unfinished version, the game is a typical dog-fight arena game, though there is not tutorial or real help in game to explain to you how to play, what buttons do what, or what you are trying to do.  I found myself being blasted continually without realizing half the time where I was on the screen or what was happening.  In fact it reminded me of an episode of the Simpsons where Grandpa Simpson is playing video games with Bart and Bart is yelling at him to fire and go into hyper space, and when Grandpa dies he says "I was that guy?  I thought I was this guy."  In addition, the graphics really aren't up to par with Dark Archon, Starscape and a host of other Indie games that are similar.  I'm sure there is a good idea or two in this game, but it was difficult to dig it out.

Reviews:
None available at this time

War!  Age of Imperialism

Warrider

A game that shows a lot of promise Warrider places you into an adventure / RPG world of action where much of the coolness of the game has to do with your character's interaction with their horse.  Much like the upcoming Zelda game, you will do plenty of battling from your horse in-between visiting towns and while trying to complete quests.  Warrider appears to still be in a very early stage of testing and I crashed the game every time I played it within a few moments of starting it, so unfortunately I wasn't able to check out all the cool riding action in the game, but there are some videos on the developer's website that helps to show a little better what this game is and it opens the imagination to how cool it may end up being when all is said and done.

Reviews:
None available at this time

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

WIK & the Fable of Souls

For anyone who loves games that take a little bit of practice to play there is WIK, a wonderfully exciting new character from Reflexive.  Wik resembles gollum from Lord Of the Rings, but behaves quite differently.  With a long sticky tongue that would make most frogs envious, he moves himself around the screen using his tong to attach to items higher up in the screen, and then swinging like Spiderman across the screen.  Getting the handle down takes a little bit of practice, but there are BIG dividends for those who put in the time.  WIK's graphics are gorgeous, and playing the game is pure fun as you swing and hop from one portion of the screen to another, throwing in the occasional loop if you know what you are doing.  One of the strongest games submitted to the IGF in my estimation, WIK has plenty of goodness to it to keep players happily entertained and involved.

Reviews:
"Wik is one of the cooler characters to come around in awhile and definitely fits in with Gish as one of the best games that has come out this year.

WordWinder

Z1: AI War

The team at Nitrous Butterfly unfortunately weren't able to get me a playable version of this game by press time, though they were trying like mad.  They were able to get a me a few screenshots, one of which I've chosen to place here.  From all the screenshots this looks to be a sort of First-Person Shooter that replaces the people you usually control in a FPS with spaceships.  There were a few screenshots that I saw that also showed an overhead view, and I'm not sure how that figures into the mix, but the graphics so far, per the screenshots seems to be quite clean.  For more information I think we'll just have to await the release of this one. :)

Reviews:
None available at this time

Conclusion...

This year's IGF is shaping up to be the best ever despite there being a smaller number of games being submitted this year.   It is a pity that only 20 games are going to make the final round as it will leave many great games out.  Don't leave those games out yourself, check out the games above!