Flipping through my Latin dictionary, I came across a fun new word: fulgidus. It means flashing or shining. That entertained me for a moment, then I decided I might be hungry and considered making a sandwich. Did ancient Romans eat sandwiches? If so, what did they call them? The dictionary is no help. I really hope they did, because they're quite delicious.
And what exactly does all of this have to do with this Friday's Link Dump? Not one single thing. But now that you've learned a Latin word and have contemplated what kind of sandwich I wanted to make, you've earned a few good games to ease your troubled mind.
- Swords and Sandals - What little kid hasn't dreamed of donning purple skin and a red beard and entering the arena as a gladiator? I know Harukio has. Probably Jay, too. Customize your character, buy a few items and jump into the Amphitheatrum Flavium-like ring to fight opponents with an easy click interface. Gain gold, increase your stats, keep winning. Technically this is a downloadable game, but there's an online demo in Flash, so I get to bend the rules. Oh, and the music? Priceless. (Submitted by Larkin, Ali, rockstar and Nick)
- Something Amiss: Chapter 1 - A good-looking room escape, adventure game created to accompany a novel of the same name. You play a woman who wakes up from "routine" (note the quotation marks that denote suspicion) MRI scan to find the lab doors locked and the doctors missing. Something is most certainly amiss.
Note: The Something Amiss servers have been down due to a high volume of traffic. - Vorticube - It's 3D! OMG! Use a combination of keys to move a bouncing ball in a 3D box-like world. Then focus on smashing stuff as best you can. Takes some time to get used to, but once you do, BAM, it's fun. Just one question: why isn't it called "Smashing Boxes 3D"?
- Did you know you can find us easily with Google (en) by typing only "jay" and hitting the "I'm feeling lucky" button? You didn't? Well now you do. Although it may not presently work in all languages, we're working towards global domination. RAWR!
- Draw Play 2 - It's just like the original Draw Play, but with a number at the end! The sequel to the "make your own platforms if you want to play a platformer game" adds a Hard mode along with a few bells and whistles. Plus, there's monkeys. Wait, spikes, I meant to say spikes. (Submitted by Ced, Terrorbyte, and maXro)
- FoolYoo - Hooray for samurai! Fend off attacking enemies by dicing them up with your sword (cursor). In-between rounds, follow the old man's instructions and chop vegetables for a delicious soup. Mmm. Soup. Goes well with sandwiches. Although the game is in Japanese, you don't need to know the language to play. It would be helpful to be able to recognize a few kanji number symbols for the veggie chopping, though. (Submitted by Keith)
Sound off in the comments below and let us know what you thought of these games!
And don't forget about our weekly poker nights! This week's tournaments begin at 3PM Eastern (GMT-5:00) (Saturday). Grand prize drawing in May, that includes all of our poker tournment champions, is for a Nintendo DS! =)
Sorry, the Romans did not eat sandwiches. That wouldn't be invented until the Middle Ages, or maybe later. To bad for them, huh?
FoolYoo was alot of fun but I didn't get how to attack the demon(?) with only two orbs. I loved how you could slash the grandpas clothes tho.. Who keeps meat in their under garments??
I also really like SomethingAmiss it seems really promising. I hope they make another.
Jay I love link dump Fridays (it's when the best games come out). Personally I thought Foolyoo had the greatest controls and performance but Something Amiss: Chapter 1 definitely had the best story/gameplay value. I loved it and can't wait for Chapter 2 (if there will be one).
Did Jay say that the seats for poker are saved at 3 P.M. tomorrow? If it is, I can't make it. I should be getting online just after that.
Is there something that I'm missing about Something Amiss? I'm still wandering around the room at the beginning of the game without a clue of where to start, feeling rather dense. Usually I can figure out how to get an item in the first small while, but zip nada nothing.
I wish I knew how to read japanese. I have no idea how to cut the vegetables.
Cool, A game I submitted got posted! Yeah, I thought it was alot of fun when I found it too. By the way....
The "Two-Orb Demon",which I think are the ones that look like flys right? Those you just have to slash a bunch o times. They eventually go down.
As for the veggie parts, if you watch in the top right, a counter tells you the number of correctly sliced veggies/number of veggies thrown. So you can learn all the numbers right there if you pay attention and remember the symbols. They aren't that hard.
Love linkdump fridays. Foolyoo is funny, to kill the 3-eyed one,
slice him straight up and down through his middle eye.
Still can't figure out how to kill the vampire one.
Weren't sandwiches invented by the earl of sandwich? from england?
xadrian: The sensei calls out a kanji number when he tosses a vegetable. Simply slice the veggie that number of times. One, two and three are easy, they're that number of lines. Four looks like a window with curtains. Check out the link I put in the link dump, it shows the kanji numbers.
P.P.S. In the veggie slicing, everytime you hear the slice sound, even if you don't hit the veggie, it counts. For example: If you have to cut something 5 times, but accidently slice it so ALL of it is gone by the third slice, you could just slice the air where it would be twice more to pass. Kinda cheating but eh?
lizardling: to operate Something Amiss you have to click and hold on an object to get a graphical menu to appear. The menu takes a second or two to appear.
Good luck with world domination, Jay, John, and everyone else at JIG! :D
"RAWR!"
Heh heh heh. :o)
In FoolYoo, the only success I've had with the Vampire-guys was just to go wild on their arms and legs. It seems like they die (most of the time) just as they start to lift their arms, but I've been unable to show this with controlled movements.
Cheers.
Hey, I submitted Draw Play 2 as well. Why didn't I get any credit?
I love the games you review, Jay, and was wondering if there was a specific place for suggesting games?
FOOLYOO ROCKS!!! wow it was cool, and hard too. i got to level... 3? maybe 4 then i died. i thought the part where you slice off the old man's clothing was especially funny. once i figured out some of the numbers (i go for not reading instructions besides push this to do this) the veggie soup-making thing was ok. only one i've played so far. off to Something Amiss: Chapter 1!
How do you play Something Amiss? It just links me to a blog entry called "hello world." Anyone know what is going on?
laptopdude - we have a nifty little, DHTML-injected, slicing, dicing, game submission form found in the menu bar of every page. Click the words "Suggest a game" =D
We would prefer if all game suggestions go that route, since all our reviewer monkeys are waiting at the end of the chute where all the game submissions come out neatly wrapped in bananas. Or else they'll starve.
foolyoo seems like a great game to play on the wii's opera browser. i will give it a shot tomorrow and see if it works.
something amiss definitely amiss, I too am stuck in wordpress blog land
507 points on Foolyoo. I think I died on village four. Not sure why, though... I had plenty of life left.
The vegetable slicing got challenging once it went higher than five. Up to five I found that I could control my slices pretty well, but with six and seven slices I either ran out of time or just went crazy and sliced too much.
I'm stuck on Swords and Sandals. I can't get past the very first tournament on the second day- no matter what I do, I lose, because
there's this guy with 150 armor and an axe that does 10 damage + 11 burning damage each turn.
The most I've done was to get a basic cleaver and 82 armor... I can't afford anything more, and unless I have phenomenal luck I can't win.
Something Amiss looks like my kind of game...if the stupid blogland website would let me play it. What's wrong?
SOMETHING AMISS: I'm glad it's not just me. Why does the link take you to a stupid blog?
From the "Something Amiss" page:
"Because of a recent spike in traffic, I'm having to upgrade to a higher bandwidth provider. The site will be down for 24 hours while its transferring. Sorry!"
We broke it T_T
I also have the problem with Something Amiss. o.o
"Something's Amiss" is another example to prove the saying: "Early bird gets the seed". :-)
I played it yesterday. Chapter 1 is short and sweet. The puzzles are easy enough to get you comfy with the controls, but clever enough to give you some sense of accomplishment.
I like the action wheel. It's very reminiscent of Neverwinter Nights, only much simpler. The best part however, is the compelling storyline. When I finally finished the chapter, I was disappointed that there isn't more.
I think it's worth keeping an eye on this gem. Once they get around making more chapters, I'll definitely play it through! :-)
I like how you incinuated that Harukio and Jay are children :D
Swords and Sandals is a very cute game, but its short length detracts too much from it and paying 19$ for the full version of it doesn't appeal to me. That's the only I have gotten to so far, and it was a lot of fun, I just wish it was free or cost 5 dollars. :(
Next!
Something Amiss is working again!
FoolYoo doesn't work for me. I click "no" on the dialog box asking me if I want to install a language pack three times,and the game refuses to load. Love your site jay!
Keyword "jay" for JayIsGames dominates the google.fi too :)
if i remember correctly from the chat, there are also certain games that you can look up on google, and the JIG page is listed before the game's actual page. now that's a sign of global domination.
swords and sandals was neat in its customize-your-character aspect, and had some really funny content in it (just try pleasing your crowd, see what happens), but it really didn't do that much for me. something amiss was very beautifully made, but it seemed way too short, even if it is part one of a series. i'd wait until more chapters come out before recommending that one. draw play 2 really didn't appeal to me... you could still use the same cheap-ol' cheats as the first one, and i didn't see too much more in the way of gameplay improvement.
i'd give the runner-up award to vorticube, because of its nice design and interesting gameplay, but my pick of the bunch is definitely foolyoo, since it's been the only one i've kept coming back to play. it's a very nicely designed game, with good humor and interesting gameplay. probably the best samurai-slices-things game i've seen out there. i'd say foolyoo should get the foolrevoo. (ba-dum-ching.)
and as an afterthought, is it just me, or does it look like foolyoo was done by the same people who did nest of moai?
Something Amiss was excellent, and I must say I can't wait for the next chapter. However, I must say:
Having the hard drive short out the door panel was a bit anticlimactic.
when you cut the clothes off the old man when you get game over, he has an eyeball on his stomach
Something amiss, How do I find a lead for the hard drive?
Found the power cable, Something amiss was very short but fun. Thanks
what do i do i have the tape recorder iv listen to it and i have the hard drive where do i get the coreds
deathx2 try using the plastic grille in the scanner room
the one with the mri machine ok
my god something amiss is taking ages!! is it supposed to?
firex
I beat the first tournament in Swords and Sandals. Here's how to do it.
Build your Strength and Attack up as much as possible before the tournament. Your agility needs to be to six so you can use the long sword. Your vitality and stamina need to be up to about 3. Your defense needs to be around four. Ignore magicka and charisma for the first tournament.
The demo isn't really that short. You just have to keep winning since you can't save.
the one with the mri machine ok
On Foolyoo: The odd reddish demons need one chop. the three eyed demons need one chop above or on the glowing eye and the black demons that look like Darth Vader (LOL) need..... Oh, what the heck, I just chop wildly until they fall apart. And occasionally a person will run across the screen; If you hit them, their clothes will fall off and you will lose a life.
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