Gesundheit!
Matt Hammill's Gesundheit! is a beautifully hand-drawn, action puzzle game with a soothing toy-instrument soundtrack (you'll need it) and adorable sound effects. You play an allergic pig chafing under the invasion of hungry monsters from the mountains. The monsters can hear your footsteps, and if they see you, they'll eat you. But you have a secret weapon—your yummy snot! Build up a decent booger, launch it in the monster's direction and lure it toward traps that will swallow them up. You can only have one booger on the screen at any one time, to prevent you simply leaving a neat trail of boogers towards the traps. Bounce the booger off obstacles, toss it through portals and launch it across rivers and canyons. You can also do other neat things with your boogers. Experiment and see what yummy snot can do for you!
Analysis: This is a pretty nifty game to play. The principle is simple enough, but luring the monsters into the traps without getting snaffled is harder than it looks. The illustration is absolutely beautiful, with a watercolor feel that should entrance those of you who swooned for Sprout.
Another subtle feature that I think you'll appreciate is the soundtrack, which is high quality and has a certain Morricone-ish feel in parts. Also be sure to check out the rest of Matt's homepage, such as his bio.
Cheers to Joe and Remister for sending this one in!
Note: this review was originally for a Windows downloadable version of the game, but since that version is no longer available, it's been updated with links to the mobile version that's available now instead.
I agree, the presentation is very nice, hand-drawn graphics are extremely pleasing to the eye and the soundtrack is suitable, to say the least. The story of booger-eating monsters will never win a Pulitzer, but these days I'll let almost anything slide.
But the game itself is not really good, I'm afraid. The movement of the pig is erratic and it gets stuck on corners quite frequently, and the right-click booger lounch is too long and unprecise. I'd rather have the pig dish out a bugger as soon as I right-click, at the place where I right-click, it would be MUCH less tedious and I could concentrate more on the puzzle and less on the clumsy controls.
Bottom line, this is something which should deffinitely be checked out, but don't expect too much of a game here.
I remember the first weekend download you guys posted: 5 games, for all platforms. Now, it's turned into one game, usually just for the PC. I personally use a mac, and always have, so I can't really comment on this game itself, but I'd just like to see a bit more variety in the games you review. Sure, a few PC-only games would be fine, every now and then, and I do realize that it's harder to find good games that aren't, but I come to this site to find good games, and when I can't even play them, it discourages me from visiting at all.
Oh and also, I'd like if someone tells me THEIR strategy for level 6 (on screenshot). I've found it frustrating as hell.
The graphics are excellent. The music is really, really good. The concept of the story is also well thought out. In theory, the game could've been something great, if not for the movement of the pig.
The pig is a bit difficult to control. For example, after I threw some snot to coerce the monster to move forward, I clicked my mouse in the direction that I wanted the pig to go to. The pig instead gets stuck running at a wall. The pig gets eaten. Game over. But I have to say that the booger control isn't all that well either. I found myself having to make multiple shots at throwing boogers. It's difficult to judge where your booger would go.
Aside from the clunky controls, this game is actually pretty good. The atmosphere was great. Thanks for reviewing this game!
Wylie-conlon - I appreciate your visits and your input as you have been a visitor here for a long time. Being a Mac user myself, I can certainly appreciate your frustration and discouragement.
But for a site that recognizes and promotes exceptional casual gameplay, how can we just ignore the disproportionate number of high quality games available for the PC only?
We do our best to please as many people that we can. You can be assured that the downloads we do feature will be limited to the weekend only, hence the title "Weekend Download."
On the topic of Gesundheit, this game, despite the fact that it's PC-only, is exactly the type of interactive experience I have enjoyed sharing on this site. It's creative and original and deserves the shout-out we're giving it. =)
After reading this, I will not be tempted to play. Eeeeew.
I think it's amazing that Matt managed to squeeze such an addictive action puzzler out of the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
Personally I'd like to see direct control of the pig with WASD or UDLF and click to fire as described by Baba in the first comment.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I liked this game a lot. I didn't mind how you charge your shots, but i did find myself wishin there was some sort of WASD controls. Fun, challenging, unique, funny, and a cool style. Appeals to kids, but challenging enough for adults - nice work.
For level 6, you have to get all the way down to the lower right, where the cloud juts out about an inch below and to the left of the trap. Then, throw a booger in the trap, so that when the monster comes at you he gets distracted by the booger first. Must be as close to the bottom of screen as possible!
Now, it's level 10 that's got me stuck!
I usually play all AGS games that get a decent feedback and/or ranking on the Chris Jones' website, but the thought of anyony eating pig snot (or anybody's snot, for that matter) makes my stomach heave...
*runs off to be sick* ;-)
The pig actually does have some pathfinding skills, and it will usually go from A to B using the shortest route.
However, the problem arises when you click an unreachable place for the destination (the middle of the building for instance). This will cause the pig to move in a totally unexpected direction. Since the game's main mechanic is running away from monsters, this is not the most elegant solution.
WASD would deffinitely improve matters, as well as some sort of a marker as how far the booger will fly.
I love games made by AGS. Especially the Chzo Mythos series by Yahtzee.
If you're an exmortis fan you have to check that series out.
But.. boogers? Eww.
Funny, my boogers are almost exclusively yellow or white, maybe fading towards a browner hue, but certainly not green. But I've never seen pig snot so I have no reference for that. I wonder if they taste similar.
Fun game, though. I found this ... I can't remember where. On some site a couple of weeks ago. I think it was on the site of the developer that did that stick figure escape-the-dungeon game a long while back. There's another link there for an audio-only space invaders game that's quite intriguing. There was a subject here at some point, I'm sure, but I've quite forgotten what it was...
help!
After I downloaded Gesundheit, my computer went all wonky and now everything is HUGE! my taskbars, icons on the desktop, everything is so big that all my icons don't even fit onto my screen! how do i configure the settings back to normal?!?! anyone?!?! please help!
this game is really cool. Love the art style.
to fix your computer nyago, right click on your desktop wallpaper and choose properties, then settings, then turn up resolution. 1024 by 768 is pretty normal as long as you computer isn't more than 5 years old.
as for the game, it is quite fun. having a bit of trouble in level 9 but once I get the angles right...
Level 10 is a little tricky as you have to move quickly. Walk up and throw a booger against the right wall, where the blue monster can see it. Immediately run, by the left, all the way down and go the long way until you reach the right side of where the monster originally was. Throw a booger so that it'll land approximately at the monster's original location, and move to just right above the trap. The monster will see you, so tap to throw a booger at the trap.
Now if only someone would help me at Level 11! (Oddly enough I find myself not so upset at losing, since the monster looks so happy)
Hey everyone, thanks for giving my game a go, and thanks to Jay and Ms. 45 for posting it! I also really appreciate the feedback--this is my first game, and I'm definitely going to take all these comments into consideration. Right now, I'm working on an updated version of the demo with a keyboard movement option (although since I'm no programmer, even that's slow for me!) and I like the idea of a marker to show how far the snot'll go... I'll see what I can figure out. Thanks baba, and everyone.
P.S. About the mac thing--I know there's an ongoing mac port of the AGS engine (what my game was made with) but last time I checked on my girlfriend's PowerBook, it wouldn't run my game. Perhaps in a future version of the port. (If anyone's curious, here's the AGS forum thread for the mac port--it does run a bunch of AGS games: http://new.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=30021.0 )
Ah, thank you, Matt. Very helpful.
Okay, I've recently uploaded a new version of the game, taking the comments here into consideration. It now has a keyboard control option, as well as a crosshair to help aim. Hopefully this'll cut down the frustration factor a bit. The new version's here: http://www.underwaterbase.com
Thanks, all.
Yay! Now you're talking.
With WASD controls and mouse shooting game feels much more satisfying and natural. The crosshair is also a terrific addition.
The game is a little easier now, but not by much. The frustration factor is significantly lower, though - no more erratic pig behaviour. Great work!
Oh, and btw, in the new version there seems to be a bug when after one of the monsters gets eaten, the pig won't shoot boogers anymore.
Now ordinarily the absence of boogers is a good thing, but in this case perhaps it should be checked up a little bit.
Thanks, baba! I'll look into that bug.
This game is fantastic. The music, the graphics and the gameplay go together perfectly. So cute!
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