Jardinains!
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
My name is Ms .45 and I am an Arkanoid-clone addict. I love, love, love brick-breaking games. However, I'm not a sloppy Arkanoid addict. I expect my clones to be interestingly designed, with innovations on the basic gameplay and that little extra something to make me want to go back and play again and again. I first encountered Jardinains! several years ago, and only recently realised that—hey! Jay is Games doesn't have a review of this fantastic game! So I was really pleased to head back to the Jardinains! website and find a whole new version ready for me to download.
The little extra something in Jardinains! is the presence of 'nains—giggling little garden gnomes that will hurl potted plants at your bat, paralysing it and causing you to lose points. You can get your own back, though—if you can break the pot you win the points you would have lost, and if you can knock the giggling little bastards off their perch, you can bounce them on your paddle to get points and power-ups. If they spawn too fast, you'll end up stuck with a big stack of flowerpots on your bat and seemingly hundreds of them giggling inanely at your misfortune. It's like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but with garden gnomes.
The sound effects and power-ups combine for pretty satisfying experiences. If you get an ice cannon, you can freeze the gnomes for gnomesicle-bouncing fun. An ice ball freezes the bricks, increasing the area frozen as you hit the target and making them shatter with a most gratifying sound. My favourite is the slow-motion power-up, resulting in bad action-movie moves as the gnomes yell "N - O - O - O - O - O..." as they fall.
While you have to pay to get the full version of Jardinains! 2, the demo is essentially a full game—the paid version gives you more levels, power-ups and different 'nains (look out for the pirate in the demo version). Jardinains! 2 contains the levels from the previous version of Jardinains!, but if you have trouble with it, you can also download Jardinains! 1.2. Oh, and for those of you who have complained, yes, this game is available for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Windows:
Download the free demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Download the free demo
Get the full version
Linux:
Download the free demo
Get the full version
Walkthrough Guide
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I love it!
Is there a list, where you can see which powerup does what?
So far I found:
Ball-related Powerups:
green turtle: slows the ball
fast forward (as on musicplayers): Makes the ball faster
flame: gives you a fireball, that blasts away the blocks (my favorite!)
snowflake: gives you an iceball, blocks turn into ice. Hit a block twice, it will burst an freeze the neighboring blocks.
fork: makes your ball split
Paddle-related Powerups:
horizontal arrows pointing outwards: makes the paddle grow
horizontal arrows pointing inwards: makes the paddle shrink
magnet: paddle holds the ball until you click your mouse or hit a gnome
funny sign like a computer mouse: tiling on the floor - if you miss the ball, it is reflected by the tiling. First hit, the tiling changes color to dark blue, second hit, the tiling vanishes, third hit, ball is lost.
no parking sign: shrinks your paddle to almost nothing and speeds the ball up by ... well... a lot. Survival is far from guaranteed. (thanks Sarah!)
blue cannon: paddle grows an ice cannon, shoot by mouseclick.
red cannon: paddle grows a fire cannon.
Blocks hit by cannon behave as if hit by the corresponding ball. There are also powerups that gives you a crossfiring cannon or two cannons, but I dont know the sign for them.
Gnome-related Powerups:
sling: every gnome on the display falls down
star with angry face: makes the gnomes angry, the gnomes are multiplying faster and throwing more flowerpots
Score-related Powerups:
gold dollarsign: gives you 1000 points
silver dollarsign: gives you 10000 points
star with red heart: gives you another life
Signs I haven't found out:
Something like a "non-parking"-sign (red). Anybody know, what this does?
Posted by: Benedicta | April 12, 2007 8:15 AM