Oh indie devs oh indie devs, how lovely are your game-ys. You give them to us free of charge, and you never even complain-ys. With aliens, and big boss fights, old retro dungeons, and desperate piggy flights. Oh indie devs oh indie devs, you truly are so awesome.
- Tiny Dangerous Dungeons - On the one hand, Adventure Island's adorable retro action game is exactly like a Gameboy Classic from the way it plays to the way it feels, but on the other hand... uh... exactly like a Gameboy Classic from the way it plays to the way it feels, which means it comes with all the frustrating issues like floaty jumping and simplistic gameplay on top of all that fantastic old school charm. Looking for something truly dedicated to being old school? This one has everything to take that title and is as lovingly crafted an homage to classic handheld gaming as you could wish.
- Outpost Swarm - So you want to play Squize's addictive and freaky top-down horror shooter Outpost series but without all that story and scenery change? Can do! This is essentially an arena shooter that asks you to hold out as long as you can against waves of mandible-gnashing baddies, upgrading your equipment along the way. Just move fast and shoot faster, or it's game over, man!
- Boss 101 - Donley Time Foundation's upgraderrific shooter is exactly what it says on the tin... a near-endless progression of boss fights, all of which are randomly generated, that you take on with a jetpack and increasing arsenal! The style is great, and seeing what bizarro bosses the game crafts for you is always fun, even if most of them tend to go down in the blink of an eye.
- Save Merlin the Pig! - Leigh Alexander penned this snarky, silly choose-your-own-adventure about a night out that goes horribly, horribly wrong for a pair of "foodies" who discover that a nearby restaurant is taking a rather... uh... unusual approach to marketing its menu. The writing is snappy, though some might find some of its humor a bit too forced and satirical, but others will appreciate the bizarro adventure.
Save Merlin the Pig was pretty sweet. You had to work for the best ending, but not too hard, and it was pretty funny. I endorse it!
Boss 101 is cute and pretty funny, but it was pretty easy. I hope that in the promised next games there would be more complex bosses.
Meh, Merlin the Pig was cutesy, but what if you don't want to save the pig? What if you want to EAT the pig? There seems to be no option for signing up for it, even though I've tried numerous ways.
My biggest problem was that when it said "Do you want to go back a bit and try again?" it dumped me in a part of the story I hadn't read the first time--thereby forcing me into a choice I hadn't even made.
I guess, having grown up on a farm, I didn't feel any compunction to save the pig which, I guess, was the point, but it didn't seem to have enough of a sense of humor within itself to give more than one option.
Mmmmmm.....bacon.
Tiny Dangerous Dungeons - how about either giving us more than 3 lives or making the sprite to sprite collision LESS sensative.
Numerous times you'll lose more than 1 life to the same thing pushing you back.
Some of the places you are expected to jump to whilst being surrounded by things that WILL lose you a life are very much complete BS as well.
It's not what I'd call playable, or compulsive. Unless you're a complete sadist I guess.
I'd actually say TDD is VERY playable, it's just playable by classic GameBoy design, which means the mechanics don't function in the manner we've become used to with modern games. You need to move slower and attack from a distance. It's intentionally designed to be this way, and that's why it wound up in LDF instead of in its own feature. (After all, we've moved beyond those mechanics for a reason.)
Or Dora's defending an ad-wielding client.
... what?
Yeah, all that sweet sweet Adventure Island money is clearly lining Dora's pockets! The corruption goes all the way to the top.
Boss 101 offers NO challenge. I don't think I died once and the one power-up you can activate with "/" is pretty much an I win! button.
Bosses give you too much gold to upgrade with.
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