Well, this is it. The last Link Dump Friday of 2013. And you know what you have after the 25th, right? Christmas leftovers!
Atomic Puzzle Xmas - Look, who says it has to be Christmas for you to enjoy a Christmas-themed puzzle game? Jerks and no-goodniks, that's who! Max Dereviagin serves up soothing, lovely seasonal puzzling where all you have to do to win is click to remove the Christmas ornaments, which allows matching pairs to form and vanish when they collide, and do so in as few clicks as possible.
Ziggy's Carol - Pixel Continuous' Ziggy stars in this upgrade-packed arcade game where the star of Humbug tromps through the snowy streets nabbing candy canes, evading the police, and punching people for presents. It's cute as the dickens, though an odd fit for a character who won hearts in surreal puzzle platformers, but is still an accurate representation of my family's holiday tradition nonetheless.
Gift Rush - When the mall isn't an option and all the online shipping options are too late, there's only one way to get gifts to all the kids before they wake up on Christmas... by extruding a long, sticky limb and swinging your way around like a grotesque blobby Spider-Man, of course! Alexander Fedoseev's physics puzzle is a bit on the simple side and could have done with greater variety, but who amoung us has not wanted to solve gift giving simply by slinging either gift or giftee at one another as hard as possible?
SNATA - No, it's not a typo, but it is really weird. This strange platform game by Gameshot.org about a deranged fat man in a red suit hopping atop reindeer held aloft by explosive balloons is simple, yet exceptionally funky and quirky in its own way. This truly is what Christmas is all about. Bless us, every one.
41 tiers of Ziggy's Carol I went in,
But now, here at last, I can declare that I WIN! :D
And now I'm going to be rhyming all night.
But for achieving such victory, 'tis a minor plight.
(Okay, I lie, it's annoying me now.
I really need to find a way to stop...but how?)
I love how in Gift Rush I can toss the kid spider all over the place and bang him into walls like a wrecking ball, but he doesn't so much as stir until he touches his present.
Warning: Pixel continuous games don't save... I learned that the hard way!
(by that I mean I got everything to max then logged out and had to start all over so I rage quit)
Ziggy's Carol was cute, but I feel like he's just not the same character when he isn't blatantly violating video game traditions by ignoring the pause screen or manipulating his statistics on the fly.
Some "cheat the system" style upgrades like pauses to dodge enemies or the ability to trade points around mid-level might've given the game the same spirit as the original while exploring the upgrade-a-thon genre.
I just like to think of this as Ziggy's "Dr. Mario," his first break from his established routine.
Besides, it's kinda hard to argue with
a semiautomatic chicken!
SIDE NOTE: Beat my last score by 8 tiers! Fun way to wrap up 2013! ...And hey, I'm not rhyming anymore! WOOHOOO!!
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