Greetings, ladies and germs! With Halloween right around the corner, it's our pleasure to bring to you this super-sized Link Dump Friday packed full of seasonal goodness. But just because it's the time of year where you're 66% more likely to find a stringy-haired ghost with enormous teeth under your bed waiting to steal your eyeballs while you sleep doesn't mean things all have to be "Grrrrr" and "Aieeeeeee!" That's why we bring to you an assortment of games for not only those of you who like to scream, but also people who think "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" is the scariest thing they ever want to watch. So sit down and play a little before you suit up this Sunday. And then make sure you bring me back all of your Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It's part of our new Candy Fee. (The Pony Fee didn't quite work out as we'd hoped.)
Vorago - [Parental Warning: Not suitable for children.] When they find themselves stranded at a gas station outside a remote town, a young couple is about to find out car repairs are the least of their worries in this point-and-click adventure from Godlimations. While a bit heavy on the symbolism and obscure, illogical puzzles (not to mention certain story similarities), Vorago still offers up a creepy, creative experience with polished animation and voice acting. You probably should stick to more traditional means of sneaking past gas station security mirrors if you ever need to in real life. Like... well, anything but the solution used in this game, really. Anything else at all.
Graveyard Maniacs - 'Cause they're maaaaaniacs, maaaaaaaaaaaniacs fo-sho! And you need to squish 'em with pumpkins before they chomp on yooooou!... well, I never said I was hired for my vocal talents. (Or my people skills. Or my math skills. Or my... this is depressing, let's move on.) This little puzzler from Neutronized may be too simple for some gamers, but if you just want some cute, squishable zombies and some nice light gaming, this is the perfect thing for the season. Just use pumpkins to squash the zombies that thirst for your tender, pixelated flesh while grabbing candy along the way.
Undead Highway - [Parental Warning: Not suitable for children.] It's the zombie apocalypse! Whatcha gonna do? It better involve something with a shotgun and a bag of marbles. This traditional but enjoyable top-down shooter takes fast-paced action and mixes it with a little bit of Dead Rising 2-ish item combination to let you mow down the oncoming horde in creative ways. The downside is that all combinations happen automatically, so you don't get the pleasure of figuring out how to make new weapons yourself, but it's still a solid chunk of zombie action. 
Pumpkin Remover 2 - If you were with us last year, then this physics puzzle is going to look awfully familiar. Use any means necessary (as long as that means is "clicking") to figure out how to remove all pumpkins from the screen in as few moves as possible. The addition of various types of pumpkins jazzes things up a bit, but overall this remains light, simple fun. Although it does kind of make me wonder what you have against pumpkins. What, did one forget to return your mixed tapes in college or something?
Werewolf - Surprise! It just wouldn't be Halloween without Minoto!... well... okay, so it would, but we would argue that Minoto's trademark brand of silly, cute point-and-click puzzles make everything extra special. While it contains all the giggle-worthy zaniness and strange item descriptions you've come to expect, this installment also has a story, of sorts. And, lucky you, there are four installments to play! So check out parts one, two, three, and four. Trust me, this is loads better than that terrible Jack Nicholson werewolf movie. You know the one I mean.
wow.. minato...
first time I see a sad ending in minato :( part 4... but great little game, nevertheless.
i LOL'd at the graveyard maniacs review. nice one, dora!
Vorago was an AMAZING game!
The ending was a bit sad and I admit that the car mini-game got a little irritating, but overall I'd give it a 9/10 if not 10/10.
The voice acting was crisp and clean, the art was stunning and the storyline, though a bit obscure, was simply outstanding.
I'm so sad I finished it now (hopes for a sequel D:)
Minoto wins again... kawaii and weird and some kind of clever with it's own logic!
Couldn't help but feel a bit sad about the werewolf in part 4.
The "plastron" items from the Minoto games make them sooooooooooooooo worth it for me. 'Course, it'd be sad if they were made out of real plastron.
D: NOOOOO!!!!!!!
THE POOR WEREWOLF DIED!!!!!!!D:
I don't think I have said "goddammit" so many times in a row as I have when I've played the car mini-game in Vorago.
So, what levels can be beaten under par in Pumpkin Remover? I've got 1, 2, 8, 10, 14, and 16. Any others?
Minoto, I love you.
Not sure why there was an obese girl and an independent study student down in a hole, or why secret agents and a baby continue to engage in gunplay after the 'threat' has been removed, but hey, that's your charm.
I was playing a game last night, point and click the guy had to put together a costume and leave the house....my pc went off now i cant find it on here what happened to it..........it was on here last night help anyone.................
[It was pulled for excessively offensive adult content. You can still play it here, but be warned that it's not a game we can recommend. -Jay]
Buttons, I've managed sub par on level 4 as well.
minoto...
I'm holding out for a part 5 where we find the werewolf is OK
Vorago made me cry.
Pumpkin remover 2 was actually pretty simple, but did anyone else notice that it was a bit too large for the window it was in? I don't know any better way to describe it other than the bottom section of the screen, and possibly the sides, were cropped out a bit.
Car game in Vorago defeated me. Too bad - it looked interesting otherwise.
Great set! I was just playing the excellent Trick-or-Treat Adventure Quest yesterday and have noticed it has mysteriously disappeared from this week's batch of games. I would be great if it were included in this dump.
Thank You Jay , I wanted to finish it...
Oh, Minoto. What the heck is a "Lattice ami with strong plastron"?
Having completed Vorago before, I feel like it might be something that deserves a bigger in-depth review int he future o; - Godliminations definitely improving every game sine their last point & click set of three
And not to the dismay of many, there's part 5 out now to find out what happens after that nail-biting ending~ (though it may not be what you might expect, and the lightbulb probably won't come on right away trying to decipher the choppy English)
Since Werewolf parts 1-4 are reviewed here I thought it was okay to link to part 5, but apparently it isn't. In any case, the final episode has been released and you can find it on Minoto's homepage.
Vorago was great up until the religious mumbo-jumbo ending. I don't need to be preached to when playing games TYVM.
Minoto games...are just pure happiness!
Just a few words about Vorago:
When I came on board the JiG review squad, the first game I pitched was Vorago. I had played it when it first came out and it stuck with me ever since. Since then I've been reminding/annoying Dora about including it in this link dump.
Vorago has A LOT of problems. The navigation is sometimes confusing especially at the start, there are a lot of small and obscure hotspots, some of the mini-games are frustrating and annoying, the puzzles can get extremely unintuitive and the preachiness of the Christian message at certain points in the game was a turnoff (This is nothing against Christianity, Christians or games with Christian themes, it was just the way the themes were implemented that bugged me). Despite all those problems I LOVE Vorago.
Vorago does what a lot of games have trouble doing and that's creating an atmosphere. Atmosphere is really important in a point and click game, especially a horror themed one. Atmosphere is hard to build in a game for a lot of reasons, such as the ability to take a break from the game or getting stuck. Even though I still get stuck when playing Vorago I think it only helps the atmosphere of the game. The small space of the gas station starts to feel claustrophobic the more frustrated you get. You go back and forth between screens searching for anything to help you.
Vorago does the even more impressive thing by being able to sustain the atmosphere. Once you see the monsters (which I love because 1) they're so bizarre and 2) it's drawn from Revelations and you rarely get to see literal interpretations of the crazy imagery of that) and you see how many there are it begins to strike you how screwed the characters are. Still, they go forward and you have to guide them through what only ever seems like a futile quest. The horrors you find outside the station reinforce that and add to the atmosphere.
Vorago's characters are mostly broad archetypes: bad cop, the kid, distant husband, suffering wife, both who make up the couple-who-lost-their-child role. Though they're painted in very broad strokes, they're painted well and help carry the story. This is nice compared to other Godlimation games that have no sense of character (the Monster Basement series) and the ones that have poorly drawn characters (the Escape trilogy). This also has better voice acting than the Escape Trilogy. Though, I kind of wish they'd stop using that one guy who sounds like he kind of has an accent. He's not bad, necessarily, but it seems like he always gives the same performance and has a tendency to oversell lines.
Vorago is an awesome game and a terrible game. Most of the actual gameplay parts are terrible, but in some ways that makes the awesome parts even better. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget about Vorago. It's not that it was scary (which is hard to do, especially if you audience is older), but it was able to create the atmosphere of fear, which can be just as good and is a more attainable goal.
Oh and by a few words, I meant WALL OF TEXT
So, I see that Vorago has a walkthrough, and I'm enjoying it.
However, the walkthrough is less than helpful at one point:
[spoiler]
There's no remote control amongst the basement computers, no matter how finely you search, so where is it really?
[/spoiler]
Anyone know?
@ ~ : Link, plz?
@Mega Meaty Meat, no linking is allowed. Just head to the Minoto site- the link is near the top left corner- and scroll down a bit.
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