Reflexes are a mixed bag, aren't they? On the one hand, they cause you to do things like uncontrollably kick people if they look at your knees (that's a reflex, honest), on the other hand, they jerk your hand away from painful objects and let you play insanely fast and chaotic games.
Squid and Let Die (Windows, 14MB, pay what you want) - Another arcade game from the Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! creator that will dizzy you with colors and surprise you with its ability to teach you to carve order out of chaos. Your goal is to collect all of the dots on the screen. Cannons around the perimeter will try to end your day, but they move and fire in steps, allowing you to strategically evade them. Trick the cannons into shooting, then scoop up the dots while they reload. An excellent reflex game once you get the hang of the setup!
Theseus and the Maze (Windows, 4.2MB, free) - Oh, sweet, a pixel art platform puzzle adventure game! With a large, sprawling maze world packed with keys, gems, and plenty of dangers, Theseus and the Maze is quite a challenging game. Fortunately you can pick up new abilities that help you traverse the landscape, and the maze's inhabitants provide you with a few hints. Created by the author of Abandoned, Joep Aben, and the art style is just as entrancing. Also, no, not that Theseus. But close.
Wave Goodbye (Windows, 2.9MB, free) - A short arcade game by Tommy Preger where pretty much all you do is hit buttons as quickly as you can. The waves are rising, and you really, really don't want to get wet! So, up the hill it is. Fortunately you seem to find faster modes of transportation when the water draws too near. Just keep an eye on the top middle of the screen and one hand poised on the [spacebar] and you'll do fine. Short, but it's fun for a once-through, and that counts for something!
Note: All games have been confirmed to run under Windows Vista and are virus-free. Mac users should try Boot Camp, Parallels, or CrossOver Games to play Windows titles, Linux users can use Wine. If you know of a great game we should feature, use the Submit link above to send it in!
Hrm. Am I missing something on Wave Goodbye?
Not much of a spoiler, but I feel like I'm getting as far ahead of the wave as I can during the early sections, I get to the car and go, and the water disappears only to rush back after a few moments. Is it just a matter of alternating faster during the other sections, or is there something obvious I'm failing to notice?
Theseus and the Maze was enjoyable for a little while, but I found it too tough for casual play.
Theseus and the Maze is so frustratingly hard!! The reverse gravity part after ~30 gems is really frustrating, since if you die you have to do the whole section over. Too many very narrow platforms to land exactly on.
the surfboarding is even worse. not to mention the buggy springy pink blocks that keep throwing you left after certain height when you need to go right.
I had to give up on Theseus after 35 or so gems when I saved only to find myself (apparently) stuck.
The save point was between a locked door on the right and a little "dome" with an ice floor on the left.
Heh, you're right ngebe... the surfboard part is just awful. I can't seem to get past the ice platform part at ~59 gems immediately after the savepoint by the dome where ReverendTed got stuck.
Theseus is awful: 10 minutes in I got stuck inside a block and there's nothing I can do except restart.
How do you beat the game with 300 gems in 30 seconds? I mean honestly wow, using cheat engine is just pathetic, the first 3 scores are impossible.
As a veteran of press the button really fast games, I have to say that there must be something else to Wave Goodbye. If this were a casual game, something like 110 presses per 10 seconds (my average) should easily clear a game like this.
There has to be something else.
After playing theseus for an hour, I managed to save at a save point with no escape.
it was after the surfing section. Not the first save point. after that save point there is a hill with ice inside and one of the spitting monsters. I managed to get over the ill to that save point, and I can find no escape.
please tell me I'm missing soemthing
yeah, I think its the same place ReverendTed got stuck. Serious flaw in a game like this. pity, I was quite enjoying it until that point.
Theseus map screws up if you open another page while playing; also, at the 2nd gravity change area, one checkpoint actually is bad.
@Mystify
dont go there just yet, or at least dont save there. you have to go back into the water and jump on the ice platform. from there proceed to a key and a bunch of diamonds. use key to open up the door with the higher jump powerup (now allows you to jump 4 stones in teh air insted of 3). you can then go back to the spot you were stuck, save go back for double jump ability kill yourself and from the save point double jump for the key to open teh door.
Theseus is just plain bad: bad programming, idea, and execution. At one point the maker abuses the low movement sensitivity; furthermore, there are 0 save features, I'm not really sure what the point of loading is? If you exit it won't save, if you start a new game it will rewrite, the only other option is checking the instructions, which you wouldn't do. Also, there are plenty of glitches: one is that if you jump onto ice and then don't move, jump again and repeat, you won't start surfing, much easier. It doesn't emphasize any category of gaming, just sheer, unoriginal difficulty; perhaps it's trying yet failing at platforming because the movement sure is weak. Maybe if I felt repeating everything 100 times just to get to the next checkpoint, I would beat it.
Is Wave Goodbye really beatable? After you get the car, the water rises so fast it's apparently impossible to get away...
I've not got far enough on Theseus to have the moans that everybody else is having, simply because I can only play it in small doses due to the incredibly annoying music. It's got just one 8-bar chord sequence that loops round 8 times and then starts again from the beginning. I wouldn't mind if you could turn it off but you can't, and it's much louder than the sound effects.
Theseus and the Maze is unbelievable hard, and not the fun kind of difficulty that many other hard games have. It's just frustrating. Wherever you must jump or fall, the spot to land on is almost always exactly one space wide. There is zero margin for error. If (note: when) you do mess up the save points force you to redo multiple sections at once. As others mentioned there is one spot that will trap you and force you to restart the whole game if you mistakenly enter without a key. I thought the surfboard was very nondescript and awkwardly placed. When I first encountered it I had no idea what it was but when I went to grab it, I fell into the warp portal without getting it. Warping automatically sets your save point to the warp destination, so I had to fight all the way back to the surfboard all over again to get it.
I suspect some people enjoy this kind of infuriating difficulty, but I think it just discourages most. I've got 80/100 gems so far. I pretty much want to beat the game out of pure spite, but I can only play about 15 minutes at a time before I want to punch my computer screen.
As for jonc's complaint about the times of the high scores: in my game, the timer resets randomly. One minute I'm going on 70 minutes and the next I've started over from zero. I don't know if it's intentional and I just don't know what causes it or if it's a bug.
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