The Arcade: A Monthly Roundup of Freeware Games (July 2008)
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Here we are, halfway through the summer. Can you believe it is already almost August? Where does the time go? This was a great month for me. We took two vacations to visit each set of Grandparents. That meant I had plenty of time to test out all of this month’s games. And what a batch we have, including:
So, without any more chitter-chatter, let’s jump right in an check out this month’s fantastic free games.
For the third month in a row, we have a game from Peter Balogh, the developer who would go on to found PDAMill, which is still one of my favorite game Windows Mobile game developers. Before he started developing games under the PDAMill logo, Peter put together this small casino game, which is really extremely well done. The game contains Roulette, Blackjack, and Video Poker. I have to admit that I have become a bit of a poker buff lately, so I did miss not having a standard poker game or Texas Hold’em included. Despite having some simple graphics and animation, I found gameplay to be smooth and enjoyable. There is not currently a PDAMill version of this casino game, but based upon the fact that many of Peter Balogh’s pre-PDAMill games have been worked into their library…well, one can only hope.
This is another very well made vertical scrolling space shooter game. In this one, you fly a spaceship through enemy territory. Dozens of enemies of a variety of shapes and sizes will provide a formidable opposition. You will also find a maze of structures (I have no idea what these actually were) which can knock you out if you run into them. One thing that really set this apart from most other vertical scrollers was the fact that the game is wider than the screen. A lot of action might be occurring off the side of the screen, so watch out. This is a great game for the genre, and one of the few that I did not find the controls to be too difficult for the platform. It is simple, but fun to play. So, strap on your flight suit and head out for space (the final frontier). Just make sure to keep an eye on your energy meter. When it runs down, you’ll be flying home the old fashioned way.
Now here is an interesting twist on the classic jigsaw puzzle game. You will be shown an image in a 5×5 (25 square) grid. Get a good look, because after a few seconds, that picture will fade away, leaving you with an empty grid and a stack of 25 jumbled tiles. Your job is to rearrange the tiles back into the grid before time runs out. Sounds easy, but here is the twist. Each time you attempt to place a tile in the wrong slot, it will fire rockets (either horizontally or vertically). Any tile which is hit by a rocket will be recycled back into your pile. So, you will want to be careful on this one. A single mistake could completely change your progress in the game. I found this one to be an extremely creative take on a classic pda genre. The rockets firing out and destroying pieces which had already been placed made the game fun, challenging, and addictive.
This is another new take on a classic arcade style game (originally, Vexed was designed for the Palm OS). In Vexed, you will be faced with a board with various colored blocks. All you have to do is match two or more like-colored blocks together to clear them from the board. Clear the board and you will advance to the next level. Sounds easy enough, but it quickly becomes extremely challenging and exciting. Probably the most impressive part of the game are the level packs. I was shocked to find how many different levels and level packs were included in this game. One of my real frustrations with puzzle games like this is that there never seem to be enough levels. As soon as you get into the game, you are done. You won’t have that problem with Vexed and its over 40 level packs (each pack contains dozens of levels). So, sit back, strap in, and get ready to wrap your brain around Vexed.
The final game we will be looking at is called AdvPDA, which stands for Adventure PDA. Now, I am going to be honest here and tell you up front that if you do not remember the 1980’s and the TRS-80 (vividly) then you will not enjoy this game. This is a game for the older crowd (never thought I would be considered the older crowd).
Back when I was a kid…like I said, in the 1980’s, computer animation had really not been invented yet. most graphics were pretty simple, and many utilized still pictures and a great deal of text. You played these games by typing commands and reading (a lot). So, rather seeing a knife on the screen, moving your character to it, and clicking on it (or something similar). You would read a line of text that looked something like this, “you move the blanket and find a knife lying on the bed.” You would then type, “get knife,” and be told that you had picked up the knife.
These games were both exciting, due to the amount of imagination involved, and also frustrating as you played multiple guess trying to figure out which commands the computer understood. Often, these games would devolve into you typing a curse word, only to have the computer calmly retort with, “I’m sorry. I do not understand **&**@&!”
Adventure PDA takes 15 of these classic, text based adventure games and bundles them together into one package. So, go ahead and give it a try. Enjoy the terror that we used to call video games. You’ll be shuddering all the way back to your Wii (or you could sit back and enjoy filling in the gaps with your own imagination.
Well, that should do it for another edition of The Arcade. I hope you enjoy playing these games as much as I enjoy sharing them with you.
As always, if you have any freeware games which you would like to see me highlight in this space (or if you are a developer of free games) just send me the link via the contact form on the front page, or send an email to dsgoldring [at] mytodayscreen.com (replace the “at” with a “@”. And if you are just joining us, be sure to check out our archives here at My Today Screen.
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Hey, I just stumbled upon Vexed 2 days ago, what a coincidence! You didn’t find out about this game through my Twitter message, did you?
Anyway, there are indeed LOTS of levels in this game, which is absolutely great… I like it a lot!
Sorry, SPM. As much as I would like to say I got this one from you, I never use Twitter. Plus, I have had it for a few weeks now.
But it is a really good game.
Doug
Than it’s just a coincidence that I found it in the same week as you decided to post about it.
Should I just stop following http://twitter.com/dsgoldring then, if there’s no chance of it ever getting updated?
AdvPDA will be fun for this “older player”. Shades of ye olde Infocomm games I used to squander endless hours on while latched onto my C64. Somewhere I have an old book with a compilation of the maps for various adventure games from that era, so it will be interesting to see if any of those are listed, just in case I get tired of penciling out maps…
Breley…you have no idea. Well, actually you probably do. I can’t tell you how many hours we wasted (spent) playing games like Jasona and the Golden Fleece or Kabal on the old Apple II+. I still remember in Jason there was a part where your ship gets lost in a storm. The map for that was insane to get through.
Next up, I am trying to find a version of Royal Fizzbin!
Doug
In regard to Adventure PDA, bit disappointed that it starts of with a negative comment of …
“if you do not remember the 1980’s … then you will not enjoy this game. This is a game for the older crowd …”
Why can’t the younger generation like these types of games - especially ones who are not really into FPS but are perhaps interested in literary material / interactive fiction - perhaps in the minority but there are certain younger generations out there who are getting hooked …
But thanks for whacking my app up for review anyway
therealeasterbunny
Steve, thanks for commenting. You’re right. The line you quoted comes across more negatively than I had intended. But really, it is the TRS-80 crowed who is going to enjoy this game.
That being said, I was a bit disappointed that my favorite from the Apple II+ era were not included: Jason and the Goldon Fleece (stupid storm).
Either way, a nice pack of games.
Doug
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
I still play Net Hack, so I guess I would enjoy those games too. The last text adventure I played was Gateway to Homeworld 2. That was a great game. I’ve been looking for it. If I could port that to my phone, I’d never get any work done.