NiGHTS Into Dreams...

When it comes to Nintendo mascots, I can name several – a dozen or two, possibly. But when it comes to SEGA, the company that used to be their greatest rival, I can hardly name anyone outside of the characters introduced in the Sonic series. It doesn’t help that SEGA seems to be doing little to no effort in promoting any of their other characters, at least for franchises that do have notable characters.

One exception may be NiGHTS, the genderless jester-like creature known as a Nightmaren. They had exactly two games of their own. The first is the game I’ll talk about today, NiGHTS Into Dreams… Yes, the title usually includes the ellipsis. It was released in August 23rd, 1996 in North America, originally for the Sega Saturn. That one also had a sample/demo version. It was also ported several times to newer consoles and digital platforms, including a release to Steam on December 17th, 2012. The actual sequel, titled Journey of Dreams, was released for the Wii in 2007. And I happen to own both, meaning I actually own everything from their series. Which is weird since I never played a NiGHTS game before. They may be one of the better-known Sega mascots in part due to their repeated cameo appearances in the Sonic series. Ever wondered what was that jester thing that appeared during the cutscene in that purple Casinopolis pinball board? Well, it was this game’s protagonist.

And to get that out right away, NiGHTS is a gender-neutral entity, designed as such by their creator, Takashi Iizuka. Creatures of their dimension don’t feel the need for genders, due to existing in dreams and trying to appeal to as many people as possible; they can be interpreted as either. Regionalized versions of the games, in languages that do not have a handy gender-neutral pronoun for singular entities (such as French), tend to attribute a gender, but even then it’s meant to represent how they’re perceived by the characters they interact with.

Shall we start?

Quick Review: Wasted Pizza

I don't think I'll get pizza for dinner tonight.

Looks like a pretty average server search menu.

Made by Supine and released on October 16th, 2017, Wasted Pizza is a game about fresh pizzas shooting the freshness out of each other amidst a graveyard of not-fresh pizzas. Yeah, I just wrote that. The game is just that weird of an idea. For some reason, the fresh pizzas are alive and trying to kill each other. This is arguably a shooting game. I say “arguably” in part because of the silly concept so far removed from anything we know of, but also in part because… well… I couldn’t even play the damn thing.

Nobody else playing, and no X button. I'mma
be stuck here for a long time.

There was literally nobody playing, every time I tried. No open servers, no players waiting to join… You can create a private room for yourself and some friends, or you can create a server that everyone can join. Or join a game that’s being prepared. Usual multiplayer stuff. Which is cool... if there are players. Maybe the interest would have remained if there was a single-player mode, but no, there’s none of that.

That’s… uh… kind of a downer to end the Quick Reviews on. Ummmmm… what could I say about the game…well, I clicked the Quick Game button and it took me to a “waiting for other players” screen… without any Back or X button to return to the previous menu. The Escape key didn't work either. Each time, I had to shut down the game in another manner. Also, after looking for matches, I returned to the main menu… and the music started playing over itself. As in, the original loop did not stop, it kept going, and the music track started playing a second time over it, creating a cacophony.

Where am I going with this? Well, if a game can’t even get its menus right – basic mistakes like these two – then what could I have expected from gameplay? I know first impressions aren’t everything, but they can still say a lot. As you can imagine, I don’t actually have screenshots of the actual gameplay, taken from a FLV video file grabbed with OBS; the pictures that follow were taken from the Steam store page. Does this look nice?

This looks like what would have happened if Sausage
Party had been directed by Zack Snyder.

Does this look pleasant? Not very pretty, is it? Can you even figure out what’s going on here?

The green and red is a pain for the eyes,
and this is only a screenshot!

What's even supposed to be here??

Have a reminder that the game’s original release date was in 2017… and the game is still in Early Access. In that state, I could forgive several of the mistakes, as the game is still technically in development. …Is it, though? It has all the feel of a project that’s been abandoned. There could have been an interesting element here, as from what I’ve gathered the idea is that fresh pizzas can hide among the un-fresh ones and play a cool hide and seek game with each other… Too bad I couldn’t see any of it, huh?

Maybe the project isn’t over. Maybe it’ll move forward in the future. But for now, nobody’s playing this and I don’t think there’s any interest in spending money on it if there aren’t enough players to, y’know, play this multiplayer game. Yeah, I can’t really recommend this one…

But still, it’s out there if you do want to spend that dollar on it. Wasted Pizza is available for 0.99$ USD.

Oh, but wait – I skipped a game during these Quick Reviews, because I wanted to publish a full review of it. Well, tune in Friday for it!

Quick Review: Thomas Was Alone

How do you humanize squares and rectangles?

Pictures in this review might not convey much,
seeing as it's a game about the power that
narration can have in a medium.

Bithell Games is the studio behind Thomas Was Alone, a game released on November 12th, 2012. Its concept is fairly simple: In a digital world, Artificial Intelligences represented by squares and rectangles of varying shapes and sizes have to help each other across their virtual world. They have varying abilities; the first, Thomas, is a standard red rectangle with decent jumping abilities. The next, Chris, is a plain, plump, orange square, therefore he’s slow and somewhat bad at jumping. John is a tall yellow rectangle; he has amazing jumping abilities. Claire, the fourth, is a large blue square with a unique property the others don’t have; not only doesn’t she die in water, she actually floats!

Chris and Thomas, unlikely allies.

Wait. Names? Pronouns? Aren’t those just shapes? Well, the game is accompanied by narration telling the player what each square or rectangle is thinking. As such you can find out that Thomas seems happy with every facet of existence (especially once he is no longer alone), Chris as a moody jerk who resents everyone’s better abilities, John who is generally upbeat and likes to have a crowd, and Claire who immediately imagines herself as a superhero upon noticing she has talents the others don’t. Yes, actual superhero fiction is referenced. And that’s the first four protagonists; a few more join the game over time.

Just four friends helping each other
across a lake. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

You move around with WASD or the arrows, and switch between characters with the numerical pad. In each level, all of the shapes present have to reach their appropriately-shaped portal exits. Not every character is in every level; even Thomas doesn’t appear in all of them. Sometimes, it will involve a precise series of moves in which the shapes help each other to reach the portals. As an example, Thomas and John often have to act like a sort of staircase for Chris, and Claire carries the other three over bodies of water.

See? I’m already getting used to talking about them with their names! The narration does a fantastic job at humanizing these otherwise unremarkable shapes. It gives them a kind of individuality, denoted not just in the expressions the narrator claims they have (Thomas applauds? Without hands? Okay, I guess), but also in the tone that narrator takes when describing their thoughts. As an example, with all of her superhero talk, who wouldn’t paint Claire as a geek?

Don't worry Claire, you won't stay alone for
very long.

A fifth character? And she's bouncy?
That's pretty cool.

I really enjoyed this one. The presentation is extremely simple, but there’s definitely a story there (as evidenced by all the references to A.I. and programs from experts, as if what you’ve been playing was a lead-up to some sort of important event). The puzzles get really creative with each character’s abilities. Things do get trickier as new abilities are introduced. What annoyed me was that, since you don’t have all of the characters on all levels, the numerical pad key necessary to control one character often changed between levels (as an example, you could switch from any other character to John by pressing 3 in one level, and by pressing 5 in the other). There is a color code at the bottom right of the screen to indicate which character is selected by which key at the moment, but it does mean you need to adapt every time. It’s a minor issue, but still one that can be a bother.

It gets pretty complex once you have to keep
track of four or five characters. But overall I
thought the puzzles were fair throughout.

Other than that, yeah, it’s a very great game that shows the power that narration can have. Coupled with interesting gameplay, ideas, and challenges… yep, this is one game to try out, definitely.

Thomas Was Alone is available for 9.99$ USD.

Quick Review: SpeedRunners

Gotta go f-*gets punched for making the obvious joke*

Ah yes, this empty metro station will be
perfect for our speed-measuring contest.

A game programmed by DoubleDutch Games, produced by tinyBuild, and released on April 19th, 2016, SpeedRunners is at its core a multiplayer game in which four players race around a level in an attempt to outspeed each other. You run around with WASD, jump with Z, use a grappling hook with X, and use items collected along the way with C to further be a nuisance to your opponents. Players can double jump, wall jump, or even activate switches to change the layout of a level. Quick reflexes and quick thinking will help!

The smaller the screen gets, the harder it gets
to remain in the race!

How does a match typically go? Well, when the game starts, the camera follows the player in first place. When a player is knocked out of the game by lagging behind and getting out of the camera’s field of view, the remaining three have to keep racing, but the screen will start shrinking, effectively reducing the margin for error and making it easier to be knocked out, until one remains. The round’s winner gets a point, after which all four (or less, if any players disconnected) reappear close to where the last round ended, and resume running. The winner of the match is the players who wins three rounds.

There’s a pretty good selection of playable avatars and levels to run around in. Of note, at first you only have access to quick, custom or local matches in multiplayer – ranked matches are unlocked after you’ve earned 2700 EXP by playing in other modes, so that you go into PVP with some experience and knowledge of how this game works.

There ae so many superheroes here that they
have to race to determine who can get to crime
scenes the fastest to stop criminals!

A game of speed on a boat?
I doubt that's a smart idea, but let's do it anyway.

Single-player fans, don’t despair! A Story Mode is made available for you, if PVP sounds too scary at first! It’s a perfect opportunity to learn the basics and try some stuff without pressure. A tutorial is also made available the first time you boot up the game. You unlock new characters, levels and weapons by earning EXP (which can also be done in the Story Mode). You can even follow a little comic book plot in which various characters try to outrun the main character, SpeedRunner. There’s definitely something bigger going on…

Blocks of ice make you go faster...
Freeze rays, one weapon you can pick up
during a game, are your worst nightmare.

As for my own experience? I feel that the game is a lot of fun and a great idea to boot. A racing platformer? Sign me up! The Story Mode is a pretty good place to start. I made the mistake of going into Quick Matches early on and found myself obliterated at every round – a combination of not knowing the game nor the layout of the levels. Of course I wasn’t going to do well in PVP! It does feel like a game you can learn very quickly, but need a while to actually master. Problem is, the game’s been out for almost 5 years now, so if you jump into it right now, you’ll likely meet a lot of players who already know the game and, in some cases, excel at it.

Watch out for those spikes!

So yeah – a very cool title with a sweet concept, a cool art style, awesome music, and a lot of options in terms of gameplay. Even if it’s all about competition with other people, there’s something that still feels relaxed, relaxing here. No animosity, it really feels like it’s just plain good fun. I wouldn’t be surprised if the feeling got very different once someone jumps into the competitive, ranked match scene… But outside of that, yeah, the whole thing radiates an aura of fun.

SpeedRunners is available on Steam for 14.99$.

Quick Review: Spectrum

Zoom!

Even the pretty blue is dangerous!

A creation of 3D Avenue and released on September 22nd, 2016, Spectrum is a platforming game in which you control a little abstract black ball through levels. There’s a catch, however; color hurts it. It can roll just fine on white or black platforms, but it will lose an oval of health if it hits anything of pale color. It will lose all of its health at once if it comes into contact with anything that has darker color. You move around with the arrows or WASD.

The game is split in 8 worlds of 10 levels each. The worlds are split in two categories – the Light World which the safe platforms are white, and the Dark World in which the safe platforms are black. One interesting element here is that the levels in the second category are actually rehashes of the levels in the first category, only made much harder or incorporating trickier platforming.

Sometimes, you just gotta go up in life.

The deep blue blocks kill in one hit.
Oh, and here, they move, too!

This is not a regular platformer, in that the little creature can jump upwards as much as it wants to; it can basically fly on repeatedly hitting Up or W. It’s necessary to climb up in some levels. That said, it led to my big issue with the game; since the creature doesn’t jump very high, in order to go high you’ll have to mash the key like a madman when the creature has to fly up. That’s particularly noticeable in levels where deadly platforms are coming from below and you need to hurry upwards. Similarly, the ball can dive if you press Down or S in midair.

Aaaaah! The death block is going after me!

Okay,yeah - the Dark World really IS
a lot darker. Black platforms will be
the only safe places here!

And of course, the game gets really difficult after a while. Moving platforms, precise timings and tiny spaces to squeeze through – yep. It has it all. Its smooth artstyle thankfully helps make it feel a bit more relaxing than other figureheads of the “ultra hard platformer” genre (à la Super Meat Boy). It also helps that the levels are very short and most will take less than a minute to finish. What I also liked is that the game’s visual signature eventually changes to incorporate 3D elements – the game is still on a 2D plane, but obstacles can come from the back of the screen to the front. This allows the levels to get really creative after a while.

The death blocks are coming at me from
the back of the screen now! Aaaaaaah!

In this one, the background is literally
pulsing back and forth to try to kill you.

And if you want an extra challenge, each level comes with three bonus points to earn. One is won by completing the level within the required time (which is usually pretty short). One is won by collecting all of the pellets of light in a level; of note, those also replenish the character’s HP. The last one is won by going through the level without losing even a single HP. Merely beating a level gets tough after a while, so imagine trying to gather all of these extras!

It doesn’t do a lot special, but its looks and its gameplay do make it a pretty fun game to try. Like all tough platformers, it will provide short but difficult challenges, and can occupy a couple hours of your time. Even more if you aim to 100% the whole thing. I also liked to see that the game tried new things with perspective (such as having obstacle move towards the screen in a 3D manner). I also liked that there was a Light World and a Dark World. If this sort of game is your jam, you might want to check it out.

Spectrum is available on Steam for 4.99$

Quick Review: SimplePlanes

Yeah, I’m not starting a career as a pilot anytime soon.

This looks pretty decent. Now I can just
mirror this on the opposite side...

Jundroo, LLC released SimplePlanes to Steam on December 17th, 2015. It’s a physics game in which you can construct a plane, piece by piece, and then test it out in a flight simulation. You have a very wide variety of possibilities in constructing your plane, with all kinds of parts. Of course, you always have to have the basics: One cockpit, two wings, landing gear at the front and back, stabilizers and some form of propulsion (blades or reactors). Experiment with shapes, build your plane like you would a LEGO model (or go crazy and stick anything, anywhere, to see what works).

Aaaaaaand... takeoff! Yeah, I doubt
I'll build a plane better than this one.

After which, take to the skies! Spin the blades with the left Shift key, take off with S, and then control your plane in the air with WASD. Are the plane physics in flight accurate to real life? I don’t know nearly enough in that field to tell. But I feel the game tries to be as close to reality as possible. A tutorial exists to show you how to design a plane and how to control it in the air afterwards, but even with that it can take a while to learn to use the controls.

One issue in the game is that you learn to take
off and land, but aren't taught the mechanics
of flight too well. You have to try and figure
them out on your own.

A fighter jet for a simple island race?
There's no kill like overkill.

So – you’ve built your air vehicle? You’ve learned to pilot it? You’ve been through all the exercises? You made the necessary adjustments? On to the game proper, then – in which you can take part in races and try to beat CPUs to the finish line. That’s still not enough? Time for the big guns. Literally – you can equip your plane with weapons and learn to use them, and have a set of missions associated with this, including a mode to partake in a dogfight. Still not enough? Try one of a couple of challenges, which may require out-of-the-box thinking in order to complete.

There’s more: You can download plane models off of the game’s website, including many that are similar to real life planes. The plane-building part is accompanied by a sandbox world that you can freely visit, and in which you can even discover distant lands. Finally, the game has a small modding community through the Steam Workshop.

That's an awesome-looking jet.
I would never be able to build that.

By the looks of it, I'm also not great at piloting.
(For the record - I crash into the mountains
10 seconds later.)

From the original sound of it, I thought this game would include only the plane design and test parts of the simulator, which would already be pretty cool (if short) on its own. The inclusion of races, combat and challenges was a great surprise, not to mention the sandbox world. Much of the game involves learning to build planes to make them as aerodynamic as possible, and while I mentioned LEGOs earlier, it’s much more complicated than that. I doubt I’d have the level of knowledge in physics and engineering to properly build an aerodynamic vehicle and then improve it after a few tests, but it's still a fascinating process to experience. Just add some peer review and you’ve got genuine scientific process here!

There’s a lot to try out here, so that could be a very interesting game to test. That said, if you’re not physics-inclined (or if you can’t pilot worth a damn without crashing – seriously, I make Launchpad McQuack look like a God of landing safely in comparison), you might not spend a lot of time with it.

Simple Planes is available on Steam for 12.99$.

Quick Review: Shutshimi

Oh hey, I know this guy- er, this fish! He was in Indie Pogo!

I'd be tempted to play the Guppy version
to start. But no, real fishes start on Standard.

Developed by Neon Deity Games, published by Choice Provisions and released on August 25th, 2015, Shutshimi is the story of, well, Shutshimi, a fish with a cigar and very muscular human arms, who packs heat against all sorts of underwater invaders. There’s only one problem; he has poor memory and can’t stick to one thing long enough to save his life.

This game could practically be called a party shmup, as you can have four players participating in any game, and the tone is very comical. The gameplay is split in two sections of 10 seconds each – a wave spent killing enemies, and a section called Shop Time in which you pick the next upgrade that will be applied to Shutshimi.

This is the sort of shmup one would make
after snorting ground-up Skittles.

I'm not sure what that thing is, but I bet it's
somewhere in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

The upgrades have a wide range that help give this game the party feel I was talking about at first. There’s the usual for a shmup (alternate weapons, greater movement or shooting speed, shields and protection, etc.), then there’s all sorts of silly things like an item that doubles Shutshimi’s size, one that surrounds him with baby fishies (who shoot too!), one that makes him invisible, one that applies gravity to him, one that flips the screen 180° or reverses the controls... Other elements change the battlefield; it can be set during a heavy rainstorm, take place at a rave, on a bouncy castle, or replace the background and enemies with butts. Yep, butts. Last but not least: Hats, which sometimes give a bonus during rounds. There’s more than 30 of those and you should catch them all. Also, the descriptions are randomized with funny bits of sentences.

None of this makes sense! (For the record, the power-up is
"enhanced time dilation", it makes everything twice as
fast for a single round, and it's got nothing to do with
hard-to-reach places.)

You can grow giant? You can have a school of
fish that shoots with you? And THE FISHIES
GROW GIANT TOO?
Holy crap, best game ever!

The game is technically endless, and you face wave after wave of enemies, which are sometimes replaced by a boss fight. Since the waves are so short, sometimes you won’t be able to beat a boss in a single wave – no worries, it’ll return in a later wave! You will, however, fight the bosses always in the same order This goes on until you fight and defeat the sixth and final boss, after which the game keeps going until you lose. Shutshimi has only one Hit Point and three lives, though he gets points for killing enemies and earn an extra life every 2500 points.

There are extra modes; one is a Guppy “training” mode that ends after the second boss, with 1/4th of the points. You also unlock a hard mode where points are worth 1.5X more. Then, there’s also a Boss Rush mode. In the latter two, you start with only one life, so it’s going to be tough!

Everything in the game is coated with comedy.
Like those stats.
Seriously, don't use this much TP!

Asses! Asses everywhere! Too bad April 1st
was Thursday, or this would have been a
great April Fools article.

This one is fun, silly and enjoyable in a lot of ways. I like the twist on the otherwise somewhat tired shmup genre (then again, I might not have played enough to talk clearly on this) and how it’s turned into a party game. Playing in single-player is a lot of fun too, although you have to live with the whims of the randomly-generated upgrades. Some of those can be detrimental to your progress - looking at you, invisibility cloak. You rather quickly learn the buzzwords that indicate which upgrades are actually good or which ones you prefer. Getting all of the hats can be tough as well, since like everything else they appear at random. Although, granted, this means that rarely will two waves feel exactly the same, and that’s nice for replayability. I probably should try to play it with friends to see what it’s like in multiplayer.

Shutshimi is available for 4.99$ USD.