The Jackbox Party Pack

Pretty fun in person, awesome with a group, better on Twitch… if you have a decent audience.

Yeah, like those games could ever fit in
real-life boxes!

Originally released to Steam on November 26th, 2014, The Jackbox Party Pack by Jackbox Games, Inc. is the first in what is now a long and successful series of games, with the eighth Party Pack. While not all of them are purely multiplayer (at least in this one’s case), playing with friends is strongly encouraged and everyone can play any game by connecting to a match through the jackbox.tv website on their smartphone and entering the unique 4-letter code associated to the game started. And hey, everyone has a smartphone now. All else you need is some way to display the game’s screen to everyone, as that’s where the questions will pop up.

Due to this setup, you can also play through a streaming platform such as Twitch or Discord – a lot of these games are built with the possibility to play with up to 8 players and maybe even more (one game here allows up to 100 players!), so the larger the audience the more fun you can have. I already covered games of theirs previously, namely Drawful 2 and Quiplash, and I remember enjoying them. Well, all Party Packs include five games, and for this one, they are…

Despite the forced inclusion of the Hunger
Games in the phrasing, this is actually a
science-themed question.

-You Don’t Know Jack! 2015 (1-4 players): You can play through 50 episodes of questions on pop culture and general trivia, all delivered with irreverent comedy by the host, “Cookie” Masterson. That’s 10 rounds per episode, totaling over 500 (!!) questions with sub-genres and even some fun bonuses. The most complete game here, I like that you can play it on your own, as it means that by buying this Party Pack you don’t end up with a title you can do nothing with if you’re not multiplayer- or streaming-inclined. That said, the questions are always in the same order in every episode, so you can try to replay them while knowing the answers to get higher scores. A lot of questions are phrased using pop culture, which can be a lot of fun to listen to but if you don’t know the references, sometimes you might miss out on the possible answers. There’s even a handful of surprises, like the “wrong answer sponsor” mechanic where picking one precise wrong answer in one question of the episode awards more points than that question’s correct answer.

Time for everyone's favorite: Is the answer to this question
"Kangaroo", "Peanut", "Albert Einstein", or "Uranus"?

Props for the Christmas Story reference there.

-Drawful (3-8 players): Similar to Drawful 2 covered before, this is a game where you’re given a prompt, must illustrate it as well as possible by drawing on your smartphone touchscreen (which is trickier than it sounds!), and afterwards the other players must try to figure out what the prompt was. Funny answers abound.

-Word Spud (2-8 players): A game of portmanteaux. A player adds a word at the end of the first prompt, then gets points from all the other players who wrote the same thing; after which, what the first player wrote is the next prompt, and it’s the next player who must complete the word or expression, getting points from whoever answered the same thing; and so on.

....I highly doubt that. Which, unfortunately,
means it's plausible enough for this game.

-Lie Swatter (1-100 players; yes, you read that right): In the first two rounds, seven flies show up with different topics. Each one carries a statement that’s either true or a lie. Everyone takes their pick, then the actual answer is revealed. For the third round, a single topic is chosen with seven true-or-lie statements about it (ex. foods that are poisonous to dogs or not). As you’ll find out by playing this game, reality is frequently weirder than fiction.

-Fibbage XL (2-8 players): If you ever played Quiplash, this is a full game version of the Round 3 free-for-all. Everyone gets the same prompt, which has a real answer, and is asked to type an answer of their own. The result is 3 to 9 answers, and the more you trick your opponents away from the real answer by making them pick yours, the more points you get!

Okay, but what do I do if I don't know
what a tanga is?

A collection of very fun games, the only issue the first Jackbox Party Pack has is that, well, it’s the first one; the one most people with passing knowledge of this series are likely to have played. As a result, its novelty may have worn off a bit. That said, though, I appreciate the inclusion of two games that can be played in single-player, especially You Don’t Know Jack 2015, which feels like a full game all by itself and has hours and hours of content. That one alone (+ Lie Swatter) might not make the Pack worth buying if you don’t intend to play the other games (in multiplayer or while streaming), considering the asking price. But I do recommend it, especially with friends or through a stream, because the games are a ton of fun and are worth playing.

The Jackbox Party Pack is available on Steam for 24.99$ USD. (Currently half price during the Steam Summer Sale!)

I'll be taking the next week off in order to work on this year's anniversary review(s), which will be posted throughout July.

Quick Review: God Game: The Odyssey

That’s the title in my Steam library and on the thumbnail, yet the store page says The Odyssey: Winds of Athena. …Make up your mind dammit!

A game developed by Liquid Dragon Studios, published by Senpai Studios and released on November 6th, 2015, this is the story of Odysseus, guiding his fleet of ships back home from the Trojan Wars. The world seems intent on not letting him go home, though; and as a result, the goddess Athena has decided to step in and control the waves and winds to help.

Reefs bad. Sand beaches bad.

The Greek Antiquity has statues that open
blockades when touched? They're more
advanced than us or what?

Everything is done with the mouse: To create stronger winds, you spin over the dial on the top right of the screen. The winds always guide the ships towards the exit on the other side of the screen, but you have to indirectly maneuver the ships to avoid obstacles and dangers. To move the boats, you create waves on the sea. Careful, though, as waves can create blowback and cause the ships to float around aimlessly. You have to prevent shipwrecks by directing the boats away from reefs and sand beaches. Later down the line, the mouse is used for other stuff as well. As an example, in the second chapter, the boats are targeted by cyclops throwing boulders; you grab the boulders and can throw them back at the cyclops to incapacitate them shortly.

Woooo, spinny current.

I think the best way to describe this game is to call it “Seafaring Lemmings”. Since you can’t properly control the ships, you can just hope to move them in the correct direction or take the right actions to do so. The game sort of functions similarly to the Lemmings genre as well, as you have a set number of ships that come into the screen, and must manage to get a certain number of them to pass through in order to beat a level, with a higher requirement to receive an Expert ranking on that same level. New obstacles or mechanics appear later in the game, such as doors that open by hitting statues, tornadoes that send ships flying around, and combinations of these. Sometimes, you can

The Passage of Six Cyclops. Good luck getting
more than half of your ships to pass through.

That’s about all I have to say for this one. It doesn’t really tickle my fancy. An interesting idea, but not developed enough to be engaging. It suffers from the same issue that any Lemmings-like title has: Your window of action is limited, and there’s a lot going on in the screen once the number of things to rescue increases (in this case: Ships), with more and more things showing up in the way. Unlike a Lemmings game, though, the ships don’t follow a set path and are a lot less predictable as a result. Even conjuring waves is tricky as it can send the ships wildly off-track. It’s a somewhat fine idea for a game, with a nice backdrop involving Greek mythology, but the product fails on the side of execution.

Still, if you wish to try it, God Game: The Odyssey: er… Winds of Athena is available on Steam for 4.99$.

Quick Review: Fortified!

Oooh, more games taking inspiration from the Olden times – sure, sign me up.

That bazooka will do wonders against aliens.

Made by Siege Camp and released to Steam on February 3rd, 2016, Fortified! is a peculiar combination of a shooter and a… tower defense? Yep. Ever heard of that combo before? Neither have I. Featuring a very 1950s comic books-esque aesthetic, the game takes place as aliens descend to invade Earth. There are four heroes to choose from, all of them inspired by popular archetypes of the era. After you’ve chosen your hero, pick two weapons, pick at least one form of infantry (up to 6), then jump into a level.

Because as we know, aliens all move
around in spider robots.

Between waves (which are sent by pressing H), you set your “towers” (the troops) around the current map. When the wave plays out, you can move around and shoot at the enemies with your own weapons, swapping between them with E if need be. A gauge fills up over time, and when it’s full you can press Q to use your current hero’s special move. The goal is to protect the “base”, which is a rocket ship that the aliens are trying to destroy; if the base’s HP hits 0, you lose. If the hero’s health is down to 0, they’ll get up after five seconds during which you cannot have any effect on the game.

An interesting aspect is that you can command your troops around; you can ask them to keep the positions they were placed in, or you can ask them to defend the base, follow your main hero, or head straight towards the aliens and robots that are coming forward. This results in a lot of strategic options as well as the possibility to change your plans on a whim if things get dire.

The base ship is under attack?
Send all the soldiers out to defend it!

They're growing smarter...

You discover new weapons and troops as you play through the campaign mode, which is set over 12 levels. At the end of every level, you gain experience based on your number of kills, earning skill points that can be spent on upgrading existing troops and guns, or unlocking new ones for use in the upcoming levels. The aliens are no slouches, either, with new types of enemies showing up over time (such as flying ones), forcing you to diversify your methods of attack. The levels are available first on Normal difficulty, then Hard, then Insane.

More than single-player, though, the game actively encourages multiplayer co-op play. In all modes, each player has a certain limit of troops they can place on the field, thus forcing everyone to work together in order to defeat the waves of enemies. I imagine waves are harder the more people play – with the number of enemies being adjusted for the number of players and units.

Sometimes, if the troops are busy...
Better take the fight in your own hands.

A pretty cool idea – I don’t think I ever saw another third-person shooter tower defense before – and there’s a couple of nice features here. Four characters to choose from, twelve levels over three difficulties, and plenty of multiplayer options (that is, of course, if you can find people to play with, as the game is over six years old now and somewhat abandoned – but at least, the option exists). Game-wise, I felt some frame rate issues (though I hate whenever I say that because I don’t know whether the issue comes from the game or my computer). Also, while the strategic options are interesting when controlling your troops, you can’t just assign one task to a type of troop and a different task to another; it’s all or nothing. And although an interesting addition, having four characters to choose from unfortunately doesn’t lead to a lot of variety, as all four play relatively the same outside of their special move activated with Q.

So yeah, not without its downsides, but an interesting one if you’re intrigued by another unlikely combination of genres. It’ll be missing a lot due to the lack of a player base for co-op, but the single-player mode is still there and pretty fine.

Fortified is available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Eternal Senia

Ready for another episode of “Nic goes through his collection of RPG Maker games”?

Blond hair, sweet eyes, cross pendant...
...hunts demons... yep, a fictional nun alright.

A production of Sanctum Games released on June 18th, 2015, Eternal Senia is a game that was, according to its own creator, heavily inspired by Ragnarok Online. This is the story of Senia, who was almost attacked by a demon at her mother’s funeral when she was little, only to be saved and protected by Sister Magaleta, who took her in. Magaleta, a demon hunter, always refused to let Senia follow her on missions. Now several years later, a grown-up Senia walks into the Tower of Eternity, in which Magaleta has seemingly disappeared, intent on solving that mystery and finding her.

Begone, Slime! You're not even worth
going into turn-based combat!

The game shows early what it does differently from other RPG Maker games. For starters, it trades turn-based combat for an action RPG system; you deal damage to an enemy by walking into them, then you can freely move around to avoid their attacks or strike again. Enemies can walk into you to attack, or use ranged weapons. There are two types of bosses: Regular world bosses that are fought like average enemies, with the same action RPG tactics; and bosses at the climax of a chapter or challenge, who are displayed taking up most of the screen, using the sprite one would see in a normal turn-based RPG Maker game. You still fight them like in an action RPG, coming up to them in the center of the screen to fight, but there can be some puzzle element. One such boss, as an example, cannot be damaged unless two protective crystals appearing in the lower part of the screen are destroyed first.

A giant boss enemy, an attack that hits across
the screen, enemies to kill, and crystals to
break to be able to hurt the boss?
For RPG Maker, that set-up is super impressive.

Second, it innovates by including a weapon and armor crafting system, one that’s admittedly quite basic but functional, and it allows Senia to eventually obtain some pretty strong gear just by exploring. The rarer crafting materials are obtained by beating challenges or completing quests.

Wham, how do you like a Splash Leap to
the face, you monster plant?

Third, it includes a handful of skills learned through the story. Most are useful in combat as well as outside of it. As examples, the first allows you to slide across gaps you can’t walk over, and the second deals area damage in the 3X3 grid around Senia, and can be necessary against some bosses. However, they’re mapped to the top letter keys on the keyboard (Q/W/E/R), so reaching for them in a battle can be tricky (you can also hit the S key accidentally, which opens a menu in which you can pay the game’s ‘currency’ to upgrade said skills, so that they’ll deal more damage).

Even in the overworld some monsters/bosses
can display some pretty cool moves.

Fourth, there’s a ton to do on top of everything else. There’s a lot of secret chests to look for; some mini-bosses scattered around the map; Arcane levels that involve a series of randomized rooms with big rewards at the end; side-quests to kill various enemies around the world; and much more. Unlike most RPG Maker titles, you cannot save in the menu; only at statues on some screens. That said, these save points also completely refill Senia’s HP and MP, and also serve as Waypoints between each other within a chapter, allowing you to teleport around the world rapidly.

Oh, and the story, while it starts out as very simple, packs a handful of surprising punches along the way. Much like game design, writing tends to be a weak aspect of a lot of RPG Maker titles, but I was pleasantly surprised by the turns the plot took. (Throw in a handful of nods, like a thinly-veiled reference to The Legend of Zelda's Triforce, and the result is even better.) There’s even three endings, two of which are found behind the real final boss (which was insanely challenging, for the record).

Sure, it's a little clipped, but that blast of light
is an impressive move nonetheless!

In case it wasn’t clear, I love this one! I love what’s been done in this game, with so much content. Add this one to the file of “RPG Maker games that ought to be an example for everyone who wants to make games with the software”. More impressive is how this game’s creator only took one year to make it. Let me be clear: I’ve tried my hand at making an RPG Maker game before, and it took me several hundred hours to get only a working demo done, and even then it didn’t contain half the stuff I see here. Crafting, side-quests, skills, an action RPG gameplay in place of turn-based; all of these require custom scripts to be added to the software’s basics.

It's a small but important thing of game design: If you have
multiple mechanics, try to feature them wherever you can, and
especially at key points of the game. As an example, here,
the final boss has two phases: An overworld action RPG
fight first (shown here), a giant sprite puzzle battle second.
Both combat mechanics contained in the game.

On top of the action RPG elements, there are many puzzles as well as a couple of moments that almost feel like platforming. The extra challenges are nice. The game is split across three chapters, but one donside is that there’s no going back to a previous chapter after defeating its boss, so you can’t return to finish previous side-quests. If you’re a completionist, better be aware of that. Speaking of, there are quite a few things I needed to figure out on my own due to the game’s text sometimes being in broken English. It’s not a bother most of the time, but it does make some mechanics tricky to understand. Still, considering the level of quality in everything else here, I can give that a pass.

The endings imply a sequel hook, but there hasn’t been any sequel released since. Even if that never comes, I would say Sanctum Games can be quite proud of what they created, perhaps even moreso from the fact that this game was a passion project started out of a love for another video game. Genuinely a game you must try out if you want to see what can be achieved, even with simpler game development software and tools if you're willing to put in the work and effort.

Eternal Senia is a free game, too!

Quick Review: Effie

This guy’s back ain’t what it used to be, and he skipped leg day a lot lately, but he’ll be fine.

Lots of runes everywhere, hopefully I don't
have to collect some 10,000+ to become
young again.

A creation of Inverge Studios released on January 28th, 2020, Effie shows a grandpa telling a tale to his granddaughter. He tells the story of Galand, the strongest man in the realm, who also proved himself too lazy to help a villager with her cart. Unfortunately, this was a test by Melira the witch, who then cast a spell on Galand, stealing his years and youth, turning him into an old man. To retrieve his lost time, Galand hurries to the Temple of the Elders, where he’s told that he will need to prove that he has a pure and kind heart in order to see the spell reversed. He is then given a mystical weapon, the Runeshield, granting him abilities that will aid him on this quest.

As classic of action/platform games, several
rooms contain puzzles for Galand to solve.
Such as activating six switches in the right
order here so he can proceed.

This game homages several 3D action-adventure titles, both nostalgic and recent, as listed on the store page. It also plays similarly, with elements of platforming, puzzle and exploration. Galand has a wide array of moves as well, jumping and double jumping with Space, using the shield like a hoverboard with R, attacking with it using the Left and Right mouse buttons (for basic and strong attacks, respectively), or summoning a force field with Q. Some moves are learned later, such as the use of Left-Shift to do a dash that can be used to attack on the ground, or as an air dash after jumping in order to reach platforms located further away. Stronger moves can also be learned for both Left- and Right-click, a boomerang and an earthquake attack respectively.

Shield Bash!!

You can gather runes scattered around, beat enemies or smash crates in order to gain EXP, which allows Galand to level up and gain additional HP and stamina. Similarly, some rarer Relics can be found, though you may need to explore quite a bit to find them. You can travel around the map between chapters, finding mini-levels around the open world between chapters, with more EXP or relics to gather. Said relics contain more information about the world.

It may be a nitpick, but the game doesn’t really do much with its idea of being a tale told by a grandfather to a child; he only has two different lines for whenever Galand dies during a level, and limited lines for any video game-related stuff as well. The best we get is, for child-friendliness, every instance of wine being called grape juice (despite it very blatantly being wine, from being kept in barrels to the shape of the bottles, in the third chapter).

"I'm gonna keep at it till I can't walk in a
straight line anymore from drinking all
of that wi-... I mean, grape juice!"

I mean, it is story-consistent that Galand, on a
quest to prove that he has a pure heart, never
attacks Melira directly; still, that limits
quite a bit the options for boss battles.

Gameplay-wise, the game plays very well, and is somewhat fair with its checkpoints - the greatest annoyance about them is when you die in the open world, respawning at the entrance of the last level you finished. The puzzles are very varied, and the platforming is fair most of the time. Gathering EXP is a chore, not rewarding enough, and only worth it to survive longer in boss battles; so collecting the floating runes feels superfluous. The boss battles are a mixed bag; the first two are merely gauntlets of enemies, the next two are platforming challenges in which you activate switches to damage Melira. The final boss combines both.

Overall, a pretty good game, though its attempt to homage several famous platforming titles in one way or another is evident and, as a result, while it’s fun to play through, there’s little here that you haven’t seen before. However, if you’re itching for a fun throwback to those classics all bundled up together in one, this might be a nice way to indulge.

Quick Review: Dusty Revenge (Co-Op Edition)

He’s got ears for years, but that’s a distraction. This bunny kills.

Heartbroken? Time to kill hundreds.

Developed and published by PD Design Studio and released on February 17th, 2014, Dusty Revenge (:Co-Op Edition) is the story of Dusty Milear, a rabbit embarked on a Punisher-style quest for revenge against his girlfriend Daisy’s murderers. Though he is uncertain of the motive yet, his quest will bring him to a strange amulet containing many mysteries. He will also meet Rondel Moheqan, a bear who excels with heavy artillery, and Casey McCoy, a sniper dog. Both have their own tragedies to avenge, and agree to help Dusty on this quest. Their first clues seem to point towards Kraven, a tiger warlord…

And that firepower's gonna be needed.

With all the people he kills, using a scythe
is almost too on-the-nose.

The game is a beat’em-up with a handful of surprises. Dusty has a ton of offensive options from the get-go, moving with WASD and being able to use attacks such as guns (Left arrow key), a freaking scythe (Right arrow key; known as High moves) or basic close-range physical moves (Down arrow key; known as Low moves). He can dodge with S and roll left or right, and Block using Left-Shift. He has a vast array of combos using all of those attacks, using a mix of the High and Low moves. On top of that, the game includes an EXP system, with each new level gained unlocking new attack combos. Later on, Dusty also gains a gauge that fills up with kills, allowing him to unleash a flurry that destroys everything else on-screen by pressing Left-Shift and C.

If you can act fast enough, Casey and Rondel
can be total lifesavers.

Your allies can be called through a second gauge that also fills up over time. You can switch the view to Rondel by pressing 2 in order to use heavy artillery on blockades, shields, or to finish off enemies. By pressing 3, you switch to Casey instead, and take aim with the mouse (you can even zoom in); his sharp-shooting skills can kill most enemies in one hit. Note that there are areas where their skills cannot be used; and their attacks are necessary to finish the ultimate combo used with Left-Shift/C, meaning that said combo can’t be used everywhere.

Rondel wants big boom.

Aside from Dusty, you can also choose to play as Kitsune, a second character who is played more like a ninja. Her story doesn’t seem to differ all that much; aside from the first, all the levels play roughly the same, and she also gets Rondel and Casey at the same points in the quest. And of course, this is the Co-Op Edition, so you can play through the story with a friend!

Damn, that's a cool punching combo.

Pretty fun with a very cool art style and feel, but not without its handful of problems. The combat is incredibly complex, to a point reaching fighting games or beyond; that’s really cool, but if you’re not particularly geared towards that sort of playing style, it can be difficult to create combos as a result. The addition of Rondel and Casey is pretty great and injects some uniqueness in the genre, but they can turn out to be a bother, as you have to divert your attention to their screen when you activate their effect, and during that time Dusty is left like a sitting duck against enemy attacks. I died a couple times because of that.

Beat'em-ups aren't exactly like platformers,
so adding some of that is bound to lead to
an issue here or there.

There’s also at least one boss fight where I got the impression that controls glitched or swapped around, as I would end up summoning Casey without pressing the 3 key to do so. And a boss fight is the worst possible place for controls to glitch out! I also felt like the game took for granted that you’d be able to manage all of its attacks without issue. (In case this review didn’t make it clear, I’m not a great fighting game player.) The game plays out like a beat’em-up overall, but tends to combine elements of platforming later on, and it can be very difficult (and infuriating) to balance the two, especially in areas where Dusty can get knocked into bottomless pits.

But hey, it looks awesome, it sounds great, it’s fully-voiced, has collectibles to make you replay through the levels, and also includes a Boss Rush mode later. So if beat’em-ups are your jam, you could check this one out.

There's a lot of scenes that look really awesome.
This boss, in particular, is very impressive.

Dusty Revenge (:Co-Op Edition) is currently available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: DETOUR

I had heard that roadwork was a cutthroat business, but this is ridiculous!

Why did the road cross the map?

Developed by Geoff ‘Zag’ and Richard Keene, published by Geoff Keene and released to Steam on May 16th, 2011, DETOUR presents an interesting take on a resource management sim, by combining it with real-time strategy. You are a new hire to a roadwork company, building roads that lead from factories to the rest of the world. To do this, you create streets, bridges and tunnels leading a truck across a map. You need to spend credits in order to build a road on a square of land or send a truck going. The fields have other types of obstacles such as unbreakable mountains, as well as things that can help such as gold mines to get more credits or pre-built roads and towns to save some money. Get three trucks across the map, and you win!

That's still the easy part. Wait till the others
join in.

It’s not gonna be that easy, however; soon, you’ll encounter opponents who also work in the business and who want to get their trucks through before yours. This is where the real-time strategy comes in. To cause trouble, both you and your opponents can plant bombs to destroy squares of roads, packs of nails to incapacitate trucks, or cause hippie protests in the other’s path.

And yes, opponents is plural. After the first set of 9 levels, which serve as a tutorial of sorts, we jump into the meat of the action, where both genres are combined and you have to deal with three opponents who are also trying to get ahead. There are three sets of 9 levels total, for a total of 27. Though if that doesn’t sate your real-time strategy resource management, you can go down to Multiplayer and either get this game for your friends and play against them, or play against CPUs.

Oh nice, the opponent is throwing a bomb
or two my way. Such healthy competition.

This one’s not too great. It’s a novel idea that’s been seldom (if ever) done before, but the execution doesn’t do it justice. 27 levels isn't much, but the levels compensate by being somewhat long. The biggest offender is the difficulty curve; after you complete the first 9 levels, you’re thrown directly into the competition against 3 CPUs, all playing savagely. You don’t even have time to adapt your strategy to the map! What’s worse, even if you can work the menus efficiently, most of the tools come with nasty drawbacks; as an example, if you blow up a few squares of road, you must wait for “the dust to settle”, meaning that nobody can build on those squares for a couple more seconds – further hindering you if you were on the receiving end of that maneuver by an opponent. Things get chaotic when four opponents are tossing bombs at each other.

Each of these explosions might as well pop a
big F YOU up on the screen.

There isn’t really much of a story, and the characters aren’t too great. (Also, one of them has a really unfortunate name.) I wouldn’t call this one worth trying out. No need to make a… detour towards it. …Alright, that was bad even by my standards.

Also, its developers have moved on to making better games. Anyhow, if you do want to try this one, DETOUR is available on Steam for 1.99$ US.

Quick Review: The Deadly Tower of Monsters

It’s a miracle that this director hasn’t been struck with half a quadrillion lawsuits. Or that he somehow gets to commentate on his own films. He sounds like the type who’d produce so many bombs his career would be a complete minefield.

Without the "commentary" both audio and
at the bottom of the screen, this would be a
pretty basic action game.

Developed by ACE Team, published by SEGA and released on January 19th, 2016, The Deadly Tower of Monsters is the crown jewel of director Dan Smith’s filmography, originally released to theaters in the ‘70s, and he was brought back on to provide a commentary track for the DVD re-release. The “game” is basically the film, in which you control the heroes as they climb the titular tower to face off against the Emperor of Planet Gravoria. The characters are Dick Starspeed, a regular human who crashed on the hostile planet; Scarlet Nova, the Emperor’s daughter now rebelling against him; and Robot, Dick’s co-pilot, who gets rebuilt but was never given a name. Now, let the film play out while Smith comments, with every trope of filmmaking lampooned to Hell and back.

Not pictured: The stilted, shaky movements
done by the stop-motion King Kong.

Being able to shoot down from a ledge is an
interesting meahcnic, but it also causes
some headaches from time to time.

There’s a lot of controls to this one: WASD to move, aim with the mouse, left- and right-click to attack with the melee and ranged weapons respectively, swapping between weapons with Q and E (you gather various weapons throughout but can only carry two of each type). Press Space to jump, F to change the view to look downwards by a ledge (enemies may come from there), Left-Shift to do a rolling dodge, Z to activate a special move (each playable character later gets their own unique ability), C to teleport back to a ledge if you fell off it, and M to open the teleportation console. You can swap between unlocked characters at certain stations, and you can also use other stations scattered around the Tower to change your weapon loadout, upgrade the weapons using the Gold and some resources you can gather, or upgrade your character. The method to do the latter is a bit weird, though; you can only upgrade the astronauts by completing the in-game missions. For each mission completed, one more upgrade step is unlocked.

Can you see the strings?

The developers went the distance to make the game look like a cheap B-movie production. You can see strings on flying enemies, several others are explicitly said to be people in suits, and then some others are animatronics or stop-motion (such as the big ants or the Mega-Gorilla that serves as a boss). The costumes are lame even by the standards of the in-game film’s ‘70s release date. And that Smith guy? He’s got the arrogance and the budget of James Cameron, but the level of talent of Tommy Wiseau.

If you don't obsessively search the map for the
golden cogs, there's a lot of weapons you won't
be able to upgrade.

Pretty fine game with nice gameplay and a very clever idea, but not without its flaws. The soundtrack is pretty forgettable in my opinion. Aiming can get pretty tricky with your crosshair often being hard to find, and the camera is frequently a bother. The framerate could also spell trouble, to the point where it could make some parts impassable until you lower the settings – one glaring example is the treadmills that only Scarlet Nova can cross with her unique special ability, which is impossible if the framerate makes it so that Scarlet cannot run far enough to reach the other side.

No word on how they managed to do THAT
effect.

Come on... come on... get through... Fu-!
Why the Hell can't she go all the way to the
end of the goddamn treadmill? She's supposed
to be able to!

Although the concept of this game being a film getting commentated by its director is nice, ultimately the jokes will mainly appeal to movie buffs who can laugh at the absurdity of everything that supposedly took place during filming. At least the low-budget sci-fi pastiche hits all the right notes, with a style that mimics the special effects of the time; I wouldn’t go as far as to call it style over substance, but it didn’t leave as much of an impression on me as I hoped it would. It’s not bad, though; I felt it was average, but I like the idea. If a top-down beat’em up claiming to be a movie sounds like something you’d like, then, by all means, get this one.

The Deadly Tower of Monsters is available for 14.99$ USD.