Quick Review: Oh... Sir! The Insult Simulator

AKA Monty Python: The Home Game.

(I recommend you check the images in full size to see the insults and pieces of sentences.)

Uhh... "Your sister / looks like / a dead parrot / and /
smells of / spam!"

Developed by Vile Monarch, published by Good Shepherd Entertainment and released on October 25th, 2016, Oh… Sir! The Insult Simulator is a game of verbal jousting. Snarking knights, sardonic folks and other comical enemies using their words to deliver unforgettable beatdowns. Choose your character, choose your opponent, choose a setting (which features the precise squabble to insult each other over) and let your spite do the talking. Did you sell a dead parrot to a customer? Has someone taken your train seat? A scuffle about a corpse? Doesn’t matter! Mock your opponent into oblivion! “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

Wait, is that H.P. lovecraft? Gee, those tentacles would
explain a thing or two about his writings.
For insults, though, this is complete nonsense.

Ah, nothing like going for a walk in the park and
trading blows while sipping tea over a corpse.

The gameplay is fairly simple: These combats take place over sharing a nice cup of tea. A bank of words appears between the two, and they take turns picking a word to craft the sentence of their insult. You can choose to end a sentence as soon as you want, but in doing so you forfeit the chance to craft something longer and, thus, more harmful to your opponent’s ego, represented by a life bar. Both players have access to two extra pieces not in the main bank, available from their personal teacup, which they can sip on once during a round to reroll those two pieces.

"Your mother / was born in / a public loo / and /
doesn't own a colour telly!"

Each character has their weakness, a topic they’re particularly affected by – as an example, the starting character, Sir Knight, is an elderly educated fellow who hates being mocked using things of “modern” society, like Star Wars or social media. Strike those buttonsfor massive damage! To expand an insult into the next round, you can select a "(…)" when it appears among the choices. A sentence ends when you either pick a choice that ends with an exclamation mark, or hit the exclamation mark button yourself. The game also adapts options based on the turn your sentence takes (singular/plural, as an example). Furthermore, if you use the same subject of insult multiple rounds in a row, there will be an ego hit bonus to that insult. Be very careful, however; while making a long-winded insult is tempting, the longer you go, the harder it will be to craft a complete sentence. And a grammatically-incorrect sentence fails, dealing a big fat 0 damage to an opponent’s ego. You've made a fool of yourself!

You mean to tell me that God has family issues?
Gee, I never would've guessed!

In theory, this leads to hilarious mix-and-match insults frequently taking a turn for the absurd. In practice, the game’s greatest weakness is that it randomizes the bank of options on each turn, so not only is it fairly difficult to build something that’s satisfactory (or hits the enemy’s button), but you can also have pieces of sentences be taken by your opponent before you could grab them, so there is some strategy involved. As far as I know, the only non-randomized pieces are subjects from insults thrown in the previous round, probably to make repetition combos easier to achieve.

Do most of the insults make sense? No.
Are they complete non sequiturs? Yes.
Are they funny? Hell yes.

This game’s fine, it has a pretty comical art style and tone befitting its nature (and the Monty Python references are so common it might as well be an unofficial game adaptation!), and is a pretty unique (if imperfect) idea overall. The randomness of the pieces of sentence can work against the player, some mechanics are tricky to make the best use of, and most insults you’ll come up with won’t make any sense. That said, there’s a few single-player modes (quick play, and a short Tournament mode) as well as multiplayer options, and a handful of characters and scenes to unlock. The biggest flaw with the game may be that, in spite of its attempt at having a lot of stuff to craft insults with and some variety with characters and settings, it’s not too long until you’ve seen most of what the game has to offer.

The game costs 1.99$USD, or 1.59£. A sequel is available, subtitled The Hollywood Roast, featuring people from the more American side of entertainment, and that one has a free DLC adding famous YouTubers and Twitch streamers to the insult-o-thon.

Quick Review: The Maze Escaper

I’m not a-maze-d.

Created by Pritesh Singh and released on August 3rd, 2020, The Maze Escaper is, well… exactly what it says on the tin. You escape mazes. Why? How did you end in there? What’s the purpose of the mazes? Why are there robots in the mazes? Why are you also a robot in the maze? Why do you have time powers? There’s little to no context whatsoever.

Oh hey Mister Roboto, how's it goin-
Crap, he's running at me now!

Move with WASD, jump with the Spacebar, look around and aim with the mouse and shoot with a Left-click. The only other ability you have involves slowing down time by pressing the T key, which slows everything down, yourself included; however it gives you time to aim better to kill the other robots. You have Life Points, a number going down starting at 100, and an Energy gauge; shooting and slowing time costs Energy, but collecting silver spheres refills it by several thousands. To beat a level and open its portal, you have to fill the gauge up to a certain value of Energy by grabbing spheres, then find the way towards the exit of the maze, all while avoiding or killing enemy robots. For those, I’ve seen only two types: Red ones, which shoot lasers from a distance, and brown ones, which come close and attack with punches.

Oh great, there's more of those.

Little to no music, yet someone still pulled
the old disco balls out of the 70s.

Music? Pretty much nonexistent. Gameplay? As far as I can tell, it never varies. There’s a second mode focused on survival around a giant maze, but the 30 levels from the base game are, I assume, pretty much the same throughout. The game’s environments also never change; always the same walls, often transparent. Since there’s no way to differentiate any maze walls from each other, your only way of figuring out where to go next is to use the map in the upper-right corner of the screen, which  was shrunk down poorly for the screen so walls often don't appear on it. Sure, the time of day changes, and the sunsets and sunrises lead to a different feel/ambiance in some levels, but it’s still the same damn grey walls. Over and over.

Finally the exit! ...Damn it, I don't have enough
energy to open it. Back into the maze I go!
...*sigh*

Easy to reach the podium when there are
so few competitors.

Really, the lack of substance and the repetitiveness of it all is what sinks this game down. At the very least, the graphics are very good, but it means very little when there isn’t good gameplay to back it up. And it seems most people had the same thought, as the game has leaderboards for each level, so players can compare with others on how many points they ended each level on; Level 1 has seven entries, Level 2 is down to three. Says it all. There’s just nothing to really hook someone into playing further.

For full disclaimer, I actually won this game in a Twitch streamer’s raffle, so I didn’t pay for it. I really don’t recommend you pay for this game, not at its original price tag of 19.99$ USD, not even when its price is cut down by 90%, to 1.99$. This feels like a game made by someone testing the tools to make something basic, but functional. This is Pritesh Singh’s only game for now, as well, so perhaps they are planning to make new games that will better catch one’s attention. I encourage them to keep going.

Quick Review: Light Fall

It’s dark, but light is peeking through.

Mere minutes in and I was already wowed.

A creation of Bishop Games (a Quebec indie studio) released on April 26th, 2018, Light Fall is the tale of an amnesiac boy in the land of Numbra, perpetually shrouded in darkness. The boy soon meets an elderly owl named Stryx who, at first, reluctantly joins the quest, only to show interest when the little guy unlocks a powerful ability, tied to this world and its lore. A magical cube, the Shadow Core, which the mysterious kid is capable of summoning at will and use for a large number of situations. And he’ll need that power, as great forces from the opposing kingdom of Eternium, symbolized by deadly pink crystals, seek to take over…

I’ve played a lot of platformers, both regular and of the puzzle variety, and this one brings to the table an idea that I don’t recall seeing elsewhere. The basic controls involve moving with WASD, jumping with the Spacebar and running by holding down the left Shift key. The little hero can jump, but he can also jump on walls. In the first acts, our protagonist gains access to four abilities, all of which involve the Shadow Core, which you manipulate in different ways… using the arrow keys.

This cube is the best shield I've ever seen!

Left key attack: Destroy the poisonous wasps!

-Down key: The most frequent use, in which the square will appear as a platform right under the player character’s feet, thus allowing to keep a running/jumping stride;

-Up key: Summon the block, and then place it somewhere in order to use as a stationary platform or to shield from a few hazards, such as lasers. Later, it can even be used to make invisible platforms appear;

-Left key: The only mode of attack, the square is hurled forward in the direction the character is facing. Necessary to kill enemies and destroy or temporarily stop other hazards;

-Right key: The final ability you learn, the block will stay in place in front of the character, and it can thus be used either as a shield against hazards or as a temporary wall to wall-jump off of. Of note, the Down and Right key skills are limited to four uses in midair, after which you must land on solid ground to reset the count.

With the blocks, you can cross most gaps,
and jump repeatedly without breaking stride.

Per these mechanics, it’s not just possible to achieve some pretty impressive platforming feats, it’s encouraged! To the point where the game comes with a bonus speedrun mode. The base game’s difficulty ramps up considerably in the last levels, so you’ll need a lot of practice to pull through.

Not challenged enough? You can look for all of the villagers imprisoned in crystals, and set them free with a blast using the Left key. You can also look for golden stones, grab them, and carry them back to a checkpoint to get bonus lore about the game. The checkpoints in a level will helpfully indicate how many of each you can find. Be prepared, though; many of them are hidden behind tough trials.

Then again, some of the imprisoned people
are just tricky to find, period. At least they're
easy to rescue.

The game does get really hard later on. These
energy spheres? The red ones spin around
and keep growing and shrinking. It's not even
close to the final levels.

Visually, the game’s pretty unique; most of the platforms and characters are made of complete darkness, only showing minimal white details, like eyes or the owl’s “mustache”; hazards, noteworthy items, and backgrounds are colored, but the actual focus of gameplay is pretty much shrouded in darkness. And every single screen is beautiful. Music’s great as well. I can’t say the story is its most memorable aspect, but it’s fine and presented by gorgeous cutscenes. Gameplay is solid; on top of the kid’s regular abilities, the Shadow Core as a mechanic opens a lot of possibilities, all of which are taken advantage of by the devs. It takes a moment to adapt to using the arrow keys for effects, but one can manage pretty well. Add some collection side-quests, several levels that tweak the formula for new challenges and some stunning moments and scenes, and what we’ve got is a pretty great platformer overall, that I recommend, though I feel the game may be a bit on the short side.

Light Fall is available on Steam for 14.99 USD.

Quick Review: Legend of Mysteria

Welcome back to my unofficial sub-series about RPG Maker games! Today: Another intriguing blend of genres!

Well, that sets the tone!

Developed by Labyrinthine and published by Senpai Studios, Legend of Mysteria is an entry in the Labyronia RPG Maker game series, also made by Labyrinthine. In this one, released on October 9th, 2015, we follow a tale of a murder most foul in Mysteria Tower. Dinyon, a Demigod soon to take the throne to officially become a deity for the element of earth, is murdered in the middle of prayer, in front of a crowd. The assassin attempts an escape but is killed by a fire spell, but not before claiming to have been hired by Windir, an air mage present. Captured and treated as a murderer, Windir now has to clear his name by sneaking around, figuring out the actual culprit, and perhaps finding some allies for this quest.

Okay... To progress the plot, I'll have to anyway.

So, standard RPG Maker fare, right? Well, not quite. Battling takes a backseat in the first half. In its place, we have a greater focus on puzzle, exploration, and investigation, adopting the codes we more commonly see in an entirely different genre: Point-and-click. Find the items you need, and see how they further the plot. Hope you like reading, as you’ll gather several books. Some of those detail the twelve suspects, three per element. Other books and papers found during this quest can be used to learn more about this world, its inhabitants, and what each of them is planning. To find the culprit, inspecting everything is mandatory.

There are 10 more suspects, each with a page
like this.

We're controlling wizards (and a dragon).
Magic's the way to go for offense, they suck
at attacking physically.

The game timidly returns to its RPG roots in the second half, outside of the Tower and into the town of Labyronia, where wizards are captured on-sight and burned at the stake. (Meaning that if you walk in with a wizard robe on, it’s an instant game over.) The point-and-click aspect is still present, but combat is more frequent. However, without a level-up system, neither Windir nor his eventual allies get any stronger on their own, so they must rely on equipment and skills, which makes battles much harder. The quest of clearing the name and finding the culprit is still present, but the story takes more turns, many of which artificially lengthen the game’s duration. You can return to the Tower of Mysteria with a spell; however, if you need to go back to Labyronia, the road is long and tedious.

Gee, is it me or Labyronia is... a bit of a maze??
*ba-dum-tss* All joking aside, I have the other
Labyronia games, so I will find out why the city
has bottomless pits and is shaped like a maze.

Solve the crime you're accused of,
snitch on other crimes while you're at it.

Cool idea, this one! Not something I’ve seen done in an RPG Maker title before. Or, at the very least, if point-and-click-like quests exist in other titles, I’ve never seen it to that extent. From my own brief experience coding with the software, I can tell you that it takes a special script in order to have the point-and-click feel of having to show the right item to the right person to get the plot to progress. I’ve already discussed my gripes with the plot; I think expanding the scope of the world is nice, but it does lead to annoyances. Also, a lot of the necessary information is in the books you find, so you may need to frequently reread the stuff in your inventory, especially in order to figure out which book you must show to which character or how to solve a few puzzles.

The list of tools is nothing. The list of books is
so long you'd need a vertical scrolling bar.

Then again, that’s pretty standard for a point-and-click, in which you may end up stuck unless you take copious notes on everything that’s asked of you if you want to progress. Quests do pile up over time, making it tricky to remember what you need to do. The game is already pretty great as it is, but I know there are scripts that exist to include a quest tracker to the pause menu, and this title would have greatly benefited from one.

Putting my issues aside, I feel this is another great example of what can be done with RPG Maker; sure it doesn’t hit perfect notes, but it’s a creative title presenting a complex and intriguing story, with a pretty good length. It blends genres and features interesting characters and gameplay elements. If RPG Maker titles are your thing or you have some interest in creating your own game with the software, it’s an excellent demonstration of what it can do at its best.

Another sign doesn't lie: Look at the quantity of
scenery elements that have been put in every
single map in the game; it shows that the one
who made this game had great attention to detail.
Even the sunray had to be added in this screen!

Legend of Mysteria is currently available for 0.49$ USD.

Quick Review: Kill It With Fire

Suffering from arachnophobia? This is NOT the game for you. Do you hate spiders with a passion, and love to crush those little buggers? This IS the game for you.

It's time to kill. Preferably with fire.

Developed by Casey Donnellan Games LLC, published by tinyBuild and released on August 13th, 2020, Kill It With Fire puts you in the shoes of an arachnid exterminator. This being a video game, you can work that task diligently… but it’s more likely that you’ll fulfill that contract by causing MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF DAMAGE to everything in the area. The base controls is moving around with WASD, attacking with a left click of the mouse, pulling up the spider radar with a right click, reloading some weapons with R and changing your weapon loadout with Q. The most important button is E, through which you can grab an item and then spin it around to view it from all angles and spot a hidden spider. Stuff on shelves, portraits on the walls, under the pillows, on the interior side of the toilet cover… Sure, you can use your radar to roughly know where the spiders are, but you still have to find them!

Oh, and little white spider-babies, too.

As for weapons, you start out with the very clipboard you use to keep track of missions within each environment, but you quickly get your hands on a lighter-boosted spray can (Kill It With Fire indeed), and various firearms. Your targets are small and skitter, so your aim better be good. Twenty or so items can be found to better kill spiders, including cheese puffs that can lure spiders out of hiding for easy kills… but can also make them stronger.

But something’s off. Some of those spiders are… weird. I mean, I can’t speak from experience (I started doing this gig an hour ago), but I don’t think it’s normal for those red and black spiders to split into four, smaller, white spiders when they’re killed… Yeah, that’s fishy. I wonder if there’s any link with those Omega Files I’ve been seeing around the rooms… Fuck me, one spider exploded shortly after I killed it!

You can call me Mr. Frying Pan. And now I'd like you to
meet my friend, who is also a frying pan.

In each level, you must kill a number of spiders to open the door to the exit, but you also have extra missions (an example from the first level: Kill a spider by throwing a book at it). If you complete all of a level’s missions, you unlock a special one called the Arachno-Gauntlet which involves, you guessed it, killing more spiders, albeit with a set weapon. Then, you can look for multiple secrets, such as the Omega Files mentioned earlier; these reveal the greater story. Yep, this silly game has lore.

The household wasn't gonna need those
crops, was it?

And the black-and-yellow ones can do this,
now? Nobody told me being an exterminator
was gonna be this friggin' hard!

A simple style of CGI presenting 10 environments to explore, a decent number of spiders with different abilities to battle (and causing the occasional jump scare), and an even greater number of ways to smash, burn, explode or eliminate them. It’s hilarious to destroy absolutely everything around as you try to get the little buggers to die at last. New weapons, equipment upgrades, and loads of bonus stuff to look for help keep the game fresh to a point, and so do the quests and additional challenges. Still, the base gameplay still involves picking up items to find hidden spiders, which may start to feel repetitive after a bit. I’m bad at aiming at these tiny targets with any of the firearms made available (but, y’know, that may just be a Me problem). Besides, that’s what the spray and lighter are for. Some of the strike weapons (the clipboard, the frying pan, etc.) seemed to glitch occasionally, getting caught in an attack animation loop, thus, not striking the target unless you switched to something else (weapon or radar). Finally, the game is surprisingly CPU-intensive, meaning that many computers will need to run it at the lowest quality setting (affectionately called “potato”), unless players want it slowed to a crawl.

It’s pretty great. Just don’t play it if you suffer from arachnophobia, okay?

Kill It With Fire is available on Steam for 14,99$ USD.

Quick Review: JumpJet Rex

Okay, but hear me out: T-rex with jet shoes.

Astronaut Rex, reporting for duty!

A creation of TreeFortress Games released on April 21st, 2015, JumpJet Rex is the story of Rex, from a group of dinosaurs that evolved to space-travel. However, a meteor threatens Earth and the unevolved dino brethren, so Rex has to travel across the universe to blow the meteor up before it strikes the pale blue dot. Rex must float through several levels and collect stars in order to reach the planet.

This game can be played using only the keyboard or a mix of keyboard and mouse. Rex relies on his shoes for all transportation, moving left or right; he can hop, or float upwards; the first is slower but easier to control, the second is faster but more unwieldy. Rex can dash in either direction, which can be used to defeat some enemies or speed through obstacles; the dash also creates a blast in the opposite direction. Last but not least, the tyrannosaurus can do a spin attack.

Spikes, robots and lasers, of my!

This game is mainly a platformer, though a handful of levels feel almost like mini-game challenges. In a level, Rex has to reach the finish line, which can only be accessed after he’s passed through a certain number of rings; if you forgot one and the door doesn’t open, there are instances where you might just have to start the level over.

Two down, one more to go!
Can Rex beat the timer?

In order to progress, Rex collects stars. Each level has three stars: One is earned by beating the level, another by beating the level without dying, and a third by beating the level within a time limit. Ah, good old speedrun-like challenges. Out of 129 stars spread across 43 levels, he has to collect 89 to get to the final boss. On top of that, every level also contains a hidden treasure to look for, which will then be added to the Dinonaut Base, and also bonus stages. Last but not least, each level is packed with coins to collect, and you can use that money in the few shops on the way to unlock new outfits or appearances for Rex, many of which are classic video game references. A Mario head anyone?

I've died 100 times already, it's only appropriate
that I buy a halo for my head.

You can even race your previous self to try
and beat your previous best time!

The concept is deceptively simple, but DAMN does it get insanely difficult past the midway point. Some levels are still relatively easy enough that you might beat them without losing a life and within the goal time without even trying (it’s happened to me a couple times), but some levels make it much more difficult. There are levels that are genuine tests of patience, in which you must maneuver Rex through tight passages – passages only as wide as one block, sometimes with spikes on the walls/blocks above and beneath. One pixel too high or too low, and you can kiss that “no-death” star goodbye. Some levels don’t even have checkpoints!

As a bonus, the game includes two multiplayer modes: One is PvP, including player battles or races around existing levels. On the opposite end, there’s a co-op mode where players can help each other in clearing levels. On top of that, in single-player, each level keeps track of the player’s time and ranking, comparing it to every other player’s.

So clean and pretty, from a distance you might
not even be able to tell it's 16bit.

Did I mention it gets really damn hard later on?
I'm not showing the final level, that one is
just... goddamn brutal.

When I really enjoy a game, I try to see it to the end, even for my Quick Reviews. This one has great music, looks awesome in its 16-bit glory, a fully-customizable character, plenty of multiplayer stuff, and offers a great challenge that’s not too bad at first, but goes through pretty intense spikes after a while, to the point of becoming quite unforgiving. The game is offered in two difficulties: Easy, in which Rex can survive one hit before actually dying, and Normal, in which Rex dies as soon as he’s hit. Beating the game opens an even harder difficulty where your lives are limited to 3. (For the record, I died over 500 times while playing through this one…)

I’d say it’s worth checking out. Especially if you seek something along the lines of a collect-a-thon, or  a speedrun-friendly platformer title. Either way, if you start playing this one, good luck – if you want to see it to the end, you’re gonna need it!

JumpJet Rex is available for 9.99$ USD.

Quick Reviews will resume next week!

Alright, I just wanted to make a couple of quick announcements today:

- It's been a hot minute since the last proper article, hasn't it? Well, sorry about that. Things have been a bit hectic in my life, mostly due to work. So I had a lot on my mind, but I've still done my best to squeeze in a little bit of playtime for the upcoming reviews. I also figured I was better off getting a very decent number of reviews at the ready, so that I don't have to take another week off mid-series to rebuild a buffer. The result? I have 9 reviews ready (just need to spellcheck them and add images) with only 6 games left to play for this set. Starting Monday, I'll be posting 3 Quick Reviews a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and this should go on for 5 weeks.

- I'm still hoping to dedicate a month to Ubisoft games, perhaps the Rayman series in particular since I have a couple of the games on UPlay; hopefully I can find the time to play these games and write these reviews and, if all goes well, maybe start posting them around the end of October/start of November.

- This wasn't part of the original plan, but after the end-of-cycle Top 12 article that should follow the UPlay Rayman game reviews, I probably will take the rest of the year either reviewing video game movies (those have started to pile up a fair bit in my film collection) or try to knock out some quickly-played games that I own for the Wii. We'll see.

That's all for now. See you on Monday!