Quick Review: KilaFlow (Demo)

Kila: Cyberspace explorer. Antivirus. Sometimes, gymnast.

I don’t usually review demos on Steam, because there would be way too much to cover (and my backlog’s already massive enough as is!), but this once, I’m going to make an exception. Why? Today’s game had a successful Kickstarter campaign that I donated to, and I know its creator, so this is my way of giving it a little bit more visibility.

KilaFlow is a creation of Mason “Chaoko” Hardison. When I backed the Kickstarter, the game’s release window was estimated to be at the end of 2024, but it has been pushed forward to early 2025, as the stretch goal reached includes the addition of two extra worlds. Greater beta testing for backers is also being rolled out.

Gotta pose for the picture every time you hit an enemy
you've already debugged. "Cheese!"

What is KilaFlow about? It’s Kila, a cat-shaped, CRT-screen-headed antivirus program. The software jumps through levels filled with orange-colored enemies, indicating that they’ve been corrupted by a virus. When bounced on or touched by Kila when it spins or runs very fast, those enemies turn blue, indicating that they’ve been "cured". And you’re playing an antivirus, so it should be your focus, right? Kila is aided by TippClip, a personal assistant who’s a few branches off in Clippy’s family tree; it will provide helpful advice, but it will react if you annoy it.

High-flying! Wheeeee!

KilaFlow features extra platforming mechanics that you’ll need to master early on if you want to do the job properly. (The page recommends you play with a controller, but all I have is the keyboard, so:) Kila moves with WASD and jumps with Space. Press the Left-click button to bounce, sending Kila downwards so it can jump back up, or press the Right-click to spin, which can be done both on the ground and in midair.

-Vaporwave intensifies-

On the ground, spinning causes Kila to shift “gears”; it starts at 0, “Bit”, and goes up to 1, “Byte”, then to 2, “Kilo”, the fastest. 0 is slow but good for precise platforming, 1 is the right balance, 2 is very fast but difficult to control. However, keeping Kila’s higher speeds is tricky, as it will go down a gear if it stops moving or slows down.

This entire set of abilities also comes with a few bonus skills. Spinning lets Kila stay in midair longer. You can Bounce while holding down the Spin button to jump even higher from a bounce. Even better, with Flowbouncing, you can Spin right after bouncing off something to reach even greater heights.

Starting in World 1, the game even toys with perspective!

Provirus? ...Well, if the antivirus gig doesn't work out,
Kilo's still got a future in personal training.

The Tutorial, World 0, teaches you the basics and tricks, and ends on a boss battle. The Demo also includes World 1, a bonus level, and a boss battle. The main goal is to get to the end, but there are many additional challenges. If you cure every enemy in the level, you get an Antivirus award; if you reach the end without getting hurt once, you get the Efficient award; if you reach the end really fast, the key you get at the end of the level will be silver or gold-colored instead! Or you can do the opposite and reach the end without curing even a single enemy, which grants the Provirus award, which also comes with its own silver and gold times, so that’s even more stuff to hunt for.

Oh, and did I mention the alternate costumes? So many alternate looks for Kila, you wouldn’t believe.

If Kila is the Sonic, that's the Shadow.

It knows how to be cute. Kila, I mean. But the robo-dog too.

Completionists will have their work cut out for them. With all the options it offers, I bet speedrunners will have a field day with this one. You can tell there’s a fair bit of inspiration from platforming classics, be it Sonic or Crash Bandicoot. The original plan was for eight worlds, but the stretch goal for two more was reached. Levels are mostly short and quick, but the game gets challenging fast even if you’re not looking for every award. Kila has 4 HP, but I haven't seen any healing items and I don't think there's much in the way of mercy invincibility, so the test of skill is real, especially if you're hunting those Efficient awards. It’s not an easy game to learn, and it’s even more difficult to master.

Keep an eye on this one. I do look forward to the final product. And in the meantime, I can say I’ve done my part to spread the word!

Steam Pack 1

So, now that I have a Steam account, I can discuss games that are available to the entire Steam community. Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy these games. I simply hope these quick reviews either encourage you to try these games for yourself, or convince you to never try them. Once again, fairness is my rule; I have to be honest with the games I’ll be reviewing. This means that if there’s something I don’t like, I’ll point it out, regardless of the game’s current score. Same if there’s something I enjoy. Take my opinion with a grain of salt; it’s just my opinion, and it’s not like I nearly have enough influence to sway large crowds to the way I view these games. If any game deserves a longer review, I will reserve a whole post (or multiple posts) to it.

AdVenture Capitalist

Not much there is to say about this one: It’s an Idle game, so basically you can leave it running in the background while you’re doing something else, and that’s pretty much the only reason this game will rack up more playtime than any other game in your collection.

Novemseptuagintillion? That's... 79illion!

You start on Earth; you are a new hopeful young investor, and you start building your empire with lemonade stands. Then, once you get richer, you get to sell newspapers. Over time, you become the owner of car washes, pizza places, donut shops, shrimp boats, hockey teams, movie studios, banks and oil companies. Every upgrade to each investment gets more expensive, so as time goes on you end up having to pay millions, even billions or trillions to get more money from each investment. After a while, you might start collecting Angel Investors; those appear to you after a while and will join your “team” when you reset. Each angel gives a 2% cash bonus to all investments, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but at 50 Angels, you already double your profits. Not to mention that after a while, you’ll also end up with millions, billions, trillions of angels… while you’ve reached decillions, undecillions, duodecillions in cash… Yeah, all clickers do that. They reach crazy numbers, all the way to the goggle (1 followed by 100 zeros). It went that way with Cookie Clicker, it went that way for Clicker Heroes (except for that one, the characters’ Damage also went crazy high).

This trtip to Mars better be worth it.
It cost me a freaking trillion, after all.

After you’ve collected a few trillions, you can unlock the Moon and Mars. They need 72 hours to open, though. However, once they’re open, you now have access to three Idles in one. The Moon has a slower rhythm in the rise of investments, mostly due to the bizarre way some investments increase in value later on. Meanwhile. Mars appears to start slow but rises very quickly after a moment, so chances are that you’ll finish Mars first, then the Moon, and finally you’ll be left to complete Earth.

There’s a bunch of ways to have the investments rise faster: Buying tickets, each approximately 1000 times more expensive than the previous one. You can convert 10 tickets into a Golden Ticket, which will add a X7 multiplier to one investment. If all of a planet’s investments are boosted that way, you can pay more tickets to boost the whole planet even further. Then, if you’ve got money to waste, you can spend some of your real-life cash to get much-needed boosts through Gold Bars. But of course, that’s only if you really want to… Like a lot of free-to-play idle games where buying with real money is only an option, a time comes where the game doesn’t pick up enough speed unless you do grab some real-life cash.

Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean you have to
stop making money. Many companies make MORE
money around Christmas anyway.

Of course, because three idles in one aren’t already addictive enough, AdVenture Capitalist’s developer, hyperhippo, will often release special events that may allow you to get more free gold bars, more money, and so on.

As addictive as this game may be, you know it’s an idle clicker game, so no matter how long you spend playing this game, there will never be much of an actual payoff. You can hope for one, but the truth is that you will probably never get any. But it goes with the genre, so you should be expecting that. It’s really something that you can only see as a little time-waster, or something to run in the background while you’re doing other stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you prefer actual games, then you should just skip this one.

Current price: Free-to-play. (Pay-to-win?)

Adventurer Manager

For a town with a castle, it's pretty damn empty.

In this retro-styled pen-and-paper tabletop RPG recreation, you are given the task to rise an army of heroes and send them on various quests. Everything has to be taken into consideration: The positions of your characters in battle, their endurance, their class (spellcasters and archers at the back, smashers and fighters at the front!), the perks you obtain by upgrading your castle, the power of the monsters encountered, the equipment, the special moves, the stats… It’s a LOT of stuff to keep in mind. This emulates pretty closely the feeling you’d get from a regular tabletop RPG. However, in this case, you have no limit to the number of adventurers you can have – although you can split them into multiple teams and send them on various missions.

At least there's quite a bit of adventuring to do here.

The 8bit art is pretty good, but sometimes confusing. Since everything is done in the same style, it’s often difficult to know where every character is. Another problem I’ve run into when playing is that the content of the window seems to be bigger than the resolution on my screen, so in the case of a full enemy party, the last enemy is slightly out of the frame.

I should also say that not many things are explained to the player. You can hire as many adventurers as you want, but you have no say on their original stats, and you can only choose whether you want a man, a woman, or if the gender doesn’t matter (I always pick that option, because all the adventurers in this game are nondescript enough. For the record, my highest-level character is a bearded dwarf woman, and she kicks all asses). On top of that, many stats are abbreviated, and you might not always know what each stat is, or what they affect in the game.

That's one overbearing enemy there.

It’s a pretty tough game to get into if you’ve never played tabletop RPGs, and even if you have, sometimes you might not be sure how to get everything to go as it’s supposed to. The game saves automatically, so don’t be afraid to lose progress. A lot of effort was also put in the game when it comes to the 8bit sprites of the characters, as all unlockable characters have sprites that change when you add or remove equipment from them.

All in all, this game isn’t terrible, but I’m afraid I am not accustomed enough to all these factors, and I don’t find a lot of interest in it. Some interfaces could have been polished or ameliorated. The RPG elements are alright, and so is the Management Sim aspect, but the two combined might not be to everyone’s tastes.

Current price: 4.99$ USD

Airscape: The Fall of Gravity

Pits? They are the least of your troubles.
Let's just say we won't run out of laser-roasted squid
on our plates anytime soon.

A little family of squids gets abducted from their calm reef by aliens. Next thing we know, an orange one finds itself able to live outside of water, with a helmet filled with water on its head, and it must navigate dangerous levels filled with booby traps, mines, and hateful robots. Would all be fine and good, if this squid didn’t have only one hit point… but don’t worry, we have endless reserves.

Take the elastic gravity of Mario Galaxy and apply it to a 2D platformer where the screen rotates with the character. Add to this water sections, a lot of parts requiring timing and precision, and you get a devilish little game that will be a joy to play – as long as you don’t get fed up with the difficulty, anyway – and a pleasure to watch. This game looks great. The octopi are well-defined, the opponents look very alien. The soundtrack is pretty cool, too; the current level theme gets drowned out a bit when the character goes underwater, which is a neat idea.

It's all an elaborate death trap. The robots are not
enough? Here's lasers! Not enough? Here's missiles!
Not enough? Suspended mines!

There’s a part of puzzle to this game, as you have to retrieve up to three spheres in every level, some of which are fairly well hidden. There are timers on some of those spheres, so even if you, say, manage to save yourself with a checkpoint, if you don’t get to that sphere in time, you’re better off restarting the level. As a One Hit Point Wonder, you have to avoid every single thing on the way. Some reviews call this game the Dark Souls of platforming, and… I freaking believe them. Holy crap this game is hard. To borrow the catchphrase of the Dark Sould community, you damn better Git Gud. You can easily die upwards of a thousand times here, if you aim to beat the game’s 60+ levels. And of course, you also need to find all the secret levels… Of course, you don’t need to rely on a single squid, you can unlock four more as you progress, and each of them has a special ability; as an example, the purple one can hover.

To reach these floating islands, you have to pass under
the lasers below, avoid a lot of robots... Just wait, later
levels also have fireballs!

You can play this with your gamepad or your keyboard, so that’s nice. Arm yourself with a lot of patience and determination, because you won’t be beating this one anytime soon. Especially if you attempt to get all spheres and find all hidden levels!

It’s a good game, even though I’m pretty sure I will never be able to beat it. It’s a cool idea that is well-executed – all you need is the motivation to carry through after all the lives lost. I would say that the scree always spins to follow the change of gravity of the octopi, and that could be dizzying for the player – or sickening, perhaps. There’s a lot of material to keep a player busy here. Looks great, music’s nice… perhaps a tad too expensive, if you’re not sure you’ll play it long enough to justify the price, maybe you should wait for a reduction.

Current price: 9.99$ USD

Auditorium

It's like a more complex form of the light-redirection
puzzles in some games.

A music game unlike any other! Auditorium is truly a unique experience. In this puzzle game, each level has a stream of unheard music coming out from an area, like a wind of notes. You are given circles with arrows in them, and when these circles touch the stream, whatever notes met that circle will go in the direction of the arrow. You need to bring that stream of notes into containers, which will play the music as it passes into or near them. You can’t change the directions of the arrows, but you can move them around at will and resize the circle around them, affecting the beam of music slightly… or drastically.

Soon enough, we are introduced to colored bubbles and colored containers, and the music must be colored in those bubbles before it passes into the containers of the corresponding colors. Most of the puzzle is, where do I place these, and how big must I make them? Also, what are those new bubbles? As it turns out, after every set of 5 levels we get a new gameplay mechanic, which you must then adapt to. Bubbles that make the music spin around? Sure. Unmovable dots that split the music stream? Eeyup. Bubbles that speed up the music stream to make it reach its destination faster? Indeed. Double-color containers? Yep. Portals? Why the Heck not?

And all this time, a world’s music never ends. The musical tracks add themselves to the mix as you fill the containers. The only way to get the whole orchestration of the tune is to complete a level. There are 15 worlds in this game, and it’s an experience more than anything else.

One of the advantages is that since many puzzles have more than one solution, sometimes you can find a solution that omits one or another of the bubbles, and yet the end result still works. Unfortunately, for many of these puzzles, you will need to do some mind gymnastics to figure out where the flow is going to pass. Let’s see, the flow orbits around in this bubble, will get into that colored circle, then hit that container, only to go into a portal and hitting the other side, another color bubble, to a container, then it’s back in the portal, then that thing will speed it up, and then this one will send it back and I just went cross-eyed.

By world 7, this is what the playing field looks like.
Whoa.

The puzzles are incredibly well thought-out and complex, forcing you to think outside the box frequently. The downside is that sometimes you need excellent precision when placing the bubbles. Every pixel seems to count in some puzzles. The visuals are wonderful, so much color speeding left and right and around the screen. And the resulting music is simply fantastic. You earn that amazing orchestral track.

The game contains over 60 levels, so if you feel like trying something unique, go ahead and play this game. It doesn’t have any additional modes, and if you’re really smart you can beat it in 3, maybe 4 hours. It’s a neat game to play between the bigger, more famous titles.

Current Price: 6.99$ USD

Alright, so these were four games I wanted to talk about but couldn’t dedicate an entire post for. I’ll be making more Steam Pack articles later on. Next week, I will finally release that long review of Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. Be sure to tune in!

Demo Review 50: lilt line

Final demo review! When we start lilt line, we get to a menu that shows 15 levels with interesting names, though only the first one, TRAINING, is open. We start this, and find out how the game works; you are following a line going in a colored section of the screen. Everything else is black. The point is to prevent the line from hitting the borders, which is achieved by turning the Wii remote held horizontally towards the screen or towards you. Whenever you hit a wall, you lose points. After a moment, you reach a section with lit-up parts, and you have to press 2 when the line reaches these parts to follow a beat. However, if you press the 2 button anywhere outside of these lit-up sections, you lose points.

This sounds like a BIT.TRIP game without anything that features Pixel Boy. But hey, I don't mind.

If you run out of points, you lose! Yeah, that’s all. Hey, I still got to Level 4! That’s where things got really hard, what with the walls of pure blackness taking more and more places, and me having to be quicker to spin the Wii remote in my hands to avoid them… also, the passages became narrower, and whenever lit-up sections appeared, there would be a few of them in a row, and I had to perfectly time my button presses and Wii remote movements! This got pretty difficult.

That’s really all there is to say about this game, maybe there was more later on to discuss, but that’s where I got. This game is simple and abstract, but it’s easy to learn. My sole complaint is that the actual tutorial began after I started banging the line into walls, thus before I could figure out how this thing worked. I would have liked a tutorial that had played before getting tossed into action. Other than that, this is a game that requires precision in turning the Wii remote, as well as good timing.

That’s really all there is to say about this one. Oh, yeah, I also really liked the names given to the levels, though I can’t remember all of them, I know one was titled “SRPNT” and another “BETAMAX”, and one of the earlier levels was called… um… “BICYCLE”, I think? Yeah.

So yeah, try it, try to see if you like it, and if you like it, buy it. That’s it.

…That’s it!

This was the last demo review! I’m done reviewing the Wii Shop Channel’s demos now! In a way, I am happy, as this was a lot of work. Also, this has let me try out many games I would have never thought about otherwise, and this has let me find games that I might be interested in buying later. I hope this month did the same for you. See you in 2016, and until then, stay awesome.

Demo Review 49: Cave Story

A WiiWare remake of a Windows game for the WiiWare, played by holding the Wii remote horizontally like a controller. Cave Story is the story of a human soldier, Quote, who falls in an underground village inhabited by rabbits; their numbers keep on decreasing because of a mysterious entity, the Doctor – not a heroic one who travels in a police box, mind you – who has been kidnapping girls from the village, and killing the others. We assist to the kidnapping of one of the rabbit girls by a human sorceress named Misery and a robot-like creature named Balrog, and we can even battle said robot. Afterwards, we report back to the chief of the village, who lets Quote into the graveyard where their hero lies. There, we battle mushroom creatures and a knife-wielding monster, and we get a key that opens the door to said hero’s house. We get in there and activate a teleporter that brings us to a Hall with numerous numbered eggs. There’s also a real armada of flying enemies there, so navigating is difficult. And don’t get me started on the insta-kill thing at the bottom of the screen!

I tried to get to the end of the demo twice and gave up. I got killed, both times, by the thing at the bottom of the screen in the Egg Hall. And each time, I had to start everything over. Everything! Now, this is just a demo, so I was probably close to the end anyway.

The controls are simple, really; 2 to jump, 1 to shoot, left and right to move around, Start to open the inventory, and Down to speak to the rabbits, find objects, or activate things. The weapon has a pretty cool mechanic, too, in that when you defeat enemies, triangles may appear; collecting them will level up your weapon (to a max level of 3), allowing you to deal more damage. Getting hurt, however, makes you lose weapon experience, leading to a possible downgrade if you're not careful.

I really liked it. Even though I probably didn’t get very far, I must say I greatly enjoyed the exploration aspect of this game – as small as it was in this demo. The concept is pretty great, and the story seems to be very complex – what a shame, though, that I cannot see more of it! You get used to the controls very quickly (though I’m so used to pressing Up to open doors that, at first, I had to tell myself to press Down instead). The pixel work is great. If I had money to spend, I’d probably buy Cave Story. Give it a try. Download the demo, play it. If you like the action platforming and the small RPG elements (such as the life bar), you might just love it. Then again, I see that Cave Story already has quite a following, so maybe I’m just late to join the fun.

Demo Review 48: BIT.TRIP FATE

At last, the final BIT.TRIP game! It was about time! This one tells us to use either the Classic controller, or the Wii remote with Nunchuk. Once again, we get an intro that makes no sense – and only makes a little bit more sense if you’ve discovered the order in which these games are supposed to be played – and then we’re tossed into the game.

This is a rail shooter mixed with a horizontal shoot’em up. The character, always the same pixelly guy with no features, follows a line on the screen as enemies come towards him. The tough part is that this guy cannot move away from the line, and said line has ups and downs, so you need to steer him (by moving the Nunchuk’s analog stick right to go forwards, or left to go backwards – all while pressing A to shoot). This is important to avoid the bullets, as even though the character’s weakness window is small (the heart), it’s still very easy to get hit there due to the bumps on the line the character follows.

The demo was pretty long, and went through at least two levels (I lost during the second level). The first level was already pretty tough, with the dozens of bullets that some enemies would shoot, bullets which were not always simple to avoid due to the line followed by Pixel Man. The game also includes power-ups in the form of Pixel Dude’s allies (some which are their separate video game characters, such as Meat Boy). Last but not least, the first level ended with a boss fight against a giant version of a previous enemy. It was pretty strong, but I managed to defeat it.

All in all, I consider this one of the stronger BIT.TRIP games. The art is more complex than in other parts of the series, though not to the extent of BIT.TRIP RUNNER, and the music is pretty good. The game offers quite a challenge, too, though it’s not nearly a rain of bullets as other shoot ‘em ups might be (and that’s understandable, as the main character here doesn’t have all the freedom of movement that regular shoot ‘em up characters have). It wasn’t nearly as frustrating as some of the other, more abstract BIT.TRIP games were. I’d say the enemies take too many hits before being defeated, however. Also, it’s not made clear from the start that the character is only hurt when struck to the heart (though, silly me, I should have known about the hitbox).

All in all, an okay game. Probably not enough to encourage me to buy any of the BIT.TRIP games, but at least it ends my look at the six-part series on a higher note. Go try the demo!

Demo Review 47: MotoHeroz

There goes another game I don’t like. MotoHeroz doesn’t really have a plot, although it seems to take place in a military program of sorts, which I don’t get since this appears to be a racing game. Not any kind of racing game, either; a platformer racer, where the entire point is to drive forwards – or backwards – and keep the motorbike balanced so that it doesn’t turn upside-down.

The first level teaches the basics – moving forward with 2, moving backwards with 1, repositioning the bike with Left or Right on the horizontal remote (in case it’s about to land upside down), using items with A. If, by a streak of bad luck or a missed landing, the bike falls upside-down, you must shake the Wii remote to bring it back on its wheels. Sounds simple so far? Oh, it gets tough. The mountainous areas this game takes place in are full of climbs and descents, and a bike going fast enough will fly off the road, which is why you need to always keep your wheels towards the ground. Easier said than done.

By level 3, the game introduces ghost racers that you must beat. Oh yeah, and you can’t skip them. You must always beat the ghost racer to get to the next level, and those fuckers are fast. Best case scenario, they’re gonna be very close to the goal when you reach it – and that's, of course, if you’re ahead. The difficulty is too great; the timing is too close. The ghost racer is too good compared to an average player. This is way too difficult. Plus, it takes a moment to get used to the physics. Also, if at any moment against a ghost racer you flip upside-down, you can pretty much kiss victory goodbye, as it will take too long to flip back up and resume the race. It’s a good thing that you can start over at will by pressing the – button on the Wii remote! The last level I played required to be good at both going forwards AND backwards, and needed some luck too. I just gave up.

I can understand if someone likes this game – it’s challenging alright, the 3D in the levels looks good, and the characters have funny proportions. Plus, the Tutorial is self-aware and cracks a few jokes at video game conventions (such as being unable to use more than one power-up at once). The controls also work well, but the problem here is that you’re not given enough time and levels to master them before they toss you into playing against a ghost racer. As a result, I really didn’t like the demo. But hey, that’s just me. Try it if you want. As for me, there’s no chance I’ll ever buy this game.

Demo Review 46: BIT.TRIP FLUX

Oh no, not those again! Let’s get this over with.

BIT.TRIP FLUX is another one of the six BIT.TRIP games, which are meant to be a musical arcade game if you were on an acid trip while playing. No really, that’s how they describe the whole thing.

I have no idea what the intro was supposed to represent. Too abstract for me.

As for the game itself, you’re a little white bar at the far right of the screen, and the point is to block the white squares – pixels – that are coming your way, by moving the bar up and down. How do you do that? By turning the Wii remote, held horizontally, on itself with your hands. Turn it towards the screen, the bar goes up, turn it towards you, the bar goes down. Basic controls, right? Yeah, except it’s very imprecise. Very easy to miss pixels with these controls.

The pixels appear. Some go in a straight line, though they don’t all come at the same speed. Sometimes, pixels will go in diagonal ways, bouncing off the top and bottom walls, and you need to judge where these things will be. Sometimes, big squares show up, and sometimes large white lines appear. Either way, you have to stop them in their tracks and push them back. Sometimes, a grey pixel will move on the screen at about the same pace as a white one; the grey is worth more points, but is it really worth it?

If you miss too many squares – and at one point, you will – you’ll end up with the game screen turning black and white. This means you’re about to lose, and the only way to get back to normal is to knock back enough squares. If you still can’t do that, game over.

That’s all I got to see, because I suck at those damn BIT.TRIP games. Seriously. I’m just terrible at those, and it must have reflected in these demo reviews. I mean, I understand the idea behind the games, and I like how the pixels are meant to turn into music as you knock them back, but no, this just isn’t for me. Just not a fan of those games. Go try them, and if you do like them, good for you. I just don’t. There’s still one BIT.TRIP game to try, I’ll review it soon then be done with them.

Demo Review 45: Jett Rocket

It was a sweet day for Jett Rocket, planetary inspector. Then evil arrived, in the form of a robot controlled by the Power Plant Posse! The robot attacked core elements of Jett’s ship, and then knocked it to send Jett falling down to the planet below. Jett lands in the water, where a dolphin explains that the PPP are planning to pollute the planet with putrid pollutants. Ooh, nice alliteration there. We get a tutorial where we learn Jett’s basic moves. By shaking the Wii remote, he tosses himself forward, kind of like Sonic the Hedgehog.  He can jump, and while in mid-air you can shake the Wii remote to make him do a ground pound, which can also target and hit large buttons on the ground or other items of interest. A generator on the atoll is repaired, letting Jett go back to his ship.

There, one world, the Atoll, is open. The other two require 200 and 550 solar cells to be unlocked, and the demo will not have enough. Oh well. Let’s try the first level. Here, Jett learns to use his jetpack to reach higher places; he also learns how to refuel it when needed. We also encounter the first PPP robots. Again, ramming into them is the key to victory. We also learn to look everywhere for solar cells, as there are many scattered around the level, and they are often well-hidden. At one point, a robot asks Jett to retrieve four batteries to power up a cannon disguised as a stone idol. Jett does so, then jumps in the cannon and is sent to the platforms that were previously too high for him to reach. We also get a section with helicopter blades, which can be used to reach higher ledges, as well as ventilators which serve a similar purpose. At the end of the level, Jett Rocket activates the generator, and returns to his base. End of demo.

What? After only one level? Aw, man!

I instantly liked this game. The CGI is very good, the music is catchy, and the plot, while simple, at least allows for an interesting gameplay. Truly, Shin’en Games (who also made Art of Balance) have a lesson to everyone who makes WiiWare games out there: Make good games. It doesn’t have to be complex, it can be a basic puzzle game idea or a little 3D platformer. But put some effort into it. Jett Rocket is often hailed as one of the best WiiWare titles, and it’s not difficult to see why.

You catch on quick when it comes to controlling the character. The whole thing has a slight Super Mario Galaxy vibe to it. The demo level is well-designed, including the secret sections where you can find solar cells or a 1-Up. This demo lets us try many features, and promises a lot more on the way. I wished it was longer, though. Maybe two levels instead of just one? I mean, outside of the Tutorial, of course… Oh well, I’m still very happy with what I got. The demo ending screen tells us about the many features of the complete product, and it all looks very fun; I might buy it once I have some money to spend on WiiWare titles.

If you have a Wii, try it. Seriously, try it. My guess is that you won’t be disappointed. It’s a short demo, perhaps too short, but if that’s my only complaint, this means we have a great game here.

Demo Review 44: Urbanix

After some very amateur-looking menus, we get to the game; you control your personal little Cars reject, a brave little tractor who is helping turn a large patch of land into a city! How does he do that? Merely by creating streets. How do you create streets? By moving around. When you create a zone with the tractor, you see it fill up with houses and buildings! Urbanix is based on those early computer games that had similar premises. The goal was, and in Urbanix is, to fill up most of the field with streets and buildings, all while avoiding the enemies who roam the land.

And what enemies! First there are land biters, who can chew through the path you’re making (as the street is only complete once you’ve connected a street to another), and when it does, you lose a life. Whenever those things appear, hurry to the nearest street! After a lot of streets have been made in the game, you can also trap these things in smaller and smaller zones. In later levels, cranes appear to destroy the buildings created by your actions… and even later, shark blimps may chase your tractor. You know, by this point I’d resign from that job. However, the goal remains the same, and you need to go as far as possible by getting the required percentage of city, before the time limit hits zero!

This game has three variations:

-Earth, the regular game;

-North Pole, where you must pass a first time on each zone to turn them to ice, then a second time to make the streets and buildings appear;

-And the Moon, which is locked for this demo, thus I can’t explain it. Still, two out of three isn’t bad.

I didn’t get very far when I played. Still, it was fun. Although I didn’t like how, by the fourth level, the tractor would spend longer avoiding the multiple hazards that get added than actually connecting streets and making buildings appear. That’s what happens when you saturate the game with enemies and gimmicks at the expense of the gameplay. There’s also the possibility of a 2-Player Mode, which is a neat addition.

The CGI isn’t half bad, the game is challenging, and the full version offers a total of 150 levels. Don’t be fooled by the appearance of the menus, which are very unprofessional. This game is worth trying. I mean, play the demo. As for me, I wouldn’t buy the full version, but if you’re nostalgic for an old computer game given a WiiWare revamp, go ahead. Who knows? You might like it.

Demo Review 43: Aya And The Cubes Of Light

No story, we’re thrown right into the gameplay, with nearly nothing to explain the basics – and the physics – to us. Not even a story. Anyway, we follow Aya, whom I suppose to be a galactic soldier or something with experience in gravity shifts. She finds herself on these large constructions shaped like cubes, with platforms on four of the six sides (the top and bottom don’t count). Her goal? Make her way to the end of each level. When she walks on a platform and reaches a round portion, she will shift her gravity. See, she’s standing upright at the start of a level; when she reaches a round, she’ll walk on it and start walking on the wall. I don’t know quite how to explain it. Also, she can only change her current gravity when she’s walking on platforms, so when she jumps, her current gravity will affect the way she jumps, and she can only jump or fall on platforms that are in her current gravitational state.

In every level, there are balls of light to pick up; I suppose that picking them all up opens a lot of secrets. In every level, Aya needs to reach a portion of the level where there is an exit, but first she needs to unlock said exit by picking up an object; a key, I guess. And getting said object also requires using your brain to figure out which platforms to use to get to it. To use the key, you need to push the Wii remote forward and twist it; this makes a portal appears, an exit towards the next level. You can also look around a level by keeping A pushed and moving the Wii remote.

In the third – and last – level of the demo, you are introduced to levers, which you can pull by pressing Z and raising the Wii remote. This makes platforms appear or disappear. So yeah, ass you may have guessed by now, this is a puzzle platformer.

You can defeat the rare enemies by jumping on them, though that’s not simple as merely touching them in any other way leads to Aya losing a life, which brings her back to the start of the level. Nope, no checkpoints. Which means you have to go through the whole level again when this happens. Same if you miss a jump and end up in the depths of space; Aya gets teleported back on the level… to the very beginning of it. This, coupled with platforms which are often far from Aya, and the main character’s very limited jumping abilities (AND the fact that she jumps by lifting the Wii remote, like a certain bad game I reviewed over a year ago!), make this game rather annoying to go through.

Still, the idea is good, too bad that it is executed this way. Playing around with gravity isn’t all that new, though this game uses it in a unique manner that takes a bit getting used to (especially with the controls). All in all, this game suffers from too many issues for me to really enjoy it. But perhaps you might; maybe you could try the demo, and see for yourself if you like it. There are only three levels in it, though it shows that the final version has three worlds with about 30 levels.

Though, having a female protagonist is rather cool.

Demo Review 42: chick chick BOOM

Volleyball with chickens! And explosives! What’s not to love? Oh, and weights. And chomping plants, too. Get your seatbelt, we’re in for a ride in a serious game here. The idea behind chick chick BOOM is that there are five chickens – more like balls with feathers and beaks – on each side of a fence. Each side has its turn, during which they can summon either a bomb, a weight or a plant; the idea is to defeat the other team’s chickens by inflicting damage to them. However, there’s more strategy to it than it seems, as both sides can use ink to summon lines that will protect them from the other team’s nasty tricks.

Aside from that, we also have thunder clouds that appear at random, that both teams can activate. Oh, and each arena apparently has its own traps, such as UFOs that kidnap the chicks. But don’t worry, if you lose too many Hit Points, you can wait for Corncobman to appear in the background and shoot it! Oh, and of course, if enough damage gets dealt regardless of side, a piñata may fall on the fence, and then you can shoot it to get a power-up!

You probably have no idea what I just said. And yeah, it does sound pretty insane. The tutorial alone will take you at least 15 minutes to complete.

Although I really find the idea funny, I’m really not a fan of this game. For starters, almost everything is done through dot-to-dot games; as in, to activate any power-up, you need to hover the cursor on a circle on the screen and connect the dots. After which, if you were quick enough, you can shoot a target to gain upgrades to your weapon, and then activate it.

Dammit, every line I add to this review removes some sense out of this game!

But, um… yeah, no, it’s not for me. It sounds like a funny strategy game, really, but I don’t like how just about everything is down to how well you control the cursor. Because that’s pretty much what it is; move over the dots to connect them with the cursor; draw lines with the cursor. Though, the art style is alright, and there are enough features to keep one busy if they like this sort of funny yet complex game. But no, it’s just not for me. Try the demo. You might like it more than I did.

Demo Review 41: And Yet It Moves

We don’t get much of a backstory for this one. We follow a white guy – and by white, I mean chalk-white – as he ventures across levels containing who knows how many death traps. You move with the Nunchuk’s analog stick and jump with Z. You can also press A and turn the Wii remote – yes, turn – with your hand to flip the world around. See, the main point of And Yet It Moves is that you can play around with the gravity. Walls become platforms, platforms become walls. There’s a catch, however; this main character really has the consistency of a chalk; if he falls from too high, he’ll crash to the ground in pieces. And since the character’s momentum remains even if you twist the world around for a softer landing, it may already be too late. And crash, your character will need glue to put himself back together. Thankfully, there are multiple respawn points, represented by a black guy – no, I don’t mean an African-American type of guy, I mean a character of solid black with white outlines. Like a drawing on a blackboard.

I’m starting to realize the theme… Chalks, blackboards…

The first level takes us in a cave, where we get to test the controls. We also get to see some of the traps, such as a large boulder that falls along with the character… And big masses of blackness akin to endless pits, which we must avoid. The second level, a forest area, introduces swinging platforms, which are affected by the gravity, which means that if you want to land on them without any danger, you’ll need extra caution. Last but not least, the third level introduces an environment that decided it had had enough of standing still while you flipped the gravity to your heart’s desire. Now, branches and other platforms will, too, spin around to make things more difficult for Chalk-Boy. The third level also marks the end of the demo version, though it’s still possible to earn a few achievements during this short playthrough. The previews for the full version show even more complex traps for Chalk-Boy, which all look more interesting than the levels available in the demo.

I felt the demo was kind of boring, but that’s probably because the early levels served more as a tutorial of sorts. The art style is pretty good, and the game as a whole is a great concept, though it’s a very difficult game to master and sometimes, victory hinges on the exact moment needed to mess around with the gravity. Beyond being a platformer, this is also a puzzle game. It’s not much for me, but feel free to download the demo and give it a try.

Demo Review 40:Gods VS Humans

Such an ominous title should mean an interesting game, right? Well, appearances can be deceiving. This game takes place over several eras where Gods were being worshipped, the first one being Ancient Egypt. As is normal for a demo, this serves as a Tutorial of sorts for the game. The story is simple: You represent the Gods. The humans, down there, are attempting to climb all the way to the residence of the Gods, and they are hoping to achieve this by building a giant tower. If they reach the top, you can kiss your godhood goodbye. The idea is to rain blows of fire, lightning and hail on the different floors of the tower to weaken and destroy them… but since those powers are granted to you by these very humans you’re trying to stop, and that angering them will severely slow down your power recovery, you will need to be careful not to hit humans!

Yeah, there’s quite a number of things to keep in mind here: The number of floors on the current tower, the different types of humans, the powers available (most of them are offensive, but others are defensive, such as summoning a pin-up to disrupt the workers’ concentration on a floor of the tower – I gotta admit, that one was really funny). The tough part is to avoid hitting humans, because then they get angry and your spells don’t recharge nearly as fast.

In the end, this is a strategy game, so I’m sorry if you expected some epic battles between humans and godly beings like a cartoonish God of War. Forget about that. Though, this game isn’t without its challenges, and it would be very interesting… It just didn’t do anything for me. And yet, the 3D is simple but pretty and effective, the controls work fine (well, aside from a few issues when it comes to selecting one of the Gods’ abilities), but the game may be a tad too complicated. It would take me more than just a demo to get used to everything that has to be taken into consideration. In the end, though, the experience felt very… underwhelming.

Still, I suppose the demo is still on the Wii Shop Channel, so go try it if you feel like it. Maybe you’ll like it more than I did.

Demo Review 39: LIT

In this survival horror / puzzle game, we follow a student on a quest in his almost entirely-dark school. Something happened. But nobody knows what exactly. What’s more, this student has a friend, and she’s in danger. But wait, how can we go from room to room? Merely stepping into the darkness is an instant life lost! Using a flashlight to see what’s on the way doesn’t always help. Thousands of little bugs… and vaguely human-shaped things… are roaming in the darkness. Though, the flashlight may help in finding tools required to go across each room…

You move with the analog stick on the Wii remote’s Nunchuk. You can interact with objects by pressing C, whether that’s to light up a lamp or open a toolbox to find ammunition for your slingshot. You can switch between your tools by pressing B. Yes, you have to fend off the forces of darkness with a slingshot. Poor protagonist. You can also pick up TV remotes here and there. How can you move through each room? You find ammo for your slingshot, then you break a window. After which you can move in the newly-created path of light (wait, is it daylight outside? And… is it daylight behind every window, even in rooms that have windows on three out of four walls?). Find more ammo, break windows, disperse the darkness… also, find a remote to turn on a television and create a zone of light. Or you can turn on lamps that create arcs of light, and then move from one to the other until you reach the door at the end of each room.

The demo ends after five levels, thus about ten to twenty minutes of gameplay. This game turned out a lot more enjoyable than I thought. Adding to the ambiance is the few telephones here and there, which you can answer to hear the protagonist’s friend as she waits for him to help her out of this horror story. And when you answer the phone, the voice comes from the Wii remote’s speaker.

My first issue is that you'll usually have only one stone for your slingshot, so if you make one mistake, you have to try again – but there is no option to try again, so if you make a mistake, you have to step into the darkness and see the character get dragged down by lots of grey hands. Creepy. Thank God we have reserves of protagonists. Also, after you’ve used your slingshot ammo, the item currently used reverts to being the flashlight, so every time you pick up ammo, you need to press B to equip your slingshot again and prepare to shoot with Z.

But all in all, a really good idea, well done. I strongly suggest that you try this one. The demo ends before the first boss, however… it would have been nice to see what boss battles are like in LIT. Oh well. I know Halloween is long gone, but give it a try anyway.