Black Falcon Games

A week and a half for only seven summaries?  Well, some of these are fairly long and detailed, that takes some time.  This update includes a couple of really good games and some with issues, so it’s a nice mix.  I do want to again complain about games with xinput-only gamepad support, though, which many of these are.  Come on, just include directinput support!  Thankfully x360ce is here to save the day, but still, it’d be better built-in.  Oh, and yes, The Joylancer is weird.

One note first – I decided to call Guacamelee 2.5d, so it’d been moved to that section, instead of covering it in this update.  Fez has similarly been moved there, from a previous update.

Table of Contents
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Escape Goat (2013)
Gateways (2012)
Gigantic Army (2014)
Gunhound EX (2014)
Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit (2012)
Hocus Pocus (1994)
Joylancer, The: Legendary Motor Knight (Early Access Game) (2014-?)

Escape Goat (2013, WinXP+) -  1 player, saves, gamepad supported (xinput only).  I somehow failed to include this game in my list, so I’ll have to cover it now instead of last update.  Escape Goat is a great puzzle-platformer by Magical Time Bean with pixel-art graphics and some pretty clever mechanics.  You are a purple goat, and have been locked up in a dungeon for some unknown reason.  So, you need to become the Escape Goat and get out of there!  You soon meet a companion, a mouse who will help you out.  And to round out the cast, you rescue a sheep at the end of each area in the game.  To tell the story, despite being animals, animal-looking animals and not anthropomorphic ones, all the other characters talk to you.  That’s amusing.  The presentation here is good too, with pretty nice too-colorful-8-bit sprite-art, and tile-based, graphics and great chiptune music.  The graphics are all very well drawn, and each tile in the game is distinct and easily recognizable despite everything being pretty small on the screen.  That is important in a game like this which is all about the interaction between you and the various tiles in the game.  And that music, it’s catchy, well-composed, and fits the game great.  Really good work all around.

The gameplay is just as good, too!  Your basic controls include a double jump, a left or right dash you can do on ground or in the air, tossing out the mouse, and, in levels with the magic hat and if you have gotten it, the ability to switch the locations of the two characters.  The game controls well with either keyboard or gamepad, and the controls are responsive.  Each ability has limits, though, so for example you can throw the mouse high up, but only from the ground; you cannot throw it high up while in the air.  In the air you can only toss the mouse normally.  And you can only dash left or right, not up or down.  These limits can be frustrating, but they make the puzzles work, so they’re understandable.   There is also a reset button, to retry a level if you’re in an unwinnable position, an issue you will often have.  You have infinite lives and the game saves after each level, thankfully.  Each level is a single screen, with small but detailed graphics.  Level designs are interesting, and figuring out how to solve the puzzle that is each room is a lot of fun.  Some tiles are just basic walls and floors, but interactive tiles include crates you can destroy by dashing into, fireball-guns which shoot automatically, enemy wizards who shoot fireballs straight at you if you are in their line of sight, switches you or the mouse can activate, ice blocks you can push around by dashing into but the mouse will stop at if it’s walking along and touches one, explosive barrels, these interesting wheel-switches that only blocks or barrels can activate but you cannot, blocks that other blocks or wheels or such will be suspended over but you pass through, and more.  Your goal is to reach the door in each room, and collect keys to unlock that door if any keys are in the level.

The possibilities when you combine these block types into puzzles may sound overwhelming, but the level designs are really good, and the difficulty is just right.Some stages may take longer than others to beat, but the game does a fantastic job of slowly ramping up the difficulty, so instead of just running straight into a wall the challenge here is a nice, fairly smooth slope up as you learn the mechanics each puzzle teaches you, before later puzzles combine them into trickier forms.  You can also abandon a world to try another one if you want, and pick up where you left off later.  The level layouts themselves are the best thing about this game, though.  Levels have a great mix of action and puzzles, so this isn’t just a thinking game, reflexes are definitely also required.  I really like the variety of levels and puzzle types you see in Escape Goat.  Most levels rely on using both your goat and the mouse in order to beat them, and figuring out how to get to all of the keys with the goat, since the mouse cannot pick them up, is great fun.  Escape Goat is not a particularly long game, and should only take a few hours to beat as it is not long or as hard as some indie platformers, but it’s a very good one any puzzle-platformer fan should definitely play!  There are some hard post-game levels you unlock, too.  With good graphics and art design, great music, very good, responsive controls with some unique elements in the two-character mechanic, and great level designs and puzzles, Escape Goat is a fantastic game I highly recommend.  There is also a sequel; though I don’t have it yet, I’ll definitely get it sooner or later.  Also available for Mac and Linux on Steam.  This game is an enhanced port of a 2011 Xbox 360 Live Indie Games title of the same name.  That is still available, until XBLIG’s shutdown of course; read above for details on that.

Gateways (2012, WinXP+) -  1 player, saves.  Gateways is a mouse-and-keyboard-only platformer with a portal gun.  The game has a single large Metroidvania-style world, but with portal puzzles everywhere and with jumping on heads to defeat enemies, classic platformer-style.  The game has average pixel art graphics and bland chiptune-ish music, and clearly is a very low-budget affair.  The basic concept of a 2d platformer with portals is a pretty good one though, and the game does throw some tricky portal puzzles at you from fairly early on.  You are an older, white-haired scientist guy, and are apparently British because this game was written in British English.  Something has gone wrong in your oddly videogame world-shaped lab, and you’ve got to fix it, portal gun in hand… and more as well, later on, including a flashlight and a time gun.  Gateways is a flawed game with some definite issues, but the core puzzle element is mostly a good one.  Trying to figure out how to get a laser beam to a switch through the use of portals, or where to put portals to get over a pit or to collect all the collectibles that you can spend in hint stations without running into an enemy, can be fun.  The game shows you what’s through a portal when you look at it, too, which is a nice touch, though it does mean that you can’t see what would have been behind that portal.  There’s a fair challenge here too, as you die in a few hits.  You do have infinite lives from the last save point, but save points are somewhat far apart in this game so dying is a punishment.

That’s all mostly good, but Gateways has issues.  The graphics are bland; the controls are finicky at times as you need to land DIRECTLY on top of an enemy to hit them, which is tough, so I keep taking hits and dying while trying to land on enemies; closing portals is harder than it should be; and puzzles sometimes frustrating.  I don’t like the open-world concept either, and would definitely like this game more if it had one linear path.  There is a map with an arrow pointing out the general area you need to go to, but it’s only on a subscreen and not on the main screen, so you’ll need to pause and view the map sometimes if you want to navigate, which can be annoying.  And while the numerous hint stations around the game are appreciated, that the developer felt the need to include hint stations which tell you if you have the items yet to attempt the puzzle there says something.  Sure, that’s better than not having them, but shouldn’t it be fairly clear without that whether you can do something or not?  That is not the case here, so the awkward ‘can you do this puzzle yet’ element of the hint stations was included.  Still though, there are not many 2d portal games, and this one has some good puzzles in it.  Fighting enemies is kind of bad with how easy it is to take hits while trying to jump on them, the world is not straightforwardly designed and the game can be frustrating, and the game is visually very bland, but still there is enough here that some definitely will like this game.  Myself though, I’d probably call Gateways slightly below average.  It’s okay, but not great.  Also available for Mac and Linux through Steam and GOG.

Gigantic Army (2014) -  1 player, saves settings and unlocks (but not main-game progress, that you need to restart each time), gamepad supported (directinput supported).  Gigantic Army is a sidescrolling mecha run & gun action-platformer from Japanese indie team Astro Port.  It is inspired by NCS Masaya’s classic Assault Suits series, a series of three mecha action-platforming games on the Genesis (AS Leynos), SNES (AS Valken), and Saturn (AS Leynos 2).  The first two got US releases as Target Earth and Cybernator, and the last was Japan-only.  All three games are short but very difficult games which I like a lot despite the steep challenge.  Square also made a similar game for the SNES (Japan only) called Front Mission: Gun Hazard, but it’s an Assault Suits clone with added RPG elements that neither this or the next game have, so yeah, this game and Gunhound EX below are both very blatant Assault Suits clones.  Making a new game that uses the basic gameplay of a classic, but with new graphics, music, level designs, and such, is a popular approach for some indie developers, and when a series is quite dead, like Assault Suits was before these two games released, I’m fine with them doing this.

I’d like to cover the graphics first because it’s the first thing I noticed.  Visually, Gigantic Army has a “PC game” look to it, compared to the very console-styled Gunhound EX.  Inspired by the original AS Leynos, this game has long levels with infinitely-spawning enemies, and a zoomed-out camera somewhat like the original.  The game runs in 4:3 640×480 only, pretty dated for a 2014 release; this looks like something from the later ’90s.  I don’t mind that, but some will.  Environments are detailed and the art is good, but it doesn’t have the flash or production values of a Gunhound EX.  The mechas and enemies don’t look as good, and everything here are just basic scaling sprites, with few special effects and a totally flat look.  Again, it’s a very ’90s shareware PC-style look, I’d say.  I like that, but it does look cheaper.  The music is forgettable electronic stuff, and also doesn’t match up to Assault Suits or Gunhound EX sound.  Still, the game looks decent to good, and there is variety between stages.  And as for a story, there barely is one; all you get are text-only diaries between levels, written by a mechanic working for one of the factions in the sci-fi war you are a part of.  The character interactions and deeper plot of Assault Suits games and Gunhound EX are sadly absent here.

As for the gameplay and controls, Gigantic Army is indeed an Assault Suits-styled game.  This game uses only four buttons, for your main weapon, secondary weapon, jump/hover-jet, and shield.  You can also dash with a double-tap of forward or back.  You choose from three different main and secondary weapons at the start of each game, and can’t switch during the game.  All main weapons have infinite ammo, while all secondary weapons have limited uses per level.  I don’t think there are any more to unlock, either, giving this game quite a small arsenal for this genre.  Your mech moves at a decent pace, faster than Gunhound EX below, which is nice; it’s easier to dodge shots here than in that game.  The shield is nice as well, and blocks enemy fire until it takes too much damage and breaks.  Your main gun and shield both can be aimed by pressing Up and Down on the stick/keyboard, but they lock while firing or holding out the shield, so you need to aim while not attacking, then attack with the firing angle locked.  There are no alternate settings here, unlike Gunhound EX.  The game controls well, and at first this game may seem easier than some in the genre, but it tries to make up for that with limited continues and no saving in the main game.  Yes, you have only three lives here, and then it’s back to the beginning of the game.  You do unlock levels for play in Practice mode as you reach them, but you can’t progress through the game that way.  I really dislike limited continues, it’s such a frustrating and artificial way to add difficulty to a game!  Sure, as usual in these games there is only a handful of levels, but seeing all of them will require a lot of replay.  There aren’t even checkpoints in this game, so when you die at a boss you have to start the whole level over.  This is a problem sometimes.  And last, unlike any other game in this genre I know of, there is a ticking timer here with a tight time limit.  You will find weapon and time-extension power ups around, and you’ll need as many of them as you can get to not run out of time and die.  While I didn’t usually run out of time, this kind of game is plenty hard without it, it’s not needed.

The games’ six levels are linear, though there is some platforming here as you navigate each stage.  Those constantly-spawning enemies are your main threat.  I do prefer a more uniquely designed challenge over a stream of random stuff like you see here, but it does serve to emphasize the difference between bosses and regular enemies, and the boss fights are pretty good.  As as always in these games the bosses are huge, take a lot of shots to kill, and can take you down quickly, and thus are easily the hardest part of the game.  Some bosses and level design ideas borrow heavily from Assault Suits games, maybe to a fault, but there is enough new stuff here to make this its own game.  Gigantic Army is a good fun game with nice graphics, good controls, and lots of explosive mecha-platform-shooting action to be had.  It’s a homage to some under-recognized classics, and a good one.  The game is short, but with four difficulty levels, higher scores to shoot for, and limited continues to pay attention to, there is some lasting value.  However, the very flat graphics, forgettable music, minimal story, somewhat average-at-times action, that there are no weapons to unlock, and awful choice to have limited continues hold this game back.  I should also note that there is a bug, and saving for your unlocks and scores may not work correctly in this game unless you first start a game in Easy difficulty and then beat at least one level.  After doing that quit to the menu; now saving should work right.  If only you could save progress too, but you can’t.  Overall, though, Gigantic Army is good.  It’s not great, but it is good for sure and might be worth a look.  The Steam version also has Linux support available, along with PC.

Gunhound EX (2014, WinXP+, though this is an enhanced and altered version of Gunhound, a game released in 2009 for PC) [aka armored hunter GUNHOUND EX] -  1 player, saves, gamepad supported (directinput supported).  Much like Gigantic Army above but better, Gunhound EX is a great, but challenging, Assault Suits-inspired mecha run & gun action-platform game from Dracue, an indie studio in Japan.  And as with the above game it’s not really a platformer, but it has platforming elements for sure so I’m including it here.  The gameplay and visual style of Gunhound is a shameless copy of Assault Suits’ visuals and gameplay.  The difficulty is right up there with a Target Earth/Assault Suits Leynos or Assault Suits Leynos 2, also — I like this game a lot, but the game  gets very hard in a hurry, maybe too much so for some.  But first, some background.  Two nations, the NEU and EAU, are fighting, and you are Yuri, a female pilot on the Hound squad of Armored Hunter mecha pilots fighting for the NEU.  All other games I’ve played like this have male pilots only, so the change here is nice.  There isn’t much of an intro, and the online manual has only a little backstory, but each mission does have a text briefing, and as in Assault Suits games there are regular voiced conversations between your pilot and others on the squad during missions.  They’ll be of little help in-game, of course, but it’s nice that they are there.

Presentation-wise, the game has great 2d graphics, with sprite art that is very early to mid ’90s styled, but with nice shiny weapon effects and such that make it look more modern than Gigantic Army.  The sprites are large, more like AS Valken (Cybernator) or Leynos 2 than the first one.  The blocky and angular mecha designs are VERY much something out of Assault Suits, but that’s okay, and while I’m no mecha fan, they look very good and fit the game well.  The music is a good up-tempo videogame-style soundtrack, and I like it.  The Japanese language-only voice acting is also well-done.  There is some slowdown, but I think most of it is intentional. I also had one crash, though that may be my aging computer.  Otherwise the game runs well.  However, while there are a few graphics options, including 16:9 or fill-the-screen modes, the latter handy for a 16:10 monitor like mine, and framerate and anti-aliasing settings, you cannot change the screen resolution.  Also by default the gamepad is not enabled, and you need to use the keyboard to map keys (with Z to select, as is default in Japanese PC games) before you can use it.  That’s common in older PC games though, lots of DOS PC games don’t have joystick support until it’s enabled ingame.

Gameplay in Gunhound EX takes some getting used to.  You have a variety of weapons to equip, and each controls differently.  The game uses more buttons than Gigantic Army.  The controls are fully re-configurable, but by default the face buttons jump and hover, dash, use your main gun, and use your secondary attack, while shoulder buttons switch to your two special weapons and lock your firing direction, and the option buttons pause and drop heavy armor.  All weapons need to regularly reload, but you do have infinite ammo.  You always need to keep reloading in mind, though.  That heavy armor has a downside, too: with it on you take less damage, but you move much slower and drop like a rock in the air if you let off the jets.  As in Assault Suits games, your main gun is fully aimable in all directions, and while this is not a twin-stick shooter, there are options in the menu for if you want to be able to aim while firing or not.  It’s a good choice to have; I prefer it with aiming locked while firing, but you can play either way.  The game does not have full twin-stick aiming controls, that would dramatically change the way the game plays, so it’s better left out.  The controls are complex and touchy, and can feel clumsy, but the game actually plays great once you’re into it, though a gamepad is HIGHLY recommended, .  As you control a giant mech you do not move quickly, so the dash ability is critical for survival.  It also helps because when you turn around when not in a boss fight the camera switches to point in the other direction so you can shoot things coming from the other way, something which can be distracting and make dodging shots tricky… unless you dash, as dashing backwards keeps your mech pointed forwards while you move in reverse.  Handy!  To help get used to the controls there is a very useful, and challenging at times, seven-part training mode available, and I definitely recommend going through it.

In this short but challenging game, The levels themselves are straightforward, with straight paths to follow most of the time so the focus is on the action.  Unlike AS Leynos or Gigantic Army, levels here are shorter and are not filled with infinitely-spawning filler enemies; instead, everything is pre-designed.  The game mixes things up with its settings as well, as there are land, water, and space environments and a defense mission.  The giant bosses are also suitably tricky.  There is a webpage link in the pause menu for a strategy site that can be very helpful.  In space controls are trickier, as zero-g movement is a bit confusing.  The game is short, though: the main game has just five levels and then a final boss.  There are those seven training missions also, and there is an unlockable bonus mission as well, but that’s it.  Still, the levels have variety, and the game encourages replay through its scoring and unlock systems.  You can’t change weapons between missions, unlike most games of this style, but you can select a loadout on the main menu, and unlock more weapons for it each time you beat the game.  Playing for score is also rewarding for those good enough to be able to stay alive as well, for though you have infinite continues from the last checkpoint, using a continue resets your score to zero, so a good score is well-earned.  For this kind of game, the amount of content is reasonable; mastering what is here will require a lot of practice.

Overall, Gunhound EX is a fantastic game.  The gameplay is cloned straight out of a classic series and content is limited, but this is a really good game regardless, with great sprite-art graphics, good music, and great, challenging gameplay which keeps you coming back.  Highly recommended!  If you have to choose between this and Gigantic Army, get this one.  Gunhound EX was successful enough that its developer went on to make the recent Assault Suits Leynos remake for PS4 (and maybe PC eventually).  If there ever is a PC release I’ll get it for sure.  Gunhound EX is also available for PSP.  The PSP version only had a physical release in Japan, but there is a downloadable version in the US you can play on a Vita, since the PSP download shop has been shut down for original PSP systems, but not Vitas.  The original Gunhound also has a physical release for PC in Japan only.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit (2012) – 1 player, saves, dual analog gamepad supported (xinput only).  Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is a decent, but somewhat obnoxious, platform-shooting game published by Sega.  In this cartoonish game, you play as Ash, rabbit prince of Hell, and need to murder a lot of people and robots because some paparazzi guy took photos of Ash playing with rubber ducks in his bathtub and posted them online.  Anyone who viewed that page must die! .. Yeah, I don’t think Ash understands how the internet works.  He isn’t too particular about his targets, though, as you make only infrequent attempts to figure out if the people you’re killing ever saw the thread.  Ash’s a complete jerk, so just kill everything that gets in your way regardless, pretty much.  This all has far too much somewhat-annoying attitude, but beyond that, I do not like playing as villains in games unless it’s VERY well done, and this is pretty much the opposite of that.  I greatly dislike the character you play as here, and what he does in the game is horrible, cartoony setting or no.  The game does have pretty good, brightly colored graphics with lots of animation, though; this game had some budget.  It is lacking in setting variety, as it’s pretty much all set in firey environs, but it looks good.  The cartoon-styled art design is good as well.

As for the gameplay, this is a twinstick or mouse-and-keyboard shooter… with a lot of platforming.  So you know what that means by now, I think the controls are kind of awful!  On keyboard, you need to try to use the keyboard to move and jump while you aim and shoot on mouse, and it doesn’t work at all.  Fortunately you often can just take your hand off the mouse and use just the keyboard for both, and then just go back to the mouse for when you need to fight, but sometimes you do need both jumping and shooting at once, and it’s very awkward and uncomfortable.  On gamepad things work slightly better, but jumping while aiming and moving all at the same time is still awkward.  While the dual-stick setup gives you great control over where you’re aiming, overall I prefer traditional controls.  You move quite quickly in this game too, so while the controls are responsive, getting where you want without getting hung up on little corners in the scenery can be frustrating.  Maybe the worst thing about the controls, though, are the QTEs.  You see, on every single one of the 100 major enemies you kill in this game, you’ve got to successfully do a “hilarious” QTE in order to kill the thing.  And you must kill all of them, as there are gates that only let you proceed once they’re dead.  If you mess it up, you take damage and get knocked back, which gets old fast.  I have always greatly disliked QTEs, and putting mountains of QTEs into a platformer was an awful idea.  Sure, there are a lot of violent death animations to watch once you succeed at them, but murdering these sometimes-totally-innocent creatures does not exactly feel good, and the comedy is only infrequently amusing.

Otherwise, though, this is a fairly traditional game, as you run around, explore levels, collect stuff, and shoot and jump.  You have three weapons to switch between from, and though this is a level-based game, you eventually get a teleporter to be able to replay old levels and get abilities as you progress that let you get to new areas in earlier levels.  The art design is mostly good if lacking in variety, and the fast movement can be fun, when you’re not getting stuck on stuff.  There is a lot of variety in enemy types as well, which is nice.  But overall, Hell Yeah! is trying WAY too hard to be cool, and for me at least it fails at that.  I got this game from a bundle and was not looking forward to playing this game because of the obnoxious themes here, and playing it justifies that.  Still, there is some solid gameplay here, particularly for people who like these dual-stick platformers more than I do.  Myself, I don’t think I want to ever play this again.  Also available, for digital download only, on Xbox 360 XBLA and PS3 PSN.

Hocus Pocus (1994) – 1 player, saves, 4 button gamepad supported.  Hocus Pocus is a platformer developed by Moonlite Software and published by Apogee.  This is a later Apogee release, and is one of their few platformers that runs in 256-color VGA instead of only 16-color EGA.  So, the graphics are colorful, but how is the game?  I remember liking this game well enough as a kid, but looking back on it, it has problems.  Moonlite Software had previously made another game I played back then, the thoroughly mediocre title Clyde’s Adventure.  Fortunately they did much better work with Apogee, but some of that games’ design did carry over to this one.  Clyde’s Adventure is a combat-free platformer focused on exploration and collection.  You have to get all the crystals in each stage to progress, levels are large and mazelike, and there’s a tight move limit so you need to learn the best route in each level to get through.  In Hocus Pocus levels are still large and made up of blocky platforms, and you still need to  collect all the crystals to beat each level, though there are only 5-9 per level this time instead of the hundreds of Clyde’s Adventure, but instead of that annoying move limit you have enemies to fight and a magic wand that shoots lightning bolts.  These changes are good and make this game a lot more fun than Clyde.  The game has simple, responsive controls; all you do is run around, jump, and shoot.  You can shoot up or forwards, and also can look up and down to see a bit farther.  You only have that one main weapon, the wand, but there are upgrades to shoot multiple bolts at once, and limited-use spells with greater power such as fireballs in some stages as well.  Exploring levels, fighting enemies, and collecting stuff can be fun.  There are also lots of optional items to collect for points, and secret areas to find full of optional items to collect as well.  Looking for that stuff’s fun.  And the game doesn’t have any instant-death pits either, which is great, though there are many long pits which damage you quickly and can lead to a death if you wall into them in the wrong place.

The game has some problems, though.  First, enemies in this game aren’t always wandering around the levels; instead, they are magically warped in when you reach certain points.  So, you’re constantly having enemies appear right on top of you, which can lead to damage.  You do have a health meter, most levels have health powerups to collect, and you can save and the game gives you infinite tries at each level, but still this will lead to deaths.  And be careful when jumping, as with your somewhat quick movement it can be easy to miss a jump and take damage as a result.  Those crystals can be an issue too, as you’ll often have multiple paths to follow, and you’ll generally need to fully explore every level to get all of the crystals.  If you reach the end but missed a crystal, you’ll just have to backtrack for it, avoiding traps along the way.  The game also has switches.  And on that note, Hocus Pocus’s idea of puzzles is either to hide stuff in random corners, or to have multiple switches that you need to set in the correct positions, but there aren’t clues so you randomly have to hit them until you get it right.  All of this adds up to a memorization-focused game.  You will be restarting levels repeatedly until you memorize the enemy, crystal, and trap locations, and while there is fun to be had, it will get old after a while.  The bad music, which loops constantly and doesn’t vary much within each song, doesn’t help much.  The background graphics are good, though, and there are nice parallax layers and smooth scrolling with lots of color use.  Even so, the sprites themselves do look somewhat amateurish.

Additionally, the game lacks variety over the course of the good-length campaign.  This game has four episodes, the first originally released free as shareware and the others pay, and each has a good number of levels.  The background tilesets change a bit between episodes, and different levels have different enemies, though each stage seems to have only two or three types of foes in it, but the core gameplay is unchanged throughout and gets repetitive.  And for one last criticism, the story is not nearly as funny as the writer thought it was; some of that backstory text is painfully bad.  Still, Hocus Pocus is, overall, an above-average game.  The game has a fast pace, plenty of content to see, and lots of stuff to find as you search through levels for all the crystals and point items, killing the monsters that appear to bar your way.  I may have some issues with this game, but it is more good than bad and is worth a look, for collectathon fans particularly.  The retail version was originally released only on physical media, but now the game is available on 3D Realms’ website and on GOG for digital download.  As usual you’ll need to fix the bad default GOG settings they use to get the game looking and playing right.

Joylancer, The: Legendary Motor Knight (Early Access Game) (2014-?) -  1-4 player simultaneous (single system), saves (though the full campaign is not implemented yet), gamepad supported (xinput only, at least for me).  The Joylancer is a fast-paced action-platformer developed by alpha six productions and published by Merge Games, inspired  indie game inspired by the look and sound of original Game Boy or Game Boy Color games, but with 16:9, parallax scrolling, and optional additional effects.  In this sci-fi game you play as one of the Joylancers, soldiers with a drill-like weapon, and have to defeat an ancient evil empire attacking your nation again.  Joy the Joylancer is the default character, but there are other choices of both genders, each with slightly different stats and abilities.  You zip around with your drill-like lance, fighting enemies and navigating platforms as you try to save the nation from evil.  The game definitely still feels unfinished, though, despite being in development for several years now.  The game has been in Early Access since 2014 but still is not finished after many delays, so this won’t be a review of the finished game, just what it is as of the January 2016 build, the most recent one as of this writing.  This is the only unfinished game on this list, but I have it, so I’m covering it.

For modes, the main ones are Arcade mode, where you have to play the whole game in one sitting, and Adventure mode, which is supposed to be the main game but currently just lets you move around the map and play the levels in any order.  There is also a battle arena for multiplayer versus fights, though I haven’t tried it.  The first issue I have with this game, though, is the menu interface.  The menu interfaces are confusing and poorly laid out; why is the spacebar the default pause button, on keyboard?  Why are the main menu and pause menu entirely separate; most games have an options menu in the main menu, but not here.  Why do you need to hit a keyboard key to get to the control-settings screen, instead of having it as an option in the pause menu?  It took me a while to figure out where the control settings screen was.  Why does the game save all settings completely independently to each save file profile, so if you switch profiles it’ll automatically switch the game between windowed and fullscreen modes depending on how each one is set, and the controls will auto-switch as well so your gamepad may randomly not work in some if you haven’t set up the keys there?  Oh, and I recommend changing graphics display settings ingame, as the menu doesn’t show what each one looks like.  And while I appreciate having lots of options, sometimes a developer needs to make choices, and putting so many options in like this is a little odd at times.  It’ll be interesting to see if all of this makes the final version.

Next, the visuals. Now, the display options let you change this, but in any settings the game has some sensory-overload issues.  First, the on-screen interface has eight totally different looks (I like G the best), but in any setting the constant stream of large, moving attack-type-and-damage-amount indicators that appear in the bottom right is overdone.  At least some don’t have useless indicators like a number that changes based on how high off the ground you currently are; yes, I can tell I am jumping without looking down there!  You can play The Joylancer in a monochrome palette, a two-palette mode, or full color.  In full color the game is garishly bright, as each sprite or background element uses a different 4-color palette and backgrounds are complex and loaded with stuff.  I like the concept here, as I love the GB line, but the clashing colors are too much sometimes.  So, I probably like the look best in monochrome, though unfortunately this does make it even harder to tell which sprite is yours in the messy melees.  The two-tone mode helps a bit here, to at least distinguish sprites from backgrounds, so that’s probably the best setting.  The actual sprite-art elements look nice, though, color aside.  It’s just a way too busy style, with the backgrounds, parallax, varying-size sprites, status displays, and effects, if you don’t turn them off.  As for the music, it’s weird.  It is chiptune-style sound, but it is this very weird electronic-sound stuff.  I have heard this kind of music before, though I have no idea what it’s called.  I find it discordant and grating, and have never liked this kind of music, though it is interesting I guess.

Finally, on to the gameplay.  The Joylancer is a two-button game, jump and attack.  This fast and flashy game is the opposite of a precision platformer.  As with everything else in this game, the game is a bit overly modifiable, though the core gameplay does not change.  You can alter how many attacks work, but how attacks go depends on your power meter, which has several blocks.  You have a weak normal attack, but also various power attacks.  Power attacks go a good distance forward on land, or diagonally upwards in the air.  By default it uses a full power attack when you hit attack and have meter, but I think I like the setting which makes you hit the button again better, so you don’t always use all the meter.  To recharge the power meter, you either need to tap Down+Attack repeatedly, or find and equip a part which auto-refills your meter.  One such part exists in this build, though it might be harder to get in the final game.  But oh yes, you have three equipment spots which you will get stuff for.  There isn’t much now.  The auto-charge is great because having to constantly charge attacks is annoying sometimes.  You can also jump high straight into the air with Up+Jump, attack straight down with Down+Attack, and the game even has parry and counter systems.  Yes, really.  Red lines on enemy attacks mean you can counter them with an attack.  As for the stages, levels are broken up into many short areas, and those areas are made up of decent but not always great platforming sections, and areas where you can’t progress until you defeat all the enemies.  The game plays very quickly, but despite this enemies have quite a bit of health and can take a while to beat.  Enemies have visible health meters in the status display area, and there is also a burst multiplier meter on screen.  Ultimately though I’ve never liked side-scrolling beat ’em ups much, so the heavy emphasis on fighting kind of loses me even with the additions this game has.  Zipping around with your lance can be fun for a while, but I always find myself losing interest in this game after a while.

On the whole, it’s fun to zoom around blasting through the enemies as you hit stuff, but I think it’s kind of a mess; I have little sense of when I’m taking damage and when I’m not, why my health sometimes refills, and more.  It’s so fast and chaotic that such details are hard to discern.  Since the game uses only two buttons, you’re spending a lot of time just mashing one button, sometimes with a direction, so combat is repetitive.  I’d like more platforming and less combat, myself.  Overall, The Joylancer is an interesting but flawed title, and I’d say right now it’s average at best.  There is something pretty interesting here, and the extreme degree of customization is somewhat unique, but between the simple, imprecise combat mountain of options to figure out, and unfinished elements because this game is still not done, I can’t recommend this game to most.  There is definitely an audience for this though, so if it sounds interesting check it out.

So, two weeks for what really is only seven summaries. Well, that’s what happens when I don’t do anything at all towards the next update for a whole week after finishing the last one… oh well. I did have this mostly done several days ago, but delayed it to improve some of the summaries. I cover some interesting games this time, so enjoy.

Table of Contents
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Defy Gravity Extended (2011)
Duke Nukem (1991)
Duke Nukem II (1993)
Dust: An Elysian Tail (2013)
Earthworm Jim 1 & 2: The Whole Can of Worms (1996)
Electronic Super Joy (2013)
Fly’n (2012)
Freedom Planet (2014)

Defy Gravity Extended (2011, WinXP+) – saves, dual analog gamepad supported (xinput only). Defy Gravity Extended is a cheap and basic-looking indie game by Fish Factory Games of the keyboard-with-mouse-aiming style. The game may be visually generic, but the gameplay is interesting and fun. You play as an astronaut, trying to get through some tough levels because this is a videogame. Unlike games with this control scheme earlier, though, this one is a puzzle-platformer and uses its mouse aiming for precise firing of the games’ key mechanic, your guy’s gravity gun. The gravity gun has two modes: you can either create blue gravity wells which attract you and other objects towards it, or yellow points which push things away from them. The physics are simple, but work well. You also can jump and double jump with your jetpack, and can create a shield which makes you immune to gravity powers, so you can drop when stuck in the attract-style gravity wells, for example. You can only create one of each gravity-well type at a time, though, and can only shoot out a few while in the air before you need to land to reset them. Level designs are not complex and all are linear paths; your goal is to figure out how to get to the end of each stage. The walls, pits, instant-death laser beams, and various types of moving enemies or objects you can bounce off of create some interesting challenges to figure your way past. So far I’ve found the push-away gravity wells more useful, as you create one, jump, and bounce off of it to get over pits, but as you progress you will need to use both kinds; there are platforms that will move towards attract-you wells, for example, and moving-object types which move towards them as well. It’s pretty fun stuff, and the game has infinite continues and multiple checkpoints in each not-too-long stage, so you can just keep trying until you get past each area.

The production values here are low, though. This game looks like it was made in Game Maker or some game-creation program like that, and the sprites are very average stuff. The music’s good electronic space-ish sound, though, so I do like that. However, the game has some performance issues, as the game does not lock the mouse to the screen, which is a big problem if you have multiple monitors as I do; this is a mouse-and-keyboard game, after all, and it’s very easy to accidentally click on the other screen and minimize the game. The only alternative is to use a more gamepad-like control scheme where your mouse rotates a marker and then you click once to fire out a shot and again to create a point at that location, instead of using the direct click-where-you-want-a-gravity well control scheme that is default. That works, but the default style is better, or would be if this game locked the mouse to the screen like all other mouse-and-keyboard platformers on this list so far have done. Ah well. Also, this game is on the short side; there are only 24 levels, and again they are not too long. This isn’t a super-hard game, either. Still, Defy Gravity Extended is a fun game that’s well worth playing. This may be a low-budget game, but it’s a fun, moderately challenging puzzle-platformer with some good gameplay and mechanics. I like trying to figure out how to get through each stage. The price is right too, as I got this game on sale for 30 cents, and it’s on sale often. I recommend this one, it’s good. Also available on XBox 360 Indie Games, while that is still up.

Duke Nukem [aka Duke Nukum] Episodes 1-3 (1991, DOS) – saves, gamepad supported. The original Duke Nukem is yet another great platformer from Apogee Software. This is the first title in what would become a very popular series. When I was a kid my parents thought that this game sounded too violent, so I wasn’t able to play it then, and I never did go back later on and play a lot of this game. It’s great stuff though, and playing it for this list reminded me of that. But when I finally did first try the game, I remember thinking something like ‘this is it?’ Because while Duke 3D would indeed be that kind of hyper-violent game, Duke 1 isn’t like that. Yes, you are a muscular 1980s action-movie star parody character, but there’s no blood in this game, and next to no women either, sexualized or otherwise. Duke does have amusing quips in the games’ few cutscenes, but those aren’t as edgy or macho as the sequels; it’s more generic stuff. In the first game’s intro he mentions beating the games’ villain, Dr. Proton, in time to go home and watch Oprah… heh. I can’t see the Duke 3D Duke saying that. So yeah, the character was a work in progress at this point, but that’s fine, this is the first game! And I, at least, kind of like this less over-the-top Duke.

As for the gameplay, it’s familiar Apogee exploration-heavy platform-action, but with a few twists. Your actions are traditional: you run at a quick pace, jump, and shoot. You have only one gun, and it has infinite ammo. Running this game at full speed in DOSBox, you zip around quickly, and the game feels really good to play. Level designs are good too. As in some other Apogee games levels are large and multidirectional, and you need to explore around to find the numerous items you can collect for points, and also the way to the exit. You’ll need to find keycards and circuitboards to get past locked gates as well, so exploration is the name of the game here. But unlike a game like Keen, there are absolutely no instant-death pits in Duke Nukem, which is fantastic! You also have a health bar in this game, so you don’t die in one hit, either. All enemies or shots will hurt you, though, so do watch out. Still, while there are many traps, laser floors, and such, with VERY few exceptions, those won’t kill you in one hit. It’s not hard to find health in the levels, either. Even so, Duke Nukem is a reasonable challenge, as you will take hits and levels are long enough that avoiding damage is often important. The difficulty here is well-balanced, apart from those times you get frustrated at not knowing where to go in a level. Sometimes I have wished for some kind of map or radar system here, but you’ll just have to memorize things. Ah well. Still, the game keeps things fun. You have infinite tries from the beginning of the last level, too, and can save anytime and continue from the start of the level you’re currently on.

The game mostly runs well, too. Programmer Todd Replogle may be a bit odd, and unfortunately retired from programming to sell real estate and then move to Thailand, but he mostly did a great job with this game, though apparently John Carmack did help out. The game runs in 16-color EGA, but it does have parallax scrolling, which is pretty nice. The art design is solid; it’s not Apogee’s best, for sure, but it looks good enough, and the variety of enemies, environments, and items keep things varied as you progress through the three episodes. It looks fine, with various broken cityscapes to explore and weird aliens and robots and such to shoot, but there is better out there. However, the framerate is low; you move around fast, but play is never smooth and that is distracting. This game runs at something like 11fps, and while it is entirely playable once you spend some time with the game, the framerate is a big negative for me. For sound, the game has PC Speaker-only sound effects with no music, so the audio presentation is basic. This game released after Apogee’s first game with sound card support, Replogle’s Dark Ages, so it is disappointing. On that note, I really love Dark Ages, it’s always been one of my favorite Apogee games… but more on that game much later.

But as for Duke Nukem, it’s a good game I quite like. The game plays well, low framerate aside, and levels are well-designed and fun to explore and find stuff in. This game is good to great for sure. Still, Duke Nukem 1 isn’t one of Apogee’s best, and Duke Nukem 2 is better than the first game, but Apogee made so many fantastic platformers that that is a high bar indeed. Duke 1 is well worth playing, though do stick with it long enough to get used to the slow framerate. The game has a physical release from 1991, and also is available digitally on Steam and on 3D Realms’ website. I have the 3DR site version, and it’s mostly good, though you will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio; for some very odd reason they chose to have it default to filling the screen, even though this 4:3 game should only be played at that ratio.

Duke Nukem II (1993, DOS) – saves, gamepad supported. I covered this game earlier in the physical-games section, and it’s the same exact thing here. Duke Nukem II is a much better-looking and sounding followup to the original game above. As average as I find the original, Duke II is a fun game. The basic gameplay is similar, but with smoother gameplay, much better visuals, and music, the experience is more fun. If you are going to play a 2d Duke game, play the second one. Sure, it still can be frustrating at times, and the game still doesn’t run completely smoothly, but it’s mostly fun, as you explore, shoot, and collect stuff for points. The game has a physical release from 1991, and also is available digitally on Steam and on 3D Realms’ website. I have the 3DR site version, and it’s mostly good, though you will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio; for some very odd reason they chose to have it default to filling the screen, even though this 4:3 game should only be played at that ratio.

Dust: An Elysian Tail (2013, WinXP+) – saves, dual analog gamepad supported (xinput only). Dust is a good indie sidescrolling action-RPG developed by indie studio Humble Hearts and published by Microsoft. As it’s not a platformer it probably shouldn’t be on this list, but for some reason I decided to include sidescrolling action-RPGs and run & guns on the list but not 3d action-adventure games, so here it is. It’d probably be better to leave these out, but I decided otherwise, so here is Dust. This game is set in a world of furries, anthropomorphic animal-people, and you play as a lone warrior animal-guy, Dust. Naturally, he has amnesia, and you are on a quest to figure out who you are, and defeat the evil hordes along the way. At the start of the game Dust is found by a talking sword and its kind-of-annoying ‘guardian’ Fidget that I mentioned earlier, and off you go. Your quest is centered around one town and the area surrounding it. There is a story, with some decent to good voice acting and an okay plot, but the main focus is on the action. The story’s fine for what it is though; it’s cliche, but works well, and I did want to see what would happen next. The character art is a potential negative here for some, and I do dislike a few things about it, your companion Fidget’s design particularly, but the game mostly looks quite good. But still, Fidget… why is she naked? I get that she’s some kind of fairy fox-bat thing, but everyone else has clothes even though they’re fur-covered, so it looks weird. But apart from that, the visuals are good. This is a nice-looking game, with good hand-drawn backdrops with some variety and plenty of well-designed monsters to fight. This game was mostly made by one guy, so everything has a consistent look to it, and it’s mostly well drawn. The music is pretty a good orchestral-style score and fits the game well; I like it.

But the main focus here is on the combat. The area the game takes place in is infested with monsters, and fighting is the core of the game. You can slash with your sword for a normal attack, use some Dust moves, one of which spins your sword to swirl enemies around and another which allows you to zip around in the air left or right attacking enemies, and have Fidget shoot out little magic bolts. Her magic is very weak on its own, but combine it with a Dust move and it swirls all around, hitting all enemies nearby for much more damage. A combo counter encourages you to keep attacking enemies. You can also dodge-roll left or right. Combat is fluid and feels great; indeed, the fun, fast-paced, and mobile battle system is the main reason why I like this game. The controls even work decently on keyboard, though a gamepad is recommended. It’s not the most complex thing, but it sure is fun, and there is challenge if you want it. I find this game a lot more fun than, say, Muramasa; that game gets repetitive quickly in a way Dust doesn’t. The default difficulty isn’t too hard, but play on Tough and this game’s a good challenge! In all difficulties there is no way to heal besides using healing items, you see, and in Tough you take a LOT of damage each time you get hit, so take a few hits and you’ll be in trouble. I like playing this game on the harder setting, as it really demands you learn to dodge to survive. The challenge is good, because this game isn’t too long otherwise. It’s a fun challenge, and I probably do like the game more on Tough than Normal.

The games’ world is centered around that one town, but this isn’t an open Metroidvania. Instead, each level is a separate area, and you travel to a specific one for each mission, or freely to explore. Areas do have branching paths though, and you will need specific items you get later in order to access some areas of earlier maps, so there is a Metroidvania-styled element to the world design. Fortunately what you need to do to progress is usually straightforward enough to not be frustrating, but I was wondering what to do a few times. Ah well. There are no bottomless pits in this game, though levels are not flat; there are many jumps, vertical areas, cliffs, and the like, the threats just come from enemies, not pits. That fits this genre well. As for the RPG element though, it’s somewhat minor. You do have experience and level up, with one point to assign each level up, but there are only four categories to upgrade and a maximum of five points in each one, and which you choose doesn’t seem to make a huge difference. Still, having choices is great, I like that. You also get money and various other random items dropped by enemies. Money’s use is obvious, you can buy stuff in stores scattered around or from people in the games’ one main town, but items come in two categories, healing items, equipment, and the like, or crafting-style materials you can sell to stores or use for quests which require them. I do not like crafting, but there is no guesswork here; you just sell the right materials to the shopkeeper or bring stuff to the person in question, pay them, and you get the item. It’s simple enough, though figuring out how to get some items can be tricky sometimes. Overall, Dust: An Elysian Tale is a pretty good sidescrolling action-RPG with good graphics and sound for the most part, a good, fun combat system with great speed and mobility, a decent-sized world to explore, and a nicely variable difficulty, covering people who want it either easy or hard. I definitely recommend this game, it’s good. This game was initially published by Microsoft digitally-only for PC (on Steam) and Xbox 360 Live Arcade, but the developer later also ported it to Mac and Linux on Steam, iOS, and PlayStation 4, all also digital-only releases. I also have the X360 version, and it’s pretty much identical on both platforms.

Earthworm Jim 1 & 2: The Whole Can of Worms (1996, DOS) – password-only save, gamepad supported. Earthworm Jim 1 & 2, from Interplay, is a compilation of the original two Earthworm Jim games that were originally developed by Shiny. Released a year after Activision’s Windows 95 port of the original game, this title includes both the first and second games, but oddly enough is for DOS instead of Win 95. For most of my thoughts on the first game, see the summary of the Win95 version above, in physical games. Now though, I will discuss the differences between the Win95 and DOS versions of Earthworm Jim, as there are changes between the two versions. Aurally both have the same CD audio soundtrack, but this version has more color on screen as it’s based on the SNES version while the Win95 version is based on the Sega CD. However, animations aren’t quite as good as in the Win95 version. Also, there are more levels in the Win95 version, as this DOS version copies the SNES’s level set, which is missing several stages from the Genesis/Sega CD versions, and also does not have the new level added to the SCD/Win95 edition. This version also has password-only saving, instead of the save file of the Win95 version. Overall, this version of Earthworm Jim 1 is a good port, but I do think the Win95 version is better. As for the gameplay though, EWJ is the same decent, but sometimes frustrating, game that it always has been. I’ve never loved this game, though I don’t hate it either; it’s just okay, a great-looking but flawed game with loose controls and hit detection and sometimes frustrating gameplay and level designs.

As for the sequel, unlike the first one, Earthworm Jim 2 isn’t a game I have ever spent a lot of time with. I may not have loved it, but I did own EWJ1 in the ’90s, so I played a fair amount of the game. I didn’t own this game until I got this collection as a digital download a few years ago, though, and even then never have played much of it, so playing it for this summary is one of my first serious attempts at the game. I have always heard that EWJ2 is a less straightforward game than the first, with many more gimmick-based levels with weird mechanics. That can be good, as for example Donkey Kong Country 3 is my favorite of the three SNES DKC games even though it has the most themed, “gimmicky” levels, but I love the mechanics of that series throughout. That’s not true with EWJ, so I’ve never thought I would care too much for this game.

And indeed, playing it now, while EWJ2 has a great orchestrated CD soundtrack and beautiful graphics and great cartoon-style animation for something that is a port of a 4th-gen console game, the controls are still flawed and the game is frustrating. And as with the DOS version of EWJ1, this one also has password-only saving, sadly. The basic gameplay in EWJ2 controls the same as it did in the first game, with no improvements beyond adding a switch-weapons button. That weapon-switch addition is very useful, but that’s the one improvement, so hit detection is still iffy and movement control sometimes a bit hard to judge. As with the first one, this is a graphics-before-gameplay game. But indeed, unlike the first game, where most levels played normally, most levels this game have some kind of gimmick. Within just the first few stages you see a normal level where you run, jump, and shoot as you did in the first game, a quite annoying stage where you’re on a stairlift having to speed up or slow down to avoid falling old women, a not-very-good shmup level, and a level where you play as a flying cave salamander and have to navigate a maze where touching any wall damages you. It continues like that, with many entirely different sections, not all of them good. And the regular platformer stages aren’t great either, just like before.

Still, the game has some strengths. The variety can be cool to see, the graphics and music are really good, and the game can be fun; EWJ2 isn’t bad, just somewhat disappointing. I wish that Shiny had improved the controls though, they could have used some work, as could some of the level concepts here. Overall, Earthworm Jim 2 is a below-average but okay game that fans of the first one definitely should play. People like me who never did love Earthworm Jim won’t be convinced by this one, though. As for this collection as a whole, the digital version on GOG is a cheap and convenient way to play these games, but I can’t quite recommend them, not with all their flaws. EWJ1 is also available on many platforms; see the full list in the Win95 version summary. This version is unique though, with the SNES’s reduced level set and visuals but the Sega CD/Win95 soundtrack. EWJ2 is also available on Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation (in Europe only on PS1), though there are small differences between this version and those two, and without the CD audio on SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy Advance. The Genesisversion is available on Wii Virtual Console.

Electronic Super Joy (2013, WinXP+) – saves, gamepad supported (dinput supported). Electronic Super Joy is a stylish but flawed linear-path platformer by Michael Todd Games with pixel art, a good sense of visual style, good music, some poor choices in the audio department, and irritating gameplay. You are a shadow figure in a world of black interact land on brightly colored, but monochromatic, backgrounds. This game is very much in the “very hard games” school, but while some of that challenge is because of fun, interesting levels, the challenge also comes from random chance elements and the games’ often-frustrating controls. Your basic actions are running and a single jump. You attack by slamming towards the ground. Your jump is oddly slow and has a weird sense of momentum to it, so it will take some time to get used to jumping in this game without ending up in a pit half of the time. There is a trail behind you showing your path, but even so, the jumping in this game is odd in a way I don’t like. Your attack is also an issue, as you go straight down, VERY fast, so you can only attack while over a platform or you die instantly, as you also die if you touch any edge of the screen, so falling won’t drop you back a bit, you just die and restart from the last checkpoint. You’ll be doing that a lot, as anything you touch also kills you, and judging if you are over a platform or not, for attacks, can be tricky and near-random. In addition to normal ground, obstacles include enemies which move back and forth; turrets which shoot straight and of course are in a location where you can’t attack them; other turrets which shoot incredibly annoying homing missiles at you which are tough to avoid and can come at you in large numbers, and of course the turrets are in unreachable locations and very common; many stages with auto-scrolling to make things even tougher; and more. There are also warps that send you elsewhere in the stage, bounce stars to bounce high on, single-use bounce arrows, slimy surfaces you stick to, keys and doors, and more. All of these elements combine together for interesting jumping puzzles sometimes, but other times they are very frustrating. It’s a mixed bag, probably a little more bad than good.

The game does look good visually, though. Electronic Super Joy’s look, with almost all-black environments with only the occasional white highlight, such as your characters’ eyes or the slime on slippery platforms, looks great against the colorful backgrounds. Each level has a single-color theme, and backgrounds are simple with lots of broad beams of color, and the overall look has a great style to it. The music is good stuff too. It’s pounding techno, one of my favorite kinds of music, and it’s great here and fits the game well. The sound effects don’t work as well, though. For some reason, as the name suggests, this game has random, and inappropriate, sexual moaning in the background on a regular basis. There are moans and sounds from people of both genders, but still, why the heck would you do that, it doesn’t fit with anything in the actual game and only serves to distract and make the game look juvenile. There is a “PG” mode which disables this stuff, but still, why is it here at all? And that censors out part of the story too, though the story is pretty bad so that’s not so much of a problem, I guess. More positively, though, the game does have a good feature set, with plenty of built-in levels in several modes, DLC addons for more content, and a map editor for if you want to make your own levels. The game also keeps track of your best times, and which this is mostly an entirely linear game focused on just getting through each level as fast as you can, levels do have a collectible star to find off somewhere in a tricky-to-reach location, so there is replay value if you want to improve your times and get the few collectibles. Overall though, despite some positives, I didn’t like Electronic Super Joy all that much. It is addictive at times even when it’s frustrating, that I admit, but with the random-chance deaths, weird controls, frustrating missiles, and iffy, juvenile audio, I can’t quite recommend this one. People who like masochistically hard games probably would like this game more than I do, though. Also available, digitally only, on Mac and Linux on Steam, PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U, and there is also a followup of sorts for all those platforms plus iOS and Android. The computer versions have paid DLC, but the Wii U version includes it free.

Fly’n (2012, WinXP+) – saves, gamepad supported (dinput supported, but with issues). Fly’n is a very artsy platformer by Ankama with a beautiful art style reminiscent of LocoRoco on the PSP and platforming with a strong puzzle component that centers around your ability to flip between two viewing modes which make some platforms and collectables appear only in one mode or the other. You play as four cute creatures, a blue birdlike thing, a green plant creature, a red one, and a black one. You start with just the blue one, but gain another in each world of the game. Each of the four has an exclusive power, but all can do the basic running, jumping, and mode-switching. Your goal in each level is to reach the end, and levels are mostly linear, though there is some freedom along the way if you want to explore and try to find all of the collectables. The great graphics are the first thing you’ll notice, though. Environments are rich and detailed, the art direction is great, and every area looks rich with highly-stylized life. Red areas or objects are dangerous and will kill you, so avoid them! There is a lot of background animation too, and I like how while there is no speech in this game, when you help out the other cute animal characters they cheer up and happy background animations play. It’s great stuff. The soundtrack is also good. It’s calming, atmospheric instrumental music and fits the tone of the game very well. Now, these art-first games sometimes play great and other times do not, but while Fly’n may have better graphics than gameplay, the gameplay’s pretty good too; this is a good game all around. The puzzles, controls, and design are all good. Indeed, the game controls well, as your movements are responsive.

So, to get to the end in each level, you’ll run, jump and double jump, push things around, float, use your current characters’ exclusive action, and flip between the two view modes. The blue character can sing to activate things; the green one can attach to walls, to climb to otherwise inaccessible areas; black can bounce, even on danger zones; and red can air-dash. This is a nonviolent game with no real enemies, though there are plenty of those red spiky areas to avoid. Sometimes red stuff will fall at you as well, be on a moving platform, or such, though, so obstacles are not only static. I really like the design here, becuase there’s more than enough to focus on with the platforming and mode-switching; adding combat on top of that would be unnecessary. It’s also nice to see a non-violent platformer for once. If you do die you just respawn at the last checkpoint, which there are several of per stage. Some stages also allow you to switch between two characters at checkpoints. The game starts out easy enough, but at 40 levels this game has decent length for a game like this, and it does get hard as you progress. This may be a puzzle-platformer, but you will need good twitch skills to get through some areas. Still, it’s a fun challenge.

The view-flipping is the most unique element in Fly’n. Most of your environment is the same in both modes, though the color palette changes in each, but some white lines become tangible platforms in one mode but background objects you can move through in the other. Some are tangible in one mode, and others in the other. This leads to many puzzles where you have to quickly switch modes in order to get through a maze of white barriers. Optional collectibles also only appear in each view. There are a lot of these little collectables in each stage, and you’ll need to thoroughly search through stages, checking both views, to find them all. Many are easy to find, but getting all of them will require finding hidden areas and figuring out some trickier optional puzzles. The game also keeps track of how fast you finish each level, for some additional replay value. To conclude, Fly’n is quite good. Figuring out how to move boxes around white-line barriers, jumping between platforms while switching views mid-jump, hunting for collectables, and figuring out the tougher puzzles of the later stages is all both fun and a good challenge. With great art, a somewhat original mode-flipping mechanic, plenty of variety, and fun gameplay, Fly’n is well worth a look if you like this style of game.

Freedom Planet (2014, WinXP+) – saves, gamepad supported (directinput supported). Freedom Planet is a pretty good platformer made by GalaxyTrail, a Sonic the Hedgehog fan team. The basic concept here is inspired by the Genesis Sonic games, as you run around, fast, with anthropomorphic characters in a really nice-looking 2d world full of heavily Sonic-styled level design elements. This game is no clone, though, it’s it’s own game in both good and bad ways. Visually this game is perhaps more 5th-gen than 4th, as it makes heavy use of sprite scaling. It’s more like a Saturn 2d look than Genesis, I would say, and it looks great. Gameplay-wise, the biggest difference is that you can only attack enemies in this game with melee attacks, not by jumping on them. So, this is a more combat-focused game than the classic Sonics are. There are three playable characters in this game, all female, a nice change from the all male playable cast of the Genesis Sonics. There is a male character still being worked on, but he’s playable in time trial mode only in a beta version of the game.

Unfortunately, unlike the Genesis Sonic games but like newer Sonic entries, this game has a story, a fairly voluminous one. The cutscenes are long, sometimes very confusing, and aren’t always interesting either. The basic plot, of the four main characters, led by heroine dragon-girl Lilac, fighting against an evil alien trying to take over and ruin the world is simple enough, but there’s an attempt at a deeper plot here, but it often makes little sense. Characters talk to each other as if they know eachother and you should know the context of their conversation, but there is no context, nothing to refer back to to make what they’re saying make sense! And the cutscenes are long, too. A patch apparently cut down on them a little, but they’re still long. Classic Sonic cutscenes are seconds long at most, and that’s all a game like this needs. I know many Sonic fans like the overdone drama of modern Sonic, but I rarely have, and seeing that kind of thing in this 2d game reminds me again of how much better the classic Sonic games are, story-wise; less is sometimes more. There is an Adventure mode which ditches the cutscenes, though, so you could stick to that, but Story mode has some interesting features, such as different level orders and level-sets for each character. There are ten levels in the game, a good number, and the different level sets in story mode add some nice variety. Adventure mode just goes through all ten regardless of character, with only a few short cutscenes.

The controls are Sonic-inspired, but aren’t Sonic. Beyond the combat system that requires you use attacks to damage enemies instead of jumping on them, you also have a health bar here, and will need it for the very tough boss fights. Levels have Sonic-styled loops, moving platforms, scattered enemies, pads to activate things, springs, and the like. There is a physics system, but it’s different from Sonic, as you can keep running up a vertical wall even if you’re moving pretty slowly, as opposed to Sonic where you eventually fall off. This is just different, not better or worse, but I noticed the change. You also have blue crystals to collect, though they aren’t health, unlike Sonic’s rings, just points and such. There are also some other collectables, such as harder-to-find ones that unlock things in the Gallery mode, and some for time-limited special abilities such as invincibility. For controls the game uses three buttons, for jump and your two attacks. The two main characters’ attacks are a basic melee attack and a more powerful one that uses up a meter that automatically recharges, though the other characters are different. Levels are well-designed and are a lot of fun to explore, and each looks entirely different. There are some puzzle elements, maybe on the level of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, to add a little variety and I think they fit in well.

I do have one issue here, though — there is a huge disparity in challenge between the levels and bosses. In any game like this where you can move so fast that there’s no hope of always being able to see where you are going this is a very difficult balance to make, and bosses excepted Freedom Planet focuses on fun first. I do like that there aren’t any instant-death pits in this game, and that spikes are kept to a minimum, but this only enhances the lacking challenge, particularly in the early levels; without those two things you don’t have the frustration of some Sonic games, and that’s kind of great because that’s a big problem for instance in the GBA and DS Sonic games, but you also don’t have much challenge, as enemies aren’t much of a threat most of the time either. I believe that all of my deaths in this game so far have been against bosses or minibosses, and never in a level, and that says something. While this game is pretty good, and it is satisfying when you finally figure out a boss and beat them, I prefer it when a games’ levels and bosses are proportional in challenge, instead of the huge gulf between the two you see here. This is one of the reasons I love The Last Blade 2, it doesn’t have that common fighting game issue of “suddenly the last boss is nearly impossible after the other enemies were easy once you know how to play”. And for one more critique, while levels are fun, they are long; each of those 10 stages should take at least 20-40 minutes. Sometimes these stages drag on a bit long; Sonic levels are much shorter. Still, Freedom Planet is mostly a pretty good game, and exploring the stages, finding stuff, and figuring out the bosses is mostly great.

One other nice feature about the game are that each of the playable characters is quite different. The core mechanics are similar with all of them, but each is distinct. The main two characters each have seven hit points. Main character Lilac can jump and sort of fly in an aerial attack in her stronger attack that uses the meter, while her friend Carol can climb walls and find a motorcycle powerup to ride on, but her meter attack is still just melee-range, though it does have some invincibility. Climbing walls is great fun and makes level traversal easier, but Carol’s more limited melee-only combat range makes boss fights harder with her. The third character, Milla, is unlocked after finishing level two, and she’s even more different, as she has less health than either of the others, only four hit points, and is a mage: one attack button does a basic melee attack, and the other summons a green blob-square. Then you can toss the square to hit an enemy by hitting that button again, or hit the other button to do a stronger forwards attack. It’s fun stuff. She also can jump very high, though she can’t wall-jump. The last character, the guy, is different yet again.

Another strength of this game are its very good visuals. The large sprites, very colorful environments, parallax scrolling, sprite scaling and rotation, and transparencies all look fantastic, and give this game a 5th-gen feel to it, as I said earlier. The sprites are also detailed and very nicely animated; I like little touches like the spin when you grab on to a ladder you were just about to go past. This is a pixel-art platformer, but it’s a different kind of pixel-art look from the usual pseudo-NES style of a lot of pixel-art games, and the results are impressive. The soundtrack’s also good chiptune-style stuff. As for the characters they are all furry anthropomorphic animals. It’s good that there are no humans present, really; mixing the two doesn’t work well in the 3d Sonic games. Overall, there’s more to Freedom Planet I haven’t seen yet, but I like what I’ve seen. This is a sizable game with a lot of content, several characters to play as each with their own story mode, and good gameplay and graphics. The game has a few downsides, including the confusing story and uneven difficulty disparity, but there’s a lot more good than bad here. Freedom Planet is good and I definitely recommend it. Digital download only. The game is also available on Mac and Linux on Steam, and also on Wii U eShop.

This time, 9 full summaries, plus a very little bit on the first four Keen games, mentioning the few differences from the physical releases.

Titles Covered in this Update
—
Capsized (2011)
Closure (2012)
Commander Keen Episode I: Marooned on Mars (1990)
Commander Keen Episode II: The Earth Explodes (1990)
Commander Keen Episode III: Keen Must Die (1990)
Commander Keen Episode IV: Secret of the Oracles (1991)
Commander Keen Episode V: The Armageddon Machine (1991)
Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure (1992)
Crystal Caves (1991)
Dangerous Dave Pack: Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (1991)
Dangerous Dave Pack: Dangerous Dave’s Risky Rescue (1993)
Dangerous Dave Pack: Dave Goes Nutz (1993)
Dark Void Zero (2010)

Capsized (2011, WinXP+) – 1 player, saves, dual analog gamepad supported (xinput only). Capsized is yet another 2d dual-stick or keyboard+mouse platform-action game, and it’s got a physics system too, another popular modern indie game feature. You move with one stick or the keyboard and aim and shoot with the mouse or other stick. The game recommends you play with the keyboard and mouse for the best controls. You can play with a pad, but the lacking precision in aiming really makes the game harder. Indeed, mouse aiming definitely is best for this title, it’s much more precise. Of the mouse-and-keyboard platformers so far this one controls the best, though I still do prefer traditional platformers. In additon to shooting and jumping, you also have a jetpack with limited fuel, for flying some, and a grabber gun which creates a beam that can move objects around. The game heavily utilizes both mechanics, so you spend most of this game on shooting, traversal, and moving objects around.

The story here is that you are a spaceman stranded on a wild, dangerous planet after your spaceship was attacked. You need to escape this place. This is a linear game, though, so it’s focused on setting up interesting challenges for you to figure out your way past. I prefer this kind of design to open-world, myself; it allows each situation to be carefully designed. Capsized’s gameplay is a mixture of shooting things, mostly monsters, giant insects, living plants, and the like, and moving things with your grab-beam and moving them to places where you can use them to progress, defeat enemies, and such. The world looks nice, and I like the lush environments and slightly odd creatures, even if all you are doing is fighting them; the puzzle elements don’t involve interaction with others, but dragging rocks around and the sort. Overall, Capsized is an okay to good platform-action game with puzzle elements. It can be fun, but isn’t amazing. The art is decent to good, though the character art can be a little weird, moving around can be fun, and the action is alright. Capsized is worth a look. Digital download only.

Closure (2011) – 1 player, saves, gamepads supported (dinput supported). Closure is another indie puzzle-platformer with very nice, original greyscale-only artwork. So yes, of the pixel-art v. hand-drawn divide in 2d indie platformers, this is in the latter group. Indeed, the game has quite good art design. The all black, white, and greyscale artwork is unique, as is the concept: the screen is almost all black, except for areas lit up by spotlights or light orbs, and only lit areas exist. So, you can jump right through the space that wall in front of you is in if you just don’t light it up. The game makes clever use of this light-and-darkness mechanic, and the designer came up with some tricky puzzles for sure. As with many indie games this game sticks to its concept and does not have variety, but when you have a good idea and execute it well, that’s just fine. The game controls well, too, as the controls are responsive and work as well as needed for this kind of game. This is not a precision platformer, but you do do a lot of jumping and it controls fine. This isn’t a particular long game I believe, though, and there is only limited replay value if you wish to go back and find the few collectibles, but it’s an interesting and thought-provoking trip the first time through.

The game makes you think for several reasons, too. The first, obviously, are the puzzles. You will turn spotlights, carry around light orbs and place them so you can jump through obstacles, put orbs on auto-moving tracks then follow the moving light in time, push boxes, and more. The screen is often dark, so when a larger area lights up it really stands out. The game starts out easy and levels are initially short, but level length and complexity ramps up as you progress. Capsized has a good difficulty curve to it, and there are three different main areas to play through, so if you get stuck in one you can go play one of the others. That’s a great option to have! Story-wise, this game is dark and weird, as well as vague and confusing. You play as this octopus-ish demon thing, and also these three people in the three main areas, a miner man, a young woman, and a little girl. Their stories are somewhat dark, as expected from the general tone of this game, but all cutscenes are wordless and aren’t fully explained, so the exact meaning of the game is open to interpretation. I don’t mind that, and the gameplay and characters are interesting enough to get me to keep playing to see what I think. Throughout, the shadowy graphics, the discordant sounds of the strange soundtrack, and slow-paced puzzle gameplay make for an unsettling experience. I, at least, find it unsettling more in a good way than bad, though. If you’re up for that, and you should be because this game is pretty good, Closure is well worth a play. This game is a good-looking, unique puzzle-platformer which is well worth experiencing. Digital only release. The game is Mac and Linux compatible on Steam. Also available digital-only on Playstation 3 PSN.

Commander Keen Episode I: Marooned on Mars (1990, DOS)
Commander Keen Episode II: The Earth Explodes (1990, DOS)
Commander Keen Episode III: Keen Must Die (1990, DOS)
Commander Keen Episode IV: Secret of the Oracles (1991, DOS) – I covered these four amazing games from id Software and published by Apogee already in the category earlier for games I own physical copies of, so go read my summaries of these incredible classics there! They’re some of the best platformers on the PC. The games have physical releases from 1990-1991, and also is available digitally on Steam and on 3D Realms’ website. I have Keens I to V for both Steam and 3D Realms’ site. Both are the same core games of course, though there are a few DOSBox differences between them. Either is fine, though oddly for some insane reason Steam and 3DR both seem to have decided that the game should run in 16:9, so everything is all stretched. You will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio, which everyone who plays any Keen game should do before playing. You also may need to fix the joystick support in DOSBox options, it didn’t work for me by default.

Commander Keen Episode V: The Armageddon Machine (1991, DOS) – 1 player, saves, gamepads supported. Commander Keen V is the only Keen game that I did not own or play any of in the ’90s. This game is the second half Commander Keen: The Universe is Toast, so it’s a sequel to Secret of the Oracles. Though Keen VI: Aliens ate my Babysitter was the last Keen game released and is the last one in the story, it had to be finished earlier for its retail release, so this was actually the final Keen episode programmed, though story-wise it is fifth. This time Keen has to stop the Armageddon Machine before it destroys the universe! The gameplay here is standard Keen, with game and level design closer to Keen VI than IV, though all three are quite similar. The controls, gameplay, and visual look is the same as Keens IV and VI, though as with all Keen games the setting and enemies are unique to this title. The Armageddon Machine is a giant ship, so as with the first Keen game, the second game in the trilogy is set on a giant spaceship, while the first and third are on planets. There’s some nice symmetry there. The cartoony graphical style makes for a very different game from Keen 2, though, and it all looks fantastic! The graphical design is top-quality stuff as always. Keen games all have a great sense of place and cool, varied enemies to interact with. The memorable art designs in this series are one of many reasons people love it. And the soundtrack is really good too, just as it is in the previous two games. Structurally, the game plays just like Keens IV and VI, as you would expect. The overworld map’s design is somewhat like Aliens Ate My Babysitter, in that it’s mostly linear and you collect items which allow you to progress past points on the map. I think I prefer the more open overworlds of the first four games over the more linear ones of the last two, as if you get stuck in a level it’s fun to have other ones to play instead. As in Keen VI though this game does have many points with multiple stages to try, though, so you aren’t always locked onto one level. The games’ length is average for the series as well.

In gameplay, the controls are near-perfect as always. Learning how Keen jumps, and then the bouncing and slower turning of the pogo stick, are the keys to the game, and using those tools well is incredibly fun. The pogo stick is a particularly great idea, and is essential throughout. The responsive, very well-programmed controls are another strength of this fantastic but too-short-lived series. Your actions are standard for the series. You will be running, shooting, jumping and bounching through challenging platforming levels, collecting lots of stuff for points as you make your way to the exit in each stage. There will be many switches and keys to hit as you explore the stages, so levels are large and complex. Keen V has more incredible level designs to figure out; the levels here are every bit as great as those in IV and VI. As always it’s incredibly hard to choose which game I like most when all of them are this amazing! Level designs in general are great, with designs that are complex but not confusing so you won’t get lost, a lot of setting variety between stages, lots of tricky but fun jumping puzzles, switches to hit, moving platform gaps to get past, and more. And as before, I love how this series always has temptingly difficult-to-get point items sitting around the stages, there for you to get if you want to either have a better score or just feel like you’ve accomplished more of the game. The latter is the bigger draw for me, I think. You die in one hit like always here, and have limited ammo for your gun, so the choice to explore will lead to many deaths, but it’s usually worth it. Even if it leads to occasional frustration though I am often drawn in to exploring in Keen games, as the great level designs reward it, and this game is no exception. You will die a lot, sure, but Keen games are almost never unfair or cheap; when you die, it’s either bcause you messed up, or because you ran ahead without being careful and were hit by something you probably could have seen if you were a bit more cautious. For example, enemies move in predictable patterns, you can look up and down, bottomless pits are telegraphed, not sprung on you, and tougher areas and levels are often obviously marked as such.

So, overall, Commander Keen v: The Armageddon Machine is a really fantastic game, the last of what still is one of the best platformer series ever released for the PC. It’s really too bad that after Wolfenstein 3D ID became id and decided to never make another game like this again, because in the two short years they released platformers, they made some of the best. The Commander Keen series is an absolute must-play series for anyone who likes platformer games at all. This isn’t my favorite Keen game, because of nostalgia and the too-linear world design, but the levels, graphics, music, and gameplay are all as great as anything in this series, and I love that I’m finally able to play this, after wondering for all those years in the ’90s what Keen V was like. It’s fantastic. I have Keens I to V for both Steam and 3D Realms’ site. Both are the same core games of course, though there are a few DOSBox differences between them. Either is fine, though oddly for some insane reason Steam and 3DR both seem to have decided that the game should run in 16:9, so everything is all stretched. You will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio, which everyone who plays any Keen game should do before playing. You also may need to fix the joystick support in DOSBox options, it didn’t work for me by default.

Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure (1992, DOS) – 1 player, saves, gamepads supported. Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure is another Apogee platformer, and it’s a pretty good one. You’re this cartoon-style alien guy called Cosmo, a green thing with suction cups for hands. This game is Apogee’s attempt at a somewhat more Mario-like platformer, as while most Apogee games have projectile attacks, here you mostly kill enemies by jumping on their heads. Cosmo can also drop bombs which will kill enemies near where they explode, but jumping on enemies is your main attack. This game is a fairly standard, level-based platformer. As in the Duke Nukem games but unlike other Apogee titles, this is a linear game where you go from each level to the next, there isn’t a hub world. The character design and most of the gameplay is fairly family-friendly, but there is some weird stuff particularly in the later episodes. The art design is good and has a lot of variety, though, and the environments look appropriately alien. The game has parallax scrolling too, impressively for an early ’90s PC game, though the 16-color EGA graphics hold it back versus SNES or Genesis games. The very low framerate holds Cosmo back as well. Like Duke Nukem, Cosmo runs at a very low, barely double-digit framerate. The game controls well, so Cosmo is very responsive and moves exactly as you tell him, but it is choppy. You do get used to the sluggish, choppy pace, but for me at least playing these games now it never feels natural, I’m always wishing it would just run full speed. The Commander Keen games run much more smoothly than this, which really shows John Carmack’s programming skill. Aurally, the game has PC Speaker only audio, unfortunately, so there are only Keen 1-3-like sound effects and no music. This is okay, but sound card support would have been nice.

As for the levels, Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure has a nice mix of stages. Over the course of the three episodes the difficulty ramps up on a nice curve, so the first, shareware, episode isn’t too hard, but starting from episode 2 the difficulty goes up. Cosmo has three hit points, but it’s easy to die thanks to the many enemies and bottomless pits. Fortunately you can look up and down, and looking down particularly is extremely useful at times, to save you from some blind jumps. However, it can sometimes be hard to tell what you can jump on and what you can’t as backgrounds get very busy sometimes, though you can tell if you’re looking closely as anything you can jump on won’t move with the parallax background. Dying starts the current level over, but you do have infinite lives and can save at any time, though you will restart from the beginning of the current level. As you might expect, levels are littered with items to collect for points. There are also health-up items and more, but most pickups give you points. Some are on the main path and other on alternate routes, and sometimes collecting stuff is fun, but when the game gets harder I sometimes just want to the end. The challenge of beating the levels is satisfying, though, and with three decent-length episodes to play through there’s a good amount of game here. I like the focused, straightforward level designs, it’s nice to see something different from the other more exploration-focused platformers Apogee published.

Overall I really like Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure. Apogee was the best shareware developer, and this game is a good example of why! Playing it for this summary I’ve had a lot of fun. This is a nice-looking game with good controls, gameplay, level designs, and graphics. The audio is basic and the framerate low, but otherwise Cosmo is a good game definitely worth playing.This game is shareware, so the first episode is available free while you pay for the rest of it. The game has a physical release from 1992, and also is available digitally on Steam and on 3D Realms’ website. I have the 3DR site version, and it’s mostly good, though you will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio; for some very odd reason they chose to have it default to filling the screen, even though this 4:3 game should only be played at that ratio.

Crystal Caves (1991, DOS) – 1 player, saves, gamepads supported. Crystal Caves is another Apogee title. This is one of the titles developed by Apogee itself, not another developer. You’re a miner guy in a helmet exploring caves full of crystals, as the name suggests. This is a collection-focused platformer with some puzzle elements at times. The game has small sprites and levels that only take up a couple of screens each, a bit like an expanded version of Apogee’s CGA titles I will cover later, Pharaoh’s Tomb, Monuments of Mars, and Arctic Adventure. Unlike those games though, Crystal Caves has EGA graphics and faster, more complex gameplay, as it isn’t designed to run on early ’80s computers like they are. The game looks okay, but its art design is fairly average for Apogee, and the small sprites don’t look like much. Each enemy, obstacle, or background element looks different, but this is game you play for the gameplay, not the visuals. The simple PC Speaker-only audio also is pretty basic, and is sound effects only. The visuals are small as well, as levels are a single screen each and sprites are all quite small.

In terms of gameplay, Crystal Caves moves at a decent though slightly slow pace. Thanks to the small sprites you can see a long way in any direction. You have a hub world with doors that connect to the levels, and each of the three episodes has 16 levels to complete. Gameplay is simple, straightforward, and hard: you move around, running and jumping to avoid enemies and obstacles and get all of the crystals. You have three hit points per life and a gun to take out enemies with, though you do have limited ammo. As in Keen, you need to collect gun powerups to get more ammo, and each gives you only a few shots. You also have infinite lives from the beginning of the current level and can save on the hub world. That’s great, and helps you focus on each level without needing to replay ones you’ve beaten before. Despite that help, this is a challenging game which rewards practice, trial and error, and some platforming skill. Learning each level well enough to survive by avoiding the traps and avoiding or defeating the variety of enemies, while also collecting all the crystals as is required to exit, is a fun challenge. There are many traps and enemies to avoid or kill, too, including falling spikes, air compressors that instantly kill you if you shoot them, spiders which hit you if you walk under them, enemies with eyes on stalks where you must kill the two eyes, which are only vulnerable when open, before you can shoot the main body, and more. This is a fairly conventional game, but figuring out what to do in each stage can be fun, for a while at least. It’s not just shooting either, as figuring out how to get to some of the crystals can require not only precise platforming, but also careful shooting to, for instance, only destroy the blocks you don’t need to get to the top in an area with breakable blocks. They won’t respawn, so mess up and you’ll have to quit back to the map and try again; thankfully you can do this in the pause/save menu.

So, figuring out how to get through a stage can be a fun challenge, but while I like this game, I’ve never loved Crystal Caves as much as some other Apogee titles. The small graphics and familiar design hold it back, and the game does not have Pharaoh’s Tomb’s simple charm either. And also, the game has a spiritual sequel that is the same thing but better: Secret Agent. That game is very similar to this one, but is improved and more fun all around. If you’re going to play one of these two games play Secret Agent, but Crystal Caves is a fine choice as well. This tricky game will keep you playing for a while if you get into it, and it’s satisfying to finally get a level right and get all the stuff. It’s not one of Apogee’s best games, but it is worth a try. The game has a physical release from 1991, and also is available digitally on Steam and on 3D Realms’ website. I have the 3DR site version, and it’s mostly good, though you will need to change the DOSBox settings manually to run in the correct aspect ratio; for some very odd reason they chose to have it default to filling the screen, even though this 4:3 game should only be played at that ratio.

Dangerous Dave Pack: Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (Dave 2) (1991, DOS) – gamepad supported, high score save (but not progress). Dangerous Dave is a character designed by John Romero, and stars in now seven games mostly for the PC and Apple II. This game is the second game in the series. Most games in this series was originally released on subscription disk services, so they were made on the cheap; subscription disk services like Softdisk, this series’ publisher from the second through seventh games, didn’t pay great, and unlike Apogee kept the rights to games they published. ID signed a contract with Softdisk though, so good or not they had to make games for them for a while. Romero made the original game on his own, then id Software made the second game. After that Softdisk made five more themselves with Romero only in an advisory role. For a long time the series was somewhat forgotten, but several years ago the second through fourth PC games in the series were re-released in a digital-download package on GOG.com, and that is what I am discussing here. For some reason the bundle does not include the original game or either of the Apple II-only titles; no idea why. The last is a 2015 iOS game by John Romero. Dave was Romero’s first character, I believe, so he brought him back, with that game and this pack.

Despite there being seven games in the series, though, this isn’t a series I remember from the early ’90s. So, unlike id’s much more famous Keen games, after getting it a few years ago, I went into this game not knowing anything about it. Apparently the original Dave is a puzzle-platformer, but this game is an action-heavy shooter. It’s fun, but doesn’t match up to the better action-platformers on consoles. Still, the first thing I noticed here is that the early ’90s ID style is very evident. Visually, this is an okay-looking title running in 16-color EGA. Dave’s character art isn’t at Keen’s level, but the actual sprite-art is nice and has some of that ID style, though the whole game has only one environment, a mansion, so there is no graphical variety. The sadly PC Speaker-only sound effects are also reminiscent of ID’s other games of the time, which is nice. The general look and play of the game is strongly reminiscent of a Keen game. The gameplay is entirely different, however. Remember what I said about Softdisk not paying anywhere near Apogee levels of funding? Sadly, it shows. This game may be from John and Adrian Carmack, Tom Hall, and John Romero, just like Keen, but it must have seen much less development time. It has eight levels, no saving, and a simple goal: kill the undead hordes and try to make your way to the end of each stage. You can walk around, jump, and shoot. Showing that this is an action game first, unlike Keen you don’t keep jumping when you hold the jump button down, but instead have to tap it each time you want to jump. In this kind of game that works. You’re armed with only a shotgun, and while you do have infinite ammo, you can only have eight shells in the gun at a time and need to reload, which Dave does automatically when you stop moving. This means you’ll often have to stand around waiting for him to reload, which can get a bit tedious, though it does also add some strategy, as you need to always consider your ammo before fighting foes. You can only shoot when standing on the ground and not while jumping, but instead you can fire at a diagonal up or diagonal down angle by holding Up or Down and then shooting. These are very useful functions you’ll make heavy use of in the game.

As for the levels, the first one is straightforward, but they get more complex as you progress, as levels have doors connecting various areas together to allow for some exploration. This is a tough game, but the threats here only come from enemies, as traps or pitfalls are not in evidence, and enemies stay dead once killed. Some doors hold those passages and other items that give you points, so always open doors here! You will get extra lives for getting certain amounts of points, too. Eeven so, this game is difficult because you die in one hit, the enemies are numerous and often take multiple shots to kill, if you die you restart the level, and if you run out of lives and get Game Over you’ve got to start the game over from the beginning; as with the absence of saving, there are no continues either. So far I have only gotten a few levels into Dangerous Dave and the Haunted Mansion, but it is fun to play so I’m sure I will try again. The game rewards practice and memorization, as you figure out what to do in each new area of the game. Level designs are good, and not cheap or unfair, so when you died it is your fault; ID always were very good at level design, after graphics engines it’s one of their best skills! The controls are good and quite responsive as well, and the scrolling is as smooth as you’ll see on an early ’90s PC game, as expected from ID. Still, overall, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion is only above average. Most of ID’s games for Softdisk are not the greatest, so this may be one of the better of the bunch, but it’s nowhere near the greatness of Commander Keen, or console plaform-shooters like Contra and the like. Still, it’s a decently-designed and fun little game that is good enough to be worth a try. When you get it digitally it comes bundled with the two games below, too. though this one is by far the best of the three. Originally released by Softdisk on one of their subscription-service disks; also now available digitally on GOG for PC, Mac, and Linux in the Dangerous Dave Pack bundle with the twm games below.

Dangerous Dave Pack: Dangerous Dave’s Risky Rescue (Dave 3) (1993, DOS) – gamepad supported, saves. In 1993, series publisher Softdisk decided to have two new Dangerous Dave games made. ID had nothing to do with either one, beyond John Romero supposedly having some small advisory role, though, and it shows: these games aren’t terrible, but do not come even close to Haunted Mansion in quality. Haunted Mansion comparatively comes off pretty well compared to this. Risky Rescue has slightly better graphics than its predecessor from two years earlier and has much more detailed backgrounds, but it’s still running in EGA only so the improvement is minor. Many shareware games were still EGA-only in ’93, but the switchover was happening, just not here. The nicer and more varied backgrounds are an improvement, at least, though. There is sound card support this time, but only for sound effects; there is no music, again something becoming more common by ’93. I guess Softdisk couldn’t afford to pay a composer. The sound effects are poor as well; this may have Soundblaster or Adlib sound effects, but the gun sound is just pitifully weak-sounding! As for the game, as with its predecessor, this is a sidescrolling action game. It feels like a mediocre knockoff of Haunted Mansion, but does change some things, mostly not for the better. The biggest downgrade is in the level designs, but the controls also suffer a bit. The theme is new, too, Risky Rescue has a violent backwoods Southern style to it, so you’re collecting beer and such as powerups and the game is set in forest and cavern environs, and such. The level of violence has significantly increased over the last game, as was becoming the trend in ’93. Haunted Mansion has some violence, as enemies die in green splotches and there are little death animations every time Dave dies, but this time all of those have been redone with red blood and body parts everywhere.

Gameplay is mostly similar to the previous game, as you again you walk, jump, and fire straight or at up or down angles and die in one hit. A few things are new, though, most notably that this is the only Dangerous Dave game with limited ammo. Yes, this time you need to watch how much you fire, and pick up ammo pickups along the way. You still need to reload, too, and again it’s automatic. The controls are also a bit slipprier than before, and landing on small platforms can be tricky. You’ll need to do that a lot too, as right from the first level Risky Rescue demands you make lots of jumps between very small platforms suspended in the air. It can be frustrating stuff, and the game is tough; Game Overs come easily, though at least they added in a save system. Remember to save when you reach a new level, otherwise you have to start the game over! And indeed, since there is no real main menu, you need to start a new game each time, then hit the Load key (F5) to load your game; it’s a bit clumsy. You also need to re-enable gamepad support every time you play, it’s off by default. Ah well. There are eleven levels here, but level lengths vary so I’m not sure if the game is as long as the last one.

My first impression of this game was poor, as the first level, in a forest, is somewhat frustrating. But once I finally got past it, I did start having some more fun with this game. Still, all of the tiny bits of trees are easy to fall off of, and it can be hard to tell exactly what you can stand on and what you can’t. You also can’t see your shots, so there’s no way to tell where you need to line up to hit an enemy diagonally; it’s easier to judge in Haunted Mansion, but here it feels a bit off. And unlike ID games, this game has blind jumps over death pits, making this game much less fair than its predecessor. Still, there is lots of stuff to collect for points if you want to explore, so that’s good. Sometimes you just need to die to figure out what to do next here, and while that is far from uncommon in platformers, compared to better games it is an issue. Overall, Dangerous Dave’s Risky Rescue is an okay but flawed platform-action game. There is some fun to be had, but the annoying jumps, imperfect controls, and mediocre level designs drag it down, along with the weak presentation. This game is average at best, and probably is a bit below average. Originally released by Softdisk on one of their subscription-service disks; also now available digitally on GOG for PC, Mac, and Linux in the Dangerous Dave Pack bundle with the twm games below.

Dangerous Dave Pack: Dave Goes Nutz (Dave 4) (1993, DOS) – gamepad supported, saves. Dave Goes Nutz was Softdisk’s last DOS Dangerous Dave game, though he would be brought back in 1995 for a final Apple II game, with this titles’ story but the original games’ gameplay. Thankfully the game finally gets a save system added in, which is great, but nothing else was improved; this game is more of the same, with similar EGA graphics, sound effects with no music, and gun controls. The gun-firing sound is at least improved over Risky Rescue, and now you shoot visible bullets so you can tell where to stand to hit people diagonally, infinite ammo returns, and you can aim in a few more angle options than before, but everything else is very similar to the last game, just with a new setting. That may sound improved, but I think I actually like this one the least of the three, though neither of these two 1993 Dave games are great. Level designs might be even more unfair this time than before, and your gun seems to maybe shoot slower so enemies reach you faster, so I feel underpowered here versus the Haunted Mansion. The game also allows you to get a bit too close to the edge of the screen before it starts scrolling, causing issues ID’s game never has. And again the game has EGA-only graphics and no music, unfortunately.

The level designs are the worst thing about this game, though, and might be even worse than the last game due to some iffy design decisions. This game is set in an evil hospital, so you’re fighting nurses with syringes, people shooting deadly green clouds at you, and more. You aren’t contending with tiny platforms right from the start this time, but it’s not better; for some reason, the designers thought that inconsistent level designs were a good idea. So, some identical-looking beds are bouncy platforms you fly into the air on, while others don’t react at all; some floors are solid, while others that look nearly identical can be jumped through; and more. There are also screens along some platforms, making it hard to see enemies there. And isn’t it fun when you jump on a bouncy bed, only to be thrown up more than a screen into the air… where you touch an enemy on the platform there you could never have avoided, and have to restart the whole level from scratch as a result? Yeah, that sure is “fun”! It’s also way too easy to jump too high and die because you touched an enemy on the floor above you.

On the other hand, there are changes which make this game easier than either previous title in some ways. There are powerups that give you a time-limited triple shot, getting extra lives from points seems much easier than in either previous game, they did add in an easy mode, and again you can save, but still, those additions do not make up for all the faults. Dave Goes Nutz is sometimes okay, but overall is a below-average, at-times-annoying platform-action game that I can’t recommend. It is close between this and Risky Rescue for worst game of these three, but this one might edge that one out… but really, if you get the Dangerous Dave pack, mostly play Haunted Mansion, and only try these out because they come with it. Haunted Mansion is a game decent enough to be worth considering for cheap. So if you do end up with these two, try them I guess, but don’t expect much. Originally released by Softdisk on one of their subscription-service disks; also now available digitally on GOG for PC, Mac, and Linux in the Dangerous Dave Pack bundle with the twm games below.

Dark Void Zero (2010, WinXP+) – Gamepads supported (xinput only), saves. Dark Void Zero is a 2d platformer with NES-ish pixel-art graphics published by Capcom and developed by Western studio Other Ocean Interactive. This is an action-platformer with exploration and a jetpack, so shooting and flying around are your main actions. This isn’t an indie game, though; instead, it was released as a sort of spinoff of Dark Void, a not-very-popular first-person shooter/flight game released the same year as this game. This game got better review scores than the main title, and it is fun, but I have some issues with it. The team made up an amusing backstory for this game, claiming that it had originally been designed in the late ’80s for the NES PlayChoice 10 system as a double-screen game somehow using the lower screen as well as the upper one. There’s more to the invented backstory beyond this, but as you may have guessed, in reality the game was designed for the Nintendo DS, or the DSiWare digital-download shop, more specifically. The game plays on the main screen, or your monitor here on the PC, and a very useful map would be on the lower screen. That’d make this game better on DSi than PC, as here you have to hit M (or maybe a gamepad key?) to view the map. And you’ll need to, as this is a Metroidvania-inspired game, as each of the three levels in this game is large and open. You will be going back and forth constantly within each stage, and only the map tells you where to go next. Design elements including walls that a specific weapon can destroy, gates that only open once you collect the correct keycard, and areas which take away your jetpack force you to explore. Weapon and jetpack points will give you a specific weapon or the jetpack again, but you can only have one gun at a time so choose wisely. Each weapon is quite different though, which is nice. If you die you start back from the last checkpoint, which there are only a few of per level.

The basic gameplay here is fun, as you fly around, explore, collect stuff, and shoot. Now, I’m not at all a fan of open-world games, but I have liked some Metroidvanias. This game can be good fun, but has some design issues. Both on the ground and in the air you move fairly quickly, and there is no way to look up or down, so sometimes you’ve got to make blind jumps and just hope you don’t land in one of the many instant-death pits or on top of an enemy. Sometimes you will, though. I love jetpacks in games, and it is fun to fly around, but the level designs here are frustrating, and the game is very difficult unless you play on the way-too-simple Easy difficulty. The jetpack also goes upwards quickly, so moving forwards in the air without going up as well can be hard, and areas are designed to exploit this weakness, which can be frustrating. Your controls are fairly responsive otherwise, though. You can duck as well as move and jump, though while ducking you only shoot downwards, so there’s no way to shoot enemies while crouching unfortunately; this means you’ll need to pop up and shoot them when you can, instead, ducking to avoid their shots during volleys. You do have a health bar, but can’t take more than a half dozen shots before you die. Enemies respawn pretty much as soon as you go off the screen, too, so every trip across each stage is hazardous. The respawning enemies and their waves of bullets get annoying after a while, when you’re just trying to get across the level to a new room. It would also be nice if you could have all the weapons at once, so you didn’t need to go back across the stage sometimes to get a different one. Considering how short the game is all the backtracking makes sense, but it does get old, and frustrating when you keep dying to random stuff. If you do manage to beat a level the game saves that and you can start from the next one… with the number of lives you finished the previous level with, and no more. And given that each level is long and takes time to get through, and if you run out of lives in a level you have to start it over from scratch, this all gets difficult fast. More levels and a more forgiving continue system would have been better than this. That difficulty selection option doesn’t fix this issue either, not with such a limited amount of content to see.

Visually the game looks good, though. Dark Void Zero probably uses too many colors for a real NES game, and character sprites animate too much, but the designers did try to give the game a pseudo-8-bit look, and it succeeds even if it’s clearly not something a real NES could run. Maybe it’s more Game Boy Advance-like, but with downgraded visuals? Still, I do mostly like the look, and as it would be on a real NES there isn’t parallax scrolling, unlike many games like this. The shooting and visual look appear inspired by the Capcom classic Bionic Commando, though the gameplay is quite different of course due to that jetpack. The art design isn’t the best and does have that Western look to it, but it works well enough. Audio is very NES-like, and it sounds good. Overall, Dark Void Zero is an okay game with flawed but decent gameplay. Exploring and flying around are fun, though the jetpack could have been more maneuverable, and the enemy and trap-laden levels lead to many unfair deaths. Having to constantly switch to the map can be annoying too; this would definitely play better on DSi. This can be a fun game, but it also can be very frustrating and difficult, so in the end Dark Void Zero is average. This is a cheap game, though, so it might be worth a look for hard-games and jetpack fans, particularly. Get the DSi version if you can over this one, though. Also available on Nintendo DSiWare digital-download shop, and also on iOS.