Fatcat

Fatcat is an original shooter with a very inventive gameplay style, that can become very addictive.

Design
The game is designed as a classical vertical scrolling shooter, it lets you control the Fatcat and the Owl facing hordes of alien enemies.
The main menu provides a short help, credits and score boards. Levels can be accessed through a level selection screen. There is not much to say about the design except that levels are well crafted, with nice puzzle like challenges to solve, and it becomes very challenging with later levels.

Gameplay
Fatcat let you control two characters a the same time to create an unique gameplay style. The owl shoots and blocks bullets, being immune to all damage. It is controlled with the mouse pointer and left button. The Fatcat is controlled with the keyboard, and is quite passive but must be protected as it can only receive three hits before dying and it must navigate through the levels.

The cat can collect cookies to fill up his special attack gauge. The cat attack is pretty powerful and is also able to destroy special rocks blocking the way in some levels. The owl is also able to fetch food for Fatcat as it moves much faster.

This mechanism alone would make the game original but the owl can additionally move blocks to clear a path, push buttons to activate special powers, and must be synchronized with the cat to provide a mobile shield.

Each world ends with a classic boss battle using massive attack patterns to test your dodging skills, but with the additional twist that you still need to control the second character to cause damage.



Presentation
Based on great anime style pixel art, the game is using colorful graphics and varied enemy design. The animations and visual effects are also very appealing and graphically consistent.
Background music is well designed using a couple of uplifting electronic loop soundtracks.

Play Fatcat on Miniclip

Bowmaster Prelude

Bowmaster is clearly standing apart from all the archery inspired game available, providing the right mix of skill testing, strategy and customization to create a very addictive experience.

Design
The game design is pretty rich, packing a nice amount of features. You can start by creating a custom profile, choosing a name, a flag and a control scheme. Game progress will then be saved for each profile, with your current rank, experience points, acquired gold and unlocked skills.

At each level you will face attacking waves of the evil Trev'Gahr army. The enemy soldiers will try to reach your side of the battlefield and either capture your flag or destroy your castle. Your primary defense is a legendary magical bow you will use to target the invading troops or to destroy their own castle. You win the battle if you kill all the enemy army or if your own troops manage to capture the enemy flag.

As you win battles, you are also awarded with experience points and gold, that can be spent on upgrades and is required to generate troops. Different type of soldiers with various abilities can be summoned, and they are quite critical to face the enemy wave as your bow alone may not be enough to stop enemy soldiers from reaching your flag. It is much more efficient to manage troop creation manually and to switch off automatic mode.

The real edge is however given by correctly using the different types of arrow that can be purchased. Some of them have big impacts on the game, an others are required to target enemies with specific vulnerability.

Over the levels, you will face many different type of enemies with various attacks and resistances. It is important to carefully choose the most dangerous targets first, and to choose the right arrow for a given enemy. For instance, a trebuchet can cause great damage to the castle, and it should be silenced quickly if your fortress is threaten.

All the upgrades, troops and enemy types are essential to transform a potentially repetitive shooter in an addictive quest.


Gameplay
The shooting requires great accuracy and the engine does a very nice job to produce precise arrow trajectory and hit detection to reward good shooting. A small but significant detail is that your previous shot direction and strength is displayed as you aim, and it allows to adjust your shots one after the other. This is greatly increasing the gameplay appeal.

While aiming your bow, you also need to manage an army and generate troops at the right time. Gold and population will limit the number of soldiers you can produce within a battle forcing you to be careful with your death count. As soldiers cost gold, a balance is necessary between overproducing them and save cash for savvy upgrades.

You should also be careful to avoid shooting at your own soldiers, as they will often be mixed with enemies on the battlefield, and this feature actually implies more thinking to chose the right target. Landscape will change with each level and is an important element of the game. The different compositions can be more or less tricky, and create variations in the shooting possibilities.

Presentation
Graphic design is nice an consistent, soldiers are clearly drawn with pretty animation details. The battlefield background is pleasant with night and day settings. Arrows with special power generate good visual effects such as explosions or ice waves. Background music is a bit repetitive but appropriately chosen.

On the cons side, some gamers may find the game pace a bit slow, but it also creates a more strategic and less action oriented experience. And finally, it is obvious this game needs player versus player so badly...

Play Bowmaster Prelude on Kongregate

The Majesty of Colors

The Majesty of Colors is closer to an interactive story than a regular game, but it is an interesting and attractive experience.

Story
storytelling is the major element of the game, and most of the enjoyment is created by discovering the story by yourself. The game is about a strange dream, presenting various situations and events, influenced by the player actions over time. The only challenge is actually to discover possible actions using a point and click adventure like mechanism.


Your actions will take the story on different paths and persistent players will feel compelled to reveal all possible endings.

Presentation
Graphic design is based on some kind of 8bit pixel art, even more pixelized. Even though they are quite basic, graphics give the right feeling of immersion in a strange digital dream. Sound effects are also contributing nicely to the chilling atmosphere.

The unique design of this short interactive story creates a really relaxing and enjoyable adventure.

Play The Majesty of Colors on Kongregate

Buggle Stars

Buggle Stars is what could be called the perfect Christmas casual game. Some crucial elements such as a nice presentation, clever design and perfect gameplay are combined to built an easy to play, just challenging enough, very rewarding game.

Design

Game design is amazing, even though nothing is particularly original, every detail is carefully crafted.

The game starts with a quick tutorial, and provides 20 levels that can be accessed from the startup screen once unlocked. You can see a thumbnail of each level before playing it, as well as your best score if you would like to replay one. The only option is the mandatory sound control button which can be accessed at any time.

Each level is a single screen on which you will have to collect all the stars. The genius touch is that stars will appear one after the other, forcing you to navigate through the level in unconventional ways. The only hint is a, not so easy to spot, transparent icon of the next star location, which can become critical for optimal navigation.

The game even provide a set of unlockable minigames which could match the quality of most average flash games.

Gameplay

The challenge for any platform game is a right jumping and running controls scheme, and Buggle Stars gets it just perfectly. The gameplay is also quite varied with levels involving buttons, moving platforms, water, trampoline jump, and even rocket launchers. Interesting variations are that you can air jump if you fall off a platform, and you can also perform a super jump by pressing down before jumping and thus loosing a bit of time.

If the first levels are trivial, the game is more and more challenging, and even really tough at the end. But the gameplay and level design is so well balanced that you will not easily give it up.

Two different game modes are available depending on each level. The most common gives you more points if you collect a star quickly and you will need to collect enough points to unlock the next level. The second is much less forgiving as you will have a limited time to collect each star and will have to start over if you cannot get one in time.

Presentation

The presentation is clean and simple, graphic design is not extremely elaborated but with nice little additions here and there. Background music is quite nice, a bit repetitive but too annoying. Sound effects are fine, there is even a brief disappointment sound when you nearly get a star but missed it.

Play Buggle Start on Kongregate

Zombie Baseball

Zombies are a never ending source of inspiration for game makers, but I have never thought mixing baseball and zombie survival could work. This game is tackling a genre that has been revisited thousands of times but it does it right, with a couple of nice innovations.

Design
The game is basically about defending your home, attacked by waves after waves of zombies, each wave composed by tougher and tougher enemies. The original part is that you will have to repeal them using your baseball hitting skills, using balls tossed by your girlfriend.
A short in game tutorial introduces the commands, and you will immediately start to knock off zombie's head. More and more enemy types will appear every day, but their main characteristics is to get more resistant, faster, or eventually taller which can actually make a difference.
A good addition is the use of experience points, that will let you upgrade stats over time, and award you new bats with special powers. But as said in the game, the less powerful bat is the only one to "cut zombie's head and get more score".

Gameplay
Nice physics, and properly managed difficulty curve, make the game enjoyable. Hitting will take some practice to be efficient. Hitting a bit too late will send the ball fly up in the sky, while swinging to early will aim the ball at the ground losing a lot of momentum before eventually bouncing to an enemy.
You are rewarded for more accurate shots, and the cherry on top is the headshot achievement. Using the right bat, a headshot will send the zombie's head flying away and the game will keep track of distance record, which is strangely satisfying. There is also a headshot combo counter for a bonus.
The fact that the initial angle of the ball will vary, for a given hitting position , when you increase your power stat can however be a bit confusing.
You can also choose from two different bats for any given hit, which can be helpful in some circumstances.

Presentation
Graphic design in Zombie Baseball is questionable, characters and monsters are cartoony and simplistic while the background is some sort of photo realistic. Nothing is looking terribly bad, but graphics are not very consistent.
The music is appropriate and not too annoying. Sound effects are well chosen and give a funny felling of standing in the middle of a baseball game, mixed with typical undead groaning. The main character voice comments are also quite hilarious.

Zombie Baseball is maybe not a genre defining game, but it provides a fun challenge to spend some of your time.

Play Zombie Baseball on Armorgames

Armed with Wings 2

Even though it suffers from several glitches, Armed with Wings 2 is still a little gem with stunning presentation and creative storyline. Some gamers might be frustrated by a less than optimal gameplay, but others will stay immersed by an adventure in a genuinely stylish world.

Story
The storyline is an important element of this game, with a real continuity, inventive background, and unexpected twists. It is told during cut scenes and by in game dialogs. Even the game ending is not as straightforward as you would expect.

You are Vandheer Lorde, the powerful warrior who defeated the rebellion army years ago. The rebel leader has somehow find a way to control resurrection powers and he brought back to life your ancient enemies. The attack takes you by surprise and your are forced to escape before you can find a way to reclaim the throne.

Design
The game is proposing a survival and a story mode with 3 difficulty levels. Survival is a simple extra mini game with not that much appeal. The main adventure kicks in right away with fast rhythm and in game instructions. You will have to reach the end of each linear level to defeat rebel generals raised from the dead.

You start each level from your home with access to a weapon inventory, and possibility to save your game progress, which is clearly recommended.

Each weapon has also got its own special power, with various effects.

Gameplay
You control the main character with the keyboard and you can use several attacks such as sword, kicks, grabbing and magical bolts. With such an arsenal you could expect some fantastic action, but average combat with soldiers is quite repetitive with little challenge.
Boss battles are more interesting with varied attack patterns and switching from periods during which you are forced to dodge and defend, followed by periods where they are vulnerable.
Character control is the main issue, even though the controls are quite responsive and fluid, glitches can cause problems to trigger the right action when you would like to. There is a weird inertia when the character is moving which can cause you to fall over a edge if you are not careful. Finally the game includes a fair amount of platforming, but jumping is poorly implemented and missing a platform because of this can be pretty frustrating.

A bug can also cause you to move off the limits of the landscape, in a situation where there is no way to recover except reloading the game.

Presentation
The presentation is clearly what sets this game apart. It starts with a beautiful introduction and game menu, backed with inspired music. Graphics are some sort of Chinese shades with background and landscape using a very creative style. Design is mostly based on black, and levels of gray, weird shaped elements. Some use of differential scrolling also provide a feeling of deepness.

Amazing animations are used for character motions, and beautiful move sequences during combat are coupled with gorgeous visual effects. Your magical powers, and those of bosses also generate great visual effects and are the only colored elements in the graphics increasing the feeling they are really exceptional.

Beautiful animated cut scenes tell you the story and some elements of background history, characters all have a distinct look and some strangely attractive design.

The music is also well above average, with different soundtracks for levels, background ambient sounds and appropriate sound effects for all actions.

Play Armed with Wings 2 on Armorgames

Hot Air 2

As colorful and cute as it may look, this game is not for the faint hearted. It is probably one of the most challenging game I have ever played, but it keeps you on the edge between frustration and addiction. On top of this, it is using a very inventive gameplay and design.

Design
Hot Air lets you take control of a small balloon, evolving in a world full of spikes and moving unfriendly objects. You will have to master the art of navigating the little fellow as pretty much anything will destroy it on first contact. The difficulty curve is as unforgiving as it can be, even the first level is a challenge and it will not get easier later on. A good news is that the game will save your progress automatically, and you will need it.

The levels are accessed through a non linear world map, allowing to replay any level you have already completed. While the goal is to navigate and land on the end of level platform, the real challenge is to collect all bonus stars in a level. The collected stars will open new path on the world map, giving access to new levels. This clearly separates masters of hot air from newbies.

Some levels require you to land on specific platforms to open doors, taking an indirect route to the exit platform.

Each completed level will earn you a new balloon skin, which can be selected from the world map, providing a nice little extra.

Story
The story is minimal in Hot Air 2. You and your cute pink balloon girlfriend are spending happy time together when the evil black zeppelin comes back to kidnap her. This turns you into an angry badass red balloon, on his way to rescue the cutie.

Gameplay
The original controls are at the core of Hot Air gameplay. In this game, the mouse pointer is converted to a little fan you can switch on by pressing the mouse button. The fan will blow air on the balloon driving it away from the pointer. The closer you are to the balloon, the faster it moves, but it also become more difficult to control. On most levels, speed will be critical to avoid some moving elements, so careful and slow navigation is often not an option.

This would be hard enough if the balloon was built in a single piece but a small nacelle is attached to it with elastic wires. It means the space occupied by the balloon will change when you blow on it, as the distance to the nacelle can shorten or increase.

Of course the balloon is affected by gravity, so if you want to stand still in a place, you will have to compensate by blowing upward, adding a layer of complexity.

In some levels, your fan can also be used to interact with other elements, such as extinguish flames.

Presentation
In this game enemies are elements of the landscape, but they actually look like they are alive, and usually unfriendly. The game's look is pretty cute and childish, contrasting with the unforgiving difficulty.
The landscape and enemy design is consistent and lovely, creating a credible world. The graphics use pixel art style, and lively colors with good results.
Music can quickly get annoying but can be fortunately switched off.

Play Hot Air 2 on Bubblebox

Army Of The Dead

Army of the dead is a mouse aiming shooter, where you will face countless undeads and collect weapons, in a modern humorous setting. The game is not that original but with a few gameplay twists that makes it quite addictive.

Story
A fair amount of work has been put into the story and character design. It is presented with cut scenes and dialogs between levels, that you can fortunately skip after the first time. You are a member of some elite unit, sent to a mission somewhere in Ukraine. Things are going badly while you are separated from the team, and you will have to rescue them on your own. Even if it is relatively classic, the storyline still gives you a sense of purpose.

Design
You can access a training session before going after your missing team, that provides a quick and necessary tutorial. When you start the real fight, enemies will flow from the right hand side, while your character stands on the left. If one of the nasty creatures reaches the left of the screen, it will tear you down to pieces and you have only got three replays to reach the end.

There is only one game mode, and the game is separated in levels with increasing difficulty, different graphics, and some new enemies.

Medals can be awarded by achieving special tasks and you are also rewarded with a score bonus for better accuracy percentage, which is not that easy to keep high.

Gameplay
Basically the gameplay is standard mouse pointing and shooting. Each weapon ammunition supply is limited and it must be reloaded by pressing the spacebar. You can switch from one gun to another at any time.

The first twist is created by using weak points on monsters, a couple of specific points must be targeted to kill one, and shooting anywhere else is useless. As targets are continuously moving toward your character, it puts you on a clock to shot all their weak points in a very limited time. Enemies will become quicker and more difficult to aim with each level, increasing the pressure.

You will face several different types of enemies with specific characteristics, and it forces you to think before you shot, as choosing the right target can be critical. Each weapon have different effects, amo supply and reload times so that you also need to select the right one for each circumstance.
Weapon reloading is particularly well managed. As more powerful guns will take longer to reload, it might be necessary to wait for a moment of calm before you can safely resupply.

These gameplay twists are the core of this game challenge, as split second decision will make all the difference in tough situations.

Presentation
The game graphics are great, with a cartoony look mixed with bloody animation and horror inspired design. The levels backgrounds and cut scenes are well finished with occasional animations. The characters and monsters are also looking good, with an original style, and nice additions such as visual effects of the shots or various animations when you are killed.
Sounds effects are appropriate, with some environment sounds setting the atmosphere but without background music.

Play Army of The Dead on Pictogame

Retardo and the Iron Golem

Retardo and the Iron Golem is a classic point and click adventure game, with a comical-satirical-gory medieval setting, starting with a name which is quite intriguing.

Design
The game design is quite straightforward, a classical set of single screen point and click puzzles to lead Retardo through Moronia. The only notable feature is a timer score, counting down as time is elapsing and driving your final score down.
The adventure is not very long, but very funny and entertaining to play. The puzzles range from trivial to mildly challenging but they are well designed and consistent.



Story
The story is an archetypal quest to destroy the Iron Golem, save the kingdom and mary the princess, but it is presented in a satirical amusing way. Especially regarding the hero replacing the typical prince charming.
It is a nice addition to create an enjoyable experience.

Gameplay
The gameplay is plain point and click, with no collectable objects, even though some puzzles imply interactions with more than one object on screen. A few puzzles also involve time and put a bit more pressure on the player.
The only extra consists of collecting mushrooms, hidden in every screen, for an end-of-game score bonus.

Presentation
Graphics are globally beautiful with inspired decoration and varied environments. The behaviors of encountered enemies is funny and entertaining, with nice animations and sound effects.
A nice twist is given by a gory touch in the presentation. Retardo is usually using unconventional and bloody ways to kill his enemies, or to get killed by them...

This game is an overall entertaining quick adventure and is worth playing if you have a bit of spare time to kill.

Play Retardo and the Iron Golem on ArmorGames.

Amorphous+

Amorphous+ is one of the most inventive, well designed, and plain fun games I have played in a while. The game put you in the role of a Gloople hunter, raiding the creatures nest to face endless waves of the original and incredibly varied cell like organisms.

The entire game is played on a single screen playground with a top view showing your character and hordes of enemies to hunt... or to escape one of them hunting you down...

Design
You can tell right away that an unusual amount of care has been put into the game design. The main menu provides a direct access to instructions, games modes, awards, rewards and other extra content.
Two game modes are available. Single Nest give you a fixed number of Gloople to kill before the nest is fully cleared, while the Bounty Run mode place you in front of an infinite flow of enemies. Difficulty setting in this mode let you choose how fast the nest resistance will increase.
The difficulty curve balance in this game is just amazing. The nest will start with a stream of brainless and harmless green Gloople, but as you kill them one after the other, advanced and much more dangerous Gloople species are generated. It starts with aggressive but relatively predictable and brainless colored Gloople, but soon you will face rare, extremely dangerous creatures, using complex attack patterns and usually very tough to kill.
Not only are the enemies varied, but all the Gloople's abilities interact with you and other Glooples in a coherent and realistic way. This creates endless possible combinations and is an essential part of the gameplay.

A large number of awards and rewards can be unlocked by completing some in game challenges, such a scoring enough points or performing a particularly impressive move while hunting Glooples. The rewards give you extra abilities that will prove to be incredibly useful to reach the game's most difficult achievements.

Story
Amorphous+ is also different from the average flash game as, even if there is no storyline strictly speaking, the combination of detailed creatures description, varied tips, and inventive awards provide a feeling of a coherent world. You will find yourself going further in the game not only to score more points and awards but also to learn about the weird Gloople race and the possible interactions between the different varieties.

Gameplay
Amorphous+ is using a not so intuitive way to control the main character, which is continuously attracted by the mouse pointer. Maneuvering between a large number of Gloople is quite challenging at the beginning but once you get used to the controls it proves to be very effective.
The basic action in the game is swinging your huge sword, trying to kill as many Gloople as possible. There is an interesting scoring mechanism that rewards you for taking more risks. But most of the gameplay comes from interactions between you and the different types of Gloople.
Discovering these interactions is a large part of the fun, so I will not say much about them, but basically if something is bad for you, it can be assumed it will have a similar effect on other Gloople, and you can use this to your advantage. Choosing the right option for the current situation while facing a pack of several different types of Gloople is critical to survive through the nest. The great thing about Amorphous+ is that there is almost always a method to escape a dangerous phase by correctly using interactions between Gloople abilities.

Presentation
The game graphics are quite simple and basic, but they perfectly fit with the Gloople universe. Each Gloople type is using his own look, animation and sound effects contributing to build a coherent experience.
The game engine is pretty sharp managing motions of a large number of enemies and consistently detecting collisions between them, as well as the effects of your swings. Some nice effects are also generated by explosions, fire and other elements. I experienced regular game slow down when a large number of Gloople are on screen, but it always stayed playable.
The music soundtracks are pretty amazing in this game, several hypnotic tunes contribute to the weird atmosphere.

While the basic concept seems pretty limited, the Amorphous+ manage to create a rich and coherent ecosystem, combined with an addictive gameplay and great replayability.

Play Amorphous+ on Kongregate.

Castle Smasher

Castle Smasher is one of those well designed, nice looking games that can become very addictive thanks to a simple but well polished gameplay. The game is pretty challenging to beat and it requires quite a bit of practice to master the art of castle smashing.

Design
Castle Smasher design is minimal but efficient, it provides a nice online high score boards, with a simple tool to create your own group challenge with friends. Options are limited to a sound mute button and nothing more is needed.
A short instruction page could be useful to give a description of upgrades available between levels and some of the game details. The purpose of castle soldiers and guards is not immediately clear, until you lose a game because of them.
The game provides only five levels, with increasing difficulty. If the firsts do not require much thinking, counting the stones left in your arsenal and choosing the right upgrades can become critical for the last levels.

Gameplay
The gameplay is dead simple. Choose an angle for the catapult, then press and hold the mouse button to set the power, and release it to shot. Nothing new but the implementation is good.
It is a handful small details that makes the game interesting. First of all the way the stones are bouncing on the different parts of the castle can make a good, well aimed, shot much more efficient than a direct one. You are also running on a very limited supply of stones, that force you to think before you shot, and to target the stone supply bonus if you can first.
Soldiers and guards also provide a nice little twist to the game, putting a bit more pressure on the player to get rid of the soldiers attacking the catapult or to invest in one or two extra guards to protect it.
The castle design is inventive and each level provides a distinct challenge.

Presentation
Castle Smasher use good old school 2D sprites, with an excellent overall result. Graphics are clear, colorful and nice looking. Music and sound effects are kept to a minimum but appropriate, a background music theme could be a nice addition even though I am not a big fan of repetitive background music.

Play Castle Smasher on Kongregate.