Bloons 4: Towers Defense

• Genre: Tower Defense
• Developer: Ninja Kiwi
• Series: Bloons
• Who doesn’t love popping balloons, from the original bloons to now, Ninja Kiwi has made Bloons not just so much more fun, but definitely a lot better. Better in terms of graphics, game play and upgrades, this version comes integrated with Mochi features making it easier for people who have money to unlock achievements faster 
  Anyway Bloons 4 has grown quite a bit as a tower defense game, with a range of free and premium tracks, 12 towers that can be upgraded over four times, some other perks thrown in and unlocking achievements as you pop more balloons and rank up.
  
  

  But there are some bugs like the game does not start bug, I have no clue what it is, I suspect the game communicates with a server prior to starting up and that was a little haywire, I could not play the game from three different computers and all of a sudden it started to work one day, funny and irritating. Thanks to that the game was put up late over here.

  Anyway enough of me blabbering, I am finding it tough to get through the intermediate tracks even on easy mode so definitely needs thinking over and just not powerful monkeys, or maybe the Jedi Boomerang thrower can help. Placement of your towers are the key to completing levels, all the best, heres bloons 4 tower defense, have a banana party!

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Pirateers

• Genre: Shooter
• Developer: Labu Games
• Publisher: Armor Games
• Producer: Labu Games
• Music: Josie Lemmings, Peter Satera
• Yarr!!! We is back with another plundering pirate game! Yarr!!! Okay seriously, for all you wannabe pirates, thieves, looters, and action junkies, you’ve just stumbled upon that elusive treasure chest, except it’s full of fun instead of gold. Welcome, Pirateer! Lead your ship and crew on an adventure of a lifetime with Labu Games’ engaging action packed shooter, Pirateers. From looting merchant ships and fighting off other pirates, to then selling your cargo and upgrading your ship and weapons, this game offers a complete pirate experience.
  The gameplay of Pirateers is much fun, it’ll almost make you wish you were born in Somalia. The game begins and seems easy at first. You have to go around completing quests, chosen from the top of the game screen using the z-x-c-v keys, collect loot and continue upgrading your vessel. Occasionally, you have to go after pieces of the Neptune’s Eye, collecting them till you have them all. Once activated, the Eye brings out the super-boss, the Kraken, a frustratingly difficult one. The key is to continue playing till your ship is upgraded enough to destroy it.
  
  
  
  The upgrades are expensive, and can sometimes make the game seem too slow, but the awesome fun fighting other pirates and merchants makes up for it. The shooting bit will take a little getting used to, with your cannons located at the side of your ship, like in the good old days. Here’s a little tip: get the enemy to chase you, slow down, turn sideways and let em have it.
  Your cannons reload slowly, with 2.25 seconds being the fastest time after maxing out the upgrade, making this game not only about brute force, but also a little strategic sailing. Sometimes, you’ll stumble upon a treasure map, or eventually even select it as a quest, leading you to a different mini game screen that plays out just like minesweeper, where you got to use your head to find the buried treasure.
  The weapons in Pirateers are epic. You have a primary Cannonball that you start the game with. As you move along, you can buy and upgrade a Fireball that sets your enemy ships afire, a Gigaball that inflicts some serious damage, and the best one, a Pirate Launcher that sends some of your crew flying onto an enemy ship to disengage their cannons and lower their defenses for a limited time. Besides these, there’s also a turret gun of sorts, a shield to protect your six, and a Dragon Ram that lets you speed into ships head first and rip them to pieces. Put together, these weapons make for one hell of an action packed day on the high seas.
  The sounds in the game are beautifully done, except could get a little monotonous. The soundtrack should have been featured on Pirates of the Caribbean. With an authentic feel of what it must be like to get by as one of them; Pirateers will not fail to have you reconsider your career choice. So batten down them hatches, ready them guns, and prepare thyself for a wonderful day of plundering pirate fun!

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Infectonator

• Genre: Action
• Developer: Toge Productions
• Publisher: Armor Games
• Series: Infectonator
• Producer: Kris Antoni, Sudarmin Then
• Music: Andrew Jeremy
• Programmer: Dion Wijnatantya, Tana El San
• Art: E. Pramana, Hendry Roesly, Nelly Agusta, Panji Alan S, Retino Aji P, Timothy Bernard
• Alright, I was in the mood to do a game, was looking out for something fresh and awesome and I think Infectonator 2 fits that title well. The concept though similar to something like Pandemic 2, where your goal is to infect the entire world, except this time your turning them into zombies.
  On loading the game the retro graphics may kind of not appeal to you, but then once you get your mouse clicking, you know your going to be in for a good time. Good time equals to a day full of converting humans into brain eating zombies. By now you should know that world domination is not easy, so be prepared for the humans to give you a tough time.
  The game features a wide range of umm Zombies, Zombie Upgrades, Zombie Support Systems and Zombie Achievements  Yes it a complete zombie package bundled into Infectonator. Apart from this the game has a sense of humor and something that I found quite interesting is that the little humans actually speak the native tongue of the place they belong to.
  
  
  
  You start of by spreading the virus by clicking on a particular area on the map, and watch as the infected chase the living. As you progress there are eight different kinds of special zombies each can be upgraded three times to improve their unique abilities, health, damage, speed, armor and coins you earn per kill. Though you can choose only four of these zombies when you choose a city to infect in the world map.
  Apart from the zombies, you have support systems from a grenade, mines, goo that slows people down and make it easier for them to get infected and finally a canister that helps spread the infection. Seems exciting, except for the people that help protect the humans, namely the cops who have little guns, then the army with machine guns, the FBI, the guys in bio hazard suits and the protectors of big cities.
  Destroying big cities end up unlocking parts of the world map for you to infect. But it ain’t easy, you have Rambo protecting Munich, Santa Claus protecting Eskimo Town, but all is not lost because you have Jackson leading his army of undead zombies dancing to Thriller on midi. Yes you’re in for a ball of a time. Infect! Infect! Infectttt!!!!

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Johnny upgrade

After all those superhero movies lately, have you ever felt a weird emptiness in your life? Like your life is so boring and dull and normal, while theirs is awesome. Well, Johnny here felt the same way, till the day the fate of the world was entrusted in his mortal hands. Johnny Upgrade is a lovely little game that puts you in the shoes of Johnny, an everyday guy with absolutely no superpowers. But you’re going to change all that, while helping him save the world at the same time.

As the name suggests, the game requires you to collect coins and upgrade everything about Johnny, till you’re finally strong enough to take on the boss. Everything from time to energy has to be bought in this action packed game. All Johnny has is one gun that also needs ammo to be upgraded, and the power to be increased. You’ll encounter flying helicopter-like obstacles and mean looking monsters before you get to meet the boss, all the while scrounging for coins to buy your upgrades.

Remember to upgrade the Multiplier early on, else you’ll take forever upgrading to a level suitable to beat the boss. The boss isn’t too hard to beat himself, but he takes some time, patience, and a clear tactic of wait and attack. The controls are precise and responsive, a very important thing for a game like this.

The game’s design is wonderfully fresh and the character is hilarious, to say the least. The soundtrack is also really good and keeps a nice groove to all the jumping and shooting action. The only complaint with Johnny Upgrade is that it’s too darn short. But then again, the short length doesn’t let the game go stale at all. You’ll take a few plays before finally finishing the game and saving the world, but each time you step into Johnny’s shoes, rest assured you’re going to have a ball. Happy upgrading!

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Formula Racer 2012

• Genre: Driving
• Developer: Long Animals, Turbo Nuke
• Publisher: Kongregate
• Art: Robot Jam

• Don’t you miss the good old days playing NFS and F1 games on that boxy desktop PC or Top Gear on the ancient Sega, all pumped up just by the driving experience the games had to offer? But flash racing games somehow never quite got close to that, at least until now. The folks at turboNuke (of Cyclomaniacs fame) are back with an F1 style classic racing game that easily outdoes most other flash games like it; Formula Racer 2012, a sequel to last year’s Formula Racer. But because this version is so much nicer than the last in all aspects, you don’t even need to bother playing the last one.
  Formula Racer 2012 offers a responsive racing experience along with 3 classes of race cars than can be upgraded and customized to your driving preferences. Each class offers 3, 4, and 5 races each, all of which need to be unlocked with the money you earn while racing. There is nothing fancy about this game, but the feel of speed and the sheer rush of turning at high speeds have been well captured in the way the car responds.
  Formula Racer 2012 offers a most interesting telemetry feature that measures your top speed, position, boost use, and lateral G-forces during the race and lets you review it at the end, making you feel like some sort of expert as you find yourself analyzing it after each race. The tracks are challenging and the lack of a mini-map (maybe intentional) keeps you on your fingertips throughout a race. Your opponents aren’t easy to beat either. There are 32 of them, to begin with. And unless you use your boost (spacebar) wisely, upgrade and race the same track again, there’s a slim chance of you winning.
  But whatever you do, don’t crash! You’ll most probably end up at the bottom of the pack by the time you recover, and winning becomes near impossible. The good bit though, the races pay well, even if you’re not in the top three. This enables you to upgrade your car and buy new tracks with relative ease. The game’s artwork is vivid and attractive, and provides for a good looking race. The soundtrack in the game is nice as well, fast paced just like the races. All in all, the game is a wonderful way to spend a few hours satisfying your need for speed, and reminiscing about the good old days of pure no-frills racing. So suit up, racing glory awaits you!

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Relic Of War

• Genre: Strategy
• Developer: Toge Productions
• Publisher: Armor Games
• Producer: Kris Antoni, Sudarmin Then
• Music: Andrew Jeremy
• Programmer: Dion Wijnatantya, Tana El San
• Art: Erwin Pramana, Hendry Roesly, Nelly Agusta, Panji Alan S, Retino Aji P

After playing Infectonator 2, I was extremely curious to try some more games made by Toge Productions. I came across Relic of War, which was released earlier this year and for some reason caught my fancy.

So I decided to give it a try and now six hours later I am trying to get you to play it if you haven’t already. The game shares graphic and interface similarities with Infectonator and that’s where it ends. Unlike the mindless action that makes the latter appealing, Relic of War is real time strategy game that has so many elements combined into it, you can keep playing this one for days.

Yes days, firstly because there are two campaign modes that you have to go through. You choose if you want to play the axis or the allied campaign, both have a connecting story line but offer different soldiers, weapons and even chics that brief you prior to your missions.

• The objective in each level is to protect your head quarter from being destroyed, not uncommon among flash games but the way its laid out is quite refreshing. You unlock soldiers, support and skills with the medals you get for each mission you accomplish.
  The Soldiers upgrade with experience, the more you use them in a mission the more experience you get. Check out the video we made on how to upgrade your soldiers to the max level, it should help you progress through the harder levels. Support is extremely useful, so don’t under estimate it, you need medals to upgrade support levels and also do wonders with it by unlocking support skills. There’s a whole range of skills that you can check out in the screens or while you play the game.
  The game makes it easy with the help of auto move, where you don’t need to control the soldiers, but sometimes you need to manually move them to plan your strategy, this can be done by simply clicking the unit and using the commands provided. Relic of War is a massive game, that’s going to keep you entertained for a good amount of time. Time to gear up, and get to battle!

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High-Level Storytelling Design

Introduction
I recently started to play the demo for the upcoming adventure game Primordia. I really like the art-style, the setting, themes and the characters (perhaps with the exception of a somewhat annoying companion). Despite this I am finding myself not being that engaged when playing it. The main reason for this is that the game is in a very traditional point-and-click form, which means that it is mainly all about solving puzzles. Despite some good design and an in-game hint system, its gameplay back-bone is holding it back.
Note: This does not mean that Primordia is bad game though, more on this in the end notes.

At the same time we have currently been in the middle of going over some design thinking in our upcoming Super Secret Project. We have been trying to evolve the type of high level design we have used for our previous games and in that process encountered a few problems and come to a few intriguing insights.

The problems I had with Primordia and the issues we have had with our own project are closely related and deal with the high level design used for games focusing on story-telling. This sort of design is what this post will be about. I will start by going over the basic problems, then cover more recent advancements and finally outline our own approach.

The Immersion Conjecture
Since the middle of the 90s or so, the image of adventure games as the kings of videogame storytelling has slowly dwindled. Instead they have given way to more action oriented titles and nowadays most of the major storytelling efforts lie in the action-adventure genre. What has happened is that the puzzle-centric design has been replaced by one where some sort of core mechanic makes up the bulk of the experience.

I think neither of these approaches is a good way to properly do storytelling in a game. The problem with both are that they have a strong focus on the competitive aspect of games. In both of these designs the main goal is not about being immersed but about beating challenges. I have discussed this to great lengths in the paper The Self, Presence and Storytelling. The points important for this discussion are the following:

• Challenge-oriented games have a core design which I call "black box design". This means that the main goal for the player is to intuitively figure out the game's underlying systems and to beat them.
• When the focus is on a system of a game, it detracts attention from, or even directly contradicts, its fiction. As a result it diminishes the story aspects of the game.
• The main focus of  games with storytelling should instead be on creating immersion or, more precisely put, a sense of presence. This is done by having a strong continuous input-out loop between the player and game.

Before going into high level approaches that focus on immersion, the normal adventure design need to be discussed. 

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