The Adventures of Square

released on Nov 07, 2014

The Adventures of Square is a standalone first-person shooter using the ZDoom Engine, featuring real, retro first-person-shooter gameplay, in the vein of older shooters like Doom. The brilliant Doctor Octagon has been kidnapped! Square must find him, and rescue him from the clutches of the Circle of Evil, a mysterious cult hellbent on the domination of Shape Land. He will square off against terrible monsters and impossible traps in order to prove that he's no square when it comes to justice. Guide him to the center of the Circles' domain, unravel their malicious plot, and win the day fair and square! Save anywhere and at anytime! Food is health! No ragdoll physics! It has it all!


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This game is like "What if DooM for kids wasn't shit"
Better than DooM.

The ultimate realization of the "Safe For Kids Doomlike" concept. An aesthetic clearly pulled from the likes of Chex Quest, but given a silly edge with its cigar chomping, cynical protagonist. Just a delightful game with beautiful original sprite work and kickin' tunes. The "safe for work" version of gore here where enemies gib into plops of paint is just so satisfying. Every baddie just plops into a blast of paint. It's like popping bubble wrap.

Only knock against this baby is that the levels can get a little too large, too open, too undirected for their own good. Especially in episode 2, which is littered with large open fields where it's easy to lose one's sense of direction. Nonetheless, a fantastic little shooter. Those circle baddies sure gib up real good.

This game is paradoxically like "What if there was a non-violent, family-friendly DOOM WAD, where at the same time it's also extremely violent but like where you have geometric shape goop instead of blood and gore." and uh yeah, surprisingly does work for what it is. I was kind of amazed by the level of effort put into it, unique gameplay mechanics, puzzles that are actually quite fun to solve and so on. Also spent way, way too much time on this game because of its extreme (but fair) difficulty, and just how sprawling a lot of the levels actually were. That kind of does make this game a really fun stress-relief though, tbf. I know because I was just a bit noisy in the head and completing this made me feel more at peace, having ploughed through some geometric conspiracy of sorts. You think exploding enemies with paint guns would get old after a while but it never does.

Oh, also, I really do like this game's sense of humour. I think it does get a lot of mileage just out of how absurd making a Doom game out of shapes can be, but also like every enemy you kill either melts or explodes in an extremely messy fashion, with goop and circuits flying all over the place. The way it barely tries to maintain a sort of E for Everyone aesthetic with subdued profanity and violence is so funny, before it just kind of gives up at the last couple of levels.

The shooting is fun, the artstyle is nice, but the maps get way too big overtime.

The enemy splatter in this game is one of the most satisfying things ever created with GZDoom. Wish I could travel back in time and show this to myself as a kid. Thanks DOOM for inspiring so many people to make their own games like this one!