DeppySlide
2004
perfect game. love those little guys.
2022
Just a nice short n sweet gay western with some very good art. :)
1990
Don't let the corrupt, unscrupulous hacking community fool you: SMW is still an exceptional game.
Originally titled Stellar Wanderer, possibly retitled because of an unrelated mobile game. It shares some graphical similarities to Stellar Nexus, but this has a much more narrative focus.
This one has all of Frankie's regular collaborators involved, and I think that comes through with the presentation and depth. I can't confirm how much was updated from the original jam game - if at all - but there's an impressive amount of characters to interact with, all with unique theme songs (shoutouts to the crocodile greaser and the jetpack wrestler). I think my favorite jam games are the ones that give you a mini world to explore, and this certainly provides that; even when the planetary trips start repeating the same objects or creatures, there's always multiple interactions to play with.
Really the only part where the game suffers is in its statistical mechanics. As you go further in the game, you notice things breaking down a bit, like your torpedoes not reloading in the (fairly slapdash) battle scenes, or that selling half your treasure somehow gives you negative loot but more money. The writing has also aged pretty poorly - nothing worse than some eye-rolls, but it's a rough edge that I normally don't find in Frankie's games. Still, it's worth a half hour's playthrough, and it's nice to play a game that really makes use of Frankie's monstrous art style.
This one has all of Frankie's regular collaborators involved, and I think that comes through with the presentation and depth. I can't confirm how much was updated from the original jam game - if at all - but there's an impressive amount of characters to interact with, all with unique theme songs (shoutouts to the crocodile greaser and the jetpack wrestler). I think my favorite jam games are the ones that give you a mini world to explore, and this certainly provides that; even when the planetary trips start repeating the same objects or creatures, there's always multiple interactions to play with.
Really the only part where the game suffers is in its statistical mechanics. As you go further in the game, you notice things breaking down a bit, like your torpedoes not reloading in the (fairly slapdash) battle scenes, or that selling half your treasure somehow gives you negative loot but more money. The writing has also aged pretty poorly - nothing worse than some eye-rolls, but it's a rough edge that I normally don't find in Frankie's games. Still, it's worth a half hour's playthrough, and it's nice to play a game that really makes use of Frankie's monstrous art style.
1989
I haven't played the "original" computer version of Tetris, emulated or otherwise, so for my review purposes I will be using this as the origin point I guess, even if it's arguably not the definitive version despite its recent surge in popularity. Regardless, Tetris broadly as a video game is, in my money, The Perfect Video Game, in practically all variants, now and forever.
2018
Frankie has made a few action-RPGs at this point, but this is first stab at a roguelike, and honestly he knocked it out of the park. Its main draw is the farming gimmick, where you plant seeds you find from battle or treasure to grow berries that boost your stats or give other bonus effects. It's a fine idea on its own, and Frankie commits with the aesthetic (like BugBurgh, there's some great thematic character art, especially the crop monsters), but it's the smaller details that really make the game engaging. The farming areas function as your extended inventory, for example, and you really have to keep it organized as you go on and pick up more items; a crucial strategy is waiting to use berries to free up those inventory slots.
There's also a surprising amount of nuance in the combat than what I was expecting. Active Time Battle is a well-established system, but you're also encouraged to time your attacks as if you're performing a parry or counterattack. Combined with the different weapon speeds, it feels like an attempt to take Dark Souls-style combat into a turn-based format, and I thought it worked pretty well. Each weapon has stamina meters also, so you can't just fill up your main inventory with weapons and steamroll everything (although it does make the final boss trivial). Really my only quibble is that it's probably too easy, mainly because lockpicks are too reliable and allow you to quickly overload on items by finding chests, which are really common in certain parts of the world. That aside, I'd say this is one of Frankie's best and a standout of his many jam entries.
I also want to shout out Askiisoft's music, both for this game and for BugBurgh. It adds some really nice atmosphere to both games.
There's also a surprising amount of nuance in the combat than what I was expecting. Active Time Battle is a well-established system, but you're also encouraged to time your attacks as if you're performing a parry or counterattack. Combined with the different weapon speeds, it feels like an attempt to take Dark Souls-style combat into a turn-based format, and I thought it worked pretty well. Each weapon has stamina meters also, so you can't just fill up your main inventory with weapons and steamroll everything (although it does make the final boss trivial). Really my only quibble is that it's probably too easy, mainly because lockpicks are too reliable and allow you to quickly overload on items by finding chests, which are really common in certain parts of the world. That aside, I'd say this is one of Frankie's best and a standout of his many jam entries.
I also want to shout out Askiisoft's music, both for this game and for BugBurgh. It adds some really nice atmosphere to both games.
2021
This review contains spoilers
Made an account because I needed somewhere to write about this game after finishing it. I will try to remember to come back here and log all my other games and probably not write nearly as many words as this.
I was getting through the game fine enough for the first 4-5 hours; the combat, while occasionally grating, never got repetitive thanks to a large array of enemies. I also didn't mind the linearity of the platforming, even though the layout felt it was begging to be a sprawling Metroidvania. The Kickstarter page listed numerous inspirations but the two truest are Superbrothers and Ready Player One, the former in its (quiet pretty) pixel art and the latter in its synthwave album cover aesthetics and affect (though thankfully not references...mostly).
So for most of my time playing, the audiovisuals and combat were able to carry me through the blander platforming and storytelling. As the game went on though, I found my moveset for the battle scenes became far too complicated, with special moves feeling redundant (two separate, situation-dependent dash attacks) or awkward to use (maybe the worst uppercut in any video game). This is compounded in the late-game (starting with the train in the red zone) when enemies and bosses get ridiculously long patterns in their movesets, culminating in a final boss fight which has what feels like five or six different phases.
It's also around this point where the game's real story fell flat on its face. The intermittent flashback scenes - which despite some bizarre time jumps are at least respectable somber - become cloying and heavy-handed; you will never guess who Motherboard and Narita Boy are supposed to represent! Yet even that gets trampled by the tonal whiplash of the final ending, where it appears your mother was murdered by your father(??) before he offers you a Back to the Future reference and the credits roll. It's been a while since I remember playing a game that lost this much goodwill from me so fast.
I was getting through the game fine enough for the first 4-5 hours; the combat, while occasionally grating, never got repetitive thanks to a large array of enemies. I also didn't mind the linearity of the platforming, even though the layout felt it was begging to be a sprawling Metroidvania. The Kickstarter page listed numerous inspirations but the two truest are Superbrothers and Ready Player One, the former in its (quiet pretty) pixel art and the latter in its synthwave album cover aesthetics and affect (though thankfully not references...mostly).
So for most of my time playing, the audiovisuals and combat were able to carry me through the blander platforming and storytelling. As the game went on though, I found my moveset for the battle scenes became far too complicated, with special moves feeling redundant (two separate, situation-dependent dash attacks) or awkward to use (maybe the worst uppercut in any video game). This is compounded in the late-game (starting with the train in the red zone) when enemies and bosses get ridiculously long patterns in their movesets, culminating in a final boss fight which has what feels like five or six different phases.
It's also around this point where the game's real story fell flat on its face. The intermittent flashback scenes - which despite some bizarre time jumps are at least respectable somber - become cloying and heavy-handed; you will never guess who Motherboard and Narita Boy are supposed to represent! Yet even that gets trampled by the tonal whiplash of the final ending, where it appears your mother was murdered by your father(??) before he offers you a Back to the Future reference and the credits roll. It's been a while since I remember playing a game that lost this much goodwill from me so fast.
2011
Honestly 5 stars just for the built-in ability to go back to older versions of the game, it's crazy other long-running games don't do that!
Always been more into the cave spelunking than building, but it's a testament that even when you've got a digging system down it's still intense whenever the monsters show up.
Always been more into the cave spelunking than building, but it's a testament that even when you've got a digging system down it's still intense whenever the monsters show up.
2016
Ended up playing through all of Siactro's pre-MacBat 64 games this afternoon, though this is the only one available to log for now (I tried adding one of the games to IGDB just to test the process so maybe I'll revisit them individually). I'm guessing not a lot of people have gone back to these games since a lot of them used Unity Web Player; thankfully all the GameJolt games were archived on Flashpoint, but anything before that (including most of the dev's 2D games) are no longer available as they were uploaded to either Desura or XBLIG. Nearly all of them are jam games, but it's a shame the dev feels they're no longer part of the overall oeuvre (aside from Kiwi 64). They cover a variety of genres, most of which hold up pretty well as quick timekillers.
(For some quick recs, Boomadrons Bouncyverse Rebound and Stark Zero fit more of the 90s throwback style albeit more towards Sonic/F-Zero X racing games than 3D platformers. Pyrphoros is a straight horror game that's short but effective. And Hunter is a Blade Runner inspired game that's got an interesting concept.)
Silver Trigger 64 (which was made during MacBat's development, a couple years after all the above games) is another jam game, with the theme being one-button controls. It takes Goldeneye 007 on rails and emphasizes efficient use of bullets, which ultimately comes down to just only shooting alert and armed enemies. Admittedly one of the less interesting games I played of this group, but I presume it's the only one still accessible on itch.io as its direct N64 inspiration fits more in line with the rest of the dev's games.
(For some quick recs, Boomadrons Bouncyverse Rebound and Stark Zero fit more of the 90s throwback style albeit more towards Sonic/F-Zero X racing games than 3D platformers. Pyrphoros is a straight horror game that's short but effective. And Hunter is a Blade Runner inspired game that's got an interesting concept.)
Silver Trigger 64 (which was made during MacBat's development, a couple years after all the above games) is another jam game, with the theme being one-button controls. It takes Goldeneye 007 on rails and emphasizes efficient use of bullets, which ultimately comes down to just only shooting alert and armed enemies. Admittedly one of the less interesting games I played of this group, but I presume it's the only one still accessible on itch.io as its direct N64 inspiration fits more in line with the rest of the dev's games.
2011
This review contains spoilers
I wasn't planning on going through another indie dev gameography so soon, but Stellar Nexus happened to be one of the games on the SRG Mixtape, and I had already been thinking of going through Frankie's games, so here we are. This isn't Frankie's first game, but I'm starting my reviews with this one because, based on a blog post, this is really where Frankie's oeuvre as an independent game dev starts. (I did review some of their earlier projects though, which I'll link here.)
As for this game, it's a firefighter sim in the same vein as The Firemen series but reframed as a sidescrolling platformer. That is, until you reach the 6th citizen in danger, when an alien invasion shows up and you have to fend off against the many horrific creatures while rushing back to your station. I'm marking this as a spoiler because nothing on the game's page, old website, or even within the game itself hints at this twist, so I think people deserve to go into this game blind.
Before this point, it was a bit of a hassle going through Frankie's old 2000s work, as it was spread over websites and forums (many no longer available); ultimately, the work I was able to play felt divorced from Frankie's strongest pixel artwork, as many of his projects simply never materialized. With Station 37, I finally get to see his gruesome creature designs put to good use, backed up by a mechanically refined game and excellent soundtrack, both with help from his TIGSource/Poppenkast buddies. (The soundtrack is in fact by ChefBoyardee of Barkley's Shut Up and Jam! Gaiden fame, and Frankie would be on the team for the unfortunately mismanaged sequel.) Even as "just" an (enhanced) game jam game, it's a great game on its own and the best introduction to Frankie's work from their earliest days, and I'm glad that it recently got readded to itch.io.
As for this game, it's a firefighter sim in the same vein as The Firemen series but reframed as a sidescrolling platformer. That is, until you reach the 6th citizen in danger, when an alien invasion shows up and you have to fend off against the many horrific creatures while rushing back to your station. I'm marking this as a spoiler because nothing on the game's page, old website, or even within the game itself hints at this twist, so I think people deserve to go into this game blind.
Before this point, it was a bit of a hassle going through Frankie's old 2000s work, as it was spread over websites and forums (many no longer available); ultimately, the work I was able to play felt divorced from Frankie's strongest pixel artwork, as many of his projects simply never materialized. With Station 37, I finally get to see his gruesome creature designs put to good use, backed up by a mechanically refined game and excellent soundtrack, both with help from his TIGSource/Poppenkast buddies. (The soundtrack is in fact by ChefBoyardee of Barkley's Shut Up and Jam! Gaiden fame, and Frankie would be on the team for the unfortunately mismanaged sequel.) Even as "just" an (enhanced) game jam game, it's a great game on its own and the best introduction to Frankie's work from their earliest days, and I'm glad that it recently got readded to itch.io.
2017
Unfortunately bounced off this one early, as I found the micromanagement of all your bug pals too tedious. I get that's the point of the game - the Ludum Dare theme was "the more you have, the worse it is" - but there's too much time spent walking between areas, constantly feeding all the bug friends you find, waiting on items to grow or build or transform. I really wish the bugs showed some more autonomy, or at the very least you could guide around multiple bugs at once so you're not constantly making repeated trips. That starts going against the jam theme, though, so you'd probably need to give some more incentive to take care of your bug friends before their morale goes completely negative. (Although this isn't really a violent game like Hungry Ducks, so you'd have to come up with something more clever. Or they can just leave I guess.)
Is it pointless to be an armchair dev (more than usual, anyway) for a game made in 72-hours for less, and would Frankie have considered all of these points if he wanted to develop the idea further? Absolutely, and that goes for Frankie's other jam projects and really anyone else's. But moreso than his other projects, this one really is hurt by not having at least one of those extra features to smooth out the base experience. (In hindsight I could have just left bugs unhappy since they didn't do anything in response, but idunno, I want to play along with the premise at least a little bit.) On a positive note, I think this is Frankie's best use of character art I've yet seen in one of his games; the junkyard bugs in particular were a delight to find.
Is it pointless to be an armchair dev (more than usual, anyway) for a game made in 72-hours for less, and would Frankie have considered all of these points if he wanted to develop the idea further? Absolutely, and that goes for Frankie's other jam projects and really anyone else's. But moreso than his other projects, this one really is hurt by not having at least one of those extra features to smooth out the base experience. (In hindsight I could have just left bugs unhappy since they didn't do anything in response, but idunno, I want to play along with the premise at least a little bit.) On a positive note, I think this is Frankie's best use of character art I've yet seen in one of his games; the junkyard bugs in particular were a delight to find.
2008
feels like spotify truly did a number on this type of music game
2013
Ingenious idea bolstered by a strong cast of characters, and Claptrap. I think this was my first introduction to the world of The Venture Bros. so that's an automatic five right there.
Would dread to think what a Poker Night 3 would look like if the current Telltale rights-holders go back down that well. Do they go bigger and get Deadpool/Ricky-Morty etc epic bants characters, or tap into the parasocial market and get a bunch of streamers?
Would dread to think what a Poker Night 3 would look like if the current Telltale rights-holders go back down that well. Do they go bigger and get Deadpool/Ricky-Morty etc epic bants characters, or tap into the parasocial market and get a bunch of streamers?
TBD
Since this page is missing a lot of context, this game was developed by Phr00t, who specializes in procedural generation (and VR now apparently). The game was released on Desura (RIP) back around 2012, but thankfully is now available for free on the dev's old website for the game: https://gentrieve.wordpress.com/
This game falls into a lot of the same proc-gen pitfalls - room design is a planner's nightmare but also fairly samey once you've gotten past a couple "worlds", and enemies are either spheres or squares with spikes and turrets grafted onto them. Still, the design is never incoherent and worlds are short enough that the game keeps moving, and I think the textures and music help give the world a hostile feeling to it that keeps it from feeling like generic assets thrown around. I've never stuck with it long enough to finish it (assuming that's even possible), but it was nice to check back in after 10 years.
This game falls into a lot of the same proc-gen pitfalls - room design is a planner's nightmare but also fairly samey once you've gotten past a couple "worlds", and enemies are either spheres or squares with spikes and turrets grafted onto them. Still, the design is never incoherent and worlds are short enough that the game keeps moving, and I think the textures and music help give the world a hostile feeling to it that keeps it from feeling like generic assets thrown around. I've never stuck with it long enough to finish it (assuming that's even possible), but it was nice to check back in after 10 years.
not a game lol. but very cute book!