2011 ~ Game Gems

Snow Tree: Control the blizzard!

This year's winter lacks the proper winter weather. Instead of frost and snow the temperature is above zero and it rains almost everywhere in Europe and America. While we can't make it snowing outside our windows, we can do it on our computers! The nice relaxing winter game “Snow Tree” provides the snow charge to see, what the real winter should look like.

In this game we control the way the snowflakes are falling. By dragging the mouse on the screen we can create an air flow, which will carry them towards the desired direction. Thus, the real blizzard with various wind patterns: whirlwind, wakes, turbulence, can be started. But, while this process itself provides much fun, it is auxiliary to the main aim of the game.

Age of War: Armies of all epochs

Since the dawn of the mankind, war is the eternal companion of the civilization. Just remember the Egyptian war chariots, Roman legions, Crusades, various conquests and revolutions. This fact is reflected in the Age of War strategy game.

This game is the representative of another strategy sub-genre, let’s call it linear combat. There are two bases on the opposite sides of the screen. They produce units, which then attack the enemy base and all the enemy units they meet on their way. The player doesn’t control the army since it’s in the field. His functions are to define the troops building order, to place the turrets on the base and to use the special weapon.

Tentaсle Wars: Capture the bacteria colonies

Another successful flash game in the micro-world setting is Tentacle Wars strategy. It somehow implements the principle of sending the troops from your bases to conquer the enemies, but creatively alters it.

The colony of bacteria can stretch a tentacle, the length of which is determined by the colony's population. When the tentacle touches the enemy colony, the battle begins. The enemy can counter-attack sending his tentacle to stop yours. Both sides then will steadily loose their population, and the one who can stand the higher attrition, wins.

The I of It: The letter's advetures

Do you remember the books you read in the childhood? I'm pretty sure at least one of them was about human-shaped letters who acted like humans. The flash game “The I of It” is quite like those stories, and, probably, it was one of the key factors of its success. Together with the creative level design, pleasant-to-hear narrator's voice and simple yet stylish graphics.

This is the story of unbelievable adventures of the letter I of the word It. The I's quest is to find his companion, letter t, in the world full of dangers, and find out why had t left.

Elite Forces: Clone Wars - spawn and command!

I clearly remember that evening before the new year 2010 when I read Badim's post bout flash game development and monetization. There he told about JohnnyK's successful cannon series and about his own achievements. As I learnt later, reading of this post became the starting point for many Russian-speaking flash developers.

Among other statements there was a link to Badim's game Elite Forces: Clone Wars, which, he claimed, was made in less than 14 hours. I visited the link and didn't stop until I finished the last level.

One Button Bob: Left click for everything

The major flaw of the flash player from the developers' point of view is the support of only the left mouse button. But Ninjadoodle, the creator of the famous Clickplay series, produced a game where a variety of action is performed using just a left click.

The game is made in the Indiana Jones setting. You play as an adventurer who is proceeding through the dangerous dungeons. He encounters various deadly obstacles and the only way to cope with them is to press the left mouse button.

Ragdoll Cannon 4: Load, Aim, Fire!

Popular flash games usually have juicy graphics and colourful effects. But sometimes the game conquers the players' attention without that, being just a pure gameplay. One of such games is the Ragdoll Cannon series by Russian flash game developer JohnnyK.

In 2008 JohnnyK published in his blog the story about his first steps in flash game development. He experienced the common problem of most of the beginner indies: as a programmer he was not a skilled artist. But he made use of this quality and drew all the game elements with a ball-point pen on a paper in an intentionally simplistic style. Then the scanned picture was used as a base for drawing in Flash IDE.

The Man with the Invisible Trousers: Who's the murderer?

There are several games made in the noir setting. Most of them are quests or RPGs. But what would you think of the noir detective physical puzzle and platformer? As for me, I liked it lots! I contacted the game's developer, RadicalDog, and he agreed to give an interview. You'll know how will this story continue, what is the role of the invisible trousers and much more!

In the Man with the Invisible Trousers flash game you play as a member of the team of five detectives who fight crime everywhere they can find it. But suddenly one of them is dead and the other four are suspected. To solve the quiz you should, first of all, use your head, and run around much looking for the clues.

Starlight: what do you see in the sky?

People think in patterns. Thousands and thousands of years ago our ancestors looked at the night sky and saw not just stars there but heroes, animals, vehicles and so on. Now the sky is divided into 88 constellations.

Frankly speaking, the constellations’ shapes vaguely correspond to their names. For example Ursa Major (Great Bear) looks like a dipper more than like a bear. But what if the stars formed the shapes almost similar to our surrounding objects? As they are located in three-dimensional space, the matter would be just in finding the proper point of view. You can find such a point and enjoy the picturesque sky if you play Starlight, the great game by Kostiantyn Stankevych.

Gibbets: everyone will be saved

There’s a classic scene in the westerns or Robin Hood movies when a hero saves his friend, who is sentenced to death. When the execution has almost happened, the hero shoots his winchester of bow and cuts the rope.

In the flash game Gibbets you’re expected to be such a hero. You have to save dozens of innocent convicts already hanging but still alive. You have your bow and a limited amount of arrows.

SteamBirds: turn-based air battles of the World Wars

Aerial dogfight is a very dynamic action where the positions of the opposing sides change constantly. As a rule the computer games featuring these battles are real-time, but Andy Moore and Daniel Cooh invented a turn-based gameplay which reflects the spirit of sky combat.

The game takes place in the steampunk setting of the alternate history in which in 1835 the cold fusion was invented and a nuclear hotbox was installed on an early airplane. All the systems of the plane are diven by the super-heated steam. The game’s first misson takes place in 1907, it is a testing of Mansfel intermittent steamgun. The following missions are the air battles of the Fist and the Second World Wars.

El Emigrante: the classical avoider game

Seven years is a long term for such a rapidly developing sphere as flash game development. Back in 2004 Flash was not Adobe but Macromedia, the gaming sites were small, some of current market leaders didn’t even exist. There were no convenient ways of flash game monetisation, either.

But this didn’t prevent flash enthusiasts from creating real masterpieces. Let’s take a look at El Emigrante, a classic skill/avoider game released in 2004. This is a game about immigration (as it’s stated in the intro). All you’re required to do is to avoid the police as long as possible.

Air Traffic Chief: you're in charge!

The air traffic controllers are responsible for flight safety and regularity. This is a very difficult task when dosens of planes are in the air. This job requires attention, thinking, good comminicational and analytical abilities.

The game Air Traffic Chief is about the job in the most difficult air traffic zone – Approach control. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s statistics, most part of accidents happen there during take-off, climbing, descending and landing. But don’t be afraid, this game is much easier than the real ATC work and it is much fun, too!

King of the Rocks: conquer the cloudy world!

Can a great game be made within a few weeks? The answer is definitely yes, and the game King of the Rocks proves it. Exactly two weeks spent indie developer Massagames to create this addictive strategy game.

The game takes place in the world where people live on the tops of the mountains, far above the clouds. Some of the mountains even float. To reach the nearby settlements the squadrons of baloons are used. He who builds the largest army and conquers the neighbours becomes the King of the Rocks.

Top Defense: orbital guardian

In the year 3012 the Galaxy is divided by two superpowers: The Final; Empire and The Eternal Tribes. Once the life on one of the boundary planets was wiped out by the neutron star flare, but all the military bases were left intact. The Tribes organized a raid to capture it.

The only force to stop the invaders if the orbital station with you the only survived crew member. Orbiting around the planet you can use various weapons to destroy the enemies. But be quick: if they manage to capture a base, the rocked aimed at your station will be launched. Of course, there’s always a hope of reinforcements, but who knows…

Bubble Tanks 2: warfare at micro-scale

Changing the scale of the ordinary objects and phenomena is the popular way in game-design to create an innovative and easy-to-learn game. This technique was used by Jared Riley and Eric Ottati (Hero Interactive) when they created Bubble Tanks. Later, after considering tons of players’ comments, they released Bubble Tanks 2, where, compared to the first version, multiple interface tweaks were made, various tanks and weapons were added.

The Bubble Tanks Series depicts the wars in the micro-scaled world. This world is inhabited by militant tank-like creatures, which consist of bubbles. The world itself is a grid of bigger bubbles and you can travel from one of them to another by moving through the membrane. You can strike the enemies with (guess, what? Right!) bubbles, of course! :) Being destroyed, they break into even smaller bubbles, which you can collect and upgrade your tank.

Trafalgar Origins: England expects that every man will do his duty

One of the first games I played on my own personal computer was Age of Sails, the game about the XVIII-XIX centuries naval battles. There were missions from Russian-Turkish, American-English and Napoleonic wars, the player controlled the manouvers and fire of his ship, and then – of the squadron. There were different types of ammo, with different damage characteristics. It was possible to tear the enemy’s sail with the chainshots, fire a grapeshot to reduce the crue, and start the boarding then.

Around that time TV series “Hornblower” was issued and I became a fan of maritime theme. So, I was glad to find the flash game Trafalgar Origins, as it depicts the same historical period. It is about the unsuccessfull Napoleon’s attempt to conquer naval superiority agains Britain. The game is much simplified compared to the PC ones, but nevertheless it keeps the spirit of the sailing age.

I Wanna Win! - be the ultimate winner and collect 25 trophies!

Why do you play computer games? Do you like to win then? I’m sure, you do, as well as I do. That’s why I decided to appeal to the players’ desire to win in my last and the most successful (for now) flash game, I Wanna Win!

The main idea is such: you perform little tasks united by the common aim – to reach the trophy. The way you perform the task affects the number of the stars you receive additionally to the trophy. I tried to make my game as much different from ClickPlay, as it is possible, while keeping it user-friendly and addictive.

ClickPlay - the sense of the game is in starting the game

Usually, when you play a falsh game, you wait till the game loads, then find the Play button, click it and start playing. But once Tom Vancel (Ninjadoodle) thought , what if the sense of the whole game will be in finding the Play button?

So, the first ClickPlay was created two years ago. It was a great success, and two following versions were released later. While the game itself is considered to be inspired by Hoshi Saga, it became the great representative of its genre and the real gem among flash games.

Ninja Painter - let's study paintjutsu

What do we know about ninjas? They are skillful masters of disguise, they move so fast that the human eye can’t fix the fact and they use a lot of weird-named but dangerously sharp weapons.

Ninjas had always been valued as spies and assasins, but how could ninja skills help in the peaceful professions? SilenGames tried to answer this question in their interesting and colourful puzzle Ninja Painter.

Hungry Sumo - eat and hit

Sometimes in the game-developers community a thought is expressed, that everything what could be invented, has already been invented, and all the new games are just the clones or remakes of their famous or long-forgotten predecessors. But, despite this point of wiev, the games with new, addicting gameplay, still appear.

The bright representative of the games with innovative gameplay is Hungry Sumo. The idea is simple: several circle-shaped sumo wrestlers are floating on the screen, bouncing from each other and from the walls. As bigger sumos hit harder, feed your wrestlers by hovering the mouse over them. They will grow, but beware: if the eating sumo hits an enemy, he’ll shrink and become the member of the enemy team at once.

This easy-to-learn game mechanics, together with multiple enemy types provides you 50 levels of fun and joy.

Steer Wheels 3 - drive and solve physical puzzles

Games based on the physical models are immensely popular now. In most of them the player shoots the cannons, tries to keep the balanse or drops some items to achieve the required effect.

But here, in Steer Wheels, we have an rare physics-based gameplay mode. The player controls a skateboard, which pushes a yellow ball. To pass the level you need to make the ball touch the yellow block.

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