Saving the Company

Link to game

Here we have an odd puzzle-plateformer with shifting mechaincs to keep the player on its toes.  Now, from my experience playing these games, I've noted that they either have point and click monkey-moon logic and asks for too much outside the box thinking, or the game treats the player like an idiot with puzzles that amount to "pull this retard."

So, where does Saving the Company fall?

Well, the premise of the game is that you are this guy who works for Fuck U Industries and its going belly up so you decide to save the company (and your fellow workers from being laid off) by going into a dungeon, solving bullshit puzzles and at the end slay the evil dragon... I think.  Trust me, you will forget about the open-scene nobody gives a shit about as you play a game that makes no hint to this 'storyline' at all.

Pictured: scene you will not care about

So, with traditional fantasy music playing in the background a nausuam you go out and solve a bunch of puzzles in various test chambers that the game have for you.  Course, I can't take away from the fact that in each chamber the controls and mechanics change up, adding puzzle solving variety.

No noes!  Anitgavity... and spikes!

At any rate, there are invisible platformers, a moment where certain controls are locked, and this one really obnoxious scene where I had to double-jump, but I couldn't for the love of me time it right.

Course the game also had a moment with mouse control, with will throw you off if your using the arrow keys to direct your character, course, unless you suck and own an AZERTY keyboard, you can still use WASD to move around.  Its a tiny nitpick but its a peeve of mine nevertheless.

The platforms I mean, shame I didn't put my mousie there.

 Now, I just want to note that at that point when I couldn't figure out the double-jump was when I stopped playing, partly cuz... well, I wasn't immersed and engaged enough with what I was doing to care.  I don't have an e-penis that I need to prove the length of by beating platformer hell games, nevermind this.  While I can commend the amount of variety in each test chamber and one can do far worse in the flash scene, this wasn't enough for me, or my cup of tea.  Though I likely described what some of you would jizz at the thought of, so go nuts, its worth a peek and a nod, though not much else.

Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure

Link to game

This is going to be one of 'those' games so bare with me.  Fortunately, it isn't a bullshit art game, or at least I hope not, else I would have to question the pixel art skills of the dipshit that made the game.  Course, as this isn't the case calling the creator a 'dipshit' is going to be a huge mistake on my part.

In summery, in the game, you play a girl named Sissy, who decides to go dimension hopping through magical rainbow portals in search of the illusive 'ponycorns.'  What's a ponycorn, you might ask?

A cross between a pony and a unicorn if I understand this

Now, for anyone that's thinking the premise of the game sounds like a five year old girl dreamt it up, well, that's because it was literally dreamt up by a five year old girl!

As the mythos goes, a little girl named Cassie and her dad Ryan decided to make a computer game.  Now, while the father handled all the technical things like operating flash and typing the actionscript, the kid did the rest: the graphics, the layout of the hotspots, the puzzles, and whatever overarching storyline this had while voice acting duties are divided up amongst the two.

The game doesn't exactly hide this from the player either, I mean, duh!  Look at the graphics!

Ok Sissy... I'll take your word for it

Though from a technical standpoint I'm wondering why Ryan decided to put a drop shadow on everything, with the only explanation being that he is not a programmer and couldn't figure out how else he could have put the cut out and scanned in crayon drawings and fit them without it looking weird.

So, you walk into the rainbow where a magical thingie gives you a bunch of jars where you can store the ponycorns that you collect along the way.

I would totally trust a murmuring wtf

So, gameplay involves some light puzzle solving while exploring through the rainbow portals to stuff ponycorns into jars.  I am not sure how a ponycorn is to fit into a jar, but then again, who am I to question the logic of a five year old?  She's at that age where the morality of putting creatures into jars in the first place wouldn't cross her underdeveloped mind.

So, use key on cage, flip over tortoise, turn dino into mouse (she did it with magic, now put your arm down) and stuff ponycorn into jar.

That is a red ponycorn

Now, there is even a moment in the game where a character claimed to be testing Sissy to see if she was nice to her ponycorns, which has me wondering how exactly is it nice to stuff the fuckers in jars!?

Ok, so the programing is sound, if not simple, and the gameplay itself is easy but it works and it is an entertaining experience that makes me a little sad that I didn't have a project that my dad and I worked on like this.  Graphics are what I expect a five year old to be able to shit out, and the premise is what I'd expect said five year old to dream up and be itching to create.

Hasbro, you taking notes here?

Which brings me to something that has been bothering me about the hype this game and Pop Cap's Allied Star Police, and it involves the standby that 'children are so imaginative!'  This really bugs me on so many levels as I don't see this 'boundless imagination' that they keep talking about.  I mean, take another look at that My Little Pony pic I posted, and take a hard look at the white pony to the left.  Isn't that not a ponycorn?

I mean, childish graphics and voice work by a little kid and a 30-something year old playing with said kid aside, Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure is a rehashing of My Little Pony with standard point and click mechanics that I've seen dozens of times.  I remember being a kid and my creativity didn't go past rehashing shit that was already in my environment: this is why fanfiction tends to be written by kids.

I am not qualified to answer the proverbial "chicken or the egg" question, but considering that ponies are abundant in media targeted to little girls and ponies and horses have been a common fantasy and interest in little girls for a very long time, I'm really going to break some parent's heart and tell them that kids are no more creative than we adults are, and as I write and try to be imaginative, being told that some tike could think up worlds better than I is an insult, and I don't see evidence that its the case.</end run on sentence>

Now, this game is an interesting guide inside the mind of a child, and I was not surprised in what I found.  Nevertheless I was in stitches the first time I played it, and it might be worth your while to play it at least once.  Though i should warn my reader base: you might feel your balls shrink into your neck.