Red Rogue - The Friday FREE GAME Feature!

Red Rogue is a retro roguelike with action or turn-based gameplay, made with Flash. It's a fun time-waster and a decent free alternative to WazHack (though I highly recommend buying WazHack). You can find my thoughts on the game at 3:07:42 in the video above.

One thing not mentioned in the final thoughts (but definitely discussed throughout the video) is the sleeping mechanic. You can sleep to attempt healing, but there are risks. Monsters may wander by and attack, forcing you out of sleep. You might instead have a nightmare, which includes creepy in-game sounds and images. A particularly bad nightmare will even spawn an enemy that (as best as I can tell) is immune to damage and chases you for a length of time until it finally disappears.

8Bit Killer - The Friday FREE GAME Feature!

Oldschool FPS action!

8Bit Killer is a retro first-person shooter inspired by classics in the genre as well as S/NES-era gaming. In the 25th century, an alien known as the Master Brain has ushered in a new era on Earth, and all who oppose it are crushed. This game is an account of the final acts of the last resistance holdouts (of which you are a member).

Explobers - The Friday FREE GAME Feature!

Pixelated puzzle platforming - perfect placement and planning prescribed!

Explobers is a puzzle platformer that looks and feels like it was made for the NES. You play as a trio of characters (that look like distant cousins to Q*bert) with specific abilities that help you reach the exit platform of each stage.

Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls - The Friday FREE GAME Feature!

Fight pirates, beat bosses and gain new abilities!

Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls is a platformer in the vein of Shovel Knight and Megaman (though much easier). You play as a newly-created monster hastily finished to track down a band of pirates that raided your town. As you defeat bosses, your scientist "dad" uses their DNA to give you new abilities. The entire story is intentionally goofy and packed with hilarious moments.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep74: Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt

Heal the sick and get married in this retro-styled shooter adventure!

Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt is an adventure title made by Ludosity in four days during a game jam competition. You play as the title character on a quest to heal the sick, find your missing friend and save the prince from a variety of illnesses.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep63: Crown & Council

Retro turn-based strategy created by Mojang!

Crown and Council was created during a 72-hour game jam by Henrik Pettersson and released on Steam by Mojang. You play as the ruler of a kingdom with the goal of defeating all opposing kingdoms on the map.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep49: Into the Underdusk

Retro platforming adventure!

Into the Underdusk is a retro-styled platformer created using the Multimedia Fusion engine. You play as the last remaining person in a world now shrouded in darkness. You're losing your memory and decide to seek out a locket you had long ago.

The game features classic pixel graphics and tight controls. You'll spend most of the time trying to navigate each screen's obstacles, dying until you get it right. Thankfully, there are numerous checkpoints scattered about, giving a "difficult but fair" level of challenge overall.

As you explore, you'll encounter a number of glowing blue collectibles and other power-ups that improve your character (speed increase, double jump, etc.) and allow you to explore previously unreachable locations. 

There are many similarities between Into the Underdusk and You Have To Win The Game, so if you enjoyed one of these titles you should probably check out the other. Both are short but sweet classic-styled platformers with a few (more modern) improvements.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep35: Stories of Bethem

Classic Zelda-style adventure for the PC or Android!

Stories of Bethem captures the look (and most of the feel) of the classic Legend of Zelda titles. Instead of a magic sword, you harness the powers of elemental magic to break objects and slay enemies.

The game begins with a rather lengthy backstory and control explanation. The intro can be skipped and dialog can be sped through via button presses, which is great when replaying the game. You begin with no weapons or attacks of any kind, but a witch quickly gives you your first spell - a wind blast. She then sets you out on a quest to find a number of magical objects.

Puzzles are heavily featured throughout the game, many of which involve pushing rocks to open paths or cover holes. In addition to damaging enemies, your wind spell allows you to break barrels and bushes to reveal treasures and hidden paths... but using the spell drains magic points. You can find items to regain MP or wait for it to slowly recover, but early on you can go through MP pretty fast as you use it for attacks as well as exploration/puzzle solving. This slows down play somewhat until you can begin recovering health and magic at save locations.

Some of the puzzles seem fairly tricky - I had a hard time figuring out a few of them and for the sake of the episode explored other rooms once I got stuck. I didn't get too far during the video due to the puzzles, but that means they at least pose some challenge which is good. I'd like to see what other types of spells and items become available later in the game, so there's a fair chance I'll continue playing for a bit.

There's nothing impressive early on in Stories of Bethem, but I'd like to take some more time with it. The story, gameplay, art style and controls all seem okay from my first experience.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep22: Jet Gunner

Run and gun action with this NES-inspired shooter!

Jet Gunner pays tribute to those classic NES-era action titles like Contra, Code Name: Viper and Bionic Commando. You play as a soldier with unlimited ammo and a jetpack, shooting everything that moves while dodging enemies and an array of projectiles. You find power-ups along the way that change your weapon or provide you with a "drone" that can increase your firepower. 

The jetpack has a limited use but refills over time and lets you reach normally inaccessible areas (which the game has many of). The jetpack is fun and gives a lot of room for level design options.You're given a rather large looking health meter, but with everything coming at you it doesn't take long to deplete. You get knocked back when taking damage - and as any oldschool gamer can attest, this can often push you off a platform to your death. By today's standards that might seem cheap, but it feels right at home here. Learning patterns and accounting for knockback was a big part of progression in these games.

Growing up with the NES, I appreciate the gameplay and aesthetics of Jet Gunner, which captures the era and genre wonderfully.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep15: Echoes+

Take the classic "Asteroids" style game, crank it up to 11 and you have Echoes+!

This shooter features six game modes, four difficulty settings, a handful of powerups and an achievement/challenge system for extended play. The controls handle perfectly and for the most part the game is simple but effective - shoot stuff, grab goodies, repeat.

Echoes+ is a feast for the eyes with neon-colors and explosions everywhere. The sounds and music are lively but not distracting, which is important because you need to stay focused. Thankfully everything is easy to see, so you're not going to be cheapshot by 1-pixel bullets. The UI is classic and clean, but Echoes+ adds a few visual cues to inform you of important info (such as your energy and number of bombs), which really helps when things are getting fierce.

Echoes+ is available on a fair range of platforms (Steam for Win or Mac, OUYA, fireTV, Xbox) and is just plain fun, so go play it already!

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep11: 2x0ng

Atari 2600 inspired, procedurally generated action!

2x0ng takes inspiration from several Atari 2600 classics to create a game that is unique, yet feels familiar. The player has one special ability - the squareball - that can be used to break blocks, open gates and damage enemies. Considering the Atari 2600 had only one button on the controller (not counting the directional joystick), the squareball fits the theme perfectly. Once you throw the squareball, you either have to wait for it to return to you or get far enough away that it basically despawns and reappears in your hands. This can be a problem if you let yourself get surrounded, encouraging you to keep the enemies from getting out of control.

Progress through the game is fairly straightforward - locate and step on the EXIT for the level. To gain access to the exit, you'll have to bring down the various gates surrounding it. To open a gate, the squareball must match the gate's color and simply make contact with it. When the squareball contacts a solid rectangle, it breaks some blocks and becomes the color of that rectangle. It's an easy to understand mechanic that can be used to form a sort of puzzle element throughout a level. Using the squareball to break blocks and gates adds that Breakout feel to the game, which was an iconic title for the 2600.

Speaking of which, one of the enemies is a moving rectangle that looks and acts much like the "paddle" from that classic game. Many of the enemies in 2x0ng are inspired directly from other Atari 2600 baddies. That said, 2x0ng is more than a mashup of old games - procedural generation was unheard of on the 2600 (due to its limitations), so there's one big change already. If you're feeling nostalgic for classic Atari but would like to try something new, 2x0ng might fit the bill.

The Friday FREE GAME Feature! Ep10: You Have To Win The Game & Mecha World

To celebrate going into double digits, this episode is a double feature! First up, a real puzzler with Mecha World followed by the amazing retro-inspired platformer You Have To Win The Game!

A New Steed, A New Server, and (Good) Old Games

It finally happened - after many years of exploration and countless realms conquered, my old warhorse rides no more.

A storm came through at the end of last month, and I unplugged my PC to protect it. The next day, it wouldn't turn back on. The power supply is running, but all I get is a blinking orange power light and the green blinking light attempting to check the DVD drive. From what I've gathered, that usually means a problem with the motherboard, which makes sense considering its age.

I'm currently on a borrowed, equally old machine temporarily as I wait for a better computer to arrive within the next few days. I'm pretty excited to be getting an upgrade, but in the meantime I'm stuck with a machine that has only integrated graphics (and no slots for any cards I own). What's a gamer to do?

Play some retro games, of course! Last month I was ensnared by Steam and GOG's Summer Sales, picking up some discount titles. While I can't play most of the games I recently bought right now (which is really frustrating), GOG has about a dozen classic titles for free which will run on just about anything. It's something to do while I'm waiting, and some of the titles are actually pretty good.

Also, some big news for dinosaur-loving Minecrafters: The Fossils and Archeology Revival mod has been updated, along with the public server! They've made it to 1.6.4 and the server has been reset. The newest updates to the mod include many more skeletal models, coelacanths, and the gallimimus to name a few! Be sure to check out their Minecraft forum page for the latest version!