Tag Archives: difficult game

[Game: Super Crate Box, Vlambeer, 2010]
Simple Arcade Innovation:

The Elegant, Ingenious Gameplay of Vlambeer’s Super Crate Box

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Introduction:

In the first post of this series, I praised Tribute Games’ much-maligned Wizorb for being a high-quality recent example of a cheap, challenging, arcade-style game. This week I would like to recommend a game which you may not have heard of. It is also in the arcade style, but it is much more challenging and much more cheap. How can it be much more cheap than the $3 title Wizorb, you ask? In fact, this game is completely free. Not free-to-play or freemium, just plain old free. It goes by the name of Super Crate Box, and it is available on Steam right now in exchange for no money.

Super Crate Box is an arcade action game that pits your pixelated player-character against hordes of marching foes, but with one amazing gameplay twist, explained below. The game was developed by Vlambeer, a Dutch team which has risen to prominence in recent years with games like LUFTRAUSERS and Nuclear Throne. And like those later titles, Super Crate Box is a tremendous time-sink, a great challenge, and a lot of fun: now, on to discussing that interesting gameplay quirk.

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[Game: Super Crate Box, Vlambeer, 2010]
Simple Arcade Innovation:

The Elegant, Ingenious Gameplay of Vlambeer’s Super Crate Box

 was last modified: August 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: SpaceChem, Zachtronics, 2011]
Lost in SpaceChem:

The Atmosphere, Aesthetics, and Narrative of Zachtronics’ Breakout Success SpaceChem

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Introduction:

Last week was another slightly heavy entry into this series, focusing on the interpretation of pixel art, and pixel art as an artistic movement. So, just like my post on Offspring Fling! from two weeks ago, I will be making this post another lighter recommendation. The game which I would like to recommend, however, is hardly light, and it goes by the name SpaceChem.

No fan of puzzle games should go through life without having experienced SpaceChem. It’s an amazing piece of software, elegant in the simplicity of its design and yet awesome in the potential complexity of its mechanics. And the way that the game’s challenges ramp up not only from the mechanics themselves, but from the consistent space constraints in which the mechanics have to be used, is brilliant.

It is not the genius primary gameplay of SpaceChem, however, which is the focus of this article; instead it’s everything else about SpaceChem that I want to talk about—the stuff that the core gameplay routinely overshadows in discussions of the game, and which folks have sometimes been inclined to dismiss or even criticize: its story, music, boss fights, and visuals.

Yes, this game’s mechanics provide a satisfying abstraction of programming which (in addition to Zach Barth’s freeware releases, and earlier rarities like ChipWits) arguably inaugurated—and certainly popularized—its own unique subgenre of games. But I would contend that it was only able to do that because of its aesthetics and its atmosphere.

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[Game: SpaceChem, Zachtronics, 2011]
Lost in SpaceChem:

The Atmosphere, Aesthetics, and Narrative of Zachtronics’ Breakout Success SpaceChem

 was last modified: March 6th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Offspring Fling!, Kyle Pulver, 2012]
A Hidden Gauntlet:

The Brutal Platformer Hiding Behind the Lovely Facade of Offspring Fling!

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Introduction:

After the heavy subject matter and dense theoretical prose of your last Mid-week Mission, I am just going to make this one a brief recommendation of another cheap, oft-overlooked indie product. This might just be another outlying opinion on a tiny title, but when it comes to Offspring Fling!, I love the game.

After beating Offspring Fling! casually (or as soon as you care to notice it), the real challenge of the title opens up: one of the most precise and challenging speed-run systems built into a game of which I am aware, which upon completion unlocks a suite of precision platforming bonus levels.

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[Game: Offspring Fling!, Kyle Pulver, 2012]
A Hidden Gauntlet:

The Brutal Platformer Hiding Behind the Lovely Facade of Offspring Fling!

 was last modified: October 24th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski