ThumbGods in 2009

In 2009, I reviewed indie games like Funky Farm 2, A Case Of The Crabs, Rotoadventures Momo’sQuest, Slayer of Dragon,  Democracy 2,  Electric Box,  Faerie Solitaire, and CyberWord. I plan to keep focusing on creative, indie games next year. I also played major mainstream titles, like Cartoon Network’s new MMO Fusionfall, and James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club:  Games of Passion for the DS. ThumbGods reviewed the match-3 Atlantis, Totem Tribe, National Geographic’s Mystery of Cleopatra, Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, Sims 2 on the DS, and Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting To Danger! Major misses  this year were  My Boyfriend,  Create-a-Mall,  the disappointing Build-a-lot 3, and Jack in Lost in Blue 2. (Not all of LiB2. Just Jack.)

I tried to branch out a bit from reviews, and started writing some hints, including a guide to solving MyTribe mysteries and hints for Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting To Danger! I’ll probably keep doing this whenever I’m really proud of solving a puzzle and want to help out.

Thumb Gods had a great guest post when when Lexton Collins reviewed Runes Of Magic. I guest posted reviews of Cake Mania 3 and Ciao Bella, over on Casual Gamer Chick, Crayon Physics Deluxe review on Angry Gamers, Travians: Asterix Meets The Sims on SeeJaneGame, and contributed to several issues of Indie Game Mag.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Game Review: Don’t Look Back

Don’t Look Back is a new game on Kongregate based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. This Greek myth tells the story of the lovers Orpheus and Eurydice, who are tragically parted when Eurydice dies. Unable to live without her, Orpheus journeys to Hades to bring back his lost love. Hades, the god of the underworld, and his wife Persephone are so moved by Orpheus’ love and his musical gifts, that they agree to let Eurydice follow him out of the underworld… on one condition. He can’t turn around and look at Eurydice until they leave the underworld.

As they are leaving, Orpheus is overcome with love for Eurydice (in some versions he hears her breathing or her footsteps) and glances back. Eurydice fades away and returns to the underworld, never to see him again.

I really love that tragic love story. In college, I majored in classics, which has greatly helped in my career path of being freakishly well-read. Just a few days ago, I reviewed Electric Box, another Kongregate game and really liked it, so I expected the combination of classical myth and Kongregate to be great.

No.

Don’t Look Back is an arcade platformer, which means jumping, shooting and, in my case, dying. I’m not good at jump-on-the-platform games, and since I don’t really like them, I doubt I’ll ever get good. I’m willing to try platformers with cool slants — I made an exception for the cute jumping game Momo — but they’re not really my thing.

The game opens with a blocky figure standing next to a grave, but there’s no text or explanation to tell you what’s going on. Thank goodness I have my classics degree for moments like this! Don’t Look Back was much better about telling you to use the arrows to move or spacebar to shoot than it was about telling the story.

I found that Don’t Look Back had lots of jumping and landing on platforms, but not a lot of pretty things to look at while you’re doing this. Each new screen is a surprise, with creepy crawlies set to attack Orpheus on entry, so I spent a lot of time dying.

The graphics are cutely retro, in gothy colors, but that just wasn’t enough to distract me from the problems I had with gameplay.

I really wanted to see how the developer interpreted this myth, and when I’m going to write a review, I usually play games to the end. But, even sondiering those, I never made it to rescuing Eurydice.  After repetive scenes of shooting blocky bugs and hopping over obstacles, I just wasn’t having a good time at all.

I hope that other players really liked Don’t Look Back, and that it inspires a whole trend of classical games! And I hope they’re more fun.

Popularity: 21% [?]

January and February on ThumbGods

I’ve heard about that post-Christmas slump for games, but on ThumbGods, this was a great time for reviews. I reviewed Funky Farm 2, the match-3 Atlantis, A Case Of The Crabs, Totem Tribe, Rotoadventures Momo’sQuest, Slayer of Dragon, the underwhelming Build-a-lot 3,  Democracy 2,  Electric Box, and Cartoon Network’s Fusionfall here on ThumbGods, and Ciao Bella, over on Casual Gamer Chick. Sheihk Chandio reviewed GTA: Liberty City, Pokemon Diamond,  Gran Turismo 4,  Dragonball Z:Infinite World and FF7. Lexton Collins reviewed the upcoming Runes Of Magic.

We recently discovered AngryGamers, a new site for gaming rants and reviews (with some NSFW language). We also posted about a cool boardgames craft project, and I wrote my first walkthrough, a guide to solving MyTribe mysteries.

Don’t forget, we’re also on Twitter! You can follow ThumbGods on Twitter for instant updates whenever we post!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Indie Game Mag and Momo

Indie Game Mag is a new magazine about — no points for guessing — independent games. Now, I don’t mean to bash the bestsellers, I love my World of WarCraft and my Sims2 just as much as the next gamer, but fun, creative indie games are often underrepresented in games journalism. It’s sad that so many really creative games get overlooked in favor of same-old mechanics and gorgeous graphics of a lot of mainstream games. IndieGameMag focuses entirely on new games from small developers, there’s no World of WarCraft or Gears of War here!

A few days ago, Indie Game Mag ran a crazy contest for the best ad that game companies could come up with in 24 hours. The winner would receive a full-page ad in the March issue of Indie Game Mag.

The winner was none other than the guys behind my squirrel friend Momo!

Guess the guys at IndieGameMag can’t resist Momo from RotoAdventures either!

PS Don’t forget to check out the upcoming March issue of Indie Game Mag for my review of Chains!

Via The Indie Game Magazine: Impromptu Ad Contest Winner.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Game Review: Totem Tribe

Totem Tribe was sort of a cross between MyTribe and Age Of Empires. You start out as a young chief with a small tribe, and you complete building, combat and searching missions to improve their fate.

Totem Tribe uses building and unit training without the usual resource management side of things. There’s no real harvesting involved and no resource requirements to build new items, which takes some of the challenge away, and lets you focus on building an aesthetically pleasing settlement. Or maybe that’s just me. Your buildings each create specialized units, which you can then use to explore, build, fight, and so forth.

It’s no Momo, but this game is cute. Your villagers fight mushroom people and funny animals, and they live peacefully with giant ladybugs and lazy turtles.

Each island has gems, seashells and other clickable collectibles. It took me a little while to realize that what I’d thought were some funny-looking flowers are actually the gems you are meant to collect. Oops. Because there are surprise activitable items, I found myself clicking on everything, old-fashioned hand-activate style, to see what might happen.

Totem Tribe blends a civ game, a strategy game and the good kind of hidden objects game, all things I like, into an addicting casual game. My only real problem is that the story falls flat.  While I actually liked the gameplay of repeatedly finding a new object of Epic Supreme Destiny on each unlocked island, I found  the chief’s requests for and the general quest text about each Super-Duper Supreme Epic item to be stilted and annoying.

Overall, a solid casual game, even if the story arc leaves a bit to be desired.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Game Review: RotoAdventures Momo’s Quest

RotoAdventures Momo’s Quest is a PC game about a baby squirrel (so much cuteness!) who is trying to find his way back to his owner, having adventures along the way. Platform games can get a little repetitive for me, but I was completely intrigued by cute little Momo, so I had to try this.

The controls were quite simple, although it does use the mouse instead of the keyboard for jumping and directional control. Momo’s Quest starts out pretty easy while players become accustomed to the controls and the goal, but quickly becomes challenging. I think the best games have very simple rules, and then add content and challenges, and Momo’s Quest did. The challenge was the usual platform game, jumping and grabbing gems for points, and finding objects. Oh, and not falling and letting little Momo get hurt, of course! But the new cute content on each level, like new backgrounds and new special things that Momo learns, kept me playing.

On each level, sweet Momo can either go to the light side, with fluffy bunnies and cuteness overload, or the dark side, with gothy woodland creatures and another style of cuteness. The whole game was like an interactive kids’ book, very light-hearted and fun.

When you play Momo, your cursor becomes an acorn. This is usually something I hate, funny cursors belong on a preteen’s MySpace page. But it was so fun to watch the squirrel chasing the acorn! I guess Momo’s magical powers of cuteness made me like things I wouldn’t normally like.

Finally, Happy Nutz Studio has won my love by making such a sweet game and NOT saying it’s for girls.

You can get download a demo or buy a full version from Happy Nutz Studio for Mac or PC.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Press Release: RotoAdventures

Guadalajara, Jalisco México – January 06, 2009 – Happy Nutz Studio releases Rotoadventures Momo’s Quest – an action/platform mouse-only game so easy to play that can be enjoyed by the whole family. The game demo can be downloaded from www.RotoAdventures.com

The game is hand draw frame by frame and tells the story of Momo, a little squirrel in a life quest for finding his owner. The game guides the player from an enchanted forest to cybernetic mines and from a school to a cursed castle exploring various themes like vandalism and ecology.

Features:
- Easy to play, you only need the mouse.
- Choose between light and dark chapters.
- Get new abilities for each chapter.
- 20 Different worlds.
- 10 Boss enemies.
- Unlock more than 20 Wallpapers.
- Different endings.

Yeah, you read that right. A squirrel (a really cute squirrel, actually) who has to choose between the light side and the dark side. Here’s a sneak preview of the freakishly cute little guy:

Popularity: 8% [?]