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Contests 4K Game Competition - 2007
#21

In ApoSheep4k, the player controls a sheep with the goal to get to the other side of the field, without hitting any of the dogs. However, the sheep will always just run ahead and the player can only control whether to run diagonally upwards or downwards. The game controls are thus very simple, just space to toggle between up and down.

Category:

Graphics: 3 sheep, dogs, fence, and background are images Technical: 1 no particular challanges in the technical department Gameplay: 1 the gameplay is not particularly challanging Other: 1 semi-transparent overlay with text instructions Total: 6

Problems:
I have not encountered any problems.

Remark:
It’s a very well executed and appealing game with a coherent look. The game is rather simple, as reflected by the score.

#22

In Cube Atck, the player controls a cannon that sits on a ring and can move around on the ring. From the inside, differently colored and sized cubes fly outwards towards the ring. When a cube hits the ring, it becomes thinner and the cube gets stuck. When the player shoots eight consecutive cubes of the same color, the ring becomes thicker. To remove stuck cubes, one can stop shooting and move over the cube. Game control is left/right and space to fire.

Category: shooter

Graphics: 2 animated geometric shapes Technical: 2 basic collision detection Gameplay: 1 the gameplay is rather simplistic Other: 1 ingame start screen with instructions Total: 6

Problems:
I have not encountered any problems.

Remark:
Cube Atck is a very well executed game with a nice coherent look. However, I just couldn’t warm up to the gameplay. At first, it seemed overly difficult to survive for more than 30 seconds, until I found out how to remove cubes that got stuck - which additionally makes the ring thicker again (kinda zero sum: you loose some, you gain some). It looks very nice, and it features a unique gameplay idea, but I still don’t like it.

#23

In Bullets4k, the player controls a white dot, which is followed by a number of little white dots according to the law of gravity. The goal is to guide the little white dots (at least 50 of them) to the red target zone. Game controls are left/right/up/down. Additionally, one can press ctrl to move the dots closer to the guide, but this uses up power. Power can be recharged in the green power zone. The game has a time limit.

Category: action-oriented gravity maze puzzle?

Graphics: 1 simple geometric shapes Technical: 2 basic collision detection Gameplay: 1 see remark Other: 1 dynamically generated levels (or at least a lot of levels) 1 nicely colored trails for the particles Total: 6

Problems:
I have not encountered any problems.

Remark:
Bullets4k is a very well executed game with a nice coherent look (ever heard that before?). It is a unique gameplay idea, but ends up just twiddling the direction keys (maybe mouse would have been easier?).

#24

In Vector Racer 4k, the player controls a racing car in a turned based competition agains ai or other human racing cars. Each racing car has a 2d velocity vector, and in each turn the player can choose to increase or decrease the velocity in either x- or y-direction (or both).

Category: turn-based strategy

Graphics: 1 simple geometric shapes Technical: 2 basic collision detection Gameplay: 2 challenging Other: 1 random track generation 1 ai opponents 1 multiple ai strengh levels 1 text menu 1 colored trails Total: 10

Problems:
I have not encountered any problems.

Remark:
Vector Racer 4k implements a game idea I’ve alreay heard about (and implemented) over 10 years ago. That said, it implements it very nicely with randomly generated maps and a coherent look. It also features ai opponents and a text menu. The difficulty of this game is in looking ahead. The player has to estimate the current speed and how long it will take to slow down to get around tight corners, and how much one can speed up before one has to slow down again. It’s extremely well implemented and features a large number of bells and whistles.

#25

I must admit to being slightly confused. I am overwhelmed by the comment on Scorch, but slightly disappointed about what you thought of Bullets. That is, I think Bullets is the better game. It is, of course, a matter of taste. Note, by the way, that Bullets does not dynamically generate levels; there are some 7 or 8 in total.

Glad to hear your thoughts, it might well help me create better games in the future. I really do appreciate all the work you’re doing here. :slight_smile:

On a side note, I’ve reviewed slightly more than half of the games according to this system, and I will publish my thoughts once I’ve reviewed them all (except for my own ones, of course).

#26

Bullets has more inventive, experimental gameplay.
Scorch has proven ‘old’ gameplay, but implements it with a lot of bells and whistles.
Maybe I was just too tired to give it a chance.

puts bullets on the list of games to look at again

#27

Gonna have to agree with the re-review on the bullets thing. It was one of my favorite games, and I thought it deserved at least a 2 or 3 for gameplay, and maybe 1 extra point for being original. My opinion though.

Otherwise great job doing the reviews so far :slight_smile:

#28

Ugh, no internet for over a week. I need to get some more reviews done. :frowning:

#29

In ApoFall4k, the player controls the left-right movement of a ball, trying to survive as long as possible. Impenetrable clouds are scrolling upwards the screen with holes at random locations. The game is lost when the ball hits the top of the screen.

Category: fall?

Graphics: 2 image-based rendering, but rather simple shapes Technical: 1 no particular challenges here Gameplay: 1 the gameplay is rather repetitive Other: 1 semi-transparent overlay with text instructions Total: 5

Problems:
The font on linux is slightly larger than on windows and the help text doesn’t fit. Also, the top of the screen is cut off under linux.

Remark:
Although the game is rather simple, ApoFall4k has a very nice coherent look. I’m a bit sad to see it go with so few points, but I must say that ‘fall’ style games aren’t really contenders for the top 5. That said, it’s a nice casual game and I can imagine that some might find it very addictive.

#30

The player directly moves a blue sphere around with his mouse, avoiding the red spheres, and collecting the black squares. For each collected black square, a new red sphere is spawned (i.e. it gets progressively harder). If a red sphere is touched, the game is over.

Category: dexterity

Graphics: 1 simple geometric shapes Technical: 1 no particular challanges here Gameplay: 3 see remark Other: 1 semi-transparent overlay with game results Total: 6

Problems:
I have not encountered any problems.

Remark:
The gameplay is solely based on dexterity and concentration, and as such, it is rather challanging. It also very satisfying to beat a previous highscore, my current high score is 185. :smiley:

#31

In Rottweiler 4k, the player controls a (big) black rottweiler on his mission to kill all the thieves in the pear orchard. Game controls are left-right, up to jump, space to clench jaws, and down and space to eat killed thieves (and restore … energy or something).

Category:

Graphics: 4 it's amazing what one can do with all those simple geometric shapes ;) Technical: 2 seems a little more complicated than just simple collision detection Gameplay: 1 repetitive Other: 1 animated characters (dog,thieves) 1 parallax scrolling -1 see remarks Total: 8

Problems:
The top of the screen is cut off under linux (i.e. you can’t see the health and the number of kills).

Remark:
Considering that this game only uses simple geometric shapes, the graphics are exceptionally well done. The one big downside is that thieves kicks can hit the dog even if he is in the air above their heads. Wtf?

#32

In VOTA, the player controls an alien army invading earth. Of course, earth only has a single ship, and the alien army has quite a number of ships. Unfortunatly, the earth ship has infinite lives. Game control is … err … select a ship with left click, add waypoints with left click. Alternatively, remove all way points and set a new one with right click. Unfortunately, only one ship can be controlled at a time.

Category: shooter, sort of

Graphics: 1 simple geometric shapes Technical: 1 simple collision detection Gameplay: 2 clicky Other: 1 sound (?) Total: 5

Problems:
The top of the screen is cut off under linux.

Remark:
VOTA is an interesting idea, but I found the game rather difficult to control. There is no way to control multiple ships at once and the earth ship is behaving erratically, and not really predictable. Additionally, it’s not possible to control directly when and where the alien ships shoot, rather they shoot only when they move and at certain preset intervals.

Note:
Check sound.

#33

Road Fighter is a endurance racing game, i.e. the goal is to drive a car as far as possible along a more or less straight road. Hitting other cars or the road border looses health, collecting ambulances gains health. Left-right to steer, up-down to accelerate and deccelerate.

Category: racer

Graphics: 1 simple geometric shapes Technical: 2 collision detection Gameplay: 2 basic, but addictive Other: Total: 5

Problems:
There is a typo ‘Press Spaca to Start’. I can’t close the game by pressing the (x) button on the window. The game does not display the score when one looses (so I can’t post my highscore). Resizing the window gives a gray area around the game.

Remark:
Road Fighter is mostly a fight against randomness. I had it happen that there were no ambulances for a long while, and in another run, a lot of them came right one after the other. Also, cars move rather erratically from left to right and vice versa, which makes it rather difficult to predict where they go. Additionally, sometimes very, very slow cars appear at the top and it is impossible to break or evade them.

Having said all these bad things about the game, how could one go about to make it better? By making it slightly more predictable, for example by having the cars follow the road exactly. Also, by having predetermined tracks (and possibly predetermined orderings of cars), for example by using a preset seed for the random number generator. Having predetermined tracks would allow to improve oneself by memorizing the track. Also, it might make the game fairer to have fixed intervals in which the ambulances appear (e.g. after 100, 200, 300, etc.).