Battleships Forever and the 2009 Indy game winners.

[Isaac Sauvage]

after slogging through a miserable day, i had a pleasant surprise in learning that the classic "warning forever" has a sequel of sorts, called "battleships forever".

the beautiful vector art and compartmental nature of the ships is carried on, but instead of being another shooter played against waves of bosses which adapt to your attacks via gamepad (the original), this one is a strategic game in which you use a mouse to command groups of ships to achieve various objectives. so far i'm in the tutorial of the campaign mode, but even if the game turns out to be a dud, visually it's been some nice eye-candy in a vector-art, engineer's fancy kind of way...

the game is a finalist from the 10th annual indy games festival, apparently. i'm just starting to look through the list, but i'll report back here if i find anything i think noteworthy:
http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html

btw, both games are freeware for PC-

warning forever:
http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/index_e.html
battleships forever:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php

 

[mrschultz]

Battleships forever is a cool looking game, way too complicated for my taste, maybe if it moved slower I could select the right stuff and use it correctly but no way at the speed they attack at you.

 

[TheMcD]

Ah yes, Warning Forever. I still remember playing that one. My first real experience with "bullet-hell".

I'll have to try Battleships Forever too.

The McD

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Battleships forever is a cool looking game, way too complicated for my taste, maybe if it moved slower I could select the right stuff and use it correctly but no way at the speed they attack at you.

yea... fun to look at and a pleasant waste of time but not much gameplay. basically just me throwing ships at targets, because the game moves too fast to do much else. i got up to one of the last missions and it crashed. oh well, i'm done with it now.

btw i was about to post this in the flash games thread- this is a new game of the type that you've enjoyed in the past. it's like those block-removal games, except that some blocks have their own (unique) gravity:
http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/red-remover/

i'm struggling to remove the red balls in only ten clicks on level 31:

...I'll have to try Battleships Forever too...

think of it as a demo (actually it sort of is). it's pretty and has a good foundation, but there's not much to do right now.

it's too bad the warning forever guy didn't do a direct sequel. or maybe there's a more recent shooter out there that has those dynamics (nothing but bosses, dynamic targetting attack, adaptation to your attacks) but i've never seen it...

 

[mrschultz]

i'm struggling to remove the red balls in only ten clicks on level 31:

Easy game, except 22 on par was hard to figure out, the one above is not that hard, 4 clicks get the outer 2 greens safe, then drain the reds. I'm not doing them in "bonus view", that's just crazy for the ones you have to click fast.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

funny, i had no trouble doing all the other levels in bonus view, but i still can't get 31 at par.

EDIT: got it. i'm an idiot. i had assumed i needed to cut six gates. instead it's a combination of cutting four gates and two blue balls.

on to the bonus round!

 

[mrschultz]

funny, i had no trouble doing all the other levels in bonus view, but i still can't get 31 at par.

EDIT: got it. i'm an idiot. i had assumed i needed to cut six gates. instead it's a combination of cutting four gates and two blue balls.

on to the bonus round!

I didn't try more than one level in bonus view, just too boring to go back and do them all over again... Maybe I'll see if there's a config file in the temp files that can be hacked....

 

[m4paws]

Did em all, including bonus view and the extras. Fun game, thanks Nic. The bonus view is a bit annoying though...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

glad you liked em, m4paws. just finished the last extra level right now. only level i didn't get par for was 44, which required 31 clicks... no real motivation for it:

i'll probably go through the best of the user-created levels and post them here. or not. still trying to check out the rest of these 2009 winners and see if there's anything worth mentioning...

pretty-much nothing accomplished the whole day except cooking, laundry and evaluating games... oy vey.

 

[m4paws]

glad you liked em, m4paws. just finished the last extra level right now. only level i didn't get par for was 44, which required 31 clicks... no real motivation for it

Same.

LOL, it just occured to me... I played the bonus levels in the bonus view mode, I assumed it was required to do so. I assume from this screenshot that I didn't need to do that though... Silly me. That's really why I didn't go for par on that level - too tedious in to try again in bonus view.

 

[mrschultz]

glad you liked em, m4paws. just finished the last extra level right now. only level i didn't get par for was 44, which required 31 clicks... no real motivation for it:

i'll probably go through the best of the user-created levels and post them here. or not. still trying to check out the rest of these 2009 winners and see if there's anything worth mentioning...

pretty-much nothing accomplished the whole day except cooking, laundry and evaluating games... oy vey.

I hacked the .sol file for the game to get to the bonus levels without using bonus view. The one above was the hardest to get on par, took several tries.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

LOL, it just occured to me... I played the bonus levels in the bonus view mode, I assumed it was required to do so. I assume from this screenshot that I didn't need to do that though... Silly me. That's really why I didn't go for par on that level - too tedious in to try again in bonus view.

haha... but you are probably the closest here to solving all the extra levels for par and in 'telescope' mode. (i'm partly just wondering if there's some ultimate message the game gives you for solving both modes)

I hacked the .sol file for the game to get to the bonus levels without using bonus view. The one above was the hardest to get on par, took several tries.

what "sol" file? i searched my C drive but couldn't find any.
anyway, interesting... i just assumed that flash games stored their local data in the registry.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

why is cortex command so hard to evaluate? in many ways it's brilliant, in others, difficult to control and a black hole in terms of free time...

 

[mrschultz]

what "sol" file? i searched my C drive but couldn't find any.
anyway, interesting... i just assumed that flash games stored their local data in the registry.

I found out about those files when messing with the online version of GOP. The game info is stored in a file in

C:\documents and settings\username\application data\macromedia\flash player\#sharedobject\websitename\....\gamename.sol

The application data folder is hidden by default in windows, I always have all files and folders viewable on my systems. Even if you leave it hidden there is the option in search to look for hidden and system files.

They are binary files so you need a hex editor to edit them.

The one for the remove red game is called tgh-rr-f.sol on my system.

 

[mrschultz]

Beem looking at the list of finalists, downloading dyson, Incredibots looks like something I would like, also Machinarium.

 

[m4paws]

haha... but you are probably the closest here to solving all the extra levels for par and in 'telescope' mode. (i'm partly just wondering if there's some ultimate message the game gives you for solving both modes)

It did give me some message in "Russian". Not sure if it was actually Russian or if it was some joke that I didn't understand.

 

[mrschultz]

I really like the Dyson game. http://www.dyson-game.com/

Simple rules, simple game play, but highly addictive.

Only thing odd is the unconventional way you move the map, you use the scroll wheel and move the mouse, so you have to zoom even in you just want to move the map sideways.

Basically you have a cluster of asteroids, and you have flying seedlings, you pick what type of trees you want to grow on the asteroids, only 2 types of trees, defencive and ones that grow more seedlings. Different asteroids grow some types of trees better than others.

You start out on one asteroid, have to send you seedlings out to explore and take over other asteroids, you can send all your seedlings or pick the number. The other asteroids have AI seedlings on them doing the same so you have to be careful not to get wiped out. You loose seedlings to the enemy and when you plant trees.

Another cool aspect is that you can't see whats happening on the other asteroids until you send seedlings to them, and your range is limited so you have to build up seedlings on one asteroid to send them to the next within range.

It might be simple but it's not easy, only just starting level 3, got wiped out several times on level 2 before figuring out the correct strategy.

Update: Got through all the levels, once you've figured out the basic strategy of only seeding asteroids that give you strong seedlings it's just a matter of growing more guys faster than the enemy. Only difference between levels is the AI of the enemies and the goal set for you, but really you only need slightly different strategies for each level. There is a bit of luck involved, the placement of enemies and asteroids is somewhat random when you start a level, so if you get a strong enemy right next to you at the start it's very hard to win that level on the first try. Game is still beta so maybe they will make it more challenging.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

wow... just, wow.
lost most of the day just playing cortex command, and i'm reminded of why i opted for flash games and quick games the last few years... so i can get some other stuff done, dammit!

i'll check out the dyson game in a couple days... sounds real good. time to take a walk around the neighborhood and enjoy the decent weather, then see if i can salvage something from another lost day.

 

[mrschultz]

wow... just, wow.
lost most of the day just playing cortex command, and i'm reminded of why i opted for flash games and quick games the last few years... so i can get some other stuff done, dammit!

i'll check out the dyson game in a couple days... sounds real good. time to take a walk around the neighborhood and enjoy the decent weather, then see if i can salvage something from another lost day.

Well, now you've got me curious, downloading Cortex Command now...

Updated my Dyson post above, not sure there's much replay value once you've gone through all the levels in the current beta, maybe they will make it more challenging or allow for custom levels in the future, still, it's a fun game to waste a day or so on.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

i'm guesing that the frustrating elements of the game will turn you off, but i could be wrong.

although it's highly comical, ever other time you order new items, the delivery rocket wipes out. controlling your robots is awkward, although it gets easier over time. robots are poorly coordinated and the physics overly-realistic in general. everything that can go wrong does indeed go wrong. missions are either too easy or too hard. robot AI has some real problems in places. getting the view you need can be rather elusive.

still, it's very hard to stop playing... i mean, how often do you get to fire a rocket-propelled chainsaw at a group of bad guys?

(i'm playing it with a gamepad, btw-- seems like the most ergonomic way to play)

 

[mrschultz]

i'm guesing that the frustrating elements of the game will turn you off, but i could be wrong.

although it's highly comical, ever other time you order new items, the delivery rocket wipes out. controlling your robots is awkward, although it gets easier over time. robots are poorly coordinated and the physics overly-realistic in general. everything that can go wrong does indeed go wrong. missions are either too easy or too hard. robot AI has some real problems in places. getting the view you need can be rather elusive.

still, it's very hard to stop playing... i mean, how often do you get to fire a rocket-propelled chainsaw at a group of bad guys?

(i'm playing it with a gamepad, btw-- seems like the most ergonomic way to play)

Got it set up using my flightsim joystick, plenty of buttons + the hat switch for control. Was using the hat switch for aiming weapons but might be better to use it for movement and use the joystick for aiming, using the joystick for movement also makes the menus real hard to navigate, would be much easier with the hat switch.

Interesting game, I see what you mean about some of the frustrating aspects, seems like it needs more work to make it more user friendly...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

interesting... most of that sounds more convenient than my gamepad except for the main stick being used for movement / scrolling.

the fifth mission where you take on the droid base is perhaps the most fun due to the variety of weaponry / techniques needed to 'unlock' the puzzles of enemy defensive positions. however, it has a serious bug that the designer admits that he goofed on and hasn't fixed yet- some of the spawning and digging drones are set to dig down onto the position of the enemy brain instead of a position right next to it, thus winning you the game given enough time! so, to get the most interesting fight, you not only have to have one of your troops dig down next to the enemy brain, but you have to excavate around it or protect it from its own units!

so the game is in such an early status that it's called a "theta". if i see a bit more progress (ie, missions and bug-squashing) then i'm interested in supporting it, because despite being a time-waster it's like discovering plastic army units at age eight. until then, yarrrrrrr

there are apparently some half-finished secret missions waiting to be uncommented in the .ini file, as well as some mega-powerful, ultra man-sized units lurking somewhere... (from a quick cruise of their forums)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

been playing some of the user campaigns the last couple days. half of them seem to work, half don't- maybe because with the version increase they got broken, but i haven't dug down into those release threads to find the fix.

anyway, as for the half that work, meh.
it's such a cool game environment that one wishes for only a couple gameplay improvements and a suite of good missions to make this product shine like triple-burnished gold.

one minor difficulty solved- when in doubt about ordering items, choose your delivery vehicle. you have alternatives to the incredibly clumsy 50's-era rockets, such as imploding crates (which you receive no deposit back from), and the much more stable crab-shaped cargo ships.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

I really like the Dyson game. http://www.dyson-game.com/

Simple rules, simple game play, but highly addictive.

Only thing odd is the unconventional way you move the map, you use the scroll wheel and move the mouse, so you have to zoom even in you just want to move the map sideways.

Basically you have a cluster of asteroids, and you have flying seedlings, you pick what type of trees you want to grow on the asteroids, only 2 types of trees, defencive and ones that grow more seedlings. Different asteroids grow some types of trees better than others.

You start out on one asteroid, have to send you seedlings out to explore and take over other asteroids, you can send all your seedlings or pick the number. The other asteroids have AI seedlings on them doing the same so you have to be careful not to get wiped out. You loose seedlings to the enemy and when you plant trees.

Another cool aspect is that you can't see whats happening on the other asteroids until you send seedlings to them, and your range is limited so you have to build up seedlings on one asteroid to send them to the next within range.

It might be simple but it's not easy, only just starting level 3, got wiped out several times on level 2 before figuring out the correct strategy.

Update: Got through all the levels, once you've figured out the basic strategy of only seeding asteroids that give you strong seedlings it's just a matter of growing more guys faster than the enemy. Only difference between levels is the AI of the enemies and the goal set for you, but really you only need slightly different strategies for each level. There is a bit of luck involved, the placement of enemies and asteroids is somewhat random when you start a level, so if you get a strong enemy right next to you at the start it's very hard to win that level on the first try. Game is still beta so maybe they will make it more challenging.

much thanks for the write up. finally tried it today and it was... interesting.

the ambient sound and ambient graphics put me into a very quizzical, bemused mindset. only later, after boredom started seeping in, did i realise that there was a matter of survival involved!

honestly, this is the kind of game that is better being a flash game, which i would have covered in my semi-regular collections. i mean, what is better than being able to play a great game wholly in your browser, never requiring an install?

but most of the above is just excuses for getting my ass kicked and needing to go back into battle with a better plan next time. T_T

 

[mrschultz]

much thanks for the write up. finally tried it today and it was... interesting.

the ambient sound and ambient graphics put me into a very quizzical, bemused mindset. only later, after boredom started seeping in, did i realise that there was a matter of survival involved!

honestly, this is the kind of game that is better being a flash game, which i would have covered in my semi-regular collections. i mean, what is better than being able to play a great game wholly in your browser, never requiring an install?

but most of the above is just excuses for getting my ass kicked and needing to go back into battle with a better plan next time. T_T

Yea, it could be adapted to a nice flash game. As is I think it would run slow in flash, some of the levels are huge, and it's kind of pointless but you can zoom way in and way out, more and more detail as you zoom in.