Space Barnacle was created for the TIGSource B-Game design contest (a reference to B-Movies). The history of the game's production is pretty interesting, you can read about it here.
The first thing I noticed was that this isn't a bad action platformer. Especially its controls: I had just the day before played the demo of Jasper's Journeys, which was very hard for me to control, so this felt wonderful in comparison. Jumping, walking around, shooting, it reacted instantly and felt right. I think that the main pleasure of a lot of games is just controlling the character, in the Nintendo 64 Zelda games I remember just moving Link around slowly, climbing things, and it felt good. Some games just feel good to control for me, and Space Barnacle is one.
The action elements of the game are largely taken from similar NES games; there's an enemy that circles around blocks from Metroid, an elevator that looks and is controlled much like the elevator in Zelda 2, and so on. It's probably a fairly difficult game but if you got through Cave Story's 'hell' level it shouldn't be too much trouble. It's easy to get lost, though. It's not an extremely short or long game, it took me about a good (and fun) hour to finish it. You may or may not like the ending; it was a but too sudden for me, but I can understand its appeal as well. There may be slowdown if you have an older computer, especially in large rooms or when there's a lot of stuff on the screen at once.
Here's a video of it which will give you an idea of what it's like:
Now that's a first
....I was editing your body text even as you were adding a large image, both working on the same text at once. A wonder we don't seem to have stepped on each other's feet. Game names in itals, except when we've got a review of them, in which case make them a link to the review (e.g., Cave Story). Break at the end, so the full text shows on the front page -- edit to cut where you want the teaser to end only when it slides off the front page and gets added to "random games." Also, for downloadables, always add tags for playable platforms (just PC here), and for "Free" (if true). Never mind; I'm going to bed now.
Yay
In retrospect this review is too short. I'll do better for future games!
Not Necessarily
We don't have a strict rule about review lengths. Initially, my idea was reviews should be short -- 200-300 words -- on the grounds that since we're (mostly) pointing to thinks people can download and play, what we want to do is say why you might like it, and then let them check it out.
Actually, many wind up running longer -- into the thousands of words sometimes -- and some of our best pieces are at longer lengths. But basically, I don't really care; sometimes a quick "this is a giggle, check it out" is fine, and sometimes in-depth analysis is called for. I will achieve in time, my object all sublime, to let the post length fit the crime, the post length fit the crime.
Noted.
Noted.
works on linux
works on linux under wine. It's really good! Love the music.