Shadez is a Rescue Raiders style game. RTS-like, you build units, and they move automatically to the right, toward the enemy, who is doing likewise from the opposite site of the "world". The world is about three screen-lengths wide, and you can scroll back and forth to view combat. You can also spend money to unlock new unit types and missile strikes.

In other words, it plays a lot like Steam Brigade -- which is a better and more humorous game, but of course costs money, which Shadez does not.

Shadez's grahics are nicely silhouetted units against a multi-layer setting-sun background (hence, I imagine, the name, and the conceit that this is somehow black ops); the gameplay itself is smooth, nothing particularly original, but a nice modern rendering of a fairly obscure subgenre that isn't often seen today. Four campaigns of increasingly difficulty, with each campaign having multiple levels. Nice.

So, yeah, here at PTT! we tend to be game design snobs and think about games from a design rather than implementation perspective (I spit on your novel and original visual effects! pfaugh! brainless eye-candy!). Yet occasionally, you run into something and say: Sweet! What a cool technical hack.

Asciiroth is, you know, a conventional Rogue-like, and while not a bad one, not the best either. BUT... It's developed using the Google Web Toolkit, which basically allows you to write in Java and compile it to Javascript, so it'll run in the browser without requiring the user to install desktop Java -- and then uses Adobe Air, which can take an AJAX application and turn it into a downloadable desktop app.

So you wind up with a Rogue-like that uses a host of AJAX-y features, like popups when you position the mouse over something on the screen that tells you what it is, the ability to use the mouse instead of directional keys for movement (should you so wish), etc.

Drawbacks? Yeah, some; the web version doesn't allow saved games, unless you install Google Gears (JavaScript can't normally save anything to your hard drive, and a good thing too, btw). And because the code is big (for JavaScript), and IE runs JavaScript absurdly slowly, it won't perform adequately except in Firefox.

And of course if you want to play the downloadable version, you have to install Adobe Air, which kind of sucks because you may very well never use it again for anything in your life (unless I'm totally wrong about how useful and universal it will wind up being, which I could be). On the other hand, Air is a cross-platform technology, so it'll run under Windows, OS X, and Linux as well.

As for the game? Pleasant enough Rogue-like, too many Sokoban-style puzzles and not enough good old monster-bashing for my taste, but then, that's my taste, which may not be yours.

(Via Rich Carlson.)

Summer Session is from "Tycoon Games," but Hanako's logo is on it too, and it sure looks (and plays) like Georgina Okerson's work -- so, since there aren't any in-game credits, I'm going to assume it's hers. (Okerson also created Summer Schoolgirls, Cute Knight and Fatal Hearts.) In fact, Summer Session plays a lot like Summer Schoolgirls, redeveloped for boys. The objective here isn't to make friends, however, but to get a girl friend -- perhaps a minor difference, but one that adds a mild sexual frisson.

Summer Session is like Summer Schoolgirls as well, in that gameplay mostly involves choosing how to spend your free time -- working out, shopping, studying, etc. You have a limited number of options, and one open slot each weekday afternoon, with more time to spend on weekends. Actions affect your stats -- so studying increases your smarts, working out your hunkiness, and shopping the quality of your clothing, all things that may help you with some girls. Some activities may cause you to encounter one of the characters and learn more of their backstory -- and also give you a conversational choice that may make them think better or worse of you.

In other words, it's a simple resource management game bolted onto a fairly bushy narrative tree, with nice anime-inspired graphics for visual appeal, and a dating theme. From a design perspective, the theme -- and the omission of puzzles -- is the main differentiator from Summer Schoolgirls. As always with Okerson's games, though, it's nicely polished for what it is -- and because the narrative tree is quite bushy, it's a game you're likely to replay several times, to explore different outcomes and figure out what actions will help you land the different girls in the game. Which is good, because a single playthrough is pretty quick, so replayability is essential.

Reiner Knizia's Ingenious has one of the simplest rule sets of any game I have ever played. Five minutes out of the box, and you're playing a game with 1, 2, 3 or 4 players. For someone used to sitting down with a good rule set like others sit down with a novel, this was a pleasant (if reluctantly accepted) surprise.

Though its rules might be simple -- place your pieces on the board, and score points for similar symbols in any straight line out from the symbol -- the simplicity masks a depth of play that reveals a little more of itself each time your opponent screws you over or you screw him over without actually realizing you were doing it. The slow, but steady emergence of subtle strategies is the hallmark of a good abstract strategy game and the constant player feels rewarded.

Players gain a point for each pattern they match, and as the game progresses, they move the six different symbol counters down a track to mark their progress.

When the board is full, the lowest points scored for any symbol is the final score. So, even though you matched red like a fool, if you only got 2 points for the yellow stars, that's it for you. Knizia's decision to score the game this way forces players to re-evaluate their decisions constantly to keep track of possibility and not just current progress.

The game can be played in full in 15 minutes with 2 players and is quick enough that it offers that you'll find yourself saying, "One more game?" again and again.

N.B.: There's also a PC version from Merscom.

Fantastic Contraption is a level-based physics puzzler reminiscent of, but far simpler, than the legendary Incredible Machine. In each level, you have to get your pink circle from its starting position into the pink "goal" area. Everything you build has to start within the blue "construction" area.

There are only five construction objects, but these suffice to create a surprising variety of devices using basic mechanical principles: wheels that rotate left, wheels that rotate right, wheels that are unpowered, rigid struts that cannot pass through other objects, and rigid struts ("water sticks") that can.

Because it relies on physics, there is no single, "correct" solution for any level; usually, a level can be solved in any number of different ways, with gizmos of varying complexity. Still, it's often non-trivial to figure out a solution, and the game has no hint system, which it could use; once you've solved a level, you can view other players' solutions, but not before, which may be an oversight. If you get stuck, I suggest looking at the game's forums--players can link to their own solutions, and actually, you needn't find one for your own particular puzzle. There are some basic techniques, such as bridge-builders and tractors, and once you get a sense of them, solving the puzzles becomes much easier.

There are only 20 levels in the free game, but $10 gets you access to more, along with a huge variety of player-created levels. (And there's a level editor, so you can create your own.)

It's interesting that such a limited suite of construction objects can support such a wide variety of puzzles, and it's nice to see a puzzler that relies on physics in an interesting way.

Playing Eschalon is a bit like slipping into a warm bath, at least for those of us who played computer RPGs obsessively in the late 80s. It's a tile-map, sprite-based, single-character RPG with randomly-rolled characters, multiple character types, and a bit of a story. Movement and combat is turn-based but if you hold the mouse button down, you move continuously in the direction pointed, so you can produce a quasi-action game, if you like.

The UI is very smooth; the only think that isn't immediately obvious is that you hold the shift key down and then click to bash open doors or chests. It's not a huge game -- three major towns, perhaps 20 hours of gameplay -- and not particularly innovative, in either story or gameplay (you begin as an amnesiac, forsooth). But it's pleasant, enjoyable, and good for a bout of nostalgia, at any event.

Shade is one of those classics that get recommended anytime anyone recommends any IF to newcomers: it's brief, disquieting, ambiguous, memorable without being especially difficult. It offers an interaction style too guided and fluid to be called "puzzly", and which probably belongs in some other category. It threatens one's ideas of the relationship between the player and the protagonist. It has entered the canon, as far as interactive fiction has one.

In a lot of ways these are the hardest works to write about. Shade has already received analysis all over the place, from long discussions on rec.arts.int-fiction to a scholarly chapter in Second Person. People have written about the sense of oppression the game creates; about the relentless emphasis on light and darkness; about the way the player is coopted into working (sort of, maybe) against the goals of the protagonist and behaving as though insane. Can Shade, in fact, be grasped by any corner that doesn't have a dozen fingerprints on it?

Possibly not. Good criticism of Shade tends to be pretty spoiler-laden anyway. But here's the pitch I want to make to the people who haven't played it yet, either because they're not IF fans and this is the first they've heard of it, or because the promise of player/protagonist conflict wasn't the sort of idea that made them rush to play.

Shade is the closest I've come to being able to play an episode of the Twilight Zone. It works through dread: we want to know what comes next, and we are certain that it won't be good. But unlike Anchorhead or other Lovecraft-inspired works, Shade isn't about exposing the black writhing heart of the cosmos. It is something more contained and ordinary than that. The classic Twilight Zone ending leaves you feeling like you knew all along what was coming; even if the imagery of the ending is outlandish, the meaning is usually something universal and internal. We all have facts in our lives that we're trying very hard not to see clearly.

Shade is about one of those facts.

N.B.: Unlike some of the interactive fiction we've covered, Shade is readily playable online; but anyone who wants to download the game file for play offline can find it at IFDB. Also perhaps interesting is Stephen Granade's introduction to playing IF, which introduces standard commands.

I was sad when she left me, but that's in the future now. My regrets are water flowing backwards under the bridge. I have been moved and removed, I have chased something and found it. Braid is tripped, and it's one of the most amazing games ever made. It belongs to the "new canon" of process-intensive titles that utilize interactivity to the reinforcement of their aesthetic souls.

Braid is the story of a lost love, an inescapable goal, time travel in an age of sorrow, a never ending explosion through memory. Braid is the story of Super Mario after he ate the wrong mushroom and turned impressionist; the text begins with a cadence that puts you into an adoring trance:

"Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a horrible and evil monster.

"This happened because Tim made a mistake."

Like Super Columbine, Braid is a game that critiques games at its starting gun. Mario was a breakthrough for flow, it brought 2D platforming into its pure, commercial prototype, it operated masterfully on the emotional plane. Braid is the mirroring breakthrough for "phantasm", for gameplay that challenges who-you-are. It ironically commands you to "Hunt!" before moving into a cerebral contemplations. It takes the damsel-in-distress motif out of its evolutionary roots and throws it under a warped light of hurried confession. It operates on the metaprogramming circuit: each world a different cosmology, a different way of looking at how time caused the self. You'll go over movements the way you'd go over memories of a shattered relationship, playing things over in your head, trying to solve what she meant or why you said that.

You will not find the Princess, because she's in another castle, and when you do you won't catch her, and when you do she won't be what you were expecting. She has abandoned you, and it's your fault. The end will offer to change your understanding of justice, of your own place in the universe, of why you act and play things and why you're wrong... sometimes. And then the true end will give way to a rare elite of obsessive searchers who'll find the stars, and then when you read the text you'll get it. The constellation will be fulfilled, the pulsing drip of the painted world will calm you with a quintessential sunset.

Jason Rohrer said that other than he, only Ledonne (of SCMRPG), Rod Humble and Jon Blow were making games that really use the strength of the medium to do something wholly new. Not to exclude anything, but he's right about those games. This game is as important as Spore, though Spore will definitely set its milestone in a more monolithic fashion. But size is irrelevant to a deep and unique feeling, and it's on that basis that I put these games together on the same level. Go to a friend's house, make whatever accommodations you need -- get a Xbox 360 and play Braid.

The puzzles are deep and satisfying, each one a unique pretzel, salted or sugared, always delicious. The progression of lighting in the successive worlds, the rewind of the violin, the repetitive deaths, the surfing through possibility space, the shadow and the ring; this is me spoiling everything and then rewinding and changing the words. Remember when the Portal trailer ended with "Now You're Thinking In Portals"? Be prepared to start thinking in directions, weighted circumferences, reversions, parallels; tie it in with a meditation on personal responsibility, dank and laced with beautiful sadness. To build a transhuman experience of appropriate size, we will need a great many games. But what we've got now feels like an acceptable start.

N.B.: Normally, it is our policy not to review console titles. But, you know... It's Braid.