Submachine Two: The Lighthouse

Found on: http://submachinegames.com/submachine_2.html

Created by Mateusz J. Skutnik
Flash game
Rating: Everyone. Again, probably 10+ just because its a puzzle game.

Once again, a creepy soundtracked gamed. Submachine 2 opens up with a fizzling screen, and there's dialog on the bottom, explaining that the last game was an arcade game, but that the person that's playing thinks its all a dream. But they don't remember waking up...

Here is where you begin.
Apparently, you are outside of some red-bricked building, staring at Submachine, the arcade game. (as you can see, the graphics are more developed and creative than the original). All is quiet, except for the incessant chriping of crickets. Without any further instructions, you must go around looking for things, but aren't told what to go find. You have a journal page, but its such a mystery, that it just adds to the depth of the game, rather than gameplay.

Just follow your instincts from here; point and click. In your inventory, you see you already have a crystal of some sort, and a counter for little red marbles. These are "secrets", and you can find them hidden throughout the rest of the game.

So, you start out, aimlessly wandering around the red-bricked building, and all you see are a weird, sci-fi-esque instrument, a gramaphone, an empty wall, stairs, and a small room with a cog and chair on the ground. Well, you have a crsytal and a sci-fi machine; and a cog and a broken gramaphone. Sounds like a good place to start. Once you get the gramaphone working, the rest of the creepy soundtrack is added in a clever way: the gramaphone is the soundtrack. Prepare to feel paranoid.

From here, you must use your Myst/Riven instincts, and take special note to almost everything: Fromt scribbling on the walls, to how things are laid out. DON'T give up, just keep going, as you might've found out by Submachine. If not, well, just stick to it. I'm serious. Skutnik, the creator, really did a good job with creating a feel to the game, you are completely lost in some abandonned building (later to be the lighthouse, like in the picture from Submachine, Extended. You also feel like something is going to jump out at you, which adds to the overall gameplay. There are keys, journal pages, lights, switches, videos, dark sewer passages (which can get confusing. I suggest drawing a map), everything you can ask for in a point-and-click, puzzle game.

Differently from Myst/Riven, your perspective isn't truly first person for the whole game. Many rooms seem like it, but in reality, you can't see inside two sewer lines at once. Also, differently from Submachine, Extended, there's different soundtracks for certain rooms, and the whole 'think this way' is subtly taught to the player. Finding the red "secrets" helps prepare you to look for other small, hard-to-see items that will need.


Much better graphics than the last one, eh?






This game is another wonderful installment to the mysterious (and sometimes frustrating) Submachine series, and each new addition just makes you want to play more. When you finish each one, you feel a sense of accomplishment like, "Yes, just BEAT THAT!...Ok, next game."

Green light. All systems go. M, I'm coming for you, and your karma arm! Wait, where's Einstein?
After flipping the switch, there's a white light, and there's a grainy video of a man walking to the edge of the water, and realizing its just the image on a screen.

And so ends, Submachine 2

More on the way


4.7/5

Submachine One, Extended

Originally @: http://alexklchs.blogspot.com/

Submachine (One, Extended), created by Mateusz J. Skutnik
Flash game, can be found at: http://www.freegameplayer.com/games/submachine/

Rating: Everyone. Probably 10+ because its a puzzle(ing) game.

Submachine is a creepy-soundtracked point-and-click puzzle game, very much like the cult-like Myst and Riven games. You start in a tan-gold-brown colored room, listening to weird, shiver-down-your-spine inducing music. All you can see is a ladder, two doorways, and what looks to be like an equipment bar.

Just like Myst, you have no idea what you have to do or need to collect or anything. Just start guessing, collecting clues, and puzzling. Also, you collect pieces of paper with seemingly random information that suggests the person who wrote them isn't exactly sane/normal.

Once you start, you can click on doorways, switches, ladders, baubles, etc. and hear different sound effects and animations, or just nothing. If you click an item you need, you instantly pick it up. You can then later drag tools from your equipment (right of your screen) and drag it to where you think it goes. [As you can see here]

NEVER give up, this game takes patience and odd-ways of thinking, but persistence and creativity really pays off. Also, there is a lot of backtracking involved. Basically, if you're familiar with Myst, then you'll be ahead of the pack in playing this game. At least you know what to expect. Kinda.


As you slowly gather clues, have a very sharp eye for hidden clues and almost the mindset of a crazy person: Where to cleverly hide clues in the open? There is also the hintings at a sequel: A picture in one of the rooms is a lighthouse, with the words "Sub_2" at the bottom.

Once everything is collected, fixed, turned, switched, charged, and ready, and you are at the end of your wits and patience has run out, you are able to use a teleport device, which is shaped like a glass donut on a pedastal. I won't give away the ending, go play it!

The music really adds to the overall feel of the game and keeps you edgy, almost expecting a run-in with a monster or something to try and kill you. (Not that kind of game, trust me.) The graphics are also cartoony, almost cel-shaded, but also helps maintain the air of the game. The extended version has more rooms, and arranged in a very different way, so make sure you know which version you are playing.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who has played (and like, or has been hooked on) the Myst and Riven games for the PC. Once you're done, you really want to play some more, and you can, sicne some of the details and ways to solve certain things change (like numbers to passwords, etc.) which keeps you on your toes; but thank Gaia that there's a second one to sate the thirst for point-and-click!

4.5/5

Next time: Submachine 2!

TriAchnid

Originally @: http://alexklchs.blogspot.com/

In an internet full of random and silly games to play online, one of the few that stand out to me and make me want to play on and on is Triachnid!

Originally found on NewGrounds: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/347467

Design and Programming - Florian Himsl
Graphics and Design - Edmund McMillen
Music - Tin Hat Trio
Sound Effects - Anders Gustafsson

Slight graphic violence.

The game starts out with a few simple, yet well produced images, showing a "family" of three-legged spider-like creatures (triachnids). A giant worm eats up the female-looking triachnid, who drops the egg-sac she's carrying. The male triachnid tries attacking, but in vain. The worm disappears, leaving the triachnid alone.

This is where you start: A heart-broken triachnid searching for "his" offspring, and seeking revenge for his murdered...wife?

The game play is a little shaky at first, you use the mouse to drag around his legs to make him move around. The best way to move is as if he is a pinwheel--legs flailing in a smooth circular circular motion.

You can also spin weblines; grab various things from your eggsac, enemies, and your weblines; hold your breath underwater; and hold things in your mouth (like your eggsac or eating enemies).

A good review of the instructions and playing around on the first level are recommended.
Good use of a web...while standing on the ground...





In essence, Triachnid is a sidescroller. Your objective is to get to the finish line of each level, and finding as many of your offspring as possible along the way. The levels progress in a way that you get used to different aspects of the game. New elements such as key-bugs used to unlock doors, swinging from your web, eating enemies for health, throwing items, moving efficiently underwater, saving your offspring, and using the environment are all combined on the last few levels when you travel inside the giant worm.

It is a short, but addictive game to play, and again (as Portal Flash) you want to start replaying it as soon as it is over. The soft and relaxing music adds a whole new layer to the game, and it makes me want to buy Tin Hat Trio's album. The triachnid also has a "vocabulary" that makes him easy to understand: Everything from a gruff growl when he grabs an enemy to an affectionate "purr" when he picks up his offspring.

Look, he's a pappa!










The graphics are very cartoony, but really uphold the atmosphere of the world of Triachnid. The background is blurred and what is closer is in more detail. Although, when you are travelling through the bowels of the worm, there are some arteries that are blurred to make it look like the screen is a few inches from them.


Overall, Triachnid is a very entertaining use of spare time. Also, the music is very soft and soothing, for those stressful days at work. The only thing of what I'd ask of in this game was an extended gameplay, so I can keep messing around with this character!

To the Creators:
Keep it up! I'm looking forward to number 2.

4.7/5!

Portal Flash

Originally @: http://alexklchs.blogspot.com/

Portal - The Flash Version
Available online, Adobe Flash required.

http://portal.wecreatestuff.com

This is a spin off based off of Valve's highly successful Portal game, available through The Orange Box for the XBox 360. Valve also created the Half-Life Saga.
Portal is all about getting from the entrance of a room, to the exit. Simple enough. Now add in portals, allowing teleporting from one place to another. Pretty sweet.
In the game, you use the portal gun that shoots yellow and blue portals. Once both colors are set up on walls, you can "walk" through yellow, and come out through blue; vice versa. Easy to use. Okay, now add in obstacles such as pits, moving platforms, un-portal-able walls, sentry bots, force fields of various types, cubes, buttons, switches, doors, electrified floors, and even Gravity. That's when it all gets complicated.

The game design is simple, almost sidescrolling--without the sidescroll. Its a concoction of platformer, advernture, and puzzle, and its "father" from the 360 also incorporated first person shooter to the list.

In the Flash version, everything from the 360 version is simplified into a nice package. Not too easy, not too difficult. Its easy to pick up online anytime you're on a computer. The levels progress at a good pace, slowly getting you adapted to the type of thinking that's used in solving the puzzles. Once you're ready, then it starts to escalate, quickly challenging even the most talented Portal-shooter.

Just like it's "father", the end of the game leaves you sputtering for more, so you go back and replay it again. The beauty of it, you can solve each room in a different way. If you're skilled enough, you can even use what is called "portal stepping."

I highly recommend this game, for newbies, as well as for experienced, 360-Portal veterans looking for a way to feed the Portal craving. This game is enjoyable even if you haven't played the "father", but I recommend playing both to get the full experience of the Portal idea. Join the cult.

Oh, and Portal: Still Alive for 360 is coming out soon.