Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Running all the way to a psychologist

Something short and sweet here today! It involves running, wild animals, running, hostile plant life, running, floating cash, jumping, human remains just lying around, running, and DEATH. It's called Fear Less.
Did I mention it has running? This is important, because it does
The game is about one girl and her recurring nightmare where she runs through a forest where everything is out to kill her while being pursued by version of the grim reaper that looks like it was spawned forth from the darkest, most foul corners from Deviant Art. That said, the art is nice, having sprites that actually look like they had effort put into it, and having a neat paralax scrolling effect for the foreground and background. One of the game's best aspects however is the music. Very well done, better heard than having me fail to describe it.
START RUNNING
The gameplay itself is about the girl fleeing from death while jumping over hazards and murdering the hateful animals that try to stop her with a sword. But for your first attempt you are like a small baby trying to run from an angry baby sitter. You basically die in one hit, you cant jump worth a damn, and you cant swing your sword to any helpful effect. How do you fix this? While running from death you can snag DREAM COINS, and spend them on upgrades to help you get a little farther each time you try to escape death.
"Oh God there were mushrooms EVERYWHERE"
For a game with cutesy graphics, Fear Less has some pretty dark implications about the mental state of the protagonist, but delving into the themes and artistic message here is for another website, here I'm just telling you its free. If you're into recurring nightmares, fleeing, delaying the inevitable, nonsensical currency, and cutting up cartoon wildlife, then Fear Less is for you.
Cant catch me, Death!
You can play Fear Less here

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Goodnight, Private

Another short update today, because like before, the less you know going in the better. The game is  "Good Morning, Commander", and its a short adventure game that takes place in the first person(IN A SPACEBAAAAASE).
First person FINAL FRONTIER
The game was built in Unity, and has its own weird minimalistic art style that adds to the atmosphere. Gameplay is doing adventure game things by walking about the spacebase and using the "USE" key.

This isnt what your space base looks like
This could very well be the shortest post. Always breaking new ground at Gamesthathappentobefree. You can get Good Morning, Commander here in separate Windows and Mac versions

Monday, April 8, 2013

The Banality of Evil (also ghosts)

Got something weird and short for you today, and I'll have to advise anyone who uses video games as escapism from their terrible jobs to give this one a skip, as it takes place entirely in the work place, and not even a job where you're valuable, just some disposable code monkey job. The game is called One Late Night, and that's exactly when it takes place: during a coffee fulled late night coding marathon when the person you play as is the only one left in the building.
That guy's trying to get work done and those two wont take their needless conversation about their prep pre-school kids elsewhere
I dont want to give too much away, but as the title suggests, theres supernatural stuff involved, which I guess is summoned over from the SHADOW REALM by the anger of the unpaid interns, so thats pretty scary. Also Linux coding, which is even more scary.
Its just so fucking cheery here
 One Late Night is short, weird, and kind of spooky even, (the sort of game youtube celebrities make obnoxious playhroughs of and slap their "terrified" face on the thumbnail) so this update will be short because the less you know going in, the better.
"The only way this night could get worse is if a ghost showed up"
 You can get One Late Night here

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

"Sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5."

Hope you're psyching yourself up, because its time to strap yourself into an airtight enclosure with guns slapped onto that's been bolted onto a rocket engine and shoot yourself screaming out into the cold, empty void of space! That's right, it's spaceship time! Grab your astronaut ice cream and flight helmet!
Aw yeah
The game today is the Babylon Project. It's another mod made from the open source code of Freespace 2, and yet another game that was based off of a TV show, this one obviously being Babylon 5, the 90s science fiction show with aliens, spaceships, and psychics running around, it's pretty great.
That 90s CGI
Released in September of 2008, the game has been patched and polished multiple times since then, and has multiple unofficial patches and campaigns made to expand the game. Like Diaspora which I've also done, the game has detailed ship models and weapons right out of the show, and the missions have multiple call backs to the series, be it their titles or locations.
Or ship paint jobs
However, the game does have one, striking weakness: The voice acting. Good lord. It must be heard to be believed. Past that though, the game is great. If you like flight sims, Babylon 5, spaceships, lasers, the rules of space being broken (explosions that you can hear in open space). If you're down for any of that, then The Babylon Project might just be for you.
This poster is probably a better hype man for this game than me
You can snag The Babylon Project here