Welcome to the Classic Gaming Board's "Game Club", where we play and discuss a game from the past every so often as a group. Modelled on book clubs, in this series of topics we choose a game, often focusing on the obscure or historically significant, that many of us just never got around to - whether out of laziness, lacking the system on which it was released, or just having never heard of it. New people are always welcome to join in, so if you're just looking for the first time, don't hesitate to play and partake in the discussion, and if you'd like to see older topics, they're available at http://www.davidn.co.nr/gameclub/ . --- Discussion on the previous topic, Deus Ex ( http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/gameclub/deusex.php ) was going strong and then sort of spluttered out a bit - I played for a while and failed to really keep it going due to some life/job/sanity changes at the time (the kind that always happen when somebody starts a series of posts that they promise to contribute to). I'm not sure if we really drew any conclusions, other than that I hovered between finding it clumsy and actually getting the idea of it and appreciating the branching nature and free-form tactics, but I'm glad that I was finally given a spur to finally play it, either way. So I want to go right to the opposite end of the spectrum this time, going for a much shorter game, and put forward an independent title from a few years ago - and it's free to download, so there's no barrier to entry! Within a Deep Forest Released: 2006 Key Personnel: Nifflas (Nicklas Nygren) Currently available on: PC (Free download, ZIP) You've probably heard of Nifflas if you follow independent games at all - Within a Deep Forest is a game from a couple of years before he hit it big with titles like Saira and NightSky on Steam. It was released in the summer of 2006, and actually narrowly beat me to a Game of the Month award on a then-large independent games site, a fact which I'm not in any way bitter about at all, stab, hack. Its recognition was well deserved - like many of his games, its strength was in its atmosphere, through the ambient style of music that Nifflas is known for in the MOD community as well as having a very alive-seeming world drawn in a minimalist style. It's... not quite a platformer in the absolutely traditional sense, but it's not far off - your character is a bouncing ball, and learning its properties and how to control it is a large part of progress in the game. During your exploration, you find alternative ball materials, allowing you to get to previously unreachable areas in a sort of floaty atmospheric Metroid arrangement. At my best guess, it's about four or five hours long if you don't know what you're doing - and despite its aesthetic stylings, I remember it being quite difficult. As always, I'll post my own thoughts soon, as it's been a long time since I played it... Download the Within a Deep Forest ZIP here (20MB): http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Within+a+Deep+Forest --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
Thanks for saving this idea. I think Deus Ex was both a success and a failure - a success because many people played it, but I think the fact that most people were unable to complete it in a timely fashion killed discussion. I started playing WaDF when you mentioned it in the last episode and it seems really cool. I only had two ball types unlocked so I didn't very far, but I'm looking forward to playing through! --- My Backloggery: http://backloggery.com/master_yogurt Classicgaming Steam Community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Board204 |
Excellent, I'm looking forward to people's thoughts :) I'm glad that I saved the last topic when I did - they disappear quickly when you're not looking... A couple of notes from my own play tonight: - Don't be put off by the introduction! The acting is a bit... out of place, but it settles down into a comfortable pixelly style after that. - It doesn't autosave, even though it... sort of feels like it does. You have to go back into the "Menu" caves and save yourself. And finally... yes, the game is hard! More so than I remember, actually - I'm currently stuck on the ascent where you have the glass ball, which I think I remember taking a few goes when I played this five years ago. It's actually an odd mixture - the presentation is calm and atmospheric, and some rooms rely on clever puzzles, but there are also a lot of very twitchy sections. I can see, now, why Nifflas made Knytt immediately following this, which became infamous for being almost just tourism and not having any dangerous situations at all. --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I always intended to play this game and I've been playing shorter indy titles this past week so this should be right up my alley. --- bah weep grah nah weep ni ni bon? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. |
I played it for about an hour... and didn't save. I thought it did that automatically. So far I haven't really found any particularly hard parts. Some mapping might be required, though. I do like Metroid type games - the "Robot Wants" series has been a particularly good flash game of that style. The first thing I thought while playing was, why did they build a world-freezing bomb? I can accept that the first attempt to build one wound up making a sentient, pseudo-polymorphic superball. But how does freezing the world help? The controls seem pretty intuitive, even the pink ball that it says is hard to control. I haven't had a need to use the A button yet. Some critter warned me that some bouncy pads were too hard for me to navigate. So naturally I ignored him and went on them and bounced up to a space ship, where an alien gave me a metallic ball that seems even bouncier than the pink one. Utopica Minor was... annoying. And seemingly pointless. That's all I did. Time to restart. I think I'll try "Hard" and see if it makes a difference. --- http://thecrankyhermit.wikispaces.com/ Year-by-year analysis of the finest gaming has to offer, and (eventually) more! |
I'm having trouble getting this to run right. While the game is playable, the sound wont work and the intro vid doesn't work at all. |
I've been wanting to check out Nifflas' games for a while now, so I decided to give this a try. I'm enjoying the physics-based platforming, and the environment looks really nice, but so far it's actually been pretty easy. There was someone telling me not to climb some platforms back a few screens, so next session I'll probably see what I can do with those. --- ~NC http://rainwave.cc - Video Game Radio http://backloggery.com/naturalchemical/ |
I played about a half hours worth earlier, just about to the point where I got the pink ball. It's pretty neat. My main thought right now is whether or not to fire up joy2key so that I can play this on a gamepad. It doesn't control poorly with the keyboard but I think I can get better precision with a pad. --- bah weep grah nah weep ni ni bon? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. |
I currently have the first five balls. My favorite is definitely the green one. I wonder what it's supposed to be made out of... I ignored the crap out of that animal that told me not to climb those platforms. The physics-type platforming is definitely charming and effective. The bounciness was tough to master at first but I think I've got it down. The graphics are perfectly adequate and it's really quite pleasant though rather non-eventful. The game's relaxed but sometimes challenging. There's never really much of a time pressure and... I think "pleasant" is the right word here. --- My Backloggery: http://backloggery.com/master_yogurt Classicgaming Steam Community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Board204 |
I've played through this game twice, with the most recent being a year ago. I might give it another run - it's one of those pleasant (to steal Yogurt's term - it's rather apt here) games that I don't mind replaying. For those finding the difficulty low, there's a bit of a spike later on. Thankfully, the game is forgiving with save points, so it's not that horrible - you're never kicked back more than a room or two. --- Official GameFAQs Gunther Hermann Fanboy "No. I wanted orange. It gave me lemon-lime" |
I'm also playing on Hard this time, but it's been too long for me to tell what difference this actually makes (as all obstacles are one-hits anyway). I'll have to look at it on Normal afterwards. I find the game just on the edge of the point where a map would be handy, if only for indicating the entrances where you've already been, which ones you've completed and got the power from - I also found it slightly irritating when I found that an obstacle that I got past was in fact part of a mini-level and not something that would give me an extra power. I spent a lot of time today bouncing around unsure of where to go as it seemed that I'd completed everything that was available, until I realized that I could now get up to the left hand side of the area - then got stuck wondering what to do there. With that worked out, though, I'm back on my way in what I remember was my favourite sub-area (difficult though it is). The little thing in the house in the forest really does tell you all you need to know, even if it doesn't seem like it does. A lot of the movement difficulty comes from just keeping yourself calm and under control, when you have the faster and more energetic materials - sometimes going too fast for your own good can be disastrous. I find that the keyboard works better for me in games where movement has to be very precise like this, because I have separate fingers for the left and right keys and can switch instantly - but it might depend on what you grew up with. v0m12, I wonder if it's falling foul of later Windows UAC, if you happen to have it in Program Files? After that, I'm not sure. --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I think I've seen all of Pinewood Heights now. I got the Yoga Ball, recalled seeing the animal on a sign on the leftmost side of the stage, so I went there and entered the Lunar Cheese Mine, whose color scheme raped my eyes for a good 20 minutes that it took to beat. My reward: A rubber ball, for extra height. I get the bright idea to re-enter the training area, where there are a bunch of red platforms high up that I spend several frustrating tries to get across, and when I finally do, all I reach is a wall. So I go back to Pinewood Heights and use the Rubber Ball to enter Crystal Path. This level is hard. And there's no way to save in it. So I'm just going to have to put it on pause while I take a break to eat something. --- http://thecrankyhermit.wikispaces.com/ Year-by-year analysis of the finest gaming has to offer, and (eventually) more! |
Aaaand I come back to find out I paused the game literally one checkpoint away from the finish, with zero obstacles in the way. My reward is a ball whose special ability is sucking. No doubt this will be Dr. Cliche's hidden weakness or something. --- http://thecrankyhermit.wikispaces.com/ Year-by-year analysis of the finest gaming has to offer, and (eventually) more! |
Hope it's alright if I actually join in on this one; I'm finally wrapping up with pressing work issues and have more recreational time, plus I've never played this game. --- Pong is an RPG and I can prove it! http://bit.ly/aVaoc2 |
Please do :) The way you're describing the balls, Cranky, makes me wonder if the unlock sequence of balls is always the same, regardless of the order that you do the levels in - you've mentioned materials twice that I'm sure I got elsewhere in the game (the metallic ball from the tower, and the nondescript ball from... somewhere else, possibly Crystal Path). No, I misread a couple of things in the earlier posts - I think everything seems right after all! --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I'm not sure. I did get the green ball technically out-of-sequence, if the numbers are to be believed. (Picked it up before the iron ball.) I really don't remember the names of any of the locations I got them in, though. --- My Backloggery: http://backloggery.com/master_yogurt Classicgaming Steam Community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Board204 |
The way you're describing the balls, Cranky, makes me wonder if the unlock sequence of balls is always the same, regardless of the order that you do the levels in - you've mentioned materials twice that I'm sure I got elsewhere in the game I got #4 before getting #3, and #8 before getting #7. Aside from that, I got all the balls in numerical order. Game finished, with one unlocked bonus game (it sucks). I have no idea where to start looking for the codes to unlock the other two. I can't say I found this game to be anything special. Only Pinewood Heights gave that Metroid sense of rewarding exploration, and it didn't take long at all to get to the point where you've seen the whole place and it becomes a circular hub to reach all the sub-levels, which are all either linear levels or mazes. Most of the upgrades aren't very inspired either - you've got a bouncy ball, a bouncier ball, an even bouncier ball, and even more bouncy ball, as four of your ten balls. Another two, the Yoga Ball and Snow Ball, are almost literally keys - their physical properties aren't useful for anything, and you just use them because there are worlds that arbitrarily block your entry unless you have them. **MINOR SPOILERS** Only the Cannonball, Glass Ball, Sucky Ball (surprise!), and Flying Ball felt like interesting powerups. The difficulty also seems to occur in spikes, and the spikes feel hard enough to be annoying when you fail, but not hard enough to be empowering when you succeed. I think my favorite part of the game was the future up until the entrance to the ocean lab. It's a pretty long stretch of what you could describe as tourism, followed by an interesting puzzle. Also, the laser maze is a bastard. And I had to solve it a second time after realizing what the ocean lab's puzzle actually was. And a third time to unlock the secret. --- http://thecrankyhermit.wikispaces.com/ Year-by-year analysis of the finest gaming has to offer, and (eventually) more! |
*SPOILERS* Having completed it, I'm a little disappointed. It was fun, but certain aspects were really lacking; the upgrades in particular were mostly worthless. The overworld was cool for a while, but I got sick of having to traverse the same few tunnels to get from place to place. The last stretch of the game, from the future onward was really cool, though, and the puzzles in the lab were well-done. I just wish there had been something more to it, rather than such an anticlimactic end scene. --- ~NC http://rainwave.cc - Video Game Radio http://backloggery.com/naturalchemical/ |
Got to play for a little while last night. I have balls 1-6 and ball 8, and quit after I used the rubber ball in the training area on the red platforms... and was...surprised. Has anyone found ball 7 before ball 8? It seemed like a logical move to use the yoga ball to get to the cheese area, considering you start off 2 screens away from the entrance once you get the yoga ball. This makes the second time I jumped the ball order, first was going right to the mine cart once I got the iron ball. Side note on the mine cart- good change of pace, but I had trouble, as I'm so used to jumping when pressing a button, not when releasing it. All in all, I'm finding it a nice little game, that just takes some getting used to. I also like the dragon that eats your ball if you bounce too far to the right of the main area; glad for something cute instead of putting another wall there. --- Pong is an RPG and I can prove it! http://bit.ly/aVaoc2 |
I haven't had a chance to play this (was about to when I realized it's Windows-only, so I'll have to wait until I get home), but it sounds a little bit like Claymates. --- stop picking on balloon fight. - kuddy53 PSN: Cinder6 | My backlog: http://backloggery.com/cinder6 |
I guess it is a little like claymates in concept, but no melee and tougher jumps. Finished last night. Final Ball order was 1 2 4 3 5 6 8 7 9 0, so I feel like I did something wrong. All in all, I enjoyed it. Shadowlands and the underwater lair reminded me of megaman. Crystal path was perhaps my favorite. I liked the risk/reward feel of the glass ball and the puzzles it presented. Metal ball, by comparison I felt was underutililized. One thing I also really liked was the speed you could build up going sideways. Sometimes you could let the ball roll and have the jump made for you if you went fast enough, even using walls to continue your rolling streak. I wish there was more of a need to change balls mid area, most could be completed with the ball you entered with. Good fun. Need to get the bonus games though. --- Pong is an RPG and I can prove it! http://bit.ly/aVaoc2 |
I can't really disagree with the above - I had actually remembered the overworld as being a lot more... diverse and free to explore, whereas there really is only one route around it - to the right on the top route, and to the left on the bottom. Still, I was quite proud of finding the route to use with the useless ball - there could have been more obstacles like that that can only be passed with the use of a special ability once you work out the route, rather than ones where the only requirement is that you can bounce whatever extraordinary amount you need to. I think that I got ball 7 before ball 8 - I hadn't realized what the puzzle that involved changing colours at the left hand side was asking me to do. The future was my favourite part of the game, and it was just as striking as I remembered the second time - you're suddenly taken from a world that's subtly full of life and movement to one that's very static and bleak. The lab was a nice challenge at the end, as well, but at the same time, I'm so glad that I passed the first obstacle with the right ball by coincidence before realizing what the complete puzzle was, because having to go through it a second time would have been irritating. --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I didn't forget about this! I've just been busy for the past week and a half or so but I managed to get a couple sessions in over the past couple of days. I now have balls 1-8 (also got 4 before 3 and 8 before 7). Overall I find the game to be... I guess uneven would be the best term? Middling sounds harsh and makes it just sound mediocre which isn't completely accurate. I don't particularly care for the physics-based controls. I've got it on a controller now which is better for me but in a platformer I'll choose precision and speed over everything else. This game seems to sacrifice both of those in exchange for giving you something arbitrarily different to play with that IMO adds next to nothing to the proceedings. It gets the job done but there is basically no "joy in motion" which makes the little bits of backtracking (the game world is tiny as hell) rather blah. It also comes off as a bit amateurish in spots where it will randomly kill you for no actual reason. This is balanced out by moments of genuine inspiration. While my knowledge of videogames isn't as encyclopedic as some I am rather familiar with the language of games and there were some particularly fresh little twists in there that struck me as rather creative. *Minor Spoilers* The one stage made up of colored outlines that only balls of said color could interact with, the two little fellas who would press the switches at the least opportune time to try and kill you, even the little spider you had to guide through a few screens are the ones that stick out in my mind and made me smile when I realized what was going on.End Spoiler So basically it's moments of satisfaction doled out over stretches of unexceptional...ness. They aren't too spread out and it seems pretty short so I have to say that so far it has been worth playing. Oh yeah, I find the art design to be rather boring. It probably doesn't help that the one freeware PC game this most reminds me of is Glum Buster which if anything has a really great look to it. --- bah weep grah nah weep ni ni bon? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. |
...and the game is finished. My overall thoughts haven't changed. --- bah weep grah nah weep ni ni bon? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. |
Can you do anything other than move the ball around in the third bonus game, or is there some sort of spiritual epiphany that I was supposed to have received as my reward? --- Pong is an RPG and I can prove it! http://bit.ly/aVaoc2 |
This seems to be winding down, so I would like to propose Star Control II, partly because of its recent (if pointless) addition to GOG. Whether you buy it from GOG or not, I would suggest getting the freeware version The Ur-Quan Masters. It's a really strange game, and almost defies categorization (I call it an adventure game), but it's a serious contender for best game ever. It's got a huge galaxy to explore, with thousands of solar systems, over a dozen alien races to interact with, an epic plot, hilarious writing, great music, fun combat, and all that good stuff. If too many people have already played it, then I suggest Alone in the Dark, also inspired by its recent addition to GOG. It's the original survival horror - what else needs to be said? --- http://thecrankyhermit.wikispaces.com/ Year-by-year analysis of the finest gaming has to offer, and (eventually) more! |
To respond to a couple of things that came up - I restarted the game on Normal and didn't really detect much difference, but I looked back at the thread where I originally found the game posted and it was said that the ball physics were slightly different and less distinct under Normal, making it matter less which one you picked in some locations. I can't say that I noticed any specific difference, though. The controls preference probably depends on what you grew up with - I'm comfortable with both joypad and keyboard, but in games like this where very precise and twitchy movement is needed, I prefer the keyboard because of it allowing me to have one finger for each direction. It's certainly unusual for a game to have such a floaty, peaceful atmosphere and yet be so unforgiving in the actual levels. I'm unsure about the bonus games - I forgot about those, I don't think I've ever even played them! --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I was actually thinking of Alone in the Dark as the next game, too, from reading your recent thread on its addition to GOG - it's a game that I've been meaning to finally play at some point, as I know how much influence it had on a genre I (squeamishly) like now. Star Control II is another thing I hear people speaking highly of that I haven't played either, so both of them are fine with me - alternating between short games like WADF and longer games seems like a good arrangement. Perhaps people could jump in with their preferences between these two (or otherwise) here, and I'll start up the next topic at the start of May. --- http://albion.bandcamp.com My music, or: power metal trapped in an Amiga http://davidn.livejournal.com My journal, or: British and trapped in America |
I played Alone in the Dark years ago but couldn't really make heads or tails of it at the time so I wouldn't be opposed to giving it another shot with years more experience behind me. --- bah weep grah nah weep ni ni bon? up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. |