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Prince of Prussia: completed!

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No, I’ve not got to the end of Prince of Persia as yet – I know what I have to do to complete level 9, but I keep making stupid mistakes right at the end – but this is a small puzzle-type platformer which riffs on Prince of Persia but adds in Nazi guards and a shiv. The movement, graphical background, and obstacles are derived from the original Persia game, although there are no buttons or moving gates; instead the puzzle is working out where to move, how to get from place to place, and where the guards are.

The level starts in darkness with only the area immediately around you visible. Over time you fill in the level structure, although explored areas are shown only in blue (without guards and obstacles included). You can move left or right, and jump left or right or up, and when you’re at the edge of a platform you can climb down. This is a crucial ability to prevent you from falling to your death. All simple enough, although with the limited movement options it can take a little convolution to get to the right place at times, and you’re only ever one wrong keypress away from death.

What makes it more difficult is that the guards will shoot you on sight. Jump or walk onto a platform in front of them and you will be deadened immediately. Unfortunately they are frequently just where you want to go. How to get around this? Approach them from behind. Do so, and the prince makes use of the sharp metal he found at the start of the game, and the guard becomes a bloody mess on the floor.

And that’s basically the game. Kill all the Nazis, make your way to the switch to open the exit and then the exit itself while avoiding spikes and long drops. It took me a while to realise that you can’t jump over two blocks of spikes together but instead you have to climb down onto them and walk across. Otherwise it was a fun diversion where I managed to kill all but one of the guards, and finally found and killed their boss.

You can play it at https://adamatomic.itch.io/prince and I suggest you do.

Batty Zabella (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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A short point and click adventure game in the style of something like Shadowgate, but themed like Elvira, Batty Zabella is a sometimes infuriating experience. The puzzles aren’t hard, but the lack of being able to tell where some room exits are (I didn’t even know there was a shed for ages!), fiddly combat (it’s a Game Boy game but really feels like these bits need a light gun or mouse pointer) and a weapon which needs recharging but you never seem to know when so you die a lot, all add up to frustration.

I did enjoy it, however, despite those issues and the slightly odd (I assume it’s translated) dialogue and overly smutty references.

Mars After Midnight (Playdate): COMPLETED!

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Lucas Pope, the developer of this game, has a reputation for making weird experimental games. But they’re also good. I’ll admit, however, that apart from some time on Papers, Please (I lost my save I think, following a reinstall or something) and the demo of Return of the Obra Dinn (which I fully intended to get the full version of but for some reason never did), I’ve not really experienced them. Until now!

Hyped as a possible killer-app for the silly little cranking handheld, Mars After Midnight sets you up as an alien guidance counsellor on Mars, who, along with their robot sidekick/slave/helper runs night classes for various other aliens with issues. Issues such as, they have cracked skulls, or are cyclopseses with anger issues, or they flinch or something. All Serious Issues.

So you organise these sessions, by advertising in the right areas of town, and make them successful by providing the best refreshments. Then, aliens turn up at the door and you have to screen them to ensure they’re suitable for the session you have running. For example, you can use an x-ray machine to see if they have a cracked skull, or can surprise them to see if they flinch. If they match, in they come, help themselves to food or drink (which you then usually have to tidy up because aliens are messy, it seems), and if you’ve done everything right, they’ll leave you a tip.

Eventually, you need use this money to buy a ticket to leave Mars, but you also need to spend it on equipment (like the x-ray machine) and refreshments, so it’s a long process.

It isn’t especially hard, and although it is superficially similar to Papers, Please it has a very different vibe. The crank controls are mostly just for opening and closing the door hatch and cleaning the food table, so nothing too tricky. There’s a surprising variety in the different counselling sessions and “detection” requirements, with one of my favourites being the one where you have to translate what the aliens are saying using a phrasebook.

Definitely worth a play, and was worth dusting off my sadly neglected Playdate for.

Block Droppin (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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A simple Game Boy puzzle game where you match three or more shapes to get points. Matching more than three triggers special blocks that erase a whole column, row, or shape from the grid. If you’ve played a match three game, ever, then you know the deal.

Arcade mode is, it seems, endless, but there is a Puzzle Mode where you have to get rid of so many of each type of block in a maximum number of moves, and it’s this mode that I completed.

It isn’t tricky, and I’d have liked a lot more levels, but it’s fine.

Half-Life: completed!

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I turned god mode on.

I lasted for quite a while without it, making my way through Lambda Core and restarting the reactor, but as I died for the 452nd time making my way up through teleporters, and eventually being transported to the alien world of Xen, it wasn’t fun any more. I was saving almost every five seconds, and dying as regularly. I have no idea how I would have completed the game without cheating; I feel that the more toxic side of the Internet would be shouting at this point that I shouldn’t have the enjoyment of completing it unless I GOT GUD. That wasn’t going to happen.

Enjoyment of completing it? Yes, especially since once I’d turned on God mode I abandoned my overly cautious approach and ran at enemies with abandon. Big hunter-type aliens? Shotgun! Smaller green electricity aliens? Shotgun! Very big spider with obvious glowing suspended stomach? Shotgun!

The game still wasn’t easy. The platforming was still not precise enough to do what I wanted every time, so I found myself falling into pits or off the side of a cliff; this time I didn’t die, though, I just sat there choking in the acid fumes, or landing on an invisible platform way beyond the game’s usual physics box, until I reloaded the last save. One particular section had me very confused for a long time until I realised that you had to jump on top of (what I presumed were deadly) alien aircraft that were traversing the level. The move to Xen meant that I was no longer playing through a coherent whole level bound by geography, but rather a number of small arenas connected by teleporters. The wonder of the game was significantly diminished.

And then the final boss, who threw out teleporters to get rid of me, which took me to places where I had to undertake more annoying platforming to get back; I didn’t cheat to get more ammo but I cam close a few times because of my ineptitude in aiming while jumping and moving. Having to jump up high, and then shoot downwards into the boss’s head, was very difficult indeed, until I realised that I could open the head then jump over on top of it, then just unload the gamma ray type gun at my feet over and over again. It was even easier when the head closed and trapped me inside, where I could continue to fire.

The move to Xen also loses some of the colour of the facility, which is a shame.

So, the big evil alien in Xen died, and the shady government man met me and offered me a job. Either I took the job, or he would send me off to die. Obviously I decided to take the job, but on the way to the door I managed to get stuck in the edge of the scenery and timed out, so I was teleported to many many enemies, all of whom failed to kill me because I had god mode on.

Does Half-Life hold up today? Mostly, yes; it tells its story well without the need for immersion-breaking cut-scenes and dialogue. The combat is difficult but can be overcome with some good strategy, even if the first time you enter a room it takes a bit of trial and error. Issues with controls are very much on my side rather than the fault of the game. The difficulty gets too high for me towards the end, particularly with soldiers with rocket launchers and big aliens firing bullets that can go around corners. Xen is a bit of a disappointment, moving away from a contiguous geographic location to a series of disparate rooms. I’m glad I finally got around to finishing it, even though I had to cheat to do so without getting completely bored of doing the same thing over and over.

He is unimpressed that I can’t get to the door.