Three 4 One Deal

I've got a good excuse this time. I haven't been posting because I've not been playing free games, and I'd rather be unreliable than a liar.

Instead I've been enduring the long push from level 70 to 80 with my Charr Warrior on Guild Wars 2. She's riiiiiiight theeeeeeeeere, so I've been a bit preoccupied. Since I've once again been a bad blogger, and because my usual squirt bottle is currently empty, I'm making up for my transgressions with three, technically four, games instead of one. Evens out, right?

All of today's entries come from good old Kongregate, a site I've come to lean on quite a bit since starting on my free quest. Does that make me lazy? Probably, but who cares.

Don't worry...Most of this is mine. 

My first game came directly from the homepage: Dojo of Death. You are the white ninja, defending your pixelated dojo from other ninjas hell bent on your messy demise. Or something, there isn't much to this one. Click in a direction to launch yourself blade first. The game seems deceptively easy, but sometimes an arrow in the back of your head proves otherwise.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It's a great time waster, super easy to pick up with little to no downtime between rounds.

But Dojo of Death is a bit similar to my usual fare, so let's see what looks different... Hmm, Gun Disassembly looks good. While I myself don't particularly care for guns, I come from a family that does. It's kinda the same thing, right?

This...isn't a game. It's a detailed simulation...of taking guns apart, and putting them back together. It looks great, with pretty decent 3D models of the firearms floating in a skybox. I spent my (very short) time 'playing' just clicking on an AK-47 until it came apart...then I clicked some more when it needed to go back together. Riveting.

Play It or Pass It: Depends. If you want to play something with guns, stick to shooters.

With that...um...interesting pick muddying my thoughts, my brain ran for the safety of comedy and cuteness. Burrito Bison looked adorable, what with gummy bears being the apparent antagonists and all.

Burrito Bison is an upgradable launching game, just like Learn to Fly from earlier this month. It starts with a musclebound bison grocery shopping before being sucked into a bag of gummy bears, where he must fight (?) his way back out. Like Learn to Fly, you launch yourself into the air, trying to gain as much distance and altitude as possible, bouncing off gummy bear spectators to get more distance and/or money. Buy upgrades to fly faster and bounce higher.

I also looked into Burrito Bison's Revenge, which shows our bovine buddy free from the gummy bag. But whats this? He left his wallet behind! How can he pay for his grocerys now? So back into the bag he goes, flying through a now derelict stadium.

Play It or Pass It:  Play it. It's fun and adorable, even more so than Learn To Fly. It did, however, make me crave gummies like nobody's business.

Wanna play any of these? Here are the links!

Dojo of Death: http://www.kongregate.com/games/nicotuason/dojo-of-death?acomplete=dojo+of
Burrito Bison: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison
Burrito Bison's Revenge: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison-revenge

And if you want to, you know, takes firearms apart... Here's this too.... *shrug*

http://www.kongregate.com/games/vklimov/gun-disassembly?acomplete=gun+di

HOURS OF SEAT-OF-YOUR-PANTS GAMEPLAY!!!

Sidenote! 

The links don't seem to work, but copying and pasting should work. Sorry!

Don't Judge a Fairy Tale by its Cover

I mentioned before how I could fill an entire year's worth of posts with free games alone. That statement was a bit inaccurate: I could fill an entire year off the gaming site Kongregate alone. Since I had such great luck with my last Kon game, I decided to head back a second time.

It didn't take me long to find something eye catching: Crazy Fairies. Who can resist a name like that?

The game's description just added to my excitement:

"Turn-based projectile shooting game with online, cross-platform multiplayer. Set in a crazy fairytale world where all your favorite characters come to life and battle to death."

I have a massive thing for fairy tales, having owned (and subsequently worn out) three copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales. 

I loaded up the game and immediately paused: As with many other online multiplayer games, this one has different servers to choose from, but with only one server available. The game was made in mid-2012, so maybe it's a final remnant of a game past its prime.

Character creation was fun. Character descriptions were clever and funny, and I totally dug the art style, with the big heads and tiny bodies reminding me of a certain awesome kitty (me. They reminded me of me), and wings! Angel wings and fire wings...

The bright colors and adorable backgrounds were icing on the already delicious looking cake. Naturally I choose the Master Cat character, clicking through the costumes until I found an outfit and wings to match. Let's see how good this pretty cake tastes...

The first few rounds were, of course, tutorial. I was given different (well, two different) weapons, A cannon for physical attacks and a staff for magical ones, to try out on an odd little cyclops monster. I didn't have any wings, figuring they would come with one of the next tutorials.

But I had another pang of hesitation: See, I knew going into it the game was turn-based. What I hadn't counted on was how sloooow it was. When it's just me and the one-eyed training dummy it isn't so bad, but once I entered my first match it became glaringly apparent the game had pace issues.

My first match was two on two, on a somewhat hilly battlefield. The whole match was around ten minutes of us taking turns chucking stuff at each other. Shoot my cannon, miss. Get nearly hit by a spell or throwing ax. Wait. Shoot a cannonball. Repeat. Nobody moved from their spot (there is little incentive to do so) and all of us took several turns to dial in our aim. My first three shots missed their target. The next two were dodged. With my sixth round I made contact! 55 points of damage! I've got him now!

Above us our partners duked it out, with my partner sustaining heavy damage early in the fight. Down below I made another hit, 55 damage. Then another. My foe was living off a sliver, my next strike would finish him! Above me my severely weakened companion felled his own quarry through some miracle or witchcraft and, having a faster turnaround speed than I, lobbed an ax at my prey.

...You kill-stealing sunuva bitch...

*Deep breath* Well, at least I won my first match.

Despite my victory I still couldn't get my mind off wings. Wings, man. Did I have to buy them? The short answer is yes, you do. The store had a bunch of wings for sale, all for 300 gold, a wee bit over my 150 silver I was working with. As luck would have it, two of the wings were only 50 silver! A pair of demon wings and a pair of angle wings. Now we're in business!

For the third time I paused: Like all other items in the game, the wings had a description detailing the bonuses they imparted on me. Unlike other items, the end of both descriptions had the words "Warning: Only" at the end in red. "Only" what? "Only" for noobs? "Only" for ferrets? I had no idea, but I shrugged away any suspicion and bought the angel pair.

I entered a new match, this one in the 'adventure' category, which pitted me and another player against a giant with about a dozen eyes and three noses. My wings didn't show up, having forgotten  I needed to equip them. Same frozen molasses game play. *Yawn*

Back at the character screen, I go to equip any new items I have. After all, with both the tutorial completion and my victories in-game I had earned quite a few new trinkets and baubles to wear.

All those trinkets? Every one of them bears the same name but lower stats as my beginning gear. Those wings? The "Only" stood for "Warning: Only members of last week's winning second place clan can use these wings". What? Then why are they available to everyone in the damn shop? if it knows I can't wear them, why doesn't it know not to let me buy them?! And why didn't that warning show up in full before purchase?!

I just...I just wanted to fly...

Play It or Pass It: Pass it. Long story short: It's boring. The game is absolutely adorable and witty, but it takes more than a pretty face for a recommendation. Boring is boring, no matter how much makeup it wears.

Wanna try it anyway? Here's the link!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Spicyhorse/crazyfairies

(non)Flying Fowl

With a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures at a tail-shriveling -20 degrees Fahrenheit (with windchill), my mind turned to wintery fun. I could build a snowman, or maybe find a nice steep hill and go sledding! Maybe Aaron and I could build snow forts in the back yard and have a snowball fight!

Or we could sit in our nice warm house with a cup of hot coco and play games. Yeah, that sounds good...

Going with the frigid theme of the day, and in compliance with my Free in '14 month I clicked on over to the gaming site Kongregate and picked out a cold one: Learn to Fly.

Penguins have long suffered humiliation for their flightlessness, but no more! With a little boost from gliders, rockets, and some good old fashioned personal recklessness, this little penguin will take to the skies!

It's a dream...Come true...

Learn to Fly follows that penguin on his guest to make aviation history. To play,you chuck a penguin down an icy ramp, controlling his trajectory with the arrow keys, or A and D keys upon launch. Your distance is measured once you land in the water below. Now, I couldn't find a way to measure my actual distance, rather my distance was measured in cash. There are several 'stages', distinguishable only by differing achievements. The achievements range from distance traveled to time spent in the air.

I decided to see how far I could get in 25 flights. The first few went about as well as can be expected. I more or less fell off the ramp into the water, getting about $12 for every belly flop. By my eighth flight I was able to afford a hole-riddled glider, bringing up my average to $37, a number that jumped again to $59 when I bought the rocket.

Flight number 19, I launched as usual, but early in the flight I accidentally hit the 'D' key, sending my penguin rocketing toward the water. I hit 'A' out of desperation, only for it to shoot my avian friend skyward once more. $105. BAM.

By my final run I figured I had the hang of the game, and I felt pretty confident in beating my highest score of $136. I raced down the ramp at a breakneck speed, launched into the air, and immediately dive-bombed into the water. I had about a second to come to terms with my abysmal ending to the game, when from the watery depths my penguin shot back toward the heavens as though propelled by a cannon. I finally landed some distance away, with a score of $171.

Huh. Cool.

Learn to Fly 2 follows the same principle, with various updates. You land in snow instead of water, they're are more upgrades available, and your score is measured in actual feet (I think), calculated along with your speed, altitude, and a few other measurements.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. Both Learn to Fly and Learn to Fly 2 can be a bit tedious starting out. Both games involve alot of face planting in the beginning, and upgrades come slowly. Get past the initial hump and it's smooth sailing, having almost an addictive 'one more round' quality. While I personally thought the first Learn to Fly was more fun, both make excellent time wasters.

Want to play it yourself? Here's the link!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/light_bringer777/learn-to-fly

Go forth and FLY!