CATastrophe!

Every once in a while one finds a game that speaks to them in some way. Maybe that game made them laugh or cry. Maybe they saw some of themselves within the protagonist, something which added to both the fun and immersion of the game.

 For me, that game is Catlateral Damage.

You play as an asshat cat bent on vengeance for being locked in a bedroom (presumably. True motive is neither known nor important). Jump from the bed to the desk, from tables to shelves, laying waste to every upright object in your path. WASD to move. Left mouse controls the left paw, and the right mouse button controls the right. Space to jump. Two minutes to rack up 100,000 points. Two glorious minutes of absolutely wrecking some poor bastard's bedroom.

I wonder if I can hit the TV from here...

I once spent nearly an entire game smacking a single book around on top of the bed. Two whole minutes of book beating. I spent another trying fruitlessly to jump on a (slightly too high) shelf. Only once in my dozens of games have I reached 100,000 points, but I'll be damned if I care.

In my last game I spent 30 seconds stuck in a trash can, then another 45 seconds trying to smack a coat hanger. Almost had it too...

Play It or Pass It: PLAAAAAAY IIIIT. It's a hilarious look into kitty's life while you aren't home, and once you discover how addicting knocking crap over is, maybe you won't yell at Mr. Mitten's quite so much next time he does it.

Or maybe you will. That's Mr. Mitten's problem.

Play the alpha here!

http://www.catlateraldamage.com/play

That's No Sheep...

While drinking my morning coffee and perusing facebook today I happened upon a blast from the past: eBaum's World.

Many hours were spent in my high school years using the library's computers to play flash games, either on Yahoo games or eBaum's. It was one of the first (if not the first) of such websites I ever used, so I was excited for my trip down memory lane. But like the boy bands and Myspace of my youth eBaum's World didn't seem to age well, having transformed into something neither recognizable to my inner teenager or appealing to my outer adult.

I remember the site for flash games, but I had a hulluva time finding any games. The homepage is a mash of fail videos and Buzzfeed articles, but nary a game in sight. The categories tab did little to aid my search, instead helpfully pointing me toward 'WTF' 'fail' and 'sports' options, themselves leading to yet more videos and Buzzfeed fodder. It was only after scrolling down some distance that I found a 'popular games' box on the side of the page giving me a whomping four options to chose from (clicking anywhere on the box took me nowhere). Defeated and feeling a bit impatient, I clicked on one of the four options given: Elephant Quest.

As per the game's description:

An evil sheep has stolen your hat. Prepare for an epic adventure with 45 areas to explore in your quest to get it back!

A sheep has stolen my hat? Maybe it was made out of his grandma...

Elephant Quest begins with a rather adorable storybook-style introduction:

Admittedly, that is a pretty sweet hat.

Wait, he's got a hat... It's totally his problem if he wore a stocking hat in summer. Moron. Also, I may not be an expert on ovines, but last I checked they didn't have tusks...

...Or trunks. Either that's a mammoth or it's a study on ugly duckling syndrome, only the ugly duckling grows up to be a dick instead of a swan. Childhood teasing can be rough in any flock.

The game itself is a 2d platformer with a maze like quality. The controls were pretty simple: WASD to move, but they tripped me up pretty badly. Usually the space bar is use for jumping with WASD controls, but space just brings up your skills page. W or the up arrow is jump. Interacting with anything is the S or down arrow. Attacking takes the mouse and...

...Wait...This elephant has a back mounted lazer? Where was this before?

You also need to collect balloons and find items for other elephants while you traverse caves, forests and the like, all culminating in a twist ending that will either warm your heart or boil your blood, depending on how vindictive a person you are.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It's pretty deep for a simple game, and adorable to boot.

Play it here!

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/games/play/81408105/

A Cultic Classic

Monsters Den Chronicles is a click-to-move dungeon crawler on the website Armor Games.

That... That's about it. It's very... Basic? Basic's a word...

Well, let's start from the beginning. Monsters Den Chronicles starts just like many other fantasy RPG's before it: Party formation. You have four classes to choose from, each with two versions of that class. Pick your pals and choose your difficulty level.

Naturally I kick it kindergarten style at 'beginner'. The game also allows you to choose your own punishment should you die: Lose experience, items, or game over/go home. A neat little choice, one which lost much of it's novelty as I entered minute five of trying to decide which fate was worse.

After choosing the first campaign I get dropped in a dank labyrinth of a dungeon with orders to hunt down some cult and figure out what culty things they're up to.

Game play is as simple as it gets. Click on a room, walk into the room. If the path you're walking is red, you're about to have company. The battle mechanics are pretty basic too.  Shuffle your guys around your side of the field until you're ready, then it's good old fashioned turn-based combat.

Most of the enemies you encounter are Cult Guardians or Acolytes, the latter of which have a chance to summon a Void Stalker. Kill the baddies, get TEH MAD LEWTZ (or the treasure, in functional human-speak), then click yourself around the next corner.

Iunno, Parthan, my old one was even more purple...

Like other RPG's you can upgrade your armor and weapons, usually after finding new gear killing monsters, because clearly the rusted piles of pure tetanus you find on the floor of a dilapidated dungeon make for better protection than whatever scraps you walked in with. My brave warriors are also kind enough to point out "nah, I like what I got on" whenever I try to equip them with anything slightly rustier than their current garb.

Prima donnas.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It is a 'click to move fantasy dungeon-crawler'. Nothing more. Nothing less. Pure Vanilla.

Like predictability as much as I do? Play it here, and let me know what you think!

http://armorgames.com/play/13132/monsters-den-chronicles

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!

I wanna go to DUNGEONLAND!

I have a habit of procrastination.

Go on, get your laughs out now so we can focus.

Anyway, no one is more familiar with my behavior than Aaron, who was kind enough to give me a little boost with my Free in '14 quest by downloading a bunch of free games off Steam for me.

Thaaaaaaaaaaanks baaaaaaaaaaaaabe.

Of the four downloads on my screen one stood out: Dungeonland. Mostly because of the bright colors (I might have a short attention span...maybe), but also because it had the word 'dungeon' in the name. Can't go wrong with vanilla fantasy, right?

Dungeonland is a three-player action/dungeon-crawler with a colorful, cartoonish style and sense of humor. The game takes place in a theme park which is worryingly devoid of tourists, unless you count giant caterpillars and skeletal archers as tourists. As per the requirements, it is free to play, but almost immediately upon loading the main menu screen I'm hit with a mustachioed jester's pitch:

HEY! YOU! FILTHY NERD! HERE! BUY THIS ARMOR SKIN PACK!!! ONLY $2.99!!!

Filthy nerd? Why, I've never been so insulted in my life! Hrumph! HRUMPH I SAY!

Pleasantries aside, The game isn't bad. Dungeonland has a heavy emphasis on teamwork, giving you two AI partners if you can't play online or with friends. Like other fantasy games, you have a choice of classes: Warrior, Mage, or Rogue. Within those classes is a little customization, such as running a fire or lightning based type mage, or an assassin or ranger type rogue.

Predictably I ran a warrior my first time through. Controls were about as basic as one can get: WASD to move, 'space bar' to dodge (or hip thrust, in the case of the mage) and left-clicking to attack. Only two of the six levels are available in free mode: DM Tower and DM Mode. I hit 'DM Tower' and braced for whatever the crap happened next.

What happened next wasn't bad. Not the best game I've ever played, but certainly not the worst.

You just run through the level, wailing on garbage cans for loot and fried chicken while killing anything that moves...and isn't your AI buddies. The enemies attack in mobs at certain points, and a separate mob with a mini-boss attacks at random.

My first opponent was a sheep. A sheep that promptly rolled onto its back when I ran up to it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to slaughter a defenseless, innocent sheep? It's so fluffy, for crying out loud.

Not hard at all, actually. Easier after I learned sheep drop fried chicken and hamburgers upon excruciating murder.

After clearing two levels of their skeletons and chicken you finally reach a boss. You know, like a real dungeon!

Naw, man, I'm good to *hic!* fight...

The big baddy of the DM Tower was nothing less than worthy of the 'Boss' Title. He was the dreaded...The terrifying...

...The Beer-Holder.

The lush proved to be quite a challenge, despite his inebriated and gassy state. My battle strategy consisted of dying a bunch, getting rezzed by my AI team mates, then running like a bitch until I needed rezzing again. 

He never saw it coming.

With the day saved and my interest piqued, I figured I'd see how much the other levels cost to unlock. I like the game enough to drop 2-3 bucks on a little expansion, so I clicked on the 'store' option. 

'All Access Pass'... So... I can't buy just one level? That's cool, I suppose I could swing a few extra bucks if I get all of them...But where's the price? *click*

Clicking on the 'Pass' icon took me completely out of the game and into the Steam store. The Steam store homepage. I had to hunt down Dungeonland to find the pricing, and even then I couldn't find an 'All Access Pass'. Instead I found the option to buy the whole game. 

For $16.99. Nope.

Play It or Pass It: If you have a Steam account absolutely give it a try, a free try. If you don't have a steam account, fix it because clearly you're broken, then give it a go. 

New Year, New Stuff

2014 is here, and with it a slew of resolutions...Ones we'll keep and others we've probably already broken. *cough*

My own resolutions range from dreadfully predictable to completely obvious: I don't have alot of imagination in the self improvement sector. But just like last year and the year(s) before that I will follow through this year!

...Right? Right. So whats this mean for Geeky Cat?

One of the most popular resolutions made by people, other than the obvious 'lose 20 pounds' bit, is saving money. So for the month of January I will be playing games that are 100% free to play. That's not to say these games don't have a micro-transaction model (wherein a player can pay real money for various power ups or costume changes), which they very well may. But both acquiring and playing the game must be free. No purchasing cost. No monthly subscriptions. Nothing.

Sounds tough, right? Actually no. Just in my initial research alone I came across enough games to play a new free game for every post for the rest of the year, without touching the same one twice.
Facebook games have come a long way from the dark days of Farmville, and the gaming messenger Steam has a few hundred to choose from.

On a side note, I do have one resolution that's a bit...Well, different. Teaching my cat to not watch TV.

You see, late last year I noticed my cat Duchess' habit of watching screens. TV's, monitors, the lot of them. She doesn't just sit there, she purposely places herself dead center to the screen, watching and following the action as it plays out, cocking her head to the side when something happens.

It-was-hilarious.

So tickled was I that I began showing her bird videos on Youtube. We'd laugh as Duch would run to the computer at the first chirps of the show, sitting as close as she could to the monitor, occasionally checking behind it to find the blackbird that just flew off screen. Soon her sister Precious joined her, sitting shoulder to shoulder as birds and fish danced across the screen.

I personally don't care to watch the same robin sitting in the same nest for 45 minutes. This machine is made for gaming!

Duchess, move. I'm trying to kill a giant spider queen. Precious! Stop pawing at the screen! Yes Tippy, I'll grab your trea- DAMMIT PRECIOUS STOP!

You can see why this can be a problem. I'm sure cat obedience can't be too hard to teach...

...Right?