99

Game: 99

Developer: rxi

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux

Download Link: https://rxi.itch.io/99

Some of my favorite games to play off of itch.io are sometimes the more simple games. Nothing jaw-dropping in aesthetic (though I do enjoy those) or super innovative (and I enjoy those as well), just a straightforward game with simple controls and simple execution. For those who are familiar with my earlier endeavor when I covered microgames (before I yeeted it out of existence), 99 was the first game I covered. It was also a time I used a rating system for covering microgames, something I heavily regret doing in hindsight. But nonetheless, I decided to revisit a little "old friend" to help me get through some stressful times.

99 is a game where your goal is to roam a pixelated world and collect 99 coins while avoiding enemies like killer bunny people and ghosts. Collect all the coins, and you beat the game. Simple as that. Such is the beauty of simplicity. Now, you may be wondering, dear reader, why on Earth would I go to the trouble of looking at a simple game such as this? Wouldn't you want to look at something more complex in developer rxi's catalog of games, like Toastbear or Shuriken? To you I say, well, I would like to talk about those games at some point, but I want to get this one out of the way? Why? Well, because I like it a lot.

99 is a very nice looking microgame, with its nice pixelated graphics and simple, yet charming animation and designs. The character you control is what I believe to be a flightless bird. I could be wrong, but the super minute details aren't always that important. This game was made for Low Rez Jam 2016, and it looks really well polished for using the 64x64 resolution. It looks very much like a game on a portable system, like a Game Boy Color, which, while I'm not sure was the intentional approach of the developer, but it does sort of look that way.

Controlling your character is super simple; you use the arrow keys to move and X (or up arrow key) to jump. Essentially, you can play this game with one hand. What do you do with the other hand? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Read a book, eat a snack, file your taxes, fap (not recommended), a whole myriad of different tasks, I suppose. If there is anything I could really criticize about this game, it's the screen being zoomed in a little too much. It sometimes obstructs your view to what comes next, and you have little to no time to react. But, it doesn't detract from the overall experience too much.

I love how simple this game is. It definitely hearkens back to a more simple time of gaming where games weren't super complex or super long. Sometimes, when I want to play a game, I don't always want to embark on an epic adventure, do really complex inputs, or "git gud". Sometimes I just want to sit down and play a straightforward, blunt experience that is short, simple, and to the point. Overall, 99 fits that description and it still holds a special place in my itch.io game collection as one of my first, and favorite, games I've played on the platform. Give it a whirl for yourself.

Mom's Soup

Game: Mom's Soup

Developer: RobotBand

Platform: Browser

Play it here: https://robotband.itch.io/moms-soup

Happy Mother's Day! Mother's Day is a special day where we celebrate the moms who brought us into this world, raised us, and found out how much of a disappointment we are as we fail to live up to expectations. Anyone relate? No, or just not admitting to it? Never mind. We love our moms out there, and what better way to celebrate than by playing some video games? Since today was Mother's Day, I thought and said to myself "Self, what games out there are centered around mothers?" To put it bluntly, not too many, but there are games to be had to play on this special day; case in point, Mom's Soup. 

Mom's Soup has you playing as Eddie who goes on a mundane epic quest to get groceries for his mom so she can make some delicious soup. You must explore 4 different areas to locate these ingredients: the store, the river, the mountain, and the forest. Collect the ingredients of broth, fish, mushrooms, and deer meat and mom will be able to make her soup. Now, you could complain and bemoan "But Mom!" but it's Mother's Day today, so we should be prime to be doing favors for her, after all, she raised little brats like us. 

The game is charming in its simplicity with its visuals and gameplay, looking very reminiscent of an Atari 2600 game from back in the early 80s, except probably better programmed and lacking in sound. Eddie looks very much like a Pac-Man ghost out doing groceries for his mom. Such a nice boy! I wonder if he gets an allowance? Probably not. Each area is set apart by their colors, with the hub and store being yellow and blue, the forest being brown and green, the mountain being grey and white, and the river being blue and green. Some of the areas have nice scenery, such as the riverbed, with its Spongebob Squarepants decor at the bottom of the river being a fairly nice touch that helps give the game some personality.

The four different areas you explore are differentiated not just by color, but by the way you must explore each area in order to get your item. The shop requires 3 coins in order to buy broth, with 1 coin hidden in each area, the forest has you traversing the forest in a lost woods sort of fashion that is a callback to The Legend of Zelda on the NES, the mountain has you exploring a maze with switches to help view the layout, and the river has you swimming underwater. Commenting on the last section, swimming in the river is much more difficult than it needed to be, as the swimming pattern is incredibly precise, and diverting off course means certain death and restarting the level. Who would have thought that getting groceries for mom would be this difficult?

Once you collect all the ingredients, Mom is able to make some soup and everyone is happy. You'll probably be told that the harshness of your quest was a learning experience that is all for the better in the long run and you'll agree because you love your mother so much. Perhaps the extremities of gathering ingredients are a reminder of life's harsh realities that we must be ready for and that our parents help prepare us for. Just watch out for the curve balls life is gonna throw at you.

Meteorite

Game: Meteorite

Developer: bauxite

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux

Download Link: https://bauxite.itch.io/meteorite

Metroidvanias are not uncommon in the world of indie games. Itch.io has a myriad of metroidvania demos and concepts on the platform it can sometimes make your head spin. But what happens when you try to make a 3D metroidvania? Well, you essentially get Metroid Prime. You also get a microgame such as Meteorite, which takes heavy inspiration from the Metroid Prime games. While I myself haven't played much of the aforementioned series, I am familiar with the mechanics: Exploring a futuristic, maze-like setting, picking up powerups along the way. Considering that's the criteria for the Metroid Prime series, in a nutshell, Meteorite certainly gets that down.

Meteorite has you exploring a mysterious facility on a distant planet, collecting powerups and navigating the labyrinth-like setting and defeating the boss at the end. An entry of Low Rez Jam 2018, the game is given a 64x64 resolution to give itself a low resolution, as the name implies. With the limitations set upon itself, visually, the game looks pretty great. I do believe it captures the feel of a Metroid Prime-like game, as far as exploration and graphics are concerned. The feeling of isolation, the alien-like setting on a faraway planet, the futuristic weaponry, the upgrades geared toward exploration, it's all here. Meteorite doesn't hide the fact that it wears its influences on its sleeve. Not like that's really a bad thing, all things considered.

Meteorite's main go is exploration, considering it is a metroidvania game (and a 3D one at that). Despite this, however, Meteorite's a fairly straightforward adventure, granted it is a microgame and all. If anything, the exploration of the facility feels akin to a dungeon in a Legend of Zelda game, where you find items to progress, just lacking in the puzzles and enemies (for the most part). Despite there lacking enemy variety, since your only enemy, not counting the boss, are turrets, combat isn't the main focus of the game. Unfortunately, even though combat isn't the main focus, it is hampered by the small resolution, which can't exactly fault too much, considering it was made for Low Rez Jam 2018. The resolution also impacts, exploration as well, unfortunately. It can be difficult to see where you're going at times because of the low resolution, where everything starts to blend into each other from a distance. It's like a nearsighted person wandering around without glasses.

Despite the resolution being a bit of an Achilles heel, I'm still impressed with what was accomplished for such a small game. Meteorite was still a fun experience despite its shortcomings. Looking at bauxite's resume, they have plenty of experience with the Godot engine, which the game was made with. For his first foray into this type of game, I was still overall impressed. I wish him great success and perhaps a sequel where the concept is expanded upon. Give this game a download and experience it for yourself.

Ace Tennis 64

Game: Ace Tennis 64

Developers: Jonas Mumm, John Fio

Platform: PC

Download link: https://jonasmumm.itch.io/ace-tennis

I cover quite a few microgames that get submitted to game jams. These types of games often get submissions that take advantage of their limitations and think outside the box. One of my favorite jams on itch.io is the annual Low Rez Jam, where aspiring game devs are tasked to create a small game in a 64x64 pixel resolution. This limitation allows for some fairly creative games that get submitted to the jam. One of those games I've been meaning to play was Ace Tennis 64, a low rez tennis game. Finally sat myself down to play it recently, and needless to say, I had my fun with it. After all, I played Mario Power Tennis on the Gamecube a ton as a kid. I figured my "super skills" would translate to playing this game. I guess they sort of did.

Ace Tennis 64 is a pretty straightforward tennis microgame. You serve the ball and hit it back and forth between you and your opponent until one of you scores a point. Repeat the process until you win 3 out of 5 games in a single set. The game itself graphically looks like if an Atari 2600 game got the mode 7 treatment like a Super Nintendo game. The use of 3D depth is done pretty well, although there really isn't a y-axis when hitting the ball, so your opponent can still hit the ball, even if it's like 5 feet above their heads, but I digress. The game on a graphical level looks pretty stellar with its limitations. Granted, the game jam version and version 2.0 that I played look drastically different in resolution. The game jam version looked akin to a Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance game, with its heavy pixelation and limited resolution. Version 2.0 is drastically updated visually, with cleaner artwork and less pixelation, though it does forgo the limited resolution it had for the game jam. Both however still retain plenty of charm.

As stated before, Ace Tennis 64 is a very straightforward tennis game. No gimmicks and trick shots like in Mario Tennis games and no superstar players like Rafeal Nadal. Just two pixelated players looking for a great match on the tennis court with plenty of pixelated people watching. You have your selection of difficulty level by choosing which opponent you'd like to face, with their difficulty level being indicated by the number of stars beneath their name; 3 stars being the highest difficulty. You also have your pick of stadium, depending upon which color court best suits your taste.

Gameplay is simple enough to grasp, with a stamina meter that drains through each play, then gets replenished after each score and a power meter that affects the power of your strike. Some of my issues, however, deal with the direction of the ball with each swing. The ball, from what I have observed, tends to gravitate towards the opponent, making scoring on them a bit difficult. Getting a feel for the swing mechanics was also difficult to adjust to, as I'm more accustomed to Mario Tennis mechanics. Even with these issues I had, they don't detract too much from my overall experience of the game itself. After all, it is tennis, a game that's pretty easy to understand, be it in real life or in a video game. As far as a replication of regular tennis goes, it pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Despite some of my grievances in learning the swing and ball mechanics, as nitpicky as they are, Ace Tennis 64 is a pretty well-executed tennis microgame. I do recommend checking it out with the download link posted above. Become like me, a pseudo-connoisseur of microgames. Kidding aside, do give this game a look-see. It's fun : ) 

Elevator Pitch

Game: Elevator Pitch
Developer(s): Hugimugi7 and Amerigo Gazaway

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux/Flash

Download Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/elevator-pitch

What's this? Another update in a little over a week? I guess I really am trying to bring this behemoth back to life. Just about everyone has heard the phrase "time is money" to the point where it has become a cliched phrase. But what if you took the phrase and warped into life being literal currency? That's the idea of the current (as of writing this) game jam hosted on Ludum Dare this half of the year, where the goal is to make a game centered around the theme of life being a literal currency. Some of the games that are a part of the jam made their way to the itch.io website and I got a chance to play some of them. I did enjoy some of the games, like "Death Alley", but that game just mentioned loosely ties in with the theme of the game jam. Elevator Pitch, on the other hand, takes a literal and thematic approach to the idea of life being a currency.

Elevator Pitch has you working in the office of a AAA game studio, where you are fed up with your life being a corporate hell, where you're working during seemingly endless crunch time. Fed up with your job and your lack of relaxation and family time, it's time that you rise up and overthrow your evil corporate overlord and seek sweet freedom. You do this by trashing the office around you and defeating your boss in a fight to the death... and that's about it really.

Yeah, the game is incredibly short in its current state, as it was made in 72 hours for the game jam. As far as I'm concerned, the devs are looking to expand upon the game, but given that is still the reviewing session of the game jam, they can't update the game yet, so this what you get really: a short game with a whopping total of two levels! Pretty underwhelming, but there is potential to be had here.

Honestly, this game reminds me of some of those early iOS mobile games where you beat-up/torture a personification of your work boss, where you take your digital frustration out on him, or just play to pass the time. The games were entertaining when I was younger, but not enough to hold my attention for long periods of time. Then again, that wasn't entirely the goal of the game.

If anything, this game does provide some commentary on the AAA game development scene, where workers are forced into crunch time to work on a product when projected release date looms over their heads, and if the game doesn't sell well, they get laid off anyway, like what Electronic Arts does with their business practices and are consistently labeled as one of, if not the worst, American company to work for.

As far as the game jam's theme of "life is currency" goes, it takes a more thematic approach to it, where you are tired of being a slave to your corporate overlord and want to rise up like the gamer you are and free yourself from your chains of corporate enslavement. This kind of screams the "We Live in a Society" meme that was popular online in 2018, just without the multiple layers of irony, and more to provide commentary of an industry's business practices and to blow off some steam.

It's a very short game, so short, it's almost insubstantial, but there is definite potential to be had with this concept. I'll be keeping an eye on it if it gets an update on the itch.io platform and see where the devs take it. Also, the game has a soundtrack on Bandcamp that you can download for free : ) I'd embed it here, but I forgot that the embedding code is kind of wonky for Bandcamp releases, so here's a link to it. The game does ironically live up to its name of "Elevator Pitch" where it only borrows a few moments of your time. Give it a whirl if you'd like.

Pet the Pup at the Party

Game: Pet the Pup at the Party

Developer: Will Herring

Platform: PC/Mac

Game Page: https://grey2scale.itch.io/pet-the-pup

When I first started doing this whole blogging thing, I stuck to mainly taking a look at microgames that I find on the internet. That was before I redid the whole thing and stuck to film reviews. Then depression and lack of self-confidence kicked and I haven't touched this darn thing for almost a year. So, today I decided that eh, I might try reviving this travesty again. My interests over the past year or so have gone all over the place but at some point earlier this year, I got back into finding and playing microgames and the like. It brought back some old memories of the earlier state of this excuse for a blog, both good and bad. Good that I look back on some interesting finds that accidentally stumbled upon, and bad where I essentially bullied a small, bare-bones concept that was put itch.io that I still haven't fully forgiven myself for covering. Still, I thought I'd go back to looking at microgames like I once did back a few years ago.

Who likes dogs? Trick question! Everyone likes dogs! Or at least they should! Dogs can be high maintenance at times, but you'll never find a more loyal and loving companion by your side. Until they vomit on the carpet or fart rancid corpse gas. But I digress. As much love dogs get in real life, on the internet, cats get the majority of the attention pie, from cat videos to webcomics about cats, or weird animations involving cats, like this one. Dogs tend to get the short end of the stick in comparison to cats. But then around comes a small game like Pet the Pup at the Party that gives some attention to dogs so that they aren't suffering from separation anxiety long enough to not chew up the backdoor. 

Pet the Pup at the Party is a microgame developed by Will Herring and released on the itch.io platform alongside other games he has developed. You're at a house party, but you don't want to talk to anybody. You just want to find a dog to pet. Your goal is to scour throughout the house to find and pet the puppy before time runs out. You find the puppy, more time is added to the timer. Time runs out, the game is over. Each run has randomly generated rooms to scour and a dog is bound to be in one of those rooms. You can also talk to people at the party, but who really cares? It's all about petting the puppies.

Being very much a dog person, this game speaks to me on a social level, since I'm not always that crazy about huge social gatherings, since I tend to socially burn out at them. Sometimes, I don't want to socialize with people at a social gathering and just want to have fun petting a dog. Why? Because dogs are cool and social interaction requires too much work sometimes. Besides, I'm not exactly the most social person on the planet, but I try my best at social gatherings, even if I just want to be left alone (no offense to the people around me, of course). 

Honestly, Pet the Pup at the Party is a pretty straightforward experience. It's not exactly meant to be the deepest experience; I mean it is a microgame after all. But hey, sometimes its the simplest experience that leaves a significant impact on you, as opposed to a piece of media that's trying its hardest to be socially conscious or game-changing, like an album about the state of race relations in America, like Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly or a biopic drama meant to emotionally sway you about a particular figure in history, be it successfully like in Darkest Hour, a film about Winston Churchill, or unsuccessfully like in Trumbo, a film about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood blacklist in the 1940s and 50s.

I'm not trying to say Pet the Pup at the Party is super socially conscious or game-changing in any way. I'm just saying that this game speaks to me personally in a small way. For a microgame, I do recommend giving it a shot. The game's page is linked near the top, give it a shot, and experience it for yourself. Maybe it won't say much to my more extroverted peers, but for someone who is more introverted in a world where extroversion is the name of the game, I'm happy I found a game that I was able to connect to. Give it a shot and see what it does for you.

The Prince of Egypt

Film: The Prince of Egypt
Director: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells

MPAA Rating: PG

Release Year: 1998

It's strange, that despite my Mormon upbringing, my family didn't often watch movies based on stories from the Bible. I grew up with some VHS Bible shows like "The Flying House" and "Superbook," but while the latter had an episode that dealt with the story of Moses, I didn't have a movie version to watch. Come 2018, I finally got the chance to watch The Prince of Egypt, Dreamworks' take on one of the most famous biblical stories. With praise coming from some of my online peers, I guess I had a chance that I needed to take. It's been a while, since my last review, so I hope I still have it in me to write one after such a long time.

The Prince of Egypt centers around Moses (Val Kilmer), who has been living with his adoptive Egytian royal family, after he was sent flowing down the Nile River by his mother so he would be spared from the mass killing of Hebrew children, ordered by Pharaoh (Patrick Stewart), who feared the mass increase in population would overthrow the power of the Egyptian dynasty. While he is out one night, he encounters two Hebrew slaves (Sandra Bullock and Jeff Goldblum), who tell him that they're his siblings. After seeking and finding out the truth of his origins, at the behest of his supposed siblings, and accidentally killing an Egyptian taskmaster while trying to save a slave, Moses flees from his home. After wandering the desert, settling in Midian, and assimilating into their culture, Moses encounters a burning bush which speaks to him that it is the god of the Hebrew people, and commands Moses to free the Hebrew slaves from the hands of his Egyptian brother, Rameses (Ralph Fiennes), who has now become Pharaoh.

The Prince of Egypt is certainly grand in scale, from Hans Zimmer's score accentuating the biblical scale. The opening song, "Deliver Us," really sets the tone of the film, very much akin to Disney's animated films, which, in of themselves, are musicals, and are who Dreamworks' are directly competing with. However, while all the songs in the film help with the story telling, they don't entirely match the tone, and/or are completely forgettable. "Deliver Us" overshadows the rest of the songs, for better or worse, as the others are unable to match the scale and memorability. Songs like "All I Ever Wanted" certainly help explain Moses' inner conflict, but it's just so forgettable lyrically and musically, as it feels like a song that is put in just for the sake of moving the plot forward, even with the reprise with his adoptive mother.

I did enjoy the cinematography in this film. The grand shots of Egypt helped match the epic tone the film was going for. Some of my favorite shots include when Moses is talking to his adoptive father, and in the background, the statue depicting Pharaoh is much larger in the shot, with Pharaoh "inside" the statue as Moses talks to him. A shot like this communicates Pharaoh's status in the culture of Egypt; a larger than life figure, that is god-like in stature, along with a seeming disconnect between him and his adoptive son. There's even a reprisal of the shot later on in the film, with Moses' brother, Rameses, having statue in the background that is smaller than his father's. Not to mention, Rameses is "inside" his father's statue, almost as if he is stuck in his shadow, looking to hold up his father's wishes to keep the Egyptian dynasty alive.

Speaking of Moses and Rameses, I enjoyed the tragic relationship between the two. I like the pacing of their relationship, as they go from close brothers in the beginning, to tragically strained, to utterly severed, that is almost Shakespearean in writing. However, I wish the relationship between Moses and his adoptive father was more fleshed out, as it could have made Moses' finding out of the truth much more tragic when he discusses it with Pharaoh. I also wish that more of the characters were a little more engaging. Moses' wife and biological siblings get sidelined in writing, probably to leave in more room for Pharaoh's sorcerers, who I didn't really care for, as their personality I found  distracting from the tone and weren't very menacing in their song number. Also, while the performances were pretty great from Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes as Moses and Rameses respectively, the rest of the performances overall were pretty inoffensive, with the exception of Jeff Goldblum as Aaron, who I thought was a complete miscast, as his awkward delivery and monotone voice didn't seem to mesh well with the character at all.

Since The Prince of Egypt is an animated film, it would make sense to talk about it, and wow is it spectacular. While I do feel that a lot of 2-D films in Dreamworks' catalog do tend to look too similar in style, I do find that The Prince of Egypt has a lot going for it to stick out among its studio contemporaries. Some standout examples include Moses' dream sequence, where we get a reprisal of the opening scene of the film, this time stylized in hieroglyphic imagery that is imaginatively animated along the walls and pillars of the temple. Of course the climax, where Moses parts the Red Sea is a highlight as well, with computer generated water effects looking spectacular, along with the silhouettes of sea creatures shown along the walls of water as the Hebrew people walk along the newly created path. My favorite scene however has to do with the final plague that occurs in Egypt, that wipes out the first born of the Egyptians. The wispy, ghost-like plague effect is wonderfully animated, and with no music accompanying the scene, it gives a tense atmosphere to the scene, giving a sense of terror to the power of God. If there is one nitpick I could have is that sometimes the 2-D and 3-D animation could have been meshed better together, like in the beginning where baby Moses is being sent down the Nile River.

Overall, I found The Prince of Egypt to be a very enjoyable film, with spectacular animation, good cinematography, and the relationship between Moses and Rameses to be a highlight. While the acting was good, I do think some performances could have been better executed or completely recasted, and the songs, while relevant in a musical-like film such as this, could have done more to be memorable, and utilized more than just tools to move the plot forward. I did find the ride to be enjoyable while it lasted and I felt it did the story of Moses justice on a grand scale, especially for a movie made for kids. If I have kids of my own, I do plan to show them this movie both as a film for children's entertainment, and from an artistic standpoint.

Verdict: 7/10