There is only one direct action to make in Chains: link three or more circles together. Though the means may be simple, the scope of Chains’ gameplay is anything but narrow; this is not a run-of-the-mill “match 3” game. Never mind the smooth, minimalist art style facilitated by vector graphics, or the haunting electro soundtrack; simply consider that each of Chains’ twenty levels presents for players a different objective and a different obstacle. Take, for example, stage 2, “The Gate” (pictured right), wherein the objective is to clear 200 bubbles before their collective weight becomes greater than the counter-weight keeping the gate below them closed. Compare that time-based level with something more relaxed like stage 7, “Gulliver”, where the objective is to clear 100 bubbles by creating 10 chains or less, and it becomes apparent that Chains offers something uniquely challenging from level to level.

This game surprised me. I first heard of Chains when I saw it added to Impulse’s library. Even though it was only $7.99, I wrongly assumed it was just an average “match 3″ game. It wasn’t until Meridian4 put their entire catalogue on sale for 50% off on Steam that I felt compelled to buy the game; I tend to feel like a sucker if there is a game available for $2.49 that I don’t throw money at, just in case it’s good. It’s ironic, then, that Chains was so good that I felt like a sucker for not buying it sooner.

While Chains is available on Impulse for $7.99, it is only $4.99 on Steam.

The Music of Chains

In this special mini-edition of Audiosurfing, I have taken a sampling from L’autre endroit, an electro album by Silence, which was used as the soundtrack for Chains. The song is called Rèalitè.

Not much more can be said without spoilers, which I’ll save for below, so give this game a play first by downloading the trial through Steam or, for Mac users, from this link. The entire game can be played in the trial, though $5 unlocks one feature. Think of it as a donation.

Personal Notes (Spoilers)

As for my thoughts… I like it. I hadn’t heard of it before, but The Graveyard was apparently met with high praise from critics after its release in 2008. I came to it when it was added to Steam a few days ago.

But the game is neat. I was impressed with its presentation; the sound effects and lighting do very well to set the mood straight away. Having time to empathize with the hobbling old lady before she even sits down was impactful. The song is wonderful, I only wish that it were available separate from the game.

I did buy the full version of The Graveyard. I wanted to see what death was like, which is the only difference from the trial. Apparently it can happen at random times, though I would imagine you always make it to the bench and sit down. I am not sure as I have only played the full version once. She died shortly after sitting down, right before the lyrics in the song began. The game took on a whole new meaning at that point. So for that reason, if you’re still interested after playing the trial, I would recommend dropping $5 on The Graveyard.

A postmortem of The Graveyard is available at the Tale of Tales blog. Everything that went in to creating the game, from day one of the concept, to funding, to post-release sales and site traffic data is detailed.

If you’ve never used the Impulse service before, it’s very similar to Steam. You can browse and purchase games as well as download demos either from their website or from within the Impulse client. Games you own show up within the client and can be downloaded there. One key difference from Steam is that the Impulse client does not need to be running in order to play your games; there isn’t even a background process for authentication. Pricing, game selection and community features leave a bit to be desired when compared to Steam, but it’s still a fine place to purchase games when the price is right.

To make some sense out of the second half of the title, I also wanted to bring up a relevant item from Edmund McMillen, creator of Gish. This is a Cry for Help is a CD collection of ten years worth of Edmund’s work as an independent artist. The CD includes 17 games (including Gish), 15 comics and a ton of extras including artwork and animations. While some games – such as Cunt – are flash games which can be played for free through a browser, I felt the collection was worth purchasing not only for the sake of convenience, but to support the creator as well. If you’re thinking of buying Gish anyway, I suggest getting this CD instead as Gish is included and it will only cost you $10 plus shipping.

You’ll forgive me if I refer to Geometry Wars more than a few times. It’s just the most convenient point of reference that I have on hand. Anyway, in Everyday Shooter, like in Geometry Wars you will be navigating your way through a 2D board while avoiding shapes of all colors, shapes and sizes that are swarming around and toward you. Unlike in Geometry Wars, however, your objective is not to destroy as many enemies as possible, as quickly as possible. Rather, you’ll be attempting to set off a chain of explosions that will take out as many enemies as you can. By creating chains you will cause your fallen enemies to “drop” you points that you’ll then have to pick up manually. Bigger chains will net you larger point rewards, so take your time on setting them off.

Every time you destroy an enemy a note, a riff is played. This gives you the feeling that you’re contributing to the overall song. If you’ve ever played Rez on PS2 or Xbox Live Arcade (another Q Entertainment game!) you’re familiar with this concept. You even distort the music in fancy ways when you die; it sounds good! Each level you play presents a different method of setting off chain explosions, so most of the time you’ll be forced to mow through enemies that stand between you and your catalyst. So don’t let me dissuade you from shooting everything in sight; this can be equally if not more rewarding, and you’ll still earn a bunch of points by accident.

Perhaps my absolute favorite aspect of Everyday Shooter (besides the music, of course) is that it’s a Shmup that actually rewards you for the points you earn. With your first 200 points you’ll earn an extra life. After that, you’ll have to double your points for each additional life. Point rewards are more abundant as the level progresses as well as from level to level, though, so you never have too much of a wait between carrots. Points don’t stop being useful once you’re outside of a game, though. Everyday Shooter also has a rather sizable unlocks menu in which you can spend accrued points to increase the amount of lives you start with, or even extra levels. There are also some fun looking unlocks that I don’t understand yet; I have been unlocking extra lives as much as possible because each time you hit Game Over, you have to start from the first level again. This is my only small quibble with the game, but you quickly get over it because the earlier levels can be passed with increasing ease as you familiarize yourself with them. No big.

Everyday Shooter is, I believe, available exclusively on Steam for $9.99. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, but I’ll update this post if I do. There is also no demo available yet, but I hope that this write-up was enough to convince you that this game deserves to have money thrown at it.

Synaesthete, at first glance, looks far more complicated to play than it actually is. It follows familiar principles that we have come to know in the mainstream rhythm games; watch for “notes” to descend to a certain point, typically denoted by a button, and then hit the corresponding button at the appropriate time. Missing a note in Guitar Hero, for example, will cause your music to skip and it won’t pick up again until you’ve gotten yourself back on track. In Synaesthete, however, missing a note does nothing to disrupt the flow of the music.

In Synaesthete you control an avatar called the Zaikman. The objective is to navigate the Zaikman through a series of rooms. Enemies spawn in these rooms, and Zaikman will be locked inside until he defeats the enemies. You help the Zaikman accomplish this by hitting “notes” successfully; this will fire energy beams at enemies based on his proximity to them. The Zaikman can be damaged and his health is indicated by a meter that is located just below your “note bar”. You don’t have to hit every note, but since the notes are your weapons, you don’t want to miss too many.

Synaesthete is available from a number of sources for free, including but not limited to the students’ official page at Digipen and the DoSu mirror.

The game is called Gish. Like De Blob, it has you rolling, jumping, sticking, swinging, squeezing and stomping around as an amorphous pile of goo. I think that it can fittingly be described as a physics-based puzzle game.

Gish, being the amorphous pile of goo that he is, has many forms that he can take on. In his normal form, he is a perfectly malleable pile of goo that can get around just fine on flat surfaces and minor inclines, and can also roll over most small obstacles. It’s when the more unique obstacles get in his way that he needs to do a little morphing. Want to make a steep ascent? Go into prickly sticky mode, get some momentum and you can crawl up walls, swing from ropes, even walk on the ceiling. If you need to fit into a tight spot or float to the top of some water, you can become super-liquified and, in turn, less dense, to accomplish these feats. You can also increase your density to increase your movement speed, topple down obstacles like breakable walls, sink to the bottom of a pool or even destroy some enemies.

You can read more about Gish as well as get ahold of a free demo at the developer’s website. It is only $10 if you purchase it through Steam.