Fabulous flash game alert: /Escape\

I did a lot of fun things this past weekend: I baked, played tennis, read a bit of Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and wrote a number of posts for this blog.

I also spent (some would say wasted) a good chunk of time playing /ESCAPE\, a Flash game that was created--in 72 hours, no less--by Ian Brock (graphics), Josh Schonstal (programming) and Guerin McMurry (music) for Ludum Dare 21 and that's now playable at kongregate.com.

For those of you who need to know a bit of information about a game, even free ones like /ESCAPE\, before giving it a go: It's a score-attack title that tasks players with wall-jumping again and again and again in an attempt to avoid being impaled by spikes and singed by an ever-advancing laser beam.

One of the best parts of /ESCAPE\, in my opinion: It requires the use of just one keyboard button. (What can I say? I'm lazy.)

Oh, and in case any of your are curious: My high score so far is 258.

Fabulous flash game alert: Fat Wizard

I'm sure I've said this before, but just in case I haven't: I rarely play games on either of our computers. For a number of reasons that I won't go into here, I prefer to play games on the good ol' boob tube while sitting on our oh-so-comfy couch.

That said, every once in a while a computer game--usually of the online variety--catches my attention to an extent that I break down and give it a go. A few past examples: Haunt the House, Robot Unicorn Attack, Treadmillasaurus Rex and Winterbells.

Well, today I'm adding another game to that list: Fat Wizard.



If I were forced to describe it in as few words as possible, I'd say this Adult Swim title is a real-time tower defense game.

Basically, players step into the shoes of the titular wizard and help him fend off advancing hordes of baddies--birds, pigs, snakes and more--who have their beady little eyes on the pudgy protagonist's precious dragon egg.

As for how you keep those baddies at bay: Left-clicking on or near an enemy sends a fireball in its general direction, left-clicking and then drawing a line creates a stationary lightning bolt that stops most creatures in their tracks (i.e., it fries them to a crisp), and clicking and holding the left mouse button for a few seconds causes a field of icicles to pop up from the ground and impale any and all on-coming adversaries.

As is usually the case with such games, things begin at a rather leisurely pace but quickly pick up speed. Don't let that warning keep you from checking out Fat Wizard, though; even if you're like me and you tend to check out around the time the action becomes a bit too frantic, you're still sure to have a grand ol' good time with this comically cute game.

Play: Fat Wizard

Ten questions with auntie pixelante (or, why the woman behind Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars wants you to have a 'big fat orgasm')

Shortly after her latest, greatest--in my opinion, at least--creation, Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars, hit the 'net, Anna Anthropy (aka auntie pixelante) agreed to answer a few questions about what prompted her to make this turned-on-its-ear Wizard of Wor clone, why she had to censor it and how she feels about the LGBT media's "dismissive" response to it.

The Gay Gamer: You wrote on your site that you've been thinking about this game for four years (after Owen Grieve and his students gave you the name). What prompted you to finally create a game around that name? Did it come to you in the middle of a marathon session of Wizard of Wor?

Anna Anthropy: I was really focused on Wizard of Wor for a while, yes. I've always been impressed by how conscious the designers seemed to be of tension and pacing, between the speeding up of the maze, the radar-only invisible monsters, the high-stress worluk encounter at the end of each dungeon, and the surprise confrontations with the wizard himself. I like to use my games to get people to investigate older works that i want more people to play, like Bomb Jack with Mighty Jill Off and Monuments of Mars with REDDER.

GG: My first reaction upon playing Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars was along the lines of, "Man, this would have been perfect alongside the games at my childhood bowling alley/arcade." It gives me a vibe--in terms of sound and graphics and even gameplay--similar to the one I get/got from games like Robotron and Sinistar. Is that the kind of reaction you were shooting for?

AA: I've always admired the sort of design decisions that the arcade format promotes: Games need to be fast, to teach the player the rules as quickly as possible, to communicate everything that happens in the game clearly. These games from 1980s arcades--particularly Vid Kidz and Midway games--informed a lot of my ideas on game design, and I wanted for a long time to make a game that I could place side-by-side with them.

GG: I really like the one-handed nature of the game. Why did you decide to go that route--by eschewing the shoot button?

AA: Because it was an extra button I didn't think I needed. I felt like I could fit the player's entire vocabulary into the buttons she uses to move the protagonist. Relegating some of the most important actions to a secondary function is distance I thought the game didn't need. And I think it does a lot to characterize the spider-queen: She's powerful enough that just a glance at a woman is enough to ensnare her. So much of the game followed from that decision.

A somewhat gay review of Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars

My first thought upon playing auntie pixelante's latest creation--a twitchy, throwback of a game called Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars--was that it could confidently and comfortably sit alongside such classic quartermunchers as Robotron and Sinistar.

Of course, pixelante was inspired by Midway's Wizard of Wor while creating Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars--she even goes so far as to call the latter a "reinvention" of the former in a recent blog post--so it's likely she expected or at least hoped for such a reaction.

Regardless, her creation is a more-than-reasonable reproduction of those stress-filled games so many of us relished as kids. Calling Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars a simple facsimile of its predecessors, though, does both it and pixelante a disservice.

Sure, Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars looks and sounds a lot like the aforementioned games that inspired it--what with its sparse backdrops and pixelated baddies (who the titular protagonist taunts with appropriately lo-fi barbs like "I'm not finished yet!" and "Kneel before your queen!")--but it blazes a few trails, too.

Case in point: Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars, like many of today's Flash-based games, is a one-handed affair. The titular Spider-Queen's "bondage ray" is always on, so all gamers have to do is aim said ray at one of her highness' escaped slaves in order to wrap them up and rope them in.

If you think that might sap the game of the tension that's typical of the genre, think again. Even without a shoot button there's plenty to stress out about while playing Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars--especially when the attackable-only-from-certain-angles Armors, fiery Alchemists and slippery Assassins (all of whom are topless, by the way) start to fill the screen.

Thankfully, the tension never ratchets up so high that the game becomes unenjoyable or unplayable. Oh, you'll die--a lot, especially on the later boards--but if you're anything like me you'll have a blast right up until your last breath.  

Play: Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars

'Only for Nintendo, old sport!'

Gaming fans who also are fans of the "Great American Novel" should be happy to hear that some enterprising--and talented--individual has created a NES-esque game based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

An example of the developer's enterprising nature: Not only did he or she create an 8-bit retelling of the aforementioned novel, but he/she also created a prototype cart, an instruction manual and a magazine ad (below) for the unreleased (not really) title.



Although the game--which, despite appearances, wasn't actually developed to NES specifications--is a bit easy and also on the short side, with just four levels, it's well worth experiencing--even if you're not a fan of the source material. (Play it here.)