MoBu: The VERY Hungry Ape Trailer

     Panteon Games has released a game trailer for the upcoming hungry ape game, MoBu.

     "Meet MoBu, the laziest ape in the jungle, who has the appetite of 5 elephants. One day MoBu meets whimsical voodoo magician MaGu, who lends MoBu a supernatural power that allows him to infinitely extend his arms. 

     However, if MoBu wants to satisfy his hunger now, he has to eat bananas… 

     A lot of bananas." 

     The game is described as "an action-packed simple platformer game with fun mechanics... instead of running or flying, MoBu juggles his lengthy arms to race against his hunger."  Though, the trailer above appears not to be a platformer at all, but a kind of endless swinger where players must avoid the toxic dangers below and all manner of various obstacles in the path to a banana-filled belly.

     The art style and animation look wonderful.  The designs are clean and cute, combines with simple and entertaining sound effects, this could be a great time-eater game.

     MoBu will have 3 different environments with 60 levels of banana-hunting goodness.  The game also features the nice touch of allowing players to upload their play through Everyplay videos, and share via Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.

     This looks like a great way to waste a day or two with when it hits Android in September.

Sploot: The Gift of a Seagull with IBS...

     Poop.  Just saying it brings the smile of my inner 5 year old to my face.  Now, with the future of 3D gaming's potential so close on the horizon, it has already struck comedic gold with Sploot.

     Sploot is a free-to-play first person flight simulator game where players inhabit the body of a poor seagull with uncontrollable bowels.  The goal is to keep the splattery projectiles focused on people, buildings, and all the rest of their expensive shiny objects.  Players must try to score points during within the time limit given, both avoiding dangerous obstacles, and eating bread to continue their unstoppable excremental assault.

     It is worth noting that the game was originally made specifically for the Oculus Rift's 3D capabilites, but it isn't required for play.  Sploot is still perfectly playable on both Mac and PC with good old mouse-and-keyboard.

     Nothing screams "a majestic experience" quite as much as watching a bird soaring beautifully on the wind... and then seeing it launch a payload of fecal armament on unsuspecting humans below.

     Players can now feel the exhilarating rush of being that majestic pooping bird.

     Sploot is simple, silly fun bringing bird poo to a bright and colorful 3D world.

     Source [ Sploot ]

Ennuigi: Super Melancholic Bros.: Luigi Living in Mario's Shadow

     In Ennuigi, players explore the ontological background behind the Super Mario Bros.' tragic and destructive path through the once glorious Mushroom Kingdom with Luigi.  Chain-smoking and contemplating the decisions his reckless brother Mario led him to, Luigi seeks meaning among the ruins.  Players can only walk, smoke, and ruminate here, but then, what more could one want?

Was it darkness, or just the shadow of my brother?

     He ponders about what is left in this bleak and haunted world.  Plumbing the depths of meaning and perspective behind his past actions, Luigi reflects upon things like what wonders might this broken land have once held.

     Angst and existentialism are abundant in this look inside the mind of the oft-forgotten brother.  Profound insights and a sardonic view of one of the most beloved franchises, makes us reconsider how many innocent lives were destroyed by two plumbers in a foreign world, and for what real reason, leaving Luigi merely the regretful koopa shell of a man.

Another castle.  Always another castle.

     The official synopsis for the game reads, "Spend some time with a depressed, laconic Luigi as he chain smokes and wanders through a crumbling Mushroom Kingdom, ruminating on ontology, ethics, family, identity, and the mistakes he and his brother have made."

     Game maker Josh Millard goes on to describe what prompted this beautiful little game:

     "This is a shot at a collection of ideas I had a few years ago, about looking critically at the universe of Super Mario Bros. in light of the total lack of explicit narrative in the original game in particular.  Who are these strange men?  What motivates them?  By what right do they wreak the havoc they do on this strange place?  What do they feel about where they are and what they're doing? 

     And so, this is one lens through which to look at all that, with Luigi, the second brother, the also-ran, as a complicit onlooker, wandering now through some fractured, rotting liminal place in this strange world, reflecting on it all in scattered fragments."

     The feel of meandering the desolate kingdom as the despondent, green-clad Mario brother perfectly captures the over-dramatic tortured soul ideology of a teenager delving into the pointlessness of life and, subsequently, life's apparent cruelty.

     The joy this small game gives me is great.  It gives me pause and makes me consider the consequences, the justifications, and the superficiality of the things we help our characters do.  What awful things have we wrought, who have we killed, and the greatest question of them all- why?

     Experience the ennui here [ lexaloffle Games ]

Alphabear: Short Review: Spelling, Word Play, and Unintentional Hilarity

     The Road Not Taken develpoer Spry Fox's newest game, Alphabear, is deceptively simple, hilarious, and utterly enchanting.  The game takes on a familiar old spelling game with a few interesting additions in the form of bears and a puzzle element.  It is a free to play, on both iOS and Android, but has a $4.99 IAP to unlock unlimited honey (the currency to play each normal level).

           

     The gist of the game is to make a bear(s) expand as much as possible to multiply and increase your score.  Each level has 2 goals, one nets you a bear, and the higher goal unlocks a rarer bear with better abilities.  To reach the goals you need to use as many letters as possible, before their dual score/timer number depletes and that particular letter tile turns to stone and blocks off expansion.  Each letter has a predetermined number of chances for use and the faster you can use it the higher its score value will remain.  Players can do this in either mode of play choosing normal mode, allotting as much time as you need to clear the board, or a timed mode, which has a limit on the length of game stressing speed.

     To help along the way are a series of bears players can unlock.  Players can choose any of their bears (up to 3 per level), unless it is in a cooldown sleep from use, to add that bear's particular skills to the mode adding to the score bonus.  Some bears add extra time to the timed levels, some give more of a specific letter, and some give bonuses to words of a certain length.
     Each themed chapter has numerous levels each with their own goals and each also having a higher chance of unlocking a potential themed bear with its own special bonuses.  As players get much further into the game the difficulty in strategy really ramps up.  There comes times when you almost have to sacrifice some letters to progress.  I had a level with 6 letters and 4 were Zs, making things extremely tough.

     What sets this game apart from other spelling games is the social media element.  Whenever you unlock a new bear (or an upgrade to one already owned) the game gives you a bear taking a selfie.  On that selfie is a Mad Libs type of statement made with words you used in the level, often times leading to very dirty sounding amusement.  (See Screencaps Below)

     Alphabear is somehow a magical blend of adorable, addictive, and accidental indecency, and is definitely worth the time to play.  Anyone that likes Scrabble should give this game a go.