Following Freeware - December 2016/January 2017 releases page 2
Even with two months in one, our latest round-up is a light one. But no less intriguing, as you can travel through a second back door into a strange science-fiction world, or find horror lurking just next door to you. Alternatively, you can stay up all night trying to concoct a coffee substitute, or message your way through a game inspired by a classic text adventure but played using a modern social tool. All these await you in this short but sweet collection of releases from the freeware scene.
Willem’s December Winners
A Place in the Sun
Perhaps you know a workaholic, people for whom a job is the most important thing in their lives and who do nothing but work, all day long. They don't see their children grow up and don't have friends because all they do is busy themselves. The nameless protagonist of Tor Brandt's A Place in the Sun is one of those people. We meet him when it's late in the evening and he is working on an assignment that has to be finished by tomorrow. He is very tired and needs coffee, but in the kitchen he discovers that he is all out of the stuff. And so he decides to make himself some replacement coffee.
A Place in the Sun is shown in third-person view. The game world, comprising a few rooms of a house and a bit of the street outside, is presented in very simple, clear pixel art in subdued colors, predominantly turquoise. The protagonist looks terrible: sleep deprivation has made his eyes small and wrinkly, and he walks with a slow gait. There is no voice acting, with all spoken text displayed on the screen, but during gameplay a gentle, sad tune is played. The drawings, music and dreary palette, together with the way the man acts and reacts to the things happening around him, make the atmosphere very depressing.
The protagonist walks where you click, and the interface is a bit like the old LucasArts games, with the verbs ‘pick up’, ‘look’ and ‘use’ appearing on buttons in the lower left part of the screen. Left-clicking an object makes the man perform the action indicated by the highlighted verb; right-clicking it provides a description of the item. The inventory is also displayed at the bottom of the screen. Making a coffee alternative is not easy: there are no coffee grounds or filters, and there are more problems to overcome on this quest. All puzzles are inventory-based and logical, but they do need some thinking and close observation to be solved. The ending of the game is predictable but poignant. It's a pity that the people this protagonist represents will never play this game. They could learn a thing or two from it.
A Place in the Sun can be downloaded from the AGS website.
BackDoor: Door 2 - The Job
The first BackDoor game by solarVagrant was released in 2013, in which a young man found himself falling in a dream and somehow ended up in a small room from which he had to escape. After finding a way out of the room, he was guided through a strange complex by a voice from a telephone. Door 2 - The Job also starts with the young man falling. This time he winds up in an underground world built by robots that were fed up with the terrible things humans were doing to each other. However, not all is nice in this world either. The voice on the telephone says to look for a man with instructions on what to do next; you even get a picture to identify him. But finding this guy requires fixing machinery, fetching things for a very human-looking robot, opening a locked gate and more.
Like its predecessor, the second BackDoor game is presented in a third-person, RPG-like bird's eye view. The environment is shown in fairly simple, low resolution pixel art in shades of grey with splashes of muted color here and there. During your quest you will visit a bar, a shop, some factories, the town streets and a park, with a cheerful tune playing throughout. In lieu of voice acting, spoken text is displayed in a black bar near the bottom of the screen, accompanied by an animated portrait of the speaker.
The game is played using the keyboard, with a handy guide showing which keys do what when hovering the mouse cursor over a small icon in the top right of the screen. The puzzles are inventory-based and often take quite a bit of work to solve. They are not very hard, but you will spend a lot of time finding and getting the items you need. The Job is full of details that don't have much to do with the problems you face, but they do enrich the environment and help give you a sense of 'being there.' Although some not-so-nice things happen along the way, the overall atmosphere is positive and you will encounter quite a few jokes whilst playing. The game doesn't auto-save but there is a single save slot so you don't have to finish in one sitting.
BackDoor: Door 2 - The Job can be played online at Kongregate.
Steve’s January Selections
From Next Door
For Namie Matsuda, the house represented a new start. Having been given time off from her stressful programming job, she decided she needed to move. The house is small but pleasant, and the neighbours seem nice. Well, the neighbours on one side at least. On the other side is a structure unlike any of the others on the street, devoid of any features beyond the front door, not even a single window. As Namie settles into her new home, more oddities come to light. The previous occupant left a lot of things behind, and a room upstairs is inexplicably locked. Has she found a dream home, or is there a nightmare lurking close at hand?
From Next Door, by SpaceZeta, is a horror story with a slow burn. The graphics use an isometric roleplaying style, with small characters and locations divided into a grid pattern. Whilst a small section of the street is displayed, most of the action takes place inside Namie’s house, with limited furniture and stacked boxes throughout. This is supplemented by a handful of first-person views, appearing in cutscenes or when examining certain items. Detailed portraits of the characters appear during dialogues, which are presented in a more realistic manner and include some limited animation. The graphics are entirely monochrome in various shades of olive green, fitting the dark nature of the tale. Music is limited to a slow, quietly echoing tune that further adds to the atmosphere. There are also a handful of sound effects, most notably a set of plodding, heavy footsteps.
This is a game that relies more on psychological horror than blatant scares. The arrow keys are used to move and space to interact with whatever hotspot the protagonist is facing. The action is spread over several days, though the time passes quite quickly. In the first couple of days, life is fairly mundane. You explore the house, meet your neighbour and speak to your agent about the locked room. As time moves on, strange things start to happen, and contact with the previous resident exacerbates your fears. You will need to find a hidden safe and its associated combination, and collect a small amount of inventory which you will use automatically. Near the end there are a couple of occasions when you need to move quickly, the shift key causing Namie to run. Failure in these sections will lead to a game-over, though your flight does not have to be perfectly controlled to survive. There are three possible endings available, and which you get is largely determined by how well you prepare before taking an action that is clearly intended to resolve the mystery once and for all.
From Next Door can be downloaded from the RPG Maker website.
A Messenger Adventure
Your quest for glory has brought you to a remote forest. Rumour has it that a fabulous treasure lies hidden in this nondescript location, but the task ahead of you may be a dangerous one. Strange creatures inhabit these woods, and the dark passages in the caverns below form a maze that has proved impenetrable so far. Will your efforts lead you to triumph where all others have failed, or will this prove to be your last resting place?
As implied by its title, Kilian’s A Messenger Adventure is played entirely through Facebook Messenger. You start the game by sending a message to the account, which will produce the description of the opening location. The game then progresses by sending messages back, stating your next moves. These can either be typed by hand, or selected from a series of buttons appearing at the bottom of each response. The list of buttons can be scrolled left and right when there are too many available actions to fit in the Messenger window. The replies are automated, producing a near-instant response to your selection.
In order to succeed, you will have to navigate a maze with a limited number of turns before your torchlight gives out, and negotiate with creatures that are not all as fierce as they first appear. A handful of objects are also put to good use, though not always for their most obvious purpose. It would appear that the game is inspired by Infocom’s classic text adventure Zork, with references throughout including the infamous lurker in the dark, the grue.
A Messenger Adventure can be played by sending a message to the game's Facebook account.
Other new releases
Not all games are created equal, and freeware games especially come in all shapes and sizes. Not to be overlooked, the following list might also be of interest, though these games may be significantly shorter or less polished, more experimental titles than those detailed above, some perhaps only borderline adventures to begin with.
Crazy Christmas by Carmel Games – Better late than never, help Crazy Dad get his eggnog in this holiday-themed adventure.
Pickman's Model by New Focus Games – Play as the narrator in this semi-interactive adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short horror story.
The Cell by Thanyx – Kidnapped by a psychopath, can you find a way out of the cell, or will you go as mad as those who were abducted before you?
Hyde and Seek by slasher – A man unhappy with how his parents view him resolves to concoct a potion to change his appearance.
That’s it for this month. Think we’ve missed a gem or want to tell us about your own game? Then pop in to our Adventure forum and tell us about it!
Article written by Stephen Brown and Willem Tjerkstra.
