Well, basically it is a standard shooting game with a static player character that can buy upgrades and with enemies that are getting stronger each level to raise the challenge. But that static player character is a heart, and it is your task to keep it going, to blow the blues away. And also the mean reds, as in “Hold Off Red“.

In The Marionette by auriond, you play Martin, a sculptor, who is not all too you or aspiring anymore, and who matches the above description pretty well. Focused on nothing but his work, alienated from the outside world, proud. These character traits can serve you well if you are on your own, but if someone else gets in the way, somebody will get hurt.

Your task in The Marionette is to learn. You are sent on a symbol-heavy and surreal journey through the past of the one person that already got hurt – now it is up to you, do you want to make things worse, do you want to save what’s left to save? Do you want to change?

Dacke, creator of Conway’s Game of Bigotry, has built up a coherent story and theory framework around this brilliant idea, thrown it into a blender with Pong and Siege game mechanics and created a two player hot seat game in which you try to come out on top against another human being controlling cell evolution and firing cell patterns towards their health bars.

It is regrettable that it has come to this, but it has to be done!
In the name of everything that is [INSERT_YOUR_COLOUR]!

The gameplay is not very easy to figure out, but once you have learned your six action buttons by heart and started to get a grasp of Conway’s life mechanics, incredibly complex battles to the apoptosis will ensue.

The first reaction by many was: This guy can’t draw, and he can’t spell. Ergo, this must be an attempt to waste my time. The more perceptive people decided that although he can neither draw or spell, he is a kid from Norway who loves to draw Disney characters, and even though it all went terribly wrong, you should not blame the fella for chasing that star and following his dream.

And then there were some who felt that this game, these two adventure games, were something very big and important, and although they could not really grasp what it was, they knew that they were probably about to witness their Disney socialization being decomposed and put back together, and they saw it was right.

Bjørnar B’s broken Duckburg has its own set of rules, and they all seem like little twists of the formalized Disney original. Fat uncle Jubalon enjoys his carbonated beverages by the dozen and thinks little of healthy porridge (which helped D. Duck win the Duckburg marathon, after all!). The nephews, going by names as varied as Ooie, Huie, Loouie or Dewi, listen to their degenerated modern C64 music. D. Duck’s arch nemesis is a crocodile called “Charls”.

In any case, it is up to the player in which way he wants to understand Bjørnar’s games and his whole universe. It could be criticism of the commercialisation and sell-out of “family values” by Disney. It could also be food for thought for those of us who have grown up with mainstream comic books and remember all the valuable lessons about education, friendship, love and money. But Life of D. Duck could also just be a set of characters thrown into a blender with marvellous doodle graphics, lovingly hand-crafted animations, brilliant and consistent storytelling and puzzles that can definitely compete with the genre classics. For those of you who don’t want it to be anything else.

Kian Bashiri has turned an awkward situation into a win-win-situation. Go for the high score by avoiding misconduct in your local metro, Virtua Cop style! Do not create social interference at any cost. Look at phones, mp3 players, ties, to increase your score, but do not ever look into the eyes of the pretty cut-out passengers. Also, you don’t have to burn the rope this time.

The story outline: An association of environmental activists, calling themselves THOC (”The Heat Of Change”), invites the leaders of the G7 countries (with Russia left out!) to a conference where they should discuss the global warming issue. Once those seven gentlemen get there, THOC pump sleeping gas into the conference room, kidnap all seven of them and put them on a steadily melting ice floe in the arctic, equipped with nothing but some bags of salt that came with their last meal, to battle it out – because they are all held responsible for this very melting ice floe that could now be the end of them! The one to survive this battle to the freeze will then be in charge of the fight against global warming, assuming he has learned his lesson.

Definitely pioneering work in the field of constructivist eco-propaganda games, and at the same time a hot-seat battle for up to seven leaders of the world!

Well, Jazzuo is a guy who is obviously taking seafood cooking classes in Japan and dressing up as a yellow ninja. Now, imagine Sexy Hiking to be the creative outcry of a sensitive soul, caught between seafood and ninja masquerade. You are exposed to a world of wrongness and pain, and despite the salacious name of the game you are chastely equipped with nothing but a 3D hammer, 3D boots and your ability to glitch gravity. The author does little to help or guide you on your quest:

use the humer as if u were really climbing something and ull see

to hang on rope u have to have the left mouse button pressed!

Now all there is left for you is to hike, hike with your hammer, hike over trees, stone walls, waterfalls, and all the while be careful not to violate the boundaries of this hiking universe: The floor is not always what it seems, and the set of rules to be used against you can be stretched ultimately.

To hike all over to my introduction – again: Lots of people have already praised the surrealist potential of this game, while others still fail to see it. In my opinion, if I were to name a single game that is honestly kafkaesque in its game mechanics, graphical presentation and general feel, oppressive in its set of rules, yet still giving the player a deceptive feeling of control, it would have to be Sexy Hiking.