clyde

Share short games you enjoy that require no fee.

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I'm coming across a lot of freeware that I want to recommend, but I don't want to make a new post for each one. 

 

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I enjoyed my 15 minutes with Antbassador.

-via Warpdoor

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You should probably be explicit in your word choice here - do you specifically mean PC software that runs locally on your machine and has no paid elements whatsoever?

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You should probably be explicit in your word choice here - do you specifically mean PC software that runs locally on your machine and has no paid elements whatsoever?

 

Hmmm. You are right. I'm thinking of the games being really short too. 

Yeah, I already made a thread for browser freeware, that's why I thought I would have to make a different one. So... I don't know what to call the thread, I'm taking suggestions.

 

-Games are short

-Games do not require people to pay for them.

-They are downloads that run locally on your machine (but really, if someone wants to put a browser game here, why not?)

-You enjoyed it and want other people to know about it!

 

also, how to I change a thread-title?

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It's weird how you never see the term "freeware" used anymore. I know I only associate it with early nineties DOS games, by which I mean I associate it with Pharaoh's Tomb.

 

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Hmmm. You are right. I'm thinking of the games being really short too. 

Yeah, I already made a thread for browser freeware, that's why I thought I would have to make a different one. So... I don't know what to call the thread, I'm taking suggestions.

 

-Games are short

-Games do not require people to pay for them.

-They are downloads that run locally on your machine (but really, if someone wants to put a browser game here, why not?)

-You enjoyed it and want other people to know about it!

 

also, how to I change a thread-title?

 

Edit the original post with the full editor.

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I'm reluctant to mention this because I know nothing of PC gaming and if this has filtered through to me then I imagine you all know about this and are already rolling your eyes but Naya's Quest by Big Tel C is one of the best games I've played all year and it's a Flash thing. Imagine!

 

http://terrycavanaghgames.com/nayasquest/

 

It took me about an hour and a half and I'm amazed and pleased someone made something so lovely and clever and was so kind as to just give it away for no pence.

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I was really into the timone and pumba game you got with cereal in early 2000 

 

Oh man, Timon and Pumbaa's Jungle Games? With that Dr. Mario clone and the shitty pinball table? Yesssssss.

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I'm not sure how this is different from the Indie Megathread.

People aren't allowed to comment in that thread.

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Locamalito is one of my favourite indie developers, and I think every game he has worked on has been released for free. They are all worth playing, but I think Viriax is my favourite one.

 

You pilot a cute little virus and navigate though the human body (think innerspace) with the aim of infecting every part of it. Every time you jump or attack, you burn up energy, but it can be refilled by collecting blood cells. Levels are randomised, but you always ascend and you always fight the boss at Lvl. 80.  

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So about twelve years ago, Lego produced a very short-lived robotics line called "Spybotics" where you could build and program little remote-controlled robots and send them on missions. The website for the Spybotics line included a flash game that was, inexplicably, both virtually unrelated to the toyline and incredibly good. It was called...
 

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(click the picture to play)

 

 

The premise is that you're a hacker committing corporate espionage missions, because reasons. What makes it cool is that all of the hacking you'll be doing takes the form of a turn-based strategy game with grid-based movement, where movement is directly tied to the strength of your units. One square moved will increase your unit's size by that one square, up to a maximum that varies from unit to unit. When your unit is damaged, a square is removed from the trailing end of its body. This leads to some unique tactical exercises like deliberately making a unit as large as possible to use it to shield ranged units, or attacking a large unit from a part of its body that the attack-capable portion is too far away to reach. It's fascinating and I'm surprised nobody ever ripped the mechanics off to make a game not held back by being a web-based toyline tie-in.

 

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cat.jpg

 

I have not tried this yet, but The Cat & The Coup looks really interesting. It looks like it's a puzzle-y thing where you control a cat, and it tells the story of the 1953 Iranian revolution. (Picture and recommendation shamelessly stolen from RPS).

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I usually can't make it to the end of a Twine game that takes more than 30 minutes. I love how the gnarled humor so skillfully makes the world come alive with emotional, social, and physical cost-and-benefit relations. I can't think of a game that has more to say about our society's conception of success than this one. Very much enjoyed it. Has Tom McHenry made any other games?

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Secrets Agent by Jonathan Kittaka. Sound required. It's all about the soothing, loose voice over. Narration with character, like playing a game with a friend by your side helping to guide you through.

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I run a free games recommendation blog that is probably relevant to this thread. I'll try not to duplicate material from there here, though. So far I've tended to only post games released in the last month, but lately I keep encountering older ones I never knew of. Perhaps this can be their home?

 

To kick things off, today I found out that Patrick McHale makes games from time to time, mostly in the form of charming micro adventures where everything takes place in tiny black and white boxes. For those unfamiliar with this name, he is the former creative director of Adventure Time and the creator of Over the Garden Wall, an animated mini-series that will air in its entirety November 3rd-7th. I hope you'll watch it.

 

A couple of his games I had played before, but was unaware they were his. They were made for the Adventure Time game jam, masquerading as creations of Ice King, a character from the show. They were made with SilverCreator, an old OS X game making tool that you can get here if you have the means to try it. This tool was also used to make The King of Everything. I found this one of his most charming games, thanks in part to its simple drawings and clunky/nostalgic use of Windows prompts:

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He also has a couple of HTML-based games, Sleep Adventure and Interactive Cat. The former has a similar kind of charming clunkiness which you'll soon see in the instructions. The latter is very simple (barely a game at all, mayhaps) but pretty cool.

 

Strangethink's Art Machine is fun as shit. The physics brushes blew my mind. just going through the tutorial, I ended up making 20 or so screenshots.

 

I like your screenshots a lot, so I hope you haven't stopped using it entirely like I have. I found it fun, but too hard to remember all the commands or control certain things I wanted to. I made several misguided attempts at representational art, but they're on another computer, so I'll post them here later if at all. For now, here's the image I made when I posted it on my aforementioned site. It's one of the few I was happy with that I felt wasn't misleading about the capabilities/intent of the program (disclaimer: features a little additional palette editing):

tumblr_ncpnuvdeOZ1tybik8o1_1280.png

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