This month you can play a dead cyborg or an undead cheerleader. If you fancy a bit of stealth you can sneak into a research institute to rescue your stolen cat or become an inept thief breaking into a museum to steal a diamond. Science fiction adventures range from the down-to-earth tale of a young reporter starting out in a futuristic city to the outer space perils of a luxury space-liner controlled by an insane computer. Finally, you can look back on the past with an introductory instalment to a new series. All these await you in this month’s roundup of freeware releases.
Chance of the Dead
When the dying have left things undone, it is the responsibility of the Unfinished Business Departedment to give them a chance to put things right. Normally that opportunity is given in the final moments of their clients’ lives, with all details handled by the departedment’s operatives. In the case of Janet Burdie, some lost paperwork resulted in something of a delay. Called up from her grave five years after her demise, Janet is offered the rare opportunity of a second chance to clear up her unfinished business herself. All she has to do is ensure her Triple Layered Coffee Cloud Cake comes to the attention of the leading judge in the Campus Cake Competition, guaranteeing her the first prize she always wanted. But as zombie cheerleader Janet sets out on her quest, she may find that it is not just she who has a second chance at stake.
As may be gathered from the story, the zombie protagonist does not make this a horror game; its humour quickly coming to the fore. But there is also a more serious story, with Janet having the chance to set right something that went wrong after she died. In the short space of the game, both stories are brought to a satisfying conclusion. In your quest for culinary excellence, you will use your own bones in unusual ways and have to deal with a strange appliance support line. Control is point-and-click, using a small verb list including the zombie-specific “Bite” action. Most puzzles revolve around inventory, though there is also a clever riddle based around someone else’s secret recipe. For the more culinary gamer, the game files also include the cake recipe for those wishing to emulate our departed heroine in real life.
Chance of the Dead can be downloaded from the AGS website.
Stealing the Diamond
Henry Stickmin has not had the most successful of criminal careers. His attempts to rob a bank met with repeated, painful failures. His subsequent attempts to escape from prison met with similarly uncomfortable consequences. With such a woeful history, you would expect him to put his nefarious past behind him. However, when a large Tunisian diamond is exhibited at the local museum, Henry proves he isn’t the sort of stickman to let his unfortunate past put him off. The time has come for more hair-brained schemes, unreliable gadgetry and terrible consequences, as Henry once again tries to pull off the heist of the century.
Whilst there are three ways to win, what makes this game a real joy are the forty hilariously unique ways of losing. Equipment malfunctions, or on occasion works too well, and many of the available actions have disaster written all over them. Whenever you fail, you get the option of reconsidering your last action, stepping back to the sequence before, or simply starting over. As a result, any replays of particular sections should simply arise from the player wishing to view a particular section again. Depending on the approach you take, some actions require moderately quick decisions, but the retry system should allow most players to get past these. Control is mostly point-and-click, with keyboard used on a couple of occasions. Whilst the game features some references to the previous episodes, playing them is not needed to enjoy this one.
Stealing the Diamond can be played online at Stickpage.
Dead Cyborg: Episode 1 – The Beginning of the Death
In a run-down military base, you wake up in a cryotank. The tanks around you are broken-looking and empty, and the rest of the base doesn’t look like it has fared any better. Logs and computer warnings indicate a terrible exchange of weaponry has occurred and the base is flooded with radiation. As you desperately search the corridors for help or medication, you find decay and destruction everywhere. What happened here and exactly how were you involved in it?
The keyboard is used for movement, while the mouse is used to look around and interact with the environment. Whilst those who suffer from motion sickness would be well advised to avoid this game, others will find this episode to be an impressive debut. The grim science fiction setting is well realised with a huge amount of detail. This detail can work against the player, as vital objects can be hidden away in corners, though there are clues to the locations of smaller objects. A small inventory is put to good use, but interacting with the environment whenever possible is also highly important. Even when you can’t immediately proceed, interaction will often serve to give you a clue or fill in backstory. As well as the green log cubes scattered around the base, there are also bar codes on the walls which contain robotic messages, providing a mechanical perspective on the situation. This episode is split over four levels, with passwords provided at the beginning of each level acting as a save system.
Dead Cyborg can be downloaded from the developer’s website. The game can also be played online with the Blender plugin, downloadable from the same page if required.
The Returning of the Quantum Cat
Over a decade ago, you were a highly regarded hacker. But you quit that life, turned your back on technology and settled down to be the warden of a remote forest. Now, with only your cat Barsik for company, you patrol this snow-filled waste, keeping an eye out for poachers. Then, on a routine trip to the local store with your feline friend, a mysterious man kidnaps Barsik. Tracking him to a nearby scientific research institute, you determine to use some of the more physical skills you picked up in your hacking career to break in and rescue your furry companion.
For those brought up with text adventures, the presentation – if not the interface – will feel very familiar. Whilst your character will refuse to take actions that would lead to your death, the feeling is that the institute is an extremely unsafe place for you to be. The puzzles will also feel familiar for text alumni, with timing puzzles involving making a certain number of actions and some repeated sequences of movements. As this game was not originally written in English, there are occasional odd phrasings, but none are severe enough to make the meaning unintelligible. The refined interface removes the word-guessing problems that plague some text games, but you will still need to use your brain. Simply clicking on each link in turn will not be enough to advance in most cases.
The Returning of the Quantum Cat can be played online at Kongregate.
Last Flight of the Starship Hindenburg
The spacebound cruise ship Hindenburg has fallen victim to some unknown calamity. There is no response on any channel and the ship’s high-velocity course is aiming it directly at Earth. As the nearest representative of the interstellar “Coast Guard”, you are despatched to find out what went wrong, but an accident while boarding leaves you stuck on the runaway craft. When you find that a deranged AI is in control, intent on crashing into Earth, can you save the ship and yourself from disaster?
This darkly humourous game is described as a cross between Starship Titanic and System Shock, and the influence of both games can be felt here. The insane AI is very similar in attitude to SHODAN, though she seems happy to keep the player around to have a human witness to her plans. Meanwhile, the luxury space-liner setting is highly reminiscent of Starship Titanic, right down to the unhelpful robot staff. The tone and difficulty of the puzzles also feel like they have been influenced by Starship Titanic, including the need to upgrade your status to access higher class areas. Despite these similarities, the puzzles themselves feel unique, using dialogue, inventory and environmental interaction, as well as code solving to progress. Control is point-and-click, as holding left-click brings up action choices and right-clicks access the inventory.
Last Flight of the Starship Hindenburg can be downloaded from the AGS website.
City
From the small town of Little Hatbury, Cedilla Parks has come to the big city with dreams of becoming a reporter for The Carrier Pigeon. To start her new career she just needs to find her contact, who is supposed to be waiting for her outside the station. But for a small town girl, the big city is a strange and confusing place, and locating her contact may not be as easy as it should be.
Whilst only set over five screens, this game manages to create a feeling of a much larger setting. This is partially achieved by the backgrounds, but is enhanced by little details such as the news stories on a free terminal and the technology available such as the eye-tinting “neuro app”. There is just enough to make this an intriguing adventure location, giving great hope for the larger planned game in the future. Control is point-and-click, with left to interact and right to examine. The puzzles involve inventory and dialogue, though there is a wealth of optional content to be discovered as well. Players taking time to look around and investigate a bit should find an intriguing opening that I hope to see expanded into a larger game in the not-too-distant future.
City can be downloaded from the AGS website.
Mountview Creek (The Prelude)
After ten years away, a young girl returns to Mountview Creek. As she looks round her bedroom there, she recalls the last time she was here, when she and her friend Robbie looked into some strange disappearances that happened in the area. As objects from that time spark memories, she recalls those long-ago events and the results of their investigations. Is this all truly in the past, or do these events have a relevance in the present?
This game serves as the introduction to a larger story, with the protagonist discovering that the events of ten years ago may not be as much in the past as she thought. The present day scenes are restricted to her brightly lit bedroom, but the past sequences include a run-down old house that is dark and foreboding. The contrast between the two works well, serving to show that even in this bright place, darkness is not necessarily far away. The details revealed in the flashbacks provide enough backstory to make solving this episode worthwhile, whilst still feeling like the setup to a larger story. Control is handled through a combination of keyboard and mouse for both movement and interaction, while the puzzles are fairly simple, revolving around exploration with a small amount of inventory use.
Mountview Creek (The Prelude) can be played online at Kongregate.
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.
Secretnet by 31eee384 – When a reporter infiltrates a black market IRC chat room, how far will he go to get a story?
Star Sky by Marten Jonsson – A midnight stroll can lead to all sorts of wonders, if you just take time to pause once in a while.
Prime Minister’s Questions: The Game by Mark Richards – Take on the role of UK prime minister David Cameron as you try to fend off questions from the opposition.
Reincarnation: The Evil Next Door by B Group Productions – Retrieve another escaped soul in this micro episode of the long-running series.
Red Space by BeGamer – Explore the horrors of Red Space when you follow a lost scientific mission.
Totally Odd by GameszHero – Help a claymation man negotiate a series of hideous death traps.
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!