This month you could face the terrors of being shipwrecked on a mysterious island or having to start at a new school. For those wanting a variety of characters to control, you can play a rabbit seeking a new home, a stone head looking to avert a great disaster or a league of super-villains with irritation in mind. Investigators can try to solve a mystery in a town of the supernatural, or channel hop in search of a missing baby. Finally, for one rock band it's time to get the boys back together after another big after-show party. All these await in this month’s roundup of releases from the freeware scene.
New School Blues
The first day at a new school can always be a tough one. You don’t know anyone or anything about what people are interested in. Bullies see you as a natural easy target. This change isn’t made any easier by your parents deciding that today was a good day to wear your spotted dinosaur raincoat. As you struggle to fit in, you will find you have to learn fast if you are going to get over those new school blues.
Players begin by choosing to be either a girl or a boy, though the game plays out the same whichever character is chosen. Initially you will just wander around the playground, trying to talk to various groups of children. Once this task is accomplished, the inventory becomes available, with the first puzzle being a simple item-based obstacle. Later challenges include inventory combination and a worksheet puzzle where you're required to select items to complete a sequence. The puzzles are suited to young players, with an on-screen help button to provide clues if necessary.
New School Blues can be played online at the developer’s website.
A Rabbit Fable
Rabbit just wants to move his house out of the forest to a better location. The green sunny field at the top of the hill seems to be an ideal choice, with one little problem. The way to this idyllic locale is barred by a large gate, ruled over by a strange and malicious creature. Refused passage, rabbit and his house are dropped into a surreal swampland. Perhaps by working with the peculiar inhabitants of this area, rabbit can find a way to secure his dream location.
In keeping with the bizarre nature of the setting, the puzzling content is equally strange. You will combine items to form shapes for a set of beings only shown as demanding hands, and you'll acquire access to a building by wearing a particular hat. Collectible items are automatically placed into a pouch, which can be unfurled at will to provide an on-screen inventory. The pictorial conversations often provide clues to a character’s requirements if they are to help you. To render things even more unusual, there are also sequences that take place within the rabbit’s dreams, where a tasty snack can produce unexpected results.
A Rabbit Fable can be played online at the developer’s website.
400 Years
A disaster is coming. You can feel its inexorable approach. If you act quickly maybe you can avert this terrible event, though the journey will not be an easy one. As you set out on your quest, you fear that the obstacles in your path will not allow you to arrive in time to act. After all, for a being such as yourself, 400 years can pass so quickly.
Four hundred years may seem like a long time to accomplish a task, but it is astonishing how quickly that time can pass away. Keyboard controls are used both to move and to advance time. Holding down the space bar makes time advance progressively more rapidly, which is a feature you will need. To begin with, simply changing the season is enough to change the landscape enough to allow passage. Later puzzles require years or even decades to pass. Text-based clues of the stone head's thoughts appear whenever you encounter something new, giving subtle hints to what you need to do. You are also able to carry a single inventory item at any given time. Care must be taking when advancing time while holding an item, however, as the items you carry do not have the same fortitude as your stone avatar.
400 Years can be played online at Armor Games.
The Quite Annoying League
On long train journeys, we have all suffered the travails of especially annoying other passengers: The man that wants us to engage in pointless small talk. The girl who plays her music just a little bit too loudly. What you might not have suspected is that you were the target of the Quite Annoying League. This cabal of super-villains have dedicated themselves to turning the world into a quite annoying place. Always having to avoid the attentions of their foes, the Vaguely Positive League, this time the team have set out to annoy a young lady named Twist. It will take all their quite annoying skills to pull this off.
With each member of the League trying to make the easy-going Twist move on, the game plays out like a series of minigames. The obstacles include some dialogue puzzles and a challenge where timing is important, though lightning reflexes are not required. If you annoy Twist too much or, heaven forbid, actually cheer her up then you fail that individual scene. Failure results in a debriefing from the League leader, with the option to replay that scene or start over from the beginning. The game is written with a light humour that makes even the wrong options worth pursuing.
The Quite Annoying League can be downloaded from the AGS website.
Vortex Point: Case 1 – Far Journeys
Some places are just magnets for the weird. One such place is Vortex Point, a town so plagued by the supernatural that a trio of occult investigators have set up a full-time agency there. Backed up by Caroline on research and Craig on design, team head Kevin sets out on their latest case. A pair of gold bars have been stolen, with video footage of the theft indicating a ghostly criminal. When news of a second robbery comes in, Kevin must look into events of the past if he is going to solve the mystery.
With its cartoon style, this game is more mildly disturbing than outright horror. You will interview the victims of the two thefts, as well as investigate other locations around town. Both victims have something to hide, so you will need to use your wits to uncover the truth. Inventory use plays a major part in the action, with some disguised combination lock puzzles as well. Your two colleagues' talents are also used to full effect, sometimes contacting you directly when you have solved particular puzzles. Whilst the ending of the case wraps up the current mystery, enough is left hanging to give potential for future cases with the same team.
Vortex Point: Case 1 – Far Journeys can be played online at MouseCity.
The Island of Earthly Delights
When a furious storm sends his ship spiralling to the bottom of the ocean, a sea captain thinks he has seen his last voyage. But when everything seems lost, his luck takes a turn for the better. A strange creature swallows up the ship and deposits the captain on the shores of a strange island. If he is ever to leave this place, he must find a way to negotiate with the island’s peculiar inhabitants, and gain entry to the fortification that dominates the landscape.
The main quest of this chapter is to seek a way further into the island, with an unhelpful guard and positively hostile gardener posing obstacles to your progress. Initially your inventory is simply contained in your trouser pocket, severely limiting the size of items you can carry. A vital task is to acquire a means of expanding your inventory to allow you to carry larger items that will assist you in your goal. With the right incentives, usually in the form of an inventory item, some of the island’s residents can be persuaded to provide assistance. This episode ends with you finding a way forward, though probably not by any means you'll be expecting.
The Island of Earthly Delights can be played online at the developer’s website.
Static
You’ve always been told that television is bad for you, but that old adage takes on a harsh literal meaning when your baby disappears in a burst of static. Now you must search across the airwaves to find your missing offspring. With a wide variety of shows playing across the various networks, and only a minimal TV guide to find your way, retrieving your missing progeny is not going to be an easy task.
Initially you only have access to four channels, moving through them by clicking up and down on the television controls. The first channel is your own living room, but other channels include versions of the same room, including one with living furniture and another representing a murder scene. Actions in one scene can sometimes have an effect on others, such as turning the lamp off in your own room making the sun go down in the cowboy town. To unlock further channels, you need to gather the TV guide from each block of channels. Along with influencing one channel from another, achieving this involves some inventory use and a sequence where you disrupt other programs in a television within the television.
Static can be downloaded from the developer’s website.
Crazy Hangover 3
If there is one thing that rock bands know how to do, it’s party. After a concert in a middle-of-nowhere redneck town, Ted and the Pyro Guys had a good night. Or at least, that is what Ted assumes happened when he wakes up the next morning in the tour bus toilet. Clad only in his pants and his rock star dressing gown, Ted knows what he needs to do. It’s time to gather up the other members of the band and get this tour back on the road. Perhaps this would be easier if a burly member of band security hadn’t fallen asleep against the toilet door.
Like previous games in the series, the content is at times not suitable for a younger or easily offended audience. You will need to drag your manager out of a sleazy show and rescue the guitarist from the attentions of one of the less intellectual locals. Inventory forms the mainstay of most puzzles, with some combination required to achieve the desired results. There is also one puzzle where the positioning of the player character is key. Conversations with the various residents of the area will often provide clues for those unsure how to continue.
Crazy Hangover 3 can be played online at GamesFree.
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.
Actual Sunlight by Will O’Neill – Even a bright and cheery world seems dark to someone suffering from depression. (Requires RPG Maker VX RPT to play).
Inner Vision by LinusPrime – Challenged by a mysterious stranger, can you talk three disparate people out of committing suicide?
Tiny Soccer Manager Stories by PierreC – As the new PE teacher, picking teams for games proves a surprisingly difficult task.
OK, Now this is awkward! by PierreC – Meeting an old friend in a bar could be great, if you could remember who they are.
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!