Picking up right where we left off, our five-years-in-five-days freeware retrospective presses on through 2011-2012.
August 2011 – The Unicated by Duzz
The competitions at the Adventure Game Studio site struck again. This time the premise of the Monthly competition was “Evil Twin” and Duzz’s approach in The Unicated was an unusual one. Instead of the twins being separate entities, the twins in question are a pair of heads on a single body. One twin, Bo, is a sweet innocent, seeing good in everything. The other, Mal, is pure malevolent evil out to cause misery and destruction wherever they go. With the two being one, the player gets to play both sides, with left-click using Bo and right-click using Mal instead.
Taking on the role of a pair of mismatched twins is as simple as downloading The Unicated from the AGS website.
September 2011 – The Unfolding Spider by discordance
The core of a good game is often considered to be a coherent plot set in a consistent world. This allows the player to be drawn into the game world, usually making it a richer experience. But sometimes it is fun to go in the complete opposite direction. The Unfolding Spider starts off with the apparent feel of a noir mystery. The lead character is on a quest to find someone, and is prepared to go to some seedy locales to find them. From there on in, things get a little…weird.
If you want to experience the oddity that is The Unfolding Spider for yourself, it can be downloaded from the AGS website.
October 2011 – The Asylum: Psychiatry for Abused Cuddly Toys by Parapluesch
There were many fine free indie adventures released before the Following Freeware series ever started, but for the most part we have only covered games released the previous month. There are just too many new games to look at each month to dig back through any great games that predated the articles. The Asylum: Psychiatry for Abused Cuddly Toys is an exception to that rule and an extremely clever game that has you psychoanalysing cuddly toys. The premise is ingenious and brilliantly executed, with the mental illness of each patient arising from scenarios based on how some toys are genuinely treated.
For those seeking a career in analysing our plush friends, The Asylum: Psychiatry for Abused Cuddly Toys can be found on the developer’s website.
November 2011 – The Visitor by NickyNyce
As the most prolific source of downloadable adventure games, I always look at every game in the AGS database each month. As the engine is free to use, and free online storage is readily available, a lot of less-than-stellar games get produced and uploaded. Understandably, the worst offenders on this front are usually first-time game makers. With the help and guidance of the active AG community, many go on to improve and produce better games. Some continue to produce bad games despite what others say. Still others disappear without trace.
To see what a first-time game can look like in the right hands, download The Visitor from the AGS database.
December 2011 - Quasar by Crystal Shard
A lot of games over the years boil down to saving yet another world. Whether it is uncovering a conspiracy to seize power, thwarting an alien burger company, or making the Caribbean safe for all pirates, it all rests on your shoulders. Occasionally it’s nice to deal with something more intimately personal, and to share the load a bit with others. Fortunately, the intergalactic world of freeware had this option covered as well. In Crystal Shard’s short game Quasar, the crew of a spaceship has spent too long in close quarters. Tempers are running high, and one final incident makes them snap, each crew member making their way to their own area of the ship.
The original freeware version of Quasar is no longer available. However, a deluxe version, featuring enhanced graphics and full voice-overs, is available from the developer’s website for a small fee.
January 2012 - ^-^ by Ben Chandler
Now working for Wadjet Eye games, Ben Chandler is undoubtedly a skilled pixel artist. This game takes place in just a single location – a grassy hill – but a wealth of detail is included in this small space. A twisted house sits on one side, home to a witch. The lantern hanging above the door casts a yellow light across the whole area, with realistic shadows spreading away from it. Clouds drift past in the background. A vampire hangs from a coat-stand. It is amazing there was room for any puzzles in all this artistic detail, but puzzles there are aplenty. The tale of a were-rabbit, Julian, seeking a cure for his condition is a highly humorous one, with quite a lot to do before your quest is done.
To enjoy fine pixel art and funny were-rabbit shenanigans, download ^-^ from the AGS website.
February 2012 – Masked by Lewis Denby
We all have our personal preferences when it comes to gaming. Various types of games have grown in popularity over the years, such that there are enough of them to be considered a new genre. Match 3, tower defense, hidden object games have all carved out their niche in the gaming world. Lurking on the edge of adventures, one sub-genre I have never really got on with is the "escape the room" game. At first glance they present you with a problem set in the real world: that you are trapped in a secured location. But the puzzles you are asked to solve to escape tend to be abstract in the extreme. Twist some paintings a certain way, collect six marbles, then have a shadow figure in a film point out a piece of wall with a hidden button on it. They just don’t make any sense to me.
To escape a more story-driven room than usual, download Masked from the AGS Database.
March 2012 – UNGA Needs MUMBA by Tino Bensing
The advantage of making a game set in the history of our own world is that the background details already exist. The big disadvantage is that if you get those details wrong, then people are going to spot it and call you out. One way of dealing with this is to go back to a time so far back in the past no-one really knows any of the details. With UNGA Needs MUMBA, Tino Bensing has taken this approach to the extreme, going all the way back to caveman times. In this era the craggy-browed hero (Unga) must seek out a woolly mammoth (Mumba ) to keep his wife happy with him as her provider.
If you want to bring home the Mumba yourself, head on over to the AGS archives.
April 2012 – The Kite by Anate Studios
More often than not, successful completion of a game tends to give you a happy ending of some sort. Achieving that happy ending is considered the reward for your efforts in meeting the game’s challenges. Even from the start, The Kite from Anate Studios does not feel like a game that is headed for a happy ending. The very graphics set the grim tone of the game, with a muted palette of greys and browns. Despite the lack of colours, the graphics are highly detailed, accurately depicting the sad expression of the protagonist and the squalor of her small apartment.
Those wishing to discover a truly unhappy and disturbing tale can download the game from Indie DB.
May 2012 – Gamer Mom by Mordechai Buckman and Kyler Kelly
To non-gamers, our hobby can seem like a strange way to pass the time. One way to get people to understand us better is to get them to have a go themselves. Such is the challenge of the titular Gamer Mom, who has decided that today is the day that she will try to get her husband and daughter interested. Sadly, her family seem to be less than enthusiastic about the idea. Her husband is too wrapped up in work, whilst her daughter seems unwilling to engage with her at all. Can she coax them on-board and get the family to bond over a game?
For an all-too-authentic experience of trying to get non-gamers to join you in your hobby, check out it out online at the developers’ website.
June 2012 – Wages of Darkness by Baron
With no budget to hire skilled artists, the graphics of freeware games depend on the skills of those with enthusiasm for the project. The result varies widely in quality, ranging from stunning full-motion 3D to distorted 2D illustrations. Wages of Darkness solved the problem in a new and surprising way. For the majority of the game, the play screen is entirely black, with the inventory section only containing silhouettes of objects. The setting is an underground base, with you playing a young soldier trying to find an exit when the power goes out.
You too can scrabble around in the darkness searching for salvation by downloading the game from the AGS database.
July 2012 – The Epic Escape of the Carrot by Pyrozen
Adventures are often about grand quests to save the world starring chiselled heroes or feisty heroines. Harry is neither a chiselled hero, nor a feisty heroine. He isn’t on a grand quest to save the world either. He is a carrot, and he is simply on a quest to save himself. That is the premise of The Epic Escape of the Carrot, a game set entirely within the unusual locale of a fridge. In it you will hop around the shelves of the fridge, enlisting the help of the other residents as you desperately seek a way out.
To start your quest to escape the fridge just head over to Games Free.