Sideways by Superstroke

 

Words are for meaning: once there is meaning, one can forget the words. 

 

A dreamer just arrived in this peculiar world. The inhabitants of this strange world happen to need the help of an outsider.  

 

This is an attempt to make a peaceful, meditative game focusing on an ambience inspired by the Chinese/Mongolian/Tibetan countryside. In addition, as a personal challenge, the game does not contain any dialogs and everything is communicated in some other manner.

 

 

Sideways is a strange experience: the gameplay consist in exploration and solving little puzzles or fetch quest, even if just one is sufficient to end the game, and it's probably the most difficult of all, even if this is a pretty simple and easy game. It's a sort of little cozy adventure game. The visuals use the white screw resource pack, and the map looks beautiful: the game in fact is set on a single map, a sort of cylindrical world, so you can travel around it just walking... sideways.

The music is excellent: four of the tracks are very atmospheric oriental styled tracks by Kevin MacLeod. The music starts with The Rainbow by Talk Talk. It all does an excellent job of defining the game's atmosphere and nothing could have fit it better.  

 

Sideways is a game developped for the 2017 Winterruption event. 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: there are exactly eleven quests in this little adventure.  

 

- The Ballad of the Grey Man
- Blood on the Snow
- A Bridge over Trolled Waters
- Dark Side of the Road
- A Grave Remembrance
- The Last Dancer
- Any Port in a Storm
- Rune of the Moon
- Twin Souls
- Visions and Voices
- All's Well That Ends Well 

 

Final Verdict: a lovely, artistic little game that I'm fairly sure is unique. Worth of your time since it's pretty short, and that's its only problem. 

Phileas's Mirror by Kenetec

Phileas's Mirror is a little big adventure game in three parts about Loic, a normal 30-something guy that works, has a girlfriend and a best friend, Amelia and Raphael. During his day he will also meet the young Lucas and the old Mr. Gonzales, two persons that together with his "old acquaintances" will be present in several parts of the game. The game starts when Loic is visited by a supernatural entity who takes him on an adventure through a beautiful fantasy, and a nightmare. 

 

Phileas's Mirror is a short surreal adventure game that mainly consists in explorations and dialogues, although there are some minigames. The story is linear, but it's well written, and the maps are all really beautiful and varied. There are lots of different resources and edits, music is well selected and the game really stands out for its fantastic locations. The game is in english and french.

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

Gamejolt.com 

 

Random Fact: although this isn't a jrpg, there is ONE single battle in the game, and it uses the default Rpgmaker 2003 system. Luckily it's pretty easy and if you are defeated the encounter can be re-tried.

Final Verdict: a short but excellent game. Even if it's unlikely that this will be played more than once, it's really a must-play adventure if you have one hour of free time.

Flower Bubble Game!!! by LockeZ

The game Flower Bubble Game!!! is all about collecting flowers… and sometimes blowing bubbles. Anyway, let's start from the beginning: Ginny is a blonde girls that plans pick up flowers and sell them to get money, lots of money. That's it. Well to tell the truth there are a couple of subquests (like learning arts from a pink ninja that lets you unlock new areas, or removing a huge plant that blocks the stage where the musicians want to play.

 

This isn't a fantasy rpg, nor a horror adventure, but rather a casual repetitive colorful and lighthearted time-wasting game about picking and selling flowers.
This activity is stressing and apparently the only way to recover the PP aka Picking Points, is blowing bubbles or resting. Money will be used to unlock upgrades and gadgets, while levelling up will let Ginny learn new skills. For example the Basket Case lets you take the big flowers: you will need to spend 3 PP instead of 1, BUT their value is 6 gold coins instead of 1! Anyway check the game here:

Dowload Link

Internet Archive

Glorioustrainwrecks.com

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: the author made this game for his girlfriend, who kept pestering him about it, and then dumped her for liking it.

 

Final Verdict: a really unique game with a repetitive gameplay and a repetitive music. In any case it is not much different from most mobile games, but for me the best part was the colorful graphics and the quirky characters, such as Shining Blossom the Pink ninja. He deserves his own game!