Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Free Flash Game of the Day: Flood It!


Flood It! by romech

To start I want to explain how to play the game because it’s not explained very well in game and it took me a little while to figure it out. The developer has this to say about the game:

Description: Fill all the pixels with one color. You start from the top-left corner and move deeper changing colors.
Instructions: Use the buttons below to change color.

Not very descriptive, huh? Well the end goal is to make the screen all one color. You do this by changing the color of the “flood”. It starts with just one box, the upper left. You then choose a color to change it too. Then any boxes bordering the “flood” that are that color are now part of the flood. It sounds a little confusing but it shouldn’t take long to figure out.

Gameplay: 4/5
The gameplay is simple but actually quite fun. It is pretty difficult though, and it starts out that way. There’s no working up to it. There are different difficulties but the easiest doesn’t do much to teach you the ropes. That aside the general puzzle is good. You have to think ahead several steps to do well. It’s a fun little brain teaser and when you win you feel like you accomplished something.

Graphics: 2/5
Graphics are very basic. Now there is nothing wrong with simple graphics in a fun game but this takes it a bit too far. A little extra work would have gone a long ways here.

Sound: 0/5
There is no sound. That’s just laziness on the developer’s part. There are plenty of free options out there that there is no reason to leave such an important aspect out of a game.

Polish: 2/5
A lot of little things could have been done to polish this one up; better instructions, tutorials, animations, sounds, explanation of the score, goals, etc, all could have taken this one to the next level.

Replayability: 3/5
It’s a fun game but there is not much more than that to keep you going. You won’t spend hours at a time playing it like some games, but you can keep coming back to it from time to time and enjoy playing it for a little while more.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall (not an average): 3/5
It’s a very fun game. Fun enough I wanted to feature it so others might give it a chance instead of passing it by. Unfortunately it is lacking in a lot of areas. With a little work Flood It! 2 could be quite a success.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Free Flash Game of the Day: Bubble Tanks Tower Defense


Free Online Games brought to you by Armor Games

Bubble Tanks Tower Defense by Hero Interactive

Gameplay: 5/5
It’s a very solid tower defense game. The upgrade paths are interesting and diverse. The learning curve is spot on and the early levels do a great job of teaching you the game.

Graphics: 5/5
I love the artwork in this game. The bubble tanks games all have a distinctive style that I enjoy. Can’t complain about anything here.

Sound: 4/5
Pretty basic but does the job. Biggest reason it gets a point off is because the background music can get old really fast. Luckily there is a mute button.

Polish: 5/5
Everything feels very natural and clean. There is nothing to distract you from enjoying the game. No complaints.

Replayability: 5/5
The game is hard enough that it will take you quite a while to finish and fun enough that you’ll keep trying. If you do finish it and want more there is a FML mode that up’s the difficulty to keep you going. If you want more after that they released a quasi sequel with added features but that’s for another day.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall (not an average): 5/5
I love this game if you couldn’t tell. This is one of my go to games if I’m looking for a strategy game. If you enjoy tower defense games you should have a great time playing this.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Follow Me on Twitter @TrampoGames

No game Free Flash Game of the Day review today. I procrastinated too much playing games instead of writing about them. Rest assured I will have one tomorrow...unless I don't. Anyway in the meantime you should follow me on twitter @TrampoGames. Use the archive on the right to play some of the previous FFGotD or play my first game TrampoCopter.

Dan

Friday, June 10, 2011

Free Flash Game of the Day: JunkYard



Junkyard by Raketspel

Gameplay: 5/5
When you remove the junk everything seems to fall into place the way it should. There doesn’t appear to be any hang-ups or issues with the physics that hurt the gameplay. Input is fine (it’s hard to mess up pointing and clicking although some games do). It’s original and fun and I can’t think of a single thing to lower the score over.

Graphics: 4/5
Not much to say here; very clean, very smooth, not at all distracting. Nothing exceptional to bring it up to a 5 but nothing to hurt the score either.

Sound: 4.5/5
The music is energetic and lively. I like the tool sound theme used here. It really fits with the game. The sounds of the junk falling fits and isn’t distracting. Not much else to say. It all works very well.

Polish: 4/5
It’s quite polished. The buttons light up when you hover over them. The text is implemented into the game and not just “there”. The junk expands and fades away instead of just vanishing. The score counts up at the end instead of increasing in one chunk. These little things add up to a smooth playing experience.

Replayability: 3/5
It’s just hard enough to keep me wanting to play and try to get better but not so hard that I get frustrated. That and the fact that it’s a fresh and fun game means I played it for quite a while, and next time I have some time to waste I’m sure I’ll pick it up again. It doesn’t have anything as far as achievements or anything else to keep you coming back. Just a fun game.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall (not an average):4/5
I almost want to give this game a perfect score. There is a lot about it that I love and I’m sure I’ll find my self coming back to it for quite a while; however there is just not much there to keep you playing for extended periods. Over all great game.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Free Flash Game of the Day: Endless Migration



Endless Migration by HotAirRaccoon

For my first Flash Game of the Day I would like to review one of my old favorites. For those of you who frequent Kongregate.com you should recognize this one as their badge of the day today.

Endless Migration takes the “dodge everything” idea to a new level. It uses a similar concept as “Snake” by essentially making you bigger the longer you play. This of course makes it harder to dodge the various aircraft coming at you while also giving you the advantages of backup birds and higher scores.

Gameplay: 5/5
No real complaints here. The mouse input is smooth. The movement feels fluid and natural. As you get farther and there are more aircraft to dodge it starts to feel quite intense.

Graphics: 4/5
While simplistic they are very well done. There is a 3D (or is it 2.5D) feel to the background. Everything is smooth looking and recognizable. They graphics don’t blow you away by any means but they don’t distract you at all from the game play.

Sound: 4/5
Nice background music, although a little repetitive. It did have me reaching for the mute button after a while though (luckily there was one). The geese honking sounds like geese honking. The geese smashing into UFOs sound like geese smashing into UFOs.

Polish: 5/5
It has all the little things. The menus are nice. There are multiple levels of background and foreground that change and you go giving you a more realistic feel. There is an achievement and an upgrade system. It has detailed and useful instructions but doesn’t force you to read them. Very well put together.

Replayability: 2/5
While the game is quite fun there isn’t much to keep you going after you get all the achievements. Unfortunately that is fairly easy to do. The very last achievement for me to get was the “Frequent Flyer Miles” one where you have to play the game 25 times. That wouldn’t be so bad except that I got the rest of them after only 13 gameplays, forcing me to start 12 more just to get the last achievement. I say forcing because I didn’t really feel like playing any more after getting the others.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall (not an average):4/5
It’s a fun simple game and a great time waster. It may not take long to finish everything and for the “see how long I can go” factor to ware off but if you give it a break and come back a few weeks or months later (like I did) you’ll find it’s just as fun as the first time.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Coming Soon: Free Flash Game of the Day

In addition to hosting my own games I will start reviewing and embedding other free flash games. If you are interested in having your game featured send me an email at TrampoGames@gmail.com

Dan

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Calling All Artists

If anyone would be interested in providing artwork for future TrampoGames games let me know here or by email (TrampoGames@gmail.com).