The Battle Cats

A game about cats! Purrfect! Let’s see how many cat based puns I can litter this review with! My whiskers tingle with fear when I have to play as a cat in a game. This is largely because I worked briefly in a kennel and cattery while I was a nipper. In the dog kennel there were cranky little terriers, mischievous rottweiler pups and a great dane the size of Denmark itself. Feeding and walking the dogs was an absolute joy. Even the dogs which were initially nervous around me became friendly once they learned that I was the bringer of delicious jellied pig entrails. Conversely, the cats in the cattery considered themselves prison inmates and used every opportunity they had to shank me with their razor claws.

Meow on to the game. There’s certainly nothing immediately abhorrent about it. Levels are brief and fun. Upgrades are amusingly titled, varied enough to provide a unique experience and best of all, don’t cost real money. The game starts off at a decent pace, purring and rubbing itself against your brain legs. It doesn’t dig its micro-transaction claws into your shins right away, although they are there and I’ve got a feeling that the difficulty might unfairly spike at some point* at which point players will be given an unexpected financial scratch unless they the game in a burlap sack and throw it into the river of uninstallation.

*(Tiny Dice Dungeon knows what I’m talking about)

Poor Japan. They don’t even stand a chance.

I’ve played through 10 levels so far without an enemy getting within range of my cat cannon, so I’d say that even if the difficulty does spike to unplayable levels like other games, you do get a decent amount of uninterrupted gameplay furrst. I do like the art stye of the game and the cat cannon is particularly purr-ty. I guess I have to catnip this positivity in the bud and do some complaining! The music and sound effects get monotonous fast if you’re an irritable bastard like me and the learning curve is slow to ramp up, it’s too easy for too long.

“I look forward to disemboweling your entire family.”

 

I would have liked an alternative where I’d get to play as the dogs. That might have been ruff on the developers though. Haha! get it? that was a dog one! I’m so sorry.

If you’re feline like playing a decent android game. The Battle Cats is a tail which is well worth digging your fangs into. Paws for effect.

Games whinge artwork now on behance.

I’ve added all my recent pokemon drawings (as well as my non-games related scribbles) to the behance network. Unbelievable no? Stop, don’t go. Here’s proof!

Pokemon: Status effects

Plenty of people have criticised the pokemon universe for it’s barbarism and shameless cruelty, typically complaints are lobbed at the enslavement of pokemon, a clearly sentient species. Towever, that’s not the only way the universe is deranged. Here’s a brief appraisal of the common status effects which plague the poor beasts during battle.

1. SLEEP

Sleep in non-human animals refers to how the behavioral and physiological state of sleep, mainly characterized by reversible unconsciousness[1]

What kind of sleep constitutes “slumber”? Reversible sleep. Exactly the kind of sleep Pokemon aren’t affected by during battles, because they can’t be nudged back into consciousness. Not only that but they can be attacked and physically damaged to the point that they can’t wake up. This doesn’t sound like sleep to me, it sounds like paralysis.

2. PARALYZE

Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor.

Oh yes, pokemon can be (temporarily) paralysed. Any trainer who doesn’t pull a paralysed pokemon back into its slavery sphere is must be some kind of sadist. “Oh no antagonist trainer, my pokemon is merely unable to move its limbs. Please continue to beat it senseless.”

3. BURN

A burn is a type of injury to flesh or skin caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, friction, or radiation.^[1]

Fair enough.

4. POISON.

Toxins are poisons produced by some biological function in nature, venoms are usually defined as toxins that are injected by a bite or sting to cause their effect, while poisons are generally defined as substances absorbed through the skin or gut.

Venom/poison pedantry aside, this ailment represents pure villainy from any trainer who uses it. Ignoring all other barbarism, pokemon battles are meant to be gentlemanly pursuits ideally. Why then, is it socially acceptable to poison another persons pokemon? It’s an effect that persists beyond battles, causing a lasting, pervasive state of unnecessary suffering.

“Hello fellow pokemon enthusiast, your Koffing has poisoned my Charmeleon, do you have anything that might help cure it?”

“Fuck you, it’s your problem now.”

5. CHARM

Seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person, to lead astray, as from duty, rectitude, or the like; to corrupt, to persuade or induce to engage in sexual behaviour.

Okay, again… this doesn’t really seem like a status effect. It’s not something you’d think could be suddenly employed during battle. I suppose that if you were a Pokémon and another Pokémon batted its eyelashes at you instead of trying to remove your intestines, you might be temporarily disinclined to fight back. I doubt Pokémon want to become bloodthirsty drones for their captors. Trainers must have hearts of ice.

6. FROZEN

Hypothermia (from Greek ὑποθερμία) is a condition in which the body’s core temperature drops below that required for normal metabolism and body functions. This is generally considered to be less than 35.0 °C (95.0 °F).^[1] Characteristic symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia there is shivering and mental confusion. In severe hypothermia there may be paradoxical undressing, where a person removes their clothing, as well as an increased risk of the heart stopping.^[1]

So, if you actually froze, your body functions would cease. You’d die. Instead, the condition Pokémon get exposed to is more likely to be hypothermia, which is still fairly capable of causing death. Surely the only reason this status effect is even legal is that it’s comparatively rare. I doubt deaths get reported much. From the wiki article it seems like the most common aspect of hypothermia is actually confusion.

7. CONFUSED

The term, “acute mental confusion”^[1] is often used interchangeably with delirium^[2] to describe a pathological degree in which it usually refers to loss of orientation (ability to place oneself correctly in the world by time,^[3] location;^[3] and/or personal identity^[3]) and sometimes accompanied by disordered consciousness (loss of linear thinking)^[3] and loss of memory (the ability to correctly recall previous events or learn new material).

Ah, now this seems like a good old fashioned case of mental breakdown. Probably a result of repeated brain trauma from events where Pokémon get paralysed, burned, frozen, beaten or poisoned.

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone gets confused from time to time but it’s rarely the case that someone would punch themselves in the face as a result. Surely Pokémon would just forget where their keys are or wonder why it has to fight for beings that would happily leave it for centuries inside of a computer. No wonder confusion is one of the most common effects.

Tiny tower: Vegas

One day I hope to review a game called Tiny tower: Blackpool. You’d be able to stir in some really unique mechanics and aesthetics. Think of the gameplay opportunities:

• Upgrade lamp posts with modern sculpture illumination to provide the local seagulls with somewhere classy to shit
• Entice stag/hen parties to keep irritating families away
• Install blue/UV lighting in public toilets to deter heroin addicts from mugging stags and hens
• Discard all town waste into the sea, nobody will notice the difference and you’ll save a lot of cash
• Repaint the tower to commemorate something, it’ll take a few years and cost a fortune but it will look slightly different so it’s worth it

Just a few ideas.

Instead of that realism you’re encouraged to create a Vegas casino to entice tiny plebs to spend money. Snoozepocalypse.

FREE PLAY! Or pay £0.79 to avoid waiting 45 minutes until you can play again!

Construction of your tower isn’t particularly engaging. The tiny gamblers spend their virtual life savings and booze money at your casino and you use that money to buy new floors and fruit peddlers to entice gullible punters. Outside of commissioning new floors your duties extend to restocking and acting as a bellboy to your guests, ferrying them between floors for tips. I suppose that’s a mechanic in that you perform an action and something happens. It does seem a little half-arsed considering people often demand to be taken to floors which are still under construction.

What little gameplay there is, is dragged out between purchases. You ordered a floor to be built? 60 minute timer until it’s done. You ordered more fruit? 10 minute timer. It’s like playing Theme park except you can only build one thing every 30 minutes and the only thing you’re trusted to control is the price of the fries. Obviously, this is a free game so you can opt to speed construction up with “bucks” but these accrue slowly without paying real money for them. You can’t do that though, that means that the terrorists have won.

The pay-to-do-things-now business model ruins the entire pace of the game. Management games like Theme Hospital and Rollercoaster Tycoon got it right because you’re never waiting, you’re actively trying to manage payroll, customer happiness, profits, entertainment, cleaning, safety, finance and geography. You’re very rarely short on things to actually do or get involved in. Even if you’re some kind of sadist who creates rollercoasters that end in nothing but death.

Conversely, Tiny tower leaves you with nothing to adjust or alter or tinker with. There’s no managing or  … fun. You simply build things, then wait until you’re bored enough to return to the game and build more.

If I were Blackpool council I’d catapult this giant turd into the local drinking supply where it belongs.

 

My Newborn – Mommy and Baby Care

Pregnancy simulator 2014 is probably the worst game I’ve ever played and I’ve recently played a game about toilets. After being exposed to the initial onslaught of nauseating music and colours, you have to pick a pregnant women, none of which seem capable of closing their mouths.

Free Baby Samples eh? Well I couldn’t eat a whole one! Hiyoohh!!

After you’ve selected a unit factory, you’re presented with a selection of minigames. I chose one which prompts you to interact with objects from a table. The first thing I chose was an mp3 player which played burbling music to the baby, and it was burbling and specifically not classical music for some reason. Not that that does anything anyway. You can also offer the brood mare some food to eat. I tried to force her to eat nothing but hot dogs, chicken and radishes but to my annoyance she never refused to eat anything. Maybe it’s a phantom pregnancy and the woman I chose is just fat and looking for a free meal. I did hope I’d have the option to force to her to drink some booze but the game enforced a strict moral code upon me and only let me make boring fruit smoothies. You can also comb your DNA replicator’s hair, rub her feet or deal with hours of verbal abuse and crying, well no… not those two last ones.

Oddly, you never have to deal with morning sickness or the ravages of hormones or the nightmare/beauty/trauma of childbirth. Come on guys, let us have a comedic PG-13 version of the app. I’ve seen Schwarzenegger go through pregnancy in Junior, I can handle it.

One unusual element is that you do get to go to the hospital and huff a nondescript gas from a canister. Evidently, some thought has gone into this because you can’t huff it repeatedly. Oh, unless you chug a vitamin tablet between huffs. Huff is a great word. You can actually eat as many vitamin tablets as you like though even though that itself would almost certainly kill you. I guess the developer’s concerns didn’t stretch beyond “Probably don’t let players huff gas twice in a row”. I’m surprised they didn’t think to try and monetise it in some way.

Condolences. It’s got irritable bowel syndrome.

In the third minigame you’re charged with performing some horrific baby maintenance and little baby Goat-stench is covered in welts and has shit itself. I reluctantly provided it with a new nappy but within seconds it had vacated its bowels again. Unimpressed, I decided not to cure it of its rashes, change it or take it to a hospital as it clearly needs.  I hoped that my character would get arrested for neglect but no matter how long you leave it screaming in smelly pain, the cops never turn up. I suppose this could be a realistic, I’ve seen Trainspotting. No marks subtracted game.

The game explicitly states “For parents” which seems strange. I would think that real parents would have too many things to think about, what with having to deal with a real milk-addled screeching machine. Obviously, this is a game designed to bait reviewers who enjoy poking fun at games designed for children.

Well I hope I feel happy with myself, me.

Aside from that it throws adverts in your face, has loads of purchasable content, demands attention  with loud and annoying notifications  and is generally unpleasant. I suppose it is quite like child rearing after all.