By Kieron Gillen on March 2nd, 2009 at 11:32 am.
Reader Andreas Jörgensen writes to us about the game he’s made. It’s called “In Another Brothel”, which clearly immediately got my attention (Being the one member of RPS who thought posting about Left 4 Head was a good idea. And don’t go googling unless you’re at home). Except it’s not porny at all. It’s actually a Noir-platformer with a physics basis. The idea being you have to rescue dames and get them to the exit. Via application of that great noir-staple of a gun that fires crates. Yes. Probably best to explain the game in a pictorial essay…
This is me solving a level:
This is me solving a later level:
This is me fucking up:
Once a crate is created, there’s no way to get rid of it – while you can easily reset, I wonder if the game would be better with a way of sucking up crates you’ve lobbed. Also, the Noir-element is completely gratuitous, hence I have to applaud the sheer chutzpah of its inclusion. Anyway, you can get it from here – it’s the last one on the list.
02/03/2009 at 11:51 Tei says:
The SecondToCrate of this one as to be zero. No burning barrels on this one? I like burning barrels. L4D and Dreamfall has burning barrels…
02/03/2009 at 12:17 hydra9 says:
Looks like just my thing. Downloading………
02/03/2009 at 12:29 ChaosSmurf says:
You should have posted about Left 4 Head, let’s be honest here Kieron.
This does look quite ingenius though, I’ll take a look when I get home. Is the “in another brothel” a Mario referance? >.>
02/03/2009 at 12:30 Heliocentric says:
Would be better in first person with sportbased role playing strategic gaming elements.
02/03/2009 at 12:41 Rei Onryou says:
From the RPS about page: …it aims to cover everything from the latest breaking stories about the biggest releases to esoterica from the format’s obscurest peninsulas.
By not informing the rest of us about Left 4 Head (I already know about it), you’re doing a disservice to RPS and its viewers!
PS: Box game sounds good.
02/03/2009 at 12:51 ChaosSmurf says:
@Rei: we are kinda assuming that the kind of people (what do YOU mean “kind of people”) who browse here wouldn’t already “know” about it.
02/03/2009 at 13:22 teo says:
all I have to do to get my games on RPS is to write to you? sweet
02/03/2009 at 13:49 Kieron Gillen says:
If you get us in a good/not-too-busy/not-too-lazy mood, pretty much.
KG
02/03/2009 at 14:23 TwistyMcNoggins says:
It’s all right. Jump button seems to be a little sticky, which is what had me quitting in rage after spending about 10 minutes building a nice platform to do a running jump off.
Could be better off with a limited supply of boxes (Maybe reaching certain places gives you a reload of them), as I found everytime I got stuck, I simply spammed out a massive unstable tower of the buggers and rode the collapsing mess to which ever part of the level I was trying to get to. It felt cool, but I couldn’t help but feel I was missing out on the puzzle bit…
02/03/2009 at 16:03 Andreas Jörgensen says:
Oh, shit, I’m on RPS.
Yes guys, it is a Mario reference; You meet loads of hookers throughout the game but not one of them is the one you’re actually looking for.
02/03/2009 at 16:24 DragonSix says:
Damn you, making me google left 4 head. It cannot be unseen D:
02/03/2009 at 17:42 Lunaran says:
Stopped being fun at the ‘cross the gap’ level.
02/03/2009 at 17:50 ChaosSmurf says:
“Yes guys, it is a Mario reference; You meet loads of hookers throughout the game but not one of them is the one you’re actually looking for.”
And now I feel clever, hell yeah.
02/03/2009 at 18:29 Andreas Jörgensen says:
It’s too bad you stopped playing that soon, Lunaran; at that point you’ve gotten through more than half of the game, and once you get to the end you get a final score that you can compare with your friends, enemies, loved ones and hobos!
02/03/2009 at 19:40 Pags says:
This game fails under a Start-to-Crate review system. Luckily, under a Film-Noir-meets-Mario system it scores very high indeed.
02/03/2009 at 22:15 Stuk says:
I love the film noir theme. But damn that cross the gap bit was hard/annoying. I gave up there too.
After all the lovely intro bits it would be good to have more of them throughout the game. It would break up the puzzling/firing boxes until you’re high enough and also provide a bit more of a reward for reaching the next level. I kept feeling: “Yay! Done! Oh another one…go on then”. Would be much better to discover more of the story after every other level or so.
A bit more variation would be nice as well. Another gameplay mechanic, or a twist, some explination why you have this magic gun :). Also, like someone said, limited boxes would provide a bit more of a challenge.
The music was good, but fitting with the noir theme it would also be great to get some sirens in the background every so often as well :D.
I enjoyed it, but it does feel like it would have benefited by watching/getting some honest feedback from beta testers first.
Hope to see some more great stuff :D
02/03/2009 at 22:33 D says:
This makes me wish I worked in a crate factory.
02/03/2009 at 23:19 Hybrid says:
Extremely well done. The atmosphere and music is great.I like it a lot.
02/03/2009 at 23:42 Andreas Jörgensen says:
Right, just wanted to say that I’ve updated the game, that cross-the-gap level should now be slightly easier, as well as another level later on in the game. It’s on the same link, so just continue downloading.
03/03/2009 at 00:33 Saul says:
@Stuk: I guess you guys ARE the beta testers :)
03/03/2009 at 01:14 Hybrid says:
Just finished it a couple minutes ago. My final score was
838 Crates
12 Dames
141 Points
How does this compare to everyone whos beat the game?
03/03/2009 at 06:07 sereneworx says:
Technically, this is the first release, we didn’t have time for polishing, as it is for a competition. We rushed it a bit towards the end (surely due to our lazyness). You folks ARE the beta testers, even if the games doesn’t bear the ‘beta’ tag.
03/03/2009 at 11:57 jolson42 says:
I got 13 dames, 150ish points, don’t remember how many crates I used.
It seems multiple endings may be possible? Mine was sad. :(
03/03/2009 at 12:15 Andreas Jörgensen says:
No, there’s only one ending, but my artist (sereneworx up there) wanted to be clever or something :P