RPS Feature Farewell Garden
All good and freeware things must eventually come to an end and the very same applies to my dear Freeware Garden and its all singing, all dancing games. This, wonderful readers, is the final post in the series and my chance to admit how much I enjoyed writing it and to thank team RPS for giving me the chance to take this huge freeware burden off my chest. Oh, and to let you know which five games I covered I loved the most. These:
Rarely have I seen a game of such elegant and excellent dice mechanics as those found in Malleus Goblinficarium. Well, not rarely. Never. This deterministic tactical dice-based combat game simply has to be experienced to be fully appreciated, though I do suspect that transferring it to tabletops worldwide would be the wisest course of action.
FROGGY (It’s Hungry) is not Frog Fractions 2. I know you might be inclined to believe it is, but, really, it’s not. Even its dev said so, though admittedly only after describing it as the Citizen Kane of frogs, which it could actually be if it were a bit longer, which, well, it isn’t.
Fork Parker’s Holiday Profit Hike may just be one of the best known freeware games recently released, being a little something by indie mega label Devolver. It’s also, yes, a holiday-themed game, but that’s okay – I’m pretty certain there’s a blizzard waiting to happen somewhere in the coming months. It’s too good to ignore, anyway.
Fork Parker’s platformer is built around Devolver’s balding CFO mascot’s attempts to climb a snowy and rather festive mountain of money in a cunning bid to help raise his company’s revenue. Among the lovely pixelated graphics, happy enemies and spiky spikes, Mr. Parker will try to collect wads of cash and avoid any falls that might lead to ludicrous medical bills.
Compared to iOS gamers we are tragically short on runners, so it’s a good thing we get to play the unfinished but generously freeware Serious Dave. As is traditional, you move your onscreen avatar moving up and down between three lanes and either avoid or shoot enemies – provided you’ve bought a weapon bought with the in-game currency that is, which is earned by gathering of beer for the shop-keeper.
VoYD is a simple, minimalistic game and this is exactly what allows it to be a super fast, brutal hack-and-slash arcade offering that’s still completely playable, and which flows in the most zen-like of fashions.
I was 13 years old when I first encountered Brian Moriatry’s Loom. It was on a friend’s ninja PC that sported both VGA and AdLib cards and I was, understandably, blown away. The complex, whimsical story, the wonderful graphics, the unique musical interface and the amazing music itself were unlike anything I had ever seen. Or have seen since.
