Category: Editorials

[Rant] Mobility: Mario Kart Tour Is Nintendo’s Latest Foray Into Childhood Gambling


Mario Kart Tour has picked probably the worst week to launch in the history of the septic tank that is mobile gaming.

This prior week of September 22 of 2019 the year of our lord, has gifted mobile gamers with something many of us could only dream of. Both iOS and Android users were treated this past week to the respective launch of Apple Arcade as well as the Google Play Pass, and in both cases users are still on their free trial. The services offer access to hundreds of games combined, in Apple’s case exclusive titles, free of microtransactions and predatory mobile shenanigans, and for what it’s worth high quality games for the mobile platform.

Then Nintendo sauntered in with Mario Kart Tour like a man with no self-awareness walking into a feminist AA meeting donning his unclean wife-beater, carrying a Pabst, blowing a big fart and then asking which one of the lovely ladies would like to take him home and make him a sandwich. Mario Kart Tour is a depressing game to look at, not only because it is a low-quality facsimile of the real thing but because of the knowledge that mobile expectations of workmanship are so low that people will eat up the shoddy, low-effort design and spit out lots of moolah into Nintendo’s open pockets despite the readily available, higher quality, also portable version of Mario Kart being a step away.

Mario Kart Tour isn’t here to give you an enjoyable experience, that is literally not what it was made for. It has one goal and makes that very clear from the opening second of the game: Money and gambling. Lots of money and lots of gambling, especially for you children. The first thing you do in the game is “fire the cannon,” which is Nintendo’s kid friendly way of saying “open this loot box you [expletive deleted].” You open a loot box to determine your first character. You open a loot box after your first race. After three races and a short tutorial, what do you do? Open a loot box. And the game doesn’t let you drift away from the loot boxes either. In typical mobile tutorial fashion, it will lock every other section of the game until you relent because dammit you’re going to gamble and you’re going to like it. Otherwise you’re going to have no game, you indescribably cheap cretin.

There are 20 characters at the moment in Mario Kart Tour and you’ll need to unlock them one by one using (you guessed it) loot boxes. Odds of unlocking characters varies from the “normal” 5% to the “super” .26%. Yea, if you wanted to play as any of the standard racers like Mario, Peach, DK, Toad, Bowser, etc, you’ll be looking at 1% odds on the loot boxes. Because this game isn’t about fun, it’s about maximizing profits off of FOMO, compulsive collectors, and children with mom’s credit card. The same goes for your cart and the umbrella, which also unlock via loot box and have non-cosmetic effects like giving you more items per box or increasing your combo boosts. If you wanted to know why Dry Bowser has a .2% chance of unlocking, see how many levels choosing him as a character nets you bonus items.

Nintendo has also already started dabbling in time-limited loot box drops. Tomorrow (10/2) is the last day to get Pauline, her yellow taxi, and fare flier cart piece. Each one has a 1% chance of dropping in loot boxes. It will absolutely not be in the next limited loot box. It may be available at some point in the future, then again it may not. If it does reappear, it may have a higher chance of dropping and it may have a lower chance. Nintendo will never tell, because shut up and buy more currency.

Rarer goods also grant more opening bonus points, and others just straight up grant you 2x and 3x combo points. That’s important because Mario Kart Tour is less concerned with your place and more concerned with your points. Grab up those hot racers and vehicles and you’re basically a good way to a perfect five star rating before the map even begins.

Mario Kart Tour is deceptive from head to toe. First of all the game tricks you into thinking that you are playing against other people. You aren’t, the online mode isn’t in the game yet to play multiplayer matches with people around the world. You’ll kinda figure this out on your own pretty early, but Nintendo went to some lengths to hide the fact that you are playing solo. For starters every other racer has a genuine Nintendo usernames (a lot of Japanese letters). When you launch a map it actually goes through the process of mock filling up a lobby. As a result, you’re often needlessly put together in matches with many duplicate characters. I can understand that online, but in single player? What a joke.

Matches now consist of two laps instead of the Mario Kart industry standard three, presumably because some cynical boardroom meeting looked at cynically collected data and cynically suggested that two laps was the perfect amount of time to keep mobile gamers’ attention and three laps was just way too long.

You might be thinking the same thing that I did when you read “Mario Kart Tour” and “mobile game,” and that’s “haha I bet this game plays itself.” It does. By golly it does. Mario Kart Tour has auto-acceleration and auto-turning. I have set my phone down and came back to find that my character almost always made it in the top 3. It’s fine, the controls in this game are rotten garbage anyway. I can’t count how many times I saw my cart drifting sideways in defiance of most laws of gravity. It’s like your car is being pulled on an invisible rope behind and invisible car. It never feels like you are actually in control, more like an invisible hand gesturing the racer toward more gold coins.

Then you have the membership, which is why I brought up the Apple Arcade information earlier. Mario Kart Tour wants you to pay $5 per month for its membership, the same cost that will get you access to hundreds of better quality games. What do you get for your $5 gold pass? You get extra rewards from racing in tours, you get extra badges from gold challenges, and you get access to 200cc. Yep. 200cc is locked behind a subscription. By the way, I played through a few races on 200cc and didn’t touch the phone screen. I came in fourth nearly every time.

If you’re looking for guidance on whether to spend money on Mario Kart Tour you just need to look at another one of Nintendo’s egregious cash farms: Miitomo. When the news came that Nintendo would be shutting down that gacha game, what was the company’s response? A big middle finger pointing at their no refunds policy. Who doesn’t salivate at the prospect of a Mario Kart game that Nintendo intentionally produced to feel like a crap Chinese knockoff, that you’re expected to lay down more money for than the price of a Switch console, that Nintendo will throw up a big f*ck you and remove access to all of your purchases for once the game no longer rakes in the enormous monthly average revenue they expect? I already have my wallet out but it’s being dropped into the furnace.

I have no trust in Mario Kart Tour. There is a weekly ranked cup that grants rubies depending on your overall score which should offer unlimited replay (keep your score up, be the best guy) but I don’t trust it. I got to #1 rank with no effort on the cup, the other people are just first names (Anna, Jose, Clara). Are they real people? Did I get roped into a group with 20 people who all have first names as their usernames? Does Nintendo hide the usernames and post first names? I don’t know. I don’t think I’d trust Nintendo that these are real people and not just another cog in the bullshot machine if they managed to show me government identification from each player in my crew.

Is anyone in a group where the first place has 13,944 points? Because that’s me. Please tell me you are real.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Column: Planetside Arena and the Friday Night Whatevers


It’s Friday night! I’m playing a few rounds of H1Z1 to get my anger on before throwing my Gamefly rental of Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a good weekend film to watch.

I’m going to tell you my wonderful readers what I told Daybreak before Planetside Arena launched into Early Access this week: It’s a neat concept that definitely has something going for it, but your biggest struggle is going to be convincing people to play it. What I didn’t tell them because I didn’t want to seem to blunt or immediately burn bridges with the new PR people (the old ones stopped talking to me) is that they have an uphill battle for two reasons: First, they are Daybreak Game Company. Second, it’s a free to play battle royale game.

I’ll be frank; Daybreak Game Company doesn’t have a great reputation as far as battle royale games go considering how badly they managed to mess up Z1 Battle Royale and H1Z1 and grasp failure from the hands of market dominance in both cases. There are a lot of people still very angry about Daybreak’s continued mismanagement of the PS4 H1Z1 and I should know. I’m one of them. Expect an H1Z1 season 5 roundup at some point in the future. Actually Daybreak doesn’t have a great reputation period. It just seems like large swaths of people that they’ve come across have come away feeling burned in one way or another. Everquest players, Planetside players, H1Z1 players, the ones hanging on to those games that shut down like ten years ago. All of them. Daybreak couldn’t have a lower public perception if John Smedley was still employed and inviting people to DDOS the servers again.

Second; it’s a free to play battle royale game in a market full to the brim. Sure, Planetside Arena has massive battles with upwards of 300 people. Is it filling them up? Nah. We’re in the opening Friday night and the game is having trouble keeping above 700 people concurrently. There are over 1,300 people playing Planetside 2, nearly double the amount in Planetside Arena and one of those games is seven years old while the other should be getting its early access launch rush. Over on the Twitch side of things, Planetside Arena has 434 viewers as of this publishing. You know what has more? H1Z1. So people aren’t playing and they aren’t really interested in watching and again, we’re in weekend #1.

And ultimately Planetside Arena isn’t even that bad of a game, which is why I’m sitting here typing about it at nearly 1am on a Saturday when I could be doing weekend stuff like sleeping. My big fear with Planetside Arena is that it would release to a shrug and a “whatever,” and that appears to be exactly what is happening. Who knows, maybe Daybreak can pull it around and convince people to actually play the game. They haven’t managed it with the streamers, but after all this is just weekend #1 and who ever said you only get one chance at a launch?

Oh right.

Microtransactions: Workhard Is Definitely A Game


I wanted to talk about Workhard because I spent money on this and I’d honestly feel bad about refunding it.

Microtransactions is the latest column idea I had here for MMO Fallout because I can either play some incredibly cheap/short indie games with what little free time I have nowadays, or I can do the sensible thing and acknowledge that I’m not actually legally obligated to be publishing stuff on the internet even though I’ve been doing just that for nearly eighteen years now.

So I picked up Workhard because it was $1.79 on Steam and looks like a Gameboy game. Shallow, yes, but so is the game. You play as a secret agent assigned to liquidate a gang. With your guns. Sure, why not. So you travel to the right over several levels and shoot people as they aimlessly walk toward you. To aid in your liquidation you have a pistol, an automatic, and a one-shot shotgun that fires one bullet before it needs to reload. The shotgun has a very satisfying punch and can take out pretty much everyone except for the final boss in one hit. Admittedly this is the highlight of the game.

All in all, Workhard will take roughly 10 minutes to beat and obtain all of the achievements. I actually thought that the game was having problems because I kept killing the final boss off-screen without realizing it and the game just goes right back to the main menu.

I’m not angry that I spend the cost of a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target on this game or the fact that it was ten minutes long, but I am starting to wish I had taken that money and gotten a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target.

UK Reverses Course On Gambling Thanks To EA’s Tone Deaf Argument


Who would have guessed that Electronic Arts worst enemy would be itself? Outside of everyone with a shred of common sense and human decency I can hear you saying, and I get it.

The last we heard from the UK in terms of possible loot box regulations, the Gambling Authority stated that loot boxes are not gambling because there is no real money payout system. Not too long afterward the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee had a sit down with some representatives resulting in what might be the most embarrassing statements to ever come out of the mouth of the gaming industry. EA’s Kerry Hopkins stated that FIFA’s Ultimate Team packs were “quite ethical and quite fun” while Epic went even deeper into propaganda territory by stating “I would disagree with the statement that Epic makes money from people playing the games.”

Well following a deluge of public comments on the hearing (never let anyone tell you your complaints don’t matter), the DCMS has published its report on immersive and addictive technologies and they are not happy with how Kerry Hopkins conducted herself. In thanking the number of people who came forward with information, the DCMS took time to admonish the industry for its dishonest and unacceptable conduct:

“In contrast, we were struck by how difficult it was to get full and clear answers from some of the games and social media companies we spoke to and were disappointed by the manner in which some representatives engaged with the inquiry. We felt that some representatives demonstrated a lack of honesty and transparency in acknowledging what data is collected, how it is used and the psychological underpinning of how products are designed, and this made us question what these companies have to hide. It is unacceptable that companies with millions of users, many of them children, should be so ill-equipped to discuss the potential impacts of their products.”

In its conclusion, the DCMS has recommended further action be taken by the government in accordance with the 2005 Gambling Act.

“We consider loot boxes that can be bought with real-world money and do not reveal their contents in advance to be games of chance played for money’s worth. The Government should bring forward regulations under section 6 of the Gambling Act 2005 in the next parliamentary session to specify that loot boxes are a game of chance. If it determines not to regulate loot boxes under the Act at this time, the Government should produce a paper clearly stating the reasons why it does not consider loot boxes paid for with real-world currency to be a game of chance played for money’s worth.”

You can read the rather lengthy report at the UK Parliament website here.

Steam Cleaning: Banned Developer Creates Shell-Accounts


Where would we be if Steam’s worst developers weren’t so stupid?

There have been hundreds of developers banned from Steam for various reasons of scumbaggery, and Valve doesn’t do a fantastic job of vetting the identity of creators so many of them have come back in one form or another. The latest developer to do this is apparently Sun Lucky Industries who have taken to creating numerous shell accounts to put their copy-pasted, low quality games on Steam.

Thankfully they aren’t very intelligent. Their games Monster Planet, Urban Riots, Desert Monsters, Animal War, Alien Creatures, and Desert Lost contain the exact same price (99 cents) and the exact same product description. They also look like exactly the same game but with different assets packs.

“This is a third person action game,The player is surrounded by a group of monsters represented by the leader,Players can explore the surrounding area freely, but need to kill the monster or avoid the monster’s attack, the leader of the attack and vitality is very high need attention,Players need to survive as long as possible.”

Will Valve react? More than likely.

Big thanks to the folks at Sentinels of the Store for their diligence.

[Column] Astellia’s Subscription Trial Should Be Free/Contribute


Astellia Online is launching with a subscription, by which I mean it’s launching with a trial subscription, and it’s a bunch of tat.

When Astellia launches it will cost $40 for the introductory kit, with no word on how quickly the game will go free to play once the market wholly rejects paying up front for what is otherwise a rather generic import MMO that feels like it came out roughly ten years ago. If you’re not interested in the $40 up front fee, you can penalize yourself by spending $10 per month to check out a “trial” version that is otherwise the exact same thing and contains no restrictions. Astellia is not a subscription title otherwise.

Here’s the fun part: Your $10 per month doesn’t contribute to your purchase price, so if you are going to “play it safe” your penalty is that you’ll be paying a 25% premium for the privilege of doing so. If you sub for two or more months, and I can’t imagine why anyone would outside of forgetting to cancel their auto-renewal, well you might as well just call it a day. BarunsOn Studio calls it a “risk vs reward” system, whereas I’ll just call it a “contempt for the customer” system, one where the publisher knows that they have a steep uphill battle convincing a large number of people to buy into a $40 game that looks a lot like the dime-a-dozen Korean MMOs that launch for free by the thousands every year, but there’s no way management is going to open the door to thousands of gold farmer accounts without getting at least a little bit of dosh in return.

Astellia’s business model runs the risk of death by a thousand cuts of apathy, and the whole thing is worse considering it’s been done before. Other games have introduced starter editions that get you into the game at a lower cost, and then allow you to upgrade to the full game if you like what you’re playing. Many of those games (Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, etc) are insanely successful, more than Astellia Online is likely capable of conceiving. They don’t begrudgingly punish people for their skepticism.

Astellia asking players to throw away ten dollars risks immediately creating a relationship of animosity. There is no reason outside of contempt or greed (or some combination of the two) to immediately start your outreach to potential customers on such a hostile note, and no reason that the $10 first month can’t go toward the cost of the game. That would foster a more welcoming image. The number of sales you get from people who pay the $10 and then eat the cost and upgrade to the full version won’t be zero. I’m also willing to bet it won’t be a large number either. Ten bucks isn’t a lot of money, but Astellia isn’t a particularly high quality game. In the grand scheme of things gamers have a lot of other options either through the games that they already bought or through the multitude of free to play MMOs that are of much higher quality, far more content, and already have an established user base.

I’ve seen posts in the forums with people boasting about the idea that this acts as a gatekeeper and that it “weeds out people like you” toward critics. I’ve been writing about MMOs for fifteen years, these are the same people who will be wondering why nobody was willing to give the game a try in 2020 when the announcement comes that the game just didn’t get a good enough return to remain solvent.

All this for yet another game coming out of Korea that promises it will totally never include those crazy pay to win schemes that the Korean version has. Developers have never broken their promise in that scenario, right? At the very least, we can hope that the gold farmers (whom I suspect are at least tangentially related to this lower price version) who bulk-buy accounts to spam chat with advertising aren’t using stolen credit cards. Don’t forget, every dollar lost to a chargeback costs roughly $2.40.

This is where my free consultation of Astellia Online comes to a close. You can have your people call my people for more details.

EA Community Team Wins Award For Most Hated Comment On Reddit


You have to wonder how it feels to juxtapose simultaneously being one of the most successful companies in the industry while also being one of, if not the most hated. Electronic Arts has won numerous awards over the years for the worst company not just in the gaming industry, but in the world. The game publisher known for acquiring game studios, ruining the reputation of their games through budget cuts and rushed development periods before shuttering said developer, Electronic Arts hailed in the massive anti-consumer failure known as the Online Pass.

But now EA has another notch to add to its belt under bringing ruin to Bioware, and that is officially being recognized as having the most hated comment on Reddit. Of course we are talking about the “sense of pride and accomplishment” comment that EA’s support team left when defending the egregious use of microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II, a monetization system that was quickly pulled yet didn’t do much to stop the disappointing sales that followed.

The idea that this comment is the most hated on Reddit is no surprise, gamers and those who follow internet drama have known for the better part of the year. For EA however the distinct dishonor has been encased in the carbonite known as the Guiness Book of World Records. EA’s 683k downvotes beat out the second place contender which has a whole twenty four thousand.

Why don’t you just admit that nobody on Reddit likes you?

 

[Not Massive] Gaijin Throws Taiwan Under Bus For Chinese Gov’t


A game developer doing something scummy to appease an oppressive dictatorship? Must be a day ending in WHY.

In the world of developers doing stupid things, if you push past the western AAA industry of Electronic Arts and Valve and make your way toward the back of the room, you might spot Gaijin Entertainment.

Back in 2015, Gaijin’s producer Pavel Kulikov got caught pulling an extortion scheme against a Youtuber, threatening the guy’s livelihood in return for positive coverage of the game. Kulikov was fired and Gaijin denied any knowledge or involvement in the plan. But Gaijin doesn’t understand public relations, or just doesn’t give a toss, since in 2018 the next scandal popped up with an official content partner referring to players as puny beggars, hoping that they drown in their own bile.

In today’s scandal, Gaijin has been accused of kissing up to the People’s Republic with the outright removal of Taiwan Republic of China flags from the China tech tree in the game War Thunder. The move has been painted by members of the community as an attempt to “suck the toes” (in a manner of speaking) of the Chinese government and is related to recent heightened tensions surrounding the One China policy, by which China does not recognize Taiwan as independent.

So far there has been no comment from Gaijin. The megathread on Reddit has gathered over 500 comments and 4.7k upvotes. This comes two years after Gaijin was accused of cutting story content to appease the Chinese government, involving the Japanese invasion of China in 1939.

Source: Reddit

Last Week On Steam: Slightly Less Rancid Shrimp Edition


Digging through Steam’s weekly release list is like being a septic worker, only more people appreciate what their septic worker does for them. If you can’t tell, it’s not a column I like to spend too much time on because it makes me want to pick up the phone and call my mom and ask why she had to have me, but that’s not what we are here for.

Roughly 275 games were listed on to Steam in the week between August 25 and August 31. Nothing in this list is meant to be a recommendation unless I specifically say that I am recommending the title. Otherwise it is merely a list of games that by my own tastes do not look like an absolute waste of time and money. There are no hentai puzzle sliders, RPG Maker games, or Unity asset flips here. I will not shill your early access title, nor will this list feature games that look like they were made in Flash, ported from mobile phones, and definitely if it doesn’t support English.

If you want the Steam list whittled down to something more manageable, this list is for you. If not, feel free to not read it. The fact that I’m not hosting the images on this server and publishing this at 2a.m. should tell you everything.

#1: Crazy Driver (SRS Games) $.99

Crazy Driver looks like a game from my childhood, at least in the sense that the description makes it sound a lot like the endless mode in Driver. I loved Driver, and seeing how long I could keep my car from being totaled by the police while driving around a very quiet city seemed like the recipe for greatness back in 1999, a good two years before Grand Theft Auto 3 launched.

The cars in this game also look like Micro Machines, so double that nostalgia and stick it right into my veins. Oh and the game runs one whole dollar.

#2: The Castle (Ishtar Games, Inc.) $5.99

I’m not fully convinced that The Castle isn’t some long lost title from the MS DOS days, but Ishtar Games says that it’s a recently developed game and I’m not sure why anyone would lie about that. You’ll need to recruit a group of heroes among the list of available characters to explore a castle, find out its secrets, and most importantly give the stake and the rope to Peter. He knows what to do with it.

If you’re really dripping on that Tales From Monkey Island nostalgia juice and want something actually new to play, check out The Castle.

#3: River Legends: A Fly Fishing Adventure (Dantat Studio) $14.99

But Connor, I hear you shout into the void of space, I don’t want to be a DOS-era nun and have to click “use” before I use something. I want to be a dad and do things that dads do, like fish. Well this next game is right up your airspace.

River Legends is a game with no in-app purchases and no DLC, unlike other fishing games. Despite what the art style may imply, it’s also not one of those artsy-fartsy games that pretends to be one thing and then OH LORD IT’S TWISTED AND EVIL. It’s just fishing, and the four reviews are pretty happy with it. Go fishing, and catch some fish.

#4: Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword) $19.99

If Knights and Bikes looks like a Double Fine game, that’s because it is published by Double Fine. Some of its creators also developed Tearaway. Knights and Bikes looks adorable, it also has an oddly specific soundtrack about riding bikes. It stars two kids in what is referred to as a Goonies-style adventure.

The two new friends, along with their pet-goose and the pickled-head of an undead knight, form the Penfurzy Rebel Bicycle Club, and are ready for anything this adventure throws at them. They pedal into danger to face threats head-on with frisbees, water-balloons, video game controllers and the powerful beats of an amplified boom-box.

Did I mention there is couch co-op?

#5: Minoria (Bombservice) $17.99

I normally pass right by Metroidvania-looking games when looking at titles for this column, since they tend to be absolute trash. Minoria on the other hand immediately drew my attention with truly fantastic looking animation quality. Minoria is an action platformer game with witches, witchcraft, and low gravity that makes boobs bounce a lot. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Girl check out this body. She works out.

The animation quality alone has effectively sold me on this title.

#6: Wayward Souls (Rocketcat Games) $14.99

Yea, we’re going into the procedurally generated 16-bit roguelike games again. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten tired of the genre already!

But hey, this one comes to us from Rocketcat Games, a company that has actually made a name for itself with good quality games. Seven heroes, each with their own abilities, each available for you to take into the dungeon and slaughter countless monsters. What else could you possibly want out of your gaming life? Other than less microtransactions in Call of Duty and for nobody to mention Fortnite ever again anywhere.

#7: Hotel R’n’R (Wolf and Wood Interactive Ltd.) $19.99

I don’t think I have ever had my first impression of a game based on its graphics reversed to this extent and as quickly as it did with hotel R’n’R. Despite your character having disgustingly long and thin arms, Hotel R’n’R is a destruction-based physics game where you take on the role of a failed musician who happens to make a deal with the devil. In return for fame, fortune, and untouchable talent with the musical instrument, all you need to do is smash up a few hotel rooms. In short, you’re just like any other heavy metal band from the 80’s.

Cocaine not included.

#8: Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise (Yak & Co) $8.99

Agent A is probably a stretch, but I’ve just gone through several pages of utterly unsalvageable trash and frankly I’m just looking for something that looks close to palatable. It’s a puzzle game with a nice art style and interesting looking puzzles. Yes, it looks like an Esurance commercial and I’m not entirely convinced that it won’t end up selling you on simple, fast, and affordable rates.

#9: Blair Witch (Bloober Team) $26.99

I have a feeling that I know where Blair Witch is going, since games that play on the whole “hero with a heart of gold but a tormented mind and a violent past” also tend to throw their “child went missing” stories into the realm of “oh b-t-dubs, your character is totally the killer,” but I’m reserving my hopes that Bloober Team is more creative than that.

Being one of the few games that I have actually played on this list, I will heartily recommend Blair Witch from my first impressions of the games opening hours. One thing that sets this game apart and may turn some gamers off is the camera which actually has a use. You will find tapes that can be rewound in order to find clues and hopefully track down this missing brat. Also, Blair Witch has a handsome doggo that helps you find your way through the spooky woods. You can pet him.

If you have Xbox Game Pass, just download Blair Witch there for free.

#10: Timmy’s Cooking Show (Bmc Studio) $1.94

Normally I would tell you to avoid games like this, but the guy playing Timmy looks like he’s really not enjoying this food he’s cooking. Two bucks to watch a bunch of Canadian dorks putz about won’t give you much of a game, but just think of it this way: When the game ends you’re that much closer to the great sleep you’ll be looking forward to even more after sitting through a Bmc Studio game.

#11: Graveyard Defender (Kitty Cattus) $1.79

Did I list this game because of the developer’s name? No. It should be evident by now that I am a sucker for DOS-era stylized games. Protect your home from waves of zombies. Fourteen levels, less than the cost of whatever is $2 at McDonald’s nowadays.

Wasting Time: Darkula


Here at MMO Fallout I occasionally like to bring attention to games that you can check out completely free of charge, but also games that are not MMOs and therefore 1.) will not require you to take them up as a full time job and 2.) won’t bombard you with microtransactions. These games are totally free. Today’s title is Darkula.

If you don’t know Darkula, you are probably not familiar with its creator Locomalito. Locomalito is the creation of one dude, and in between commercial releases occasionally will put out a freeware game. Darkula is that game.

Looking like it’s straight out of the C64/ZX Spectrum era, Darkula has a very simple premise: You are Darkula, and your goal is to pick up the lightbulbs in each level.

“Darkula is a frantic fixed platform game designed like a 1983 coin-op arcade. It mimic the technical specs of the time in terms of image and sound, but it goes further with a smooth playability and a scoring system carefully designed for local tournaments. Collect all the light bulbs to complete a level. Collect shining light bulbs consecutively to raise the challenge and earn a growing bonus. Be fast, don’t miss the special object and be careful with the monsters around!”

Darkula plays like the fourth screen of Donkey Kong but with a bit more strategy, since you’ll want to grab the flashing orbs in order to greatly increase your score multiplier. This is meant to recreate the arcade feel, after all, your whole goal is to git gud and get that high score up! If you want to check out Darkula, it’ll set you back approximately 22.4mb in space unzipped.

I also recommend checking out the other games on the website, many of which are completely free or have a free version. Why not? The only thing you’ll be wasting is time.