Following Freeware – February 2016 releases
The Dark Plague
With plague sweeping across the land, disguising yourself as a doctor seemed like a good scam. Covering your face with the traditional mask, you thought you could make some money and be gone without anyone knowing your identity. But you misjudged the mood of the citizenry. They have lost patience with your false palliatives, and have gathered outside your door demanding a real cure. With only the meagre contents of your house to work with, your chances of surviving this angry mob look slim.
Set in an unnamed town in medieval Europe, Gurok’s The Dark Plague provides a short but disturbing experience. The graphics have limited detail, consisting of black and white line drawings with only occasional splashes of colour. The main character wears the long-nosed mask and wide-brimmed hat worn by plague doctors of the time, and is very basically animated. The handful of rooms in the house start off looking normal, but later change depending on whether you take a holy path or one more related to the mystic arts. The background music consists of a series of slow sonorous tones, lending gravitas to the proceedings. This is augmented by some sound effects, including the heavy footsteps of the protagonist and the crackling of a fire.
Whilst there is only a limited area to explore, you will need to do so thoroughly. Right-click examines hotspots, whilst left-click moves the character and interacts. For many hotspots, you will need to move the character close to be able to interact. Moving the cursor to the top of the screen calls up the inventory. This also includes two flasks, marked fever and fervor. These fill and empty depending on your actions, the rooms changing appearance when either tends towards full. Appropriate inventory use, mainly guided by tomes found in your explorations, is the order of the day. More than one ending is possible, with the game warning you when you are about to take an action that will end the game. Given the subject matter, it is not overly surprising that the tone is dark without any ending being really happy.
The Dark Plague can be downloaded from the AGS database.
Piece of Princess Cake
All the Viking warrior Sandro wants is a piece of delicious princess cake. Unfortunately the only person with the recipe is Andreas, and he won’t sell to Sandro. Whilst neither man knows the original cause, their two clans have been at war for generations. As a result, Andreas has sworn an oath never to sell princess cake to any member of Sandro’s family. But Sandro’s isn’t the only family that Andreas’s family have a feud with. The owner of the Vikea superstore also considers him an arch-enemy and Andreas really wants a new giant stone for his living room. Perhaps a swap can be arranged.
Piece of Princess Cake, from Carmel Games, is unlikely to win any prizes for historical accuracy. The graphics are done in the same bright cartoon style of so many the studio’s other games (though very unlike the darkness-enshrouded The Gatekeeper), with limited but decent animation. The main character is a hulking brute with a bushy beard, though his threatening size is offset by his permanent gentle smile. The action takes place around the village, including a small pub and the Vikea store, decked out with stone menhirs and other items for sale. The game is fully voiced to a decent standard, with some over-the-top Viking accents. Musical backing is a simple pipe and drum tune that fits the setting well. There are also a variety of sound effects, including the sounding of a horn and the sloshing of liquid.
Control is handled through a single mouse button, with the cursor changing when hovered over a hotspot. The owner of Vikea is well aware who you are shopping for, so a direct approach is not possible. Instead you will find have to search around the village for a way to mellow her mood. You must help a local drunk with a bad taste in his mouth the morning after, and cheer up a distressed boat owner. Whilst there are no dialogue choices, conversations with everyone in the village will steer you in the right direction. Most puzzles are solved using inventory, many in combination. You will also need to piece together a torn treasure map to unlock its secrets. As befits a brave warrior questing for cake, the whole game has a light and gentle tone.
Piece of Princess Cake can be played online at SnapBreak.
Prince Dickless
Prince Timothy is taking his girlfriend Princess Gwen for a ride when they are ambushed by a witch, who cackles: “Hahahaa, the perfect virgin for my new spell!” She destroys the cart, almost kills the horse and disappears with Gwen, leaving Timothy behind in despair. Fortunately the horse, who is mortally wounded, turns out to be a Changer, a creature who can adopt the shapes of the animals he kills. He transfers his powers to Timothy, who then has to kill the Changer so Timothy can become a horse and gallop after the witch to get Gwen back. Thus begins a strange tale so laden with (references to) sex and genitals and still more sex that it’s definitely not for children and may even be offensive to some adults.
Prince Dickless is JNGames’ second title, and it looks like the indie developer is boldly building a reputation for risqué content. Their last game, Femspray, ‘only’ contained “lots of nudity, some sexual bits and loads of gender swapping,” while Prince Dickless comes with the warning of “Sex, Bestiality, Animal transformations, Clichés, Nudity, Castration, Penectomy, Lesbian witches, Playboy bunnies, real bunnies, Mock-erotica, gender-bending and lots more puns.” For those who already know they won’t like such things, you can’t say you weren’t warned!
The graphics feature beautifully painted watercolour backgrounds and simply drawn characters. Animation is quite good; although in human form Timothy slides over the floor somewhat while walking, his movements in all animal forms are rather realistic. Apart from a fire in a hearth and some witches flying around, there is no ambient animation. The game also doesn’t have voice acting, with all spoken text shown on the screen above the head of the person speaking. A very simple cello tune accompanies the gameplay. Effects you’ll hear include the crackling of fires, the working of spells, and even the sounds of sex. All of these noises are well done and fit the game perfectly.
The interface is standard for AGS games, as left-clicking interacts and right-clicking cycles between walk, look, talk and grab. The inventory and menu button appear at the bottom of the screen. The puzzles are logical and fit the game nicely, making use of the fact that different animals have different abilities. Timothy has to lure two creatures out of their burrows, escape from a room where he is held as a pet, fight some witches and eventually save Gwen. Much of the time he prances around naked and sex is merely referred to in the things he does or says or thinks, but the farther you progress the more the content becomes explicit and extreme until at the very end it gets really gross. Luckily the story has some nice twists along the way, and you will find some humorous remarks scattered throughout. Some of the choices you make during the game influence its outcome, as Prince Dickless has no less than 12 endings, 4 good and 8 bad. Finding them all means you have to replay the game a few times.
Prince Dickless can be downloaded from the AGS website.
Latest Gaming Articles
All Articles
