Following Freeware – May 2016 releases
Toffee Trouble in Creamville
Toffee, who looks like a cupcake with an icing hairdo, must take care of the village of Creamville while her donut-shaped father, the mayor, is visiting a conference. Just before he leaves, her father asks Toffee to fix the volcano, which erupts minutes later, covering the village in thick blobs of toffee and chunks of marshmallow. Feeling a bit bewildered, Toffee asks the local handyman for help and gets a blueprint for a device that will plug the volcano with chewing gum. If Toffee gets the parts together, the handyman will help her set the thing up and get rid of this nasty volcano problem once and for all.
Toffee Trouble in Creamville, by Miex and cat, is a cheerful adventure game with bright pastel colors. The town and its immediate surroundings are beautifully drawn in what I can only call a “sweet” art style – literally and figuratively. Almost everything in Toffee’s world is made of sugar: the flowers are lollypops; sugar hearts are strewn on the grass in the fields outside the village; the volcano looks like a cake; and the dam, which is made of chocolate bars, regulates the flow of grape juice through the village and drives the electricity generator. The pixel art inhabitants themselves all look like cookies or other sweet deliciousness. Even the cursor looks like a candy corn! Thankfully the music – a happy tune played by a tuba and other instruments – isn’t overly sweet, or it would have been too much of the good thing. It’s very repetitive though, and you can’t switch it off. You can’t turn it down without losing the sound effects as well, but there are very few effects and you don’t really miss anything by not hearing them. There is no voice acting, so all dialogue is shown as text on the screen.
Played in third-person view, only the left mouse button is used to control the game. An inventory containing the menu button is shown when the cursor is moved to the top of the screen. Most of the puzzles are inventory-based and not hard, but you will also have to convince some rather annoying female cookies to help you, and of course you have to plug the volcano. In the end all is well, but then something happens that indicates that there may yet be a sequel to Toffee Trouble in Creamville in the future.
Toffee Trouble in Creamville can be downloaded from the AGS website.
The Shortest Journey
In a small and sunny South American village, a little guy dreams about finding treasure during his siesta. Although his dream is quite vague about the nature of the treasure and its location, after waking up he decides to go look for it. He soon finds out where the riches are hidden and sets off on a journey that will take him to a dark grotto and an ancient, abandoned sacred-looking location. On his way, the boy will have to distract an angry man, find some money and unlock the entrance to the grotto, amongst other tasks. The beautiful scenery, fitting music and the expressive way the little boy acts all work together to make The Shortest Journey a very pleasant game to play.
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