Stephan Carpenter (aka GameCarpenter) - Independent Game Creator
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| Stephan Carpenter (aka GameCarpenter) - Independent Game Creator |
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Name
Description
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| 5 Differences | Puzzle - Spot the Difference Game - 4 Stars 5 differences is part of a series of catch the difference style games. Unlike others which tend to use static images, it tends to have somewhat more dynamic scenes. When this game first came out, I made a small guide to it, the photos are available here. These show a screenshot of the images in the game, and where the differences were in that specific instance (purple circles) and where I thought I remembered seeing them in other playthroughs (yellow circles.) It is no longer uncommon, but as this suggests, this game also features changing differences between plays. Where it is lacking is in a sense of plot, something which many other difference games have tried to capture as of late. | link |
| Aether | Art Game - Puzzleish - 3 Stars This is sort of an artistic game. All the graphics tend to be... well kind of washed out looking. There are some gameplay elements, mostly centered around finding various objects, and using a gravity system for the various planets and asteroids flying around in space. The mechanics of swinging on the rocks to get from place to place is pretty cool. The puzzle elements are pretty surreal... It's an interesting game you have to see for yourself. | link |
| Codex of Alchemical Engineering | Puzzle - Programming Themed - 4 Stars The premise is simple enough, there is a respawning area with these round "element" balls, and you place robotic arms and special elemental modifiers around this map, and program the robotic arms to act in such a way that the goal for the level is met. It's part of this sort of "programming" type of games where you plan the route completely ahead of time, and watch the results. These can arguably be traced back at least as far as "Stack-Up" for the NES. There's another game of this sort featured on Kongregate some time ago called light-Bot but featuring a robot which must be programmed to turn on every square by standing on it. The various mechanical arms move simultaneously, making it important to time their loops in such a way that they integrate well together since any collision of elements leads to a loss. With a large number of elements and some complicated combinations, it can get quite difficult. | link |
| Dream World | RPGish - Vaguely MMO - 3.5 Stars This rating is more of an average in order to give this game a fair shake. It starts out pretty fun, then becomes progressively less fun as energy becomes increasingly scarce. Eventually the game grinds to a near halt. The MMO aspects are very minimal. Character personalization through skills and stats is reasonably varied. Premium items are overpriced, but overpowered. Overall its a fairly mediocre game. | link |
| Majesty of Colors | Art Game - Story Driven - 2 Stars This game is an art game of sorts. You interact with the environment as a sea monster of sorts, your actions determining how you are seen by the people around you. In the end it's a collect-the-endings style game. There's no real difficulty in accomplishing what you can do, just a matter of exploring your choices and their consequences. It has some real artistic merit, mostly in the plotting. The graphics actually hurts it a little, doing a poor job conveying the plot and emotion in comparison to the written story. | link |
| Maze Stopper 2 | Puzzle Game - Defense-Strategy - 5 Stars This game is built loosely on the rules of build your own maze defense games like desktop tower defense. The enemies are moving toward a goal (in this case a flag) and you build objects to elongate the path they take and otherwise hinder their progress. This is as far as the similarity holds however. Instead of preventing them from reaching their goal by destroying them, you simply delay them as long as possible, while getting your character with the same goal to the goal (a flag) as soon as possible. This complicates things quite a bit, since your character occupies the same map, and uses the same shortest path following AI as the enemies. With the addition of slowdown pickups and speedup pickups, and the inability to remove the blocks you've placed (you can edit the ones you JUST placed if you place them in the paused mode) as well as the standard rule that you can't block them from the goal completely makes this a very interesting game. In addition there is a clever star system for ratings based on how much sooner you get to the flag than your nearest opponent. | link |
| Pryo | Puzzle Game - 4.5 Stars Unlike the quite excellent old-school game of burning down important buildings (Pyro 2), this game is about lighting torches via flaming balls of fire. Using an aiming system similar to old mini-golf games, you choose a direction and power with your mouse. The game also shows perfect guidelines of the projected path of your shot similar to Gravitee. Unlike golfing games, you don't play the ball from where it lies, more exactly, it lies off the bottom of the screen after every shot, also it's clearly made of rubber. For each level you have a certain number of balls to use to light all of the torches, either directly or through lighting and destroying nearby crates. On some levels you can get additional balls to use by touching them with your ball while bouncing around the screen. Some of these additional balls have special powers, like greatly extended guidelines, or a small size for getting into mini-corridors. This game uses gravity and it's bounce mechanics to excellent effect, and it's 'aced' system for lighting all torches in a minimal number of shots (usually 1) and the bonus levels this unlocks adds a nice extra reward element. | link |
| SeppuKuties | Puzzle & Action - Lemmingish Life System - 5 Stars Physics based action puzzler. This game is very good. It is a basic key and door puzzle game, except all action is driven by the physics engine. The kuties (a bunch of animal friends) are seeking out a new home and need to go through the dangerous environments while optionally collecting acorns to get to their new home. It is also possible for an animal to (quite cheerfully) commit seppuku, with the advantage that a death leaves behind a block you can use to help the remaining animals to safety. Like lemmings, the number of surviving carries over from one level to the next, unlike lemmings, only one is active and controlled at any time, and once one reaches the end, the rest move on to the next level as well, basically a sort of lives system. You can go back to previous stages at any time to recomplete them, reclaiming the lives lost on them. | link |
| Shore Seige! | Action Defense - 4 Stars This was a decent game, sort of an active defense style, like Pillage the Village... only very different. You can purchase upgrades of the various abilities you have, and the various creatures that attack your beached ship require different attacks to repel them. Also have some nice one time items you can purchase. The defense is active, select weapons, and wield them against the approaching enemies. There is a nice balance between spending money to repair your ship, and thus win the game, or spending it to increase your ability to survive. | link | Turkey Fling | Action - Distance Maximization - 3 Stars A passible game. Its strength is probably in the graphics presented when you colide with something which is what merits it the higher rating. Gameplay very simple. No upgrading, achievements, or anything of the sort. You have a little more control than in other games of this sort because of your ability to flap your wings. This is tempered by the need to collect corn to recharge this power. Strongly Thanksgiving themed. | link
| Two Rooms
| Puzzle - 4 Stars | It's an excellently designed puzzle game. The mechanics are fairly straightforward, and the level design is slick. The basic idea is that you control two characters on either side of a divider, and by switching between them, you can find a way to the end of the stage. Unlike many puzzle games, there are several timing puzzles which coordinate actions between both of the characters you can control. link
| Vector Runner
| Action - 3.5 Stars | The game premise is quite simple, you are moving inexorably forward, and have to dodge objects while picking up point bonuses, invincibility powerups and "shields" (a type of extra life capped at 3.) There are some points given just for staying alive, but so few that it doesn't end up really contributing to your score. The game is done with some type of basic perspective graphics using outlines of shapes, probably the most interesting aspect of the game is the control, which seems to use a type of acceleration system for movement, which makes the handling feel kind of loose, especially at higher speeds - which is most of the time. link
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