Hello!
Although I did not play much video games this year--in July I finally replaced my old broken Notebook after more than two years, and recently, I am more in board games anyway--but besides longtime favourite simulation type games and my continued playthrough of the Zachtronic programming games, I got really surprised by the games "Lumo" and "Jump King"!
I gave Lumo a try in August this year, when it was one of the quite deeply discounted weekly offers here on GOG.
"Lumo" is an homage to the old (mostly British) (pseudo-)isometric puzzle jump and run games of the 80ies & 90ies--such as Solstice on the NES or Alien 8, Head over Heels & Knight Lore and others on the ZxSpectrum or Cadaver on the Amiga. After my first playthrough of Lumo, I digged out my old games to give them another shot and also tried out some of their remakes for the PC (e.g. from retrospec) even discovering ones I had not heard of (for instance, Treasure Trap on PC-DOS or the fantastic Monster Max on the original Gameboy) before returning to another go of Lumo in order to find and recognise all the lovely easter eggs and references to these classics.
The best part about Lumo though is, that you can play it either leasurely with infinite lives in adventure mode and try to get all the collectables or attempt the cruel limited lives old school mode with a clock running in the background (time attack, like in the 80ies)!
It is neither ground breaking nor innovative but it is well designed, has a lot of charm, and is simply fun to play.
I still return from time to time to it to see how far I can get with the limited lives--I did not reach the end, yet in the old school mode.
(By the way, so far I did not have any problems with the keyboard controls of Lumo. I can not understand some of the negative reviews about them. As in the 80ies you can even chose the corresponding orientation of the directional keys.)
The other surprise hit for me was "Jump King", which got released on GOG in October 2019.
I never heard of it before but found the 2D pixel graphics neat and the player character felt both reckless and utterly clumsy in the promotional videos.
And, what a surprise it was--a good one for sure (at least in my opinion)!
The full title of the game is ridiculous as the game itself:
"Jump King - There is a smoking hot babe on the top!"
The only game mechanic is the pressure- or time-dependent jump of the protagonist--think of the artillery shots in old Worms games. You press and release the jump button together with a directional input and he leaps up/forward without mid-air control and often bumps against obstacles, leaps too far or too short and consecutively drops down with a facial plant.
Sometimes he fell several screens downwards seemingly annihilating any progress you made so far. The game is pure frustration when that happens.
Usually, I do not like those type of games... despite the aforementioned classics of the 80ies and the usually unfair NES games from my childhood.
But it is also surprisingly addictive and fun, and tremendously satisfying when you manage to overcome a certain obstacle on your path just to see another screen (even though only until the next failed jump).
Maybe, my recent screwing around with ASCII roguelikes (Vicious Orcs, Sil, Moria, Adom & dungeon crawl stone soup) or my age made me more tolerable or patient with such kind of game design...
Nevertheless, I really enjoy my still not so fruitful attempts to reach the top of this climb in Jump King!
The art and level design is gorgeous and implies ambient storytelling (in addition to the provocating and mocking banter of individuals whose path you cross on your journey up). The game highlights the physical borders and edges with fitting outlines without feeling out of place in this world.
Oh, did I mention that this ridiculous endeavour is a solitary one and a quiet one, too?
Yes, it is primarily just you, attempting the seemingly impossible, where many others have either failed or given up already. Almost no music, merely sparse ambient soundscape and your jumps.
But you are lured by the vague and intriguing promise of a price on top of the world... Is there really something? And if so, what?
I have yet to discover this by myself...
Although I found a hidden passage to a different region where your movement is limited entirely to jumping, no walking! Propably pertencing to the so called "New Babe +" version of the game--consider it an addon or expansion, a second mountain top to climb.
And during december the game got an update with a third climbing region (second addon/expansion).
So far, I can not complain about the content of this little gem of a game!
See you on top... somewhere during next year!
Regards,
Foxgog
Post edited December 30, 2019 by foxgog
