The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

Mars TD is a grim 8 bit preview of the future when we establish a colony on the red planet. If you thought the octopi-like Martians of Metal Slug 2 were the creations of wildly imaginative (or possibly insane) game designers, you’re absolutely wrong – Mars TD designer Taro knows farbetter that they are real and dangerous lifeforms native to Mars and they eat human colonies there for breakfast.

Walking octopi from Metal Slug aside, Mars does have a variety of weird fauna from spinning heads that eerily resemble Crash Bandicoot’s and even the catlike Qoo from the similarly named range of drinks from Cola-Cola.

These hostile Martians will appear and attempt to ravage the colony unless we humans start building towers to defend ourselves – that’s right, it’s another tower defense game again but Mars TD has a couple of neat gimmicks that sets it apart from other games of the genre.

The attributes of each tower from top to bottom : Level, Exp, Attack Strength, Attack Speed and Unknown (sorry!). The buttons from top to bottom are : Upgrade, Move and Sell

When a tower blows an alien to bits, it gains both experience and credits – I guess it’s probably the gunners in it who gain experience since the concept of inanimate towers gaining exp on their own is rather freaky With sufficient experience, towers will automatically level up on their own. Towers with more experience are also cheaper to upgrade than untrained towers – especially the more advanced towers (I have seen a total of five different types as of writing)

Towers with yellow, orange and red arrows are progressively cheaper to upgrade

There’s also an ability to switch the positions of towers which is free between stages but will cost you when you move them around during each stage. Walls can be built if you need to move a tower to an unoccupied spot, which is a handy tactic when you have insufficient credits to build actual towers but want to implement a more in-depth defensive strategy by shifting them around.

At the end of the day, it’s still tower defense but it’s tactically challenging (read : super hard) and addictive as hell. The 8 bit feel is a plus in my book too – huge pixels, garish colours, bleepy soundtrack and outlandish critters complete the surrealistic effect Mars TD has on the senses.

Play Mars TD at mogera.jp. (there’s also a review at JayIsGames where I saw this).

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
More Tower Defense Flash Games : Onslaught 2 & VectorTD
Retro Tactical Warfare in Nectaris for Windows
OpenTyrian – The Best DOS Shoot’em Up – Now for Windows XP/Vista and Other OSes
The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage & Crimsonland

Discovered John Cooney’s I Love Traffic off Armor Games’ official blog back in April this year – a a short 20-level puzzler combining elements of twitch gaming, quick thinking, pattern matching and estimation skills. I Love Traffic is refreshingly addictive for a game that contains no violence and has a soothingly pleasant colour palette to boot.

Inadequate allocation and (occassionally) criminally-neglient misplacment await you in each level as you control ALL the traffic lights in an attempt to prevent congestion while maintaining a perfect 0% accident rate at the same time.

One of the more sensible road designs

By controlling when each traffic light change from red to green and vice versa, you’ll attempt to squeeze as many vehicles across one or more junctions with every change of the traffic lights to beat the time limit and complete each level. If you think that juggling multiple traffic lights and atrocious road designs was already bad enough, the random appearance of speeding police cars, slow-moving buses and long trailers will definitely drive you bonkers. But then again, there’s nothing like seeing a lumbering trailer clear the junction moments before a police car streaks past.

The first ten levels are essentially confidence-building exercises – later levels especially the final level will really test your estimation skills and multi-tasking skills.

Play I Love Traffic at Armor Games or check out John’s other games.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Drivey – Relaxing Screensaver
Bus Driver Demo Review
Russ Schwenkler (dangeruss) – Vexel & 3D Cars and Motorcycle Art
BMW Art Cars

The counterweight trebuchet was one of the most awe-inspiring siege machines of the medieval age (or the one of the most fearsome, depending on which side you happened to be)

Its range and power may pale in comparision to the gunpowder artillery that rendered it obsolete – advances in gunpowder and artillery design resulted in the infamous Paris Gun of WWI which fired 94 kg shells out to a range of 130 km – but a trebuchet’s ability to hurl 100+ kg rocks, diseased cattle and other projectiles at or over the walls of an enemy castle 270 metres away was mightly impressive for its time.

Inspired by Liam Bowmers’s Castle Clout, Armor Games’ Crush the Castle offers you the chance to tear down 24 different castles with a wonderfully animated trebuchet recreated in loving detail. Artwork in this game is supplied by Chris Condon of Con-Artist Productions (The Last Stand, Warfare 1917, etc)

The first few “castles” are questionably designed – I’m certain that medieval lords did not build their castles on stilts like this one here.

This masochistic lord probably wanted a superior vantage point to better witness his own (literal) downfall, I guess

Besieging a shabby wooden stockade complete with three beautiful princesses in Crush The Castle? How unchivalrous

It’s a delight to watch the physics kick in as stones (and later, primitive bombs) from your trebuchet make solid hits on the weak points on the castle causing the entire shoddy structure to crumble and collapse like a house of cards. And no, Crush the Castle isn’t meant as a history lesson – castles back then definitely didn’t topple over by themselves even when hit by the huge projectiles fired from an even more massive trebuchet and neither did they build castles this badly

Behind the comic facade of silly lords falling to their death from their grandoise but obviously unstable fortifications, there are several good puzzle-like designs in here – particularly a couple where the wrong shots would bring down half the castle but trap the remaining characters beneath multiple collapsed pillars of wood and stone, while simultaneously protecting them from your projectiles.

Once you have destroyed all 24 strongholds, you can create your own castles and then test their defensive strength with the built-in level editor.

Overall, Crush the Castle is a wonderful little timekiller – nothing to complain about there except for the fact that you only get five shots to take out all the inhabitants of the castle, be they haughty royalty or loyal knights and men-at-arms. Why anyone would take the trouble to erect a powerful trebuchet only to fire only five rocks is beyond my comprehension – must be the fickle pettyiness of those feudal times.

Play Crush The Castle.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Papercraft Trebuchet Plans by Sheila Mertens
800mm Dora Railgun
War and Game – Military History Blog
A Simulation of Trench Warfare : Warfare 1917

Normally one wouldn’t associate the idea of fun with the tedious but obviously important task of chopping firewood for the (hot) pot but this frivolous Flash mini-game at the official Japanese website for Taiko no Tatsujin seems to imply otherwise (and yes, I do know that Taiko no Tatsujin has been featured in more than one post here )

和田イヌ (which supposedly translates to Wada Inu according to this GameFAQs article – inu means dog in Japanese) is trying to gather as much firewood as possible for his yosenabe (cooked in a claypot known as donabe) within a single minute and it’s your job to help him.

Over-application of force

Despite its appearance, this mini-game is no clickfest but is actually a test of hand-to-eye coordination since Wada Inu has to judge and time each attempt so as to utilize the minimum amount of force necessary for splitting each wood block with a single stroke of his axe. Using too much force simply wastes time which could be better spent on splitting more wood. Conversely, an underpowered strike will only lodge the axe bit in the larger blocks, requiring him to either retry again with greater force and finesse or hammer the wood repeatedly until it splits (much slower).

Boing! Under-application of force.

It’s a cute little diversion that should last you more than a couple of tries during lunchbreaks or for those days when you need to entertain youself with something brainlessly simple (and admittedly pointless).

So how many logs can you split ? My current record is at a lowly 60

Play this Taiko no Tatsujin log-splitting mini-game. (sorry, I’ve absolutely no idea what the Japanese game title translates to)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Learning About Japanese Festivities with Taiko no Tatsujin
Domo-kun Wallpapers & Clock Widgets
Makibishi Comic – Japanese Point & Click Flash Adventure
Zookeeper – A Bejewelled Clone in Flash
Official Tuzki (兔斯基) Emoticons

Swords & Sandals 2 : Emperor’s Reign is just one in a series of five commercial Flash games in the Swords & Sandals universe by Australian devs 3rd Sense. As its name implies, it’s loosely based on the famous Roman gladiators – loosely because you don’t see purple-haired and blue-skinned gladiators in history books, do you?

The game starts with you customizing your fighter’s appearance and skills. Don’t be tempted to make your warrior a jack of all trades though, since an average fighter will find very few tactical options viable against the specialist heavy hitters or agile ninjas (yes, there are ninjas in here, another -1 for realism )

Once you survive your first fight against a fellow prisoner in the dungeon , you’ll get the chance to equip weapons, armour, potions and magic scrolls (the first Swords & Sandals has no magical elements so purists might want to try that instead) before heading to the arena which either ends in glory or death.

Duels are available at the arena to train your gladiator, the defeated losing a sum of gold rather than their lives. After advancing two levels, your fighter must participate in a tournament with other veterans in a fight to the death.

In the actual fight, both combatants can utilize strikes of varying force, pelt the opponent with projectiles from slings and bows or charge to take the fight to an evasive or retreating opponent.

Your skills and armour affect the effectiveness of your attacks and defences as well as the range of tactical options.

For example, a clumsy brute with low agility can only charge a very short distance which makes him defenceless against fast opponents armed with ranged weapons (thankfully, ranged weapons come with limited shots) Likewise, weaker fighters with low vitality and/or low defence skills may find themselves reeling from a single blow from a more powerful opponent.

Analyzing and exploiting your opponent’s weaknesses (view Stats before each fight) is vital for your survival in the gruelling tournaments, especially the final fights against merciless heavily armed bosses like the fearsome Son of Stylonius below.

Glory!

Death!

Play Swords & Sandals 2 : Emperor’s Reign (demo version) or buy for 19 USD.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Edutainment Games (III) – Know Your Gladiator & Medieval Armour
Myth and History Lessons, Genzoman Style!
A Peek into the Ancient World with Johnny Shumate
Learning Your A.B.Cs with Viva Caligula
Legion Arena Review
OpenGlad – Action-RPG Game