What is Reddit's opinion of
Armor Games?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
This is not a new concept, SimTower long ago is the originator of the idea. Here's a flash game of it: http://armorgames.com/play/7348/corporation-inc
I don't think porting the idea to a casual game/phone is really worthy of being that unique, although I'm sure Zynga is doing it because of the other one's success, I have less sympathy for them considering they took the idea from someone else too.
I personally think Crush the Castle is better than Angry Birds for physics games. It came out well before Angry Birds too, which essentially is identical to Crush the Castles except they replaced royal figures with pigs.
One of the best tower defense games I've ever played is called Kingdom Rush. It is free on armor games, one of their most popular games ever I believe, and it is $1 on iOS.
Gemcraft. Really fun tower defense game. The sequel, Chapter Zero, is a lot of fun too.
Edited for links (hope I did the formatting right):
Gemcraft - original
Chapter Zero - second one
Labyrinth - third one
Well worth it at both prices IMO. The TD market is over-saturated on PC, but this is part of the small minority which stand out above the pack. There's a free flash version here if you want to try it out, but the full version has vastly improved visuals and all the premium content of the flash version included.
>It was kind of a perfect storm of taking a game that everyone that has access to the internet has seen before, adding some mass-appeal characters and releasing it on an accessible platform.
The cause of it all was Apple's mobile phone and tablet platforms skyrocketing in popularity before the rest of the market. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but the iPhone has been notorious for the lack of a very key element for web browsing.
Flash.
The lack of Flash on the iPhone meant that many web based games were pretty much unplayable, which enterprising people picked up on and ported popular free web game ideas into app form. Angry Birds? Crush The Castle.
Angry Birds just happened to be the right idea pitched at the right time.
Adding to this, the Gemcraft series is also a great tower defense game based on Flash. Here is the original, but the other entries in the series (Chapter Zero, Labyrinth) are actually even better.
Learn to Fly is, I think, a better implementation of the concept. There's more control, more strategy and more things to do than just body slams. Burrito Bison does have better design, though.
Wow, brilliant game! I love games like this that can create this tone. Really captures a mood and gets you immersed. Great artwork and fun, somewhat challenging gameplay. Reminded me a lot of this beautiful game - The Company of Myself
Jahooma's LogicBox is a pretty fun way to gauge (and hopefully improve) your ability to think algorithmically. It doesn't teach you how to code, per se, but turning the concepts into syntax is easy enough.
I was like, why does this style seem familiar? And then I understood that at least the director was among the developers of Sinjid: Shadow of the Warrior.
An upvote for name dropping my game :D
They say you should make the game you want to play, and while I thought I had no interest in playing a game where you're a blue boy chasing a pink girl (at least while making [Yesterday], I find myself playing these things whenever I come across them.
You may also want to check out my other "pretentious" love game, Together, which is a semi-companion piece to [Yesterday].
Also I'm surprised One And One Story hasn't popped up yet. One of my faves :]
No, the browser game is free. The Ipad version, which is basically the same with some improvements is 0,89 cents, and this version, which was completely remade in a new engine and greenlit on steam (which means people clearly wanted this) is 10 bucks. I don't think 10 is too much for a good tower defense game imho (if the technical issues are fixed of course)
Edit: you know what, I just thought to myself "I'd probably bye it if it were cheaper" so I guess you have a point. It's a tough sell for this price. I still don't think it's too much to ask for.
Part 1 of this series and part 2 of this series isn't bad either. It tries to be more then it is, but what it is isn't bad.
I feel worse for the creator of the flash games Angry Birds are based on; to think someone took the exact same idea and put it on smartphones was the only thing required for it to be successful.
Edit: If anyone was curious, there's crush the castle and I also believe one that's even earlier than that but I don't remember the name unfortunately http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle
Well its already solved but i have another honarable mention for a great flash game i stumbled upon years back. Much less depressing.
Probably "Achievement Unlocked." It's enjoyable, and does a great job of making fun of how many useless achievements show up in games to fill up the empty space in weaker games.
Came here to post a smarmy comment about Crush the Castle, beaten to it.
Seriously though, Angry Birds is CtC with cutesy graphics. If you have the urge to download this with all the app store bullshit, try this link instead.
Dear Naossoan:
I can honestly say that I believe myself to be an above average--perhaps even outstanding--candidate for a copy of Defense Grid. I quite enjoy defense games, and can remember staying up until 4:00 in the morning on multiple occasions playing those lovely flash-based online ones (this, for instance). Alas, they only have a limited amount of content, and eventually I outplayed their enjoyment. I also like Starcraft II and can remember staying up until 4:00am playing the beta as well. Unfortunately, my beta key inevitably expired many moons ago, and I couldn't bring myself to put my limited resources towards purchasing the full game. With Defense Grid, a game that seems to combine Starcraft-II-esque graphics with the gameplay of the online defense games, I can easily see myself staying up until 4+4= 8:00am! That's a new personal record! And best of all, this game has no expiration date and boasts an incredible amount of content. I could potentially spend every single day for the rest of my life playing it into the wee hours of the morning! (Though in all honesty, I won't.)
Also, I spent my entire dinner today thinking about what I was going to write for this. Even if what I came up with wasn't all that impressive, at least the amount of time I spent shows dedication. I eagerly await your response, and wish you the best of luck in evaluating the many applications you are sure to receive.
Sincerely, Eric (That's my real name! I told you my real name!)
Paul—may I call you Paul? Paul, listen, I'm asking a serious question here (I won't even use the word "troll"):
What do you get out of this? You comment in threads you have to know—even before clicking the links—you'll vehemently disagree with, post nothing but childish name-calling and hollow, snide remarks, then moan when you get downvoted.
It's got to be incredibly time-consuming to do this, and I can't believe that anyone would spend that much time doing something that doesn't benefit them in some way (money, pleasure, etc). So, honestly: what benefit are you getting? Even if you actually believe the stuff you're saying, do you think you're somehow going to sway anyone's opinion? Do you just have a really boring job in an office that blocks sites like Armor Games and Newgrounds?
I'm genuinely curious to know what motivates you, because I can't imagine spending so much of my time doing something I either hate so much (i.e., reading so-called "leftist hivemind" comment threads) or am so very, very bad at (i.e., converting people to my own political philosophy via debate).
There isn't a lot of professional quality ones like Plants v. Zombies, but Defense Grid is one of the exceptions.
Also, Desktop Tower Defense is probably the best free online one in my opinion. Gemcraft is also excellent.
The Second One was probably one of the best games of this kind I've encountered. I wish I would find more games like this. Possibly more indepth ones.
So very true. I have no idea! Maybe we had low(er) standards as kids? I haven't actually spent a lot of time asking youngsters if modern educational games look decent to them, I always just look at them and know it wouldn't interest me.
The only "educational" game that I've seen in the last decade and found to be fun is Light Bot. (found on reddit)
> Because you're a gamer and you value game mechanics and how long the game is more than the overall design of the game, be it auditory or visual.
I agree with you overall, but this portion didn't sit right with me. Suggesting that gamers across the board care more about mechanics and length than design is silly. Games like Bioshock and Don't Starve would not enjoy the success they do if that were the case.
I certainly agree that not ever game needs to be challenging or long (and similarly not ever game has to be visually stunning), but it's not necessarily an either/or situation.
Finally on an only vaguely related note you should check out Small Worlds, it's a cool little browser game and probably the prettiest pixel game I've played.
You're not the only one feeling that way.
Basically, the appeal is that the game is entirely randomly generated. You can play it a hundred times and always get a different dungeon layout, enemies, items, weapons, etc. Sometimes absurdly powerful, sometimes ridiculously bad ones, but always different. So it's partially the challenge of playing the game itself (which is hard enough to master) but also "unlocking" all of it. This could be the ultimate F2P microtransaction-fest but instead it's a rather fair and "complete" package, so I don't mind the model basically feeding off addiction.
My problem with the game (besides being a really basic Flash shooter) is that even if stuff is re-arranged every time, the pattern, the algorithm, is always the same. So you might see rooms rearranged every time, but they're ultimately the same. There's this lottery-esque chance of getting a really good item 1:100 times, but that never had much of an appeal to me since it's essentially just a very low number in some settings file. It's the Diablo school of gamedesign and I could never get into it.
The game's creator, Edmund McMillen, actually made some of my favorite indie games and proved for me that online Flash games don't have to suck. Check out Time Fcuk or Aether. Some of his recent success games, though, are strikingly minimalistic and uninspired in comparison. Some of his unique style shines through in Binding of Isaac's insane backstory (which is kinda awesome) but the game itself? Boring standard shooter.
http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle is one example. The only difference is a slight change in how the "weapon" is fired.
The point is, Angry Birds was not the original game, it is just one of the more popular ones.
In term of incremental, the gemcraft series allow you to grind to for an eternity, while allowing you to increase the difficulty along the way. Its not really made in the same spirit of what most would consider an incremental game, as it is primarily a tower defense, but its basically an rpg where you level up faster and faster
Although you do have to pay for the full versions of the later releases, gemcraft chasing shadows might fit your bill, http://armorgames.com/play/15760/gemcraft-chasing-shadows or you can find it on steam.
The idea of upgrading your graphics in a game has been done a few times but if done well they're pretty neat games. For inspiration I would check out Upgrade Complete and Evo-Land.
About the idea of unlocking mechanics as you progress: the main demographic for that idea would probably be people that play incremental games or 'clicker' games. I'd check out /r/incremental_games for inspiration on that.
Finally, if this idea is done right it can be fun but it would require a lot of balancing. The graphical upgrades/game mechanics would have to be unlocked at a rate quick enough to keep the players interest but not so quickly that the player runs out after playing for only a small amount of time.
Try the sequel. Instead of insta-capture the teacher's cone will progress from Green to Red depending on how long you're in it. You have about a half-second of "seen" time total as opposed to the instant-capture of the original. Also, the cone is actually representative of the Teacher's LOS.
People will link you to wikipedia, but I think it's better just to see it for yourself. Actually, even better: here's the Game of Life as a puzzle game.
The general concept reminds me of a flash game I played once. Ah, I found it again. I found this list by googling for "philosophical flash game". It's called Every Day the Same Dream. It is possible to get to the end of the game, you just have to figure out the various things you're supposed to do outside besides your normal routine. spoilers here
Just so you know I think that your idea still has a lot of potential because it's possible to have different games with similar themes done completely differently.
There was a similar game to this where you had to repair your hot air balloon before you got whacked. Anybody remember what it was?
*NM, I found it: Balloon in a Wasteland
HOLY SHIT ZACK MORRISON YES. Hype. I can now satisfy my rage at how slowly Paranatural updates with slightly reduced rage at how I only get one measly page of PXS per weekday.
The small details in this comic are awesome; Sollux is wearing a shirt that appears to say "EAT SHIRT", Gamzee's wearing something or another that appears to be stitched in a manner not unlike that of a codpiece, Kanaya has a Candy Corn Vampire backpack, and Vriska's shirt has an elephant for reasons which are not entirely clear to me. My shoot-from-the-hip reaction is a reference to This Is The Only Level, but that seems like somewhat of a reach, and there must be a better explanation that is eluding me.
Also, there's no Aradia on this page that I can see, which I really hope does not imply that she's already dead.
also wow is it just me or is Karkat swole AF in that last panel
Nebris needs some kinda of sneakiness game like This except he is going for the dragon egg.
If Arkas gets a game it needs to be text based only :P I don't know what type though
Kurt could have a space game similar to This
Pause could have a basic arrow shooting game like the slingshot mini-game in Ocarina of Time.
Ooh Beef could have one like he is constantly falling and there are obstacles in his way and he has to avoid them, it's hard to explain, like Cube Runner on the Ipod Touch but falling vertically.
And I was also thinking a relay between all the redstoners on the server, like passing the olympic torch but with a redstone torch, so from Doc to Etho to Shree and so on.
Sorry if some of these are a bit off but I was just getting carried away with ideas :P
Very similar to One Button Bob (reddit link). Some of the stages are identical so it is a pretty clear inspiration for the game.
My best in terms of clicks was 94 taking 4:31:1. The trick for minimal clicks is some stages can be beaten with either 1 or 0 clicks by waiting for you to get through by luck. Eg the 4 laser one where you run to get through you hold down run, and die about 5 times before getting lucky and making it through. The boss takes zero clicks, but about 2 minutes waiting for him to not throw a low shot for long enough to kill him.
I believe you are speaking of Pandemic. No?
Edit: Or is it Phage Wars? Or Pandemic II?
He made a couple more, both are Armorgames links to the games:
Cat in Japan is the newest one that I'm aware of.
Christmas Cat is a little older but tis the season!
The maker of the game has made a lot of other great games. He's currently working on a steam game based on "House of Wolves" another game he made last year. All of his games are up on Armor games if you want to check them out: http://armorgames.com/author/Louissi I'm pretty sure that supports him more than playing on a rehost page.
His blog is here, if you want to check it out, he's honestly one of my favorite game creators: http://louissi.com/blog/
I'm a younger member of the PC gaming community, my first game was Lego Star Wars/Star Wars Battlefront 2 when I was 7. I got Lego Star Wars and my brother got Battlefront 2 for christmas and we both loved the games.
After that, I started playing Runescape (cleverly bypassing the age restriction) and played up until around when the wild was removed.
Then after that I mostly just played flash games, I got my own computer that was significantly less powerful than my parents computer that I was using to game earlier and I couldn't play anything but flash games, but man I loved them. I filled my days playing games like Age of War, Raze and the Thing thing series.
A few years pass, and I start playing League of Legends at my friends house. I still had a really crappy computer, so I couldn't play on my own PC. Then eventually, my friends moves on to Minecraft so I start playing that with him (he had 2 accounts). I finally got an upgraded computer in 2011, but it still wasn't that good, but I could play Minecraft (I bought Terraria as my first steam game, but couldn't play it for a year since I had some old Intel integrated graphics that didn't support shaders). About a year later, I upgraded my GPU to a GeForce 6200 (I didn't know anything about video cards, and my PC only had PCI slots). I could finally play Terraria. Then about a year later (2013), I finally bought a new PC (with some funds from my parents). It's the rig I have now, it's not that great but it runs games and that's all that matters.
It's been a long journey, but now that I'm old enough I'll be getting a job and I plan on building a new PC to play Star Wars Battlefront 3 when it comes out later this year, providing it doesn't suck (EA pls).
I enjoyed the shit out of what I played of Lone Survivor, for some reason it won't work anymore and im just too lazy to reinstall or use my laptop.
BUT, I'm going to suggest.... K.O.L.M. 1 and 2. If you haven't played them.
http://armorgames.com/play/7446/kolm Here's a link too!
Here's the link they are at:
http://web.mac.com/nschwarzbaum/spindowrules/GAMES_files/Paintball.swf
Which is a rehost of:
http://armorgames.com/play/518/paintball-the-game
If anyone cares or whatever
its the 3rd level.
I just started playing this last night. Haven't been to Armor games for about 6 months, but I'm bored of huge, strategic, epic games like Skyrim at the moment and needed something different. This game is going to eat up a lot of my gaming time. There is/was another tower defense game similar to this game, that actually got me started playing tower defense games. Found it, it's called "Cursed Treasure".
Magic Pen - Draw shapes and allow the rules of physics to do the rest.
Sugar, Sugar - Draw and get enough sugar in the cups!
I will pretty much play any flash game that revolves around physics, but aside from that I do enjoy the occasional platformer, including many listed in the OP.
I guess Crush the castle was the vaccine that made me immune. Both game have been played bout 15mins by me and that's it.
I bet the guys who made CtC feel like the guy who bought the ticket right before a major lottery win.
>http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle
Looks cool. Also: Holy shit. That is blatant ripoff! The entire formation looks exactly and I mean, FUCKING EXACTLY the same.
The birds are cuter than rocks though, I gotta give them that. Also, plot-wise, Crush the Castle made more sense.
it looks like the kind of game i'd download on mobile (i don't mean this as a bad thing); the only thing that i'm ambivalent about is the aesthetic. it reminds me a lot of haunt the house (http://armorgames.com/play/7195/haunt-the-house).
It looks like it has an extra chapter. Sounds like the developer is planning some aditional future content as well.
If anyone is interested, you can play the first 3 chapters here.
Wow this is the second thing I love that reddit reminded me of today!
May I recommend light-Bot. I've played this and it's pretty fun.
> This is fun! Light Bot is a neat flash-game. You control a little robots, by giving him commands like "walk forward" or "turn left". Your job is, to collect find blue tiles in the maze and turn them yellow. To do so, you have to set up the program in your robot accordingly. At higher levels you will like to write macros or little functions to make things easier for you to program (in the game the things are called functions). This is a very pleasing way to get into or learn writing and thinking in code. Even for kids.
> Coding-language for kids is even a very interesting topic of its own. Maybe some of you will remember Logo, with that "crazy turtle"? I also took a quick glance at Boku, which looks quite interesting.
Oh, what does it matter what you call yourself? You know what you are. You don't need others to give you the dewclaws-up of acceptance, or to decide what definition you're supposed to use.
The impression you get about furridom will depend on which furry forums, newsgroups (lol usenet), IRC channels etc you visit. Hang around in #redditfurs long enough and you might start to think that every furry is a Redditor. Browse FurAffinity too much and you'll wonder if you're the only non-artist in the furridom.
There's a lot of great furry stuff to do out there. Get a fox tattoo. Hold a fox in your arms, or at least get a chance to feed them in real life. Meet the yapsters in #foxie on Furry IRC. Play fox 'em ups and find the foxkeh. Vixenate things. Wear your hat. X-rated stuff, enjoy it without guilt. Yap. Zoot. Just don't waste time worrying about what other furs think.
Here a link to play The Visitor. I know the Duffer Bros. pulled influences from all sorts of things... is there a chance Dart was slightly based on this game?
If you liked Milton than take a look at infinite ocean by co-creator of the talos principle http://armorgames.com/play/7327/the-infinite-ocean
Milton was partially based on the ideas presented in that game.
You ever played the GEMCRAFT series of games? The guy started his business making flash games for websites and getting paid with advertising revenue. Then he made a couple better sequels with a purchase options. Finally he did so well he converted it to Steam release and has been doing pretty darn well.
Dunno if it's what you're looking for but there is icy gifts and icy gifts 2 which are similar to this. Oh and also icy fishes.
GameStop has actually been really awesome about leaving us alone, so all of your complaints about the site should be directed squarely at us!
Sonny 3 has been announced: http://armorgames.com/news/sonny-3-announced
That was a while ago, though... not sure what the status is.
I liked Cave Story (the free-to-play original, for some reason I like that one the best) but my favourite Indie game is I Wanna Be the Guy. I used to play that game all the time, but when my old craptop died I had to download it again, but the new one kept crashing constantly.
And I don't know if you would call these "Indie games" or not, but Armor Games is a game site filled almost entirely with user-generated games of surprisingly high quality. The brothers who made Haunt the House and Detective Grimoire (the original web prequels are still available on the site) used to lurk there, too.
EDIT: Heh, my own sub's spam filter yelled at me because I linked to something.
Every time I find someone complaining about getting sucked in by reward systems, I remember about Achievement Unlocked (also AU2 and AU3 are available). Beat that!
Swords & Souls! If you liked it, you'd be delighted to hear they're making a premium version with so much more content & polish coming next year
Check out The Last Door. It's an 8 bit Lovecraftian horror point-and-click. I played it a long time ago and really liked it. You can play the first episode for free here
I also really liked The Wolf Among Us. So far, it's been the only Tell-Tale game that I've managed to get into, and I got really into it. It's especially good if you grew up with the fairy tales it plays off of.
You might also check out 5 Days a Stranger. It's about a cat burglar named Trilby who breaks into the mansion of a recently deceased socialite only to find himself trapped inside with a group of strangers. I'm not finished yet, but so far it's pretty good and the entire series is available for free here
Lastly, and it's not very long, but there's this free to play horror series called "Deep Sleep". It's really, really good and I only wish it was a full-fledged game. There's two more parts after Deep Sleep, which are Deeper Sleep and Deepest Sleep. In fact, you should just check out all of the point-and-clicks the creator, Scriptwelder, made cause he's got some neat stuff, including a play off the "Escape the Room" type games called "Don't Escape" where you have to barricade yourself inside a room before monsters can get you. Deep Sleep can be found here
Tengo bloqueada la pagina en la pega, pero Kingdom Rush, es muy entretenido, es un tower defense con bastante estrategia, rapidez y tiene harta replayability. Hay mas de uno, pero recomiendo partir con el primero (http://armorgames.com/play/12141/kingdom-rush)
I really want to suggest Klonoa. It's cutesy, has amazing music, and an endearing story and characters. But you'll have to fire it up with a PS1 emulator. It has another game on the GBA but of course quality significantly halved despite retaining good puzzle elements.
If you want a legit game though try Fez, Trine 1 and 2, Teslagrad, Shift, and Thomas Was Alone.
Do you have a specific genre in mind?
Because there are really a lot of game that could be considered "influential", design-wise.
Basically, any famous or popular game have contributed to move overall game design forward, as it was copied by /cloned by /a source for other games. So a general survey of the history of video game might be a great place to start. If you like books, my two favorites are:
Steve Kent, "The Ultimate History of Video Games"
Tristan Donovan, "Replay: the history of video games".
[Shameless Plug]
It happens that a I released a game about the history of video games a few months ago: Vintage Game Shop It features information about the historical influence of 60 games and machines (mainly consoles games, from the 1972-1998 era).
Tower of the Archmage: quite shallow and not balanced at all (at least, that's how I remember it), but you can find and combine runes to "build" your own spells.
Pugnacious Wizards 2: interesting trap mechanics and extremely powerful spells. Really made me "feel" like a spell-slinging wizard.
Mage Guild (official site was overrun by bots and is now down, but I've uploaded the latest version here): the highlight of this one is the alchemy system (basically you can combine almost every item with each other), but magic is still varied enough. Too bad the dungeon generation is really boring.
Sorry for the short blurbs, but it's been some time since I've played any of them.
Hey man, you did a really good job. I just finished listening to this, and I know that in the description you wrote for a "an album portraying a make-believe RPG soundtrack." I just wanted to ask, have you ever been to either of these places?
http://armorgames.com/community/
There could be people you'll meet there who might want to license your music for commercial purposes. I don't want to give you any false hope about that, but you did a great job, and I know there are development teams who need media assets all over both of them.
Is it Phage Wars or maybe Tentacle Wars?
The keyword you're probably looking for is "Cell RTS"
I don't play video games often, but I have always had a soft spot for "tower defense" games, and on the occasion that I have some time to waste I'll play a few levels of a number of different games on armorgames.com
(Assuming your purpose is to gain XP and thus levels)
Don't do endurance. Follow these guides:
Taken from this compendium of important links.
armorgames has some good guides in general since it was released there first. But its not steam specific. A lot of the advice is solid.
You'll be looking for non magicians pouch walkthoughs though.
Maybe start here: http://armorgames.com/community/thread/12313188/gemcraft-cs-important-links
specifically this one: http://armorgames.com/community/thread/12472176/the-no-mp-guide-to-wl-300-for-gc-cs
Edit: Just checked and my Iron Wizard is exactly a lvl 58 and has cleared almost everything in the F,E,B,A,D,H,I,M and parts of N and K. True Colors and Mana stream are your rock stars at the low levels for me. I'd suggest 12 in both of those, and maybe 3 in the bolt/beam.
When you allocate skill points do so in 3's (3, 6, 9, etc... ). Better perks that way. Critical gem so far has been a lifesaver, so is a poison gem in a trap (rank 3-4 usually ) to clean out a lot of early trash.
Any particular map(s) you have problems on?
I think I found it. It's called Imperium and matches your description. I never played it but I just searched Armor Games and typed in "Imper-" and this one looked right. I was thinking Age of War or Feudalism.
Couple of little ones on Steam;
- Long live the Queen. A choose your own destiny style thinking game, pretty fun and entirely based on which options you pick (no timing / shooting / or 3D things) and a really nice story telling thing.
- Kingdom Rush - very flash-gamey tower defence game. Tactics and cute tower defence, you can also find it free on ArmorGames' website.
- Gods vs Humans / Reus - 2 interesting little God-games.
- Monster loves you! - Similar-ish to Long live the Queen, with you playing as a monster and choosing your adventure.
- Child of Light - More complex than the rest. Exploration in 2D and turn/timing based combat, a story game that's quite linear but enjoyable. Normal mode will just reset you to the last save point if all team members on the field die, so no fear of loosing the game.
- Plague Inc - This was once a flash game called Pandemic. You choose the hardness by choosing the type of illness and bonuses.
>Là aussi, les fiers salarymen se pressent aux portes des trains rapides pour faire un long voyage quoitidien dans le silence et le respect des règles.
Reminds me of Deep Sleep, and Deeper Sleep, and The Deepest Sleep.
http://kingdomrush.com/play/ (Kingdom Rush - original); http://armorgames.com/play/15717/kingdom-rush-frontiers (Kingdom Rush Frontiers); The third is available through Google Play, though I can't find a link for it to stream (Kingdom Rush Origins).
Tower of the Archmage might scratch that itch for you. It's a browser-based roguelike where you make your own spells from runes, which you combine to create a spell. Which you then cast.
There are four classes and they're pretty distinct. I'm awful at it so I can't tell you much about how it plays past the first couple of levels, but it seems well designed.
To me, this is my favorite web game ever. I've beaten it many times, but sometimes I just come back to it and give it another throw or two.
Perhaps <em>Silent Conversation</em> (armorgames) is the game you are thinking of.
Description of the game on armorgames: >Read carefully. Run and jump through the text of stories and poems, from the horror of Lovecraft's "The Nameless City" to the simple beauty of Bashou's frog haiku. Go for completion or race through the pieces you've mastered!
Path: Google
There is also the free flash game Gears And Chains Spin It which is a bit more relevant to gears.
Seems that it has a sequel, not tried yet but seems similar (not a bad thing for a good free game)
its fine, im glad to see people interested!
i love the idea, you mean something like ultimate assassin? where the guards would know that you are here, after killing someone, and go looking to find you? that is a cool mechanic that i hope to accomplish through the game.
if you didnt see, me and my team are in dev with our stealth game!
Im currently writing a brief synopsis of mechanics and core game style, but it is largely under wraps for now. Ill be sure to bring this idea up with our programmer and art guy, to see how it can be implemented, because im positive it would add to the finesse in such a game.
thanks so much for your idea, and i hope to have you along when the game becomes more public!
There's a similar flash game to this where you play a hero that can barely move and you have to buy upgrades such as movement speed, jump, increase time limit, etc. I'm looking but haven't found the link yet.
Edit: It's called Johnny Upgrade
I'm not aware of anything that tops Magicka for that fix for me. Lots of games (RPGs) have alchemy systems that give a similar experimentation and discovery feel, but it's almost never the focus of the games.
If you're not averse to Flash games, I believe the Gemcraft series (on Armor Games, Kongregate, probably other places online) of tower defense games have some combination elements in tower selection. And several (most?) of the games by Eyezmaze have the discovery feel, similar to Doodle God.
I know I've played a few bullet hell games with powerup combining as well, but it's kind of a specific request.
There's surely some indie games out there that fit the bill, I just don't know of any.
Pandemic 1/2/3 is really fun, but frustrating. Pandemic 2
Also The Last Stand was pretty fun too. The Last Stand 2
Edit: added links
Have fun, OP!
http://armorgames.com/play/505/sonny
http://armorgames.com/play/2900/sonny-2
http://www.kongregate.com/games/gameinabottle/gemcraft?acomplete=gem
There are two other gemcraft games if you like it.
PSA public service announcement... listen up... Elephants are your friend not your enemy do not be fooled by the media open up your eyes and see for yourself that these noble creatures deserve nothing but the greatest dignity and respect humanity can possibly give them do not be fooled do not give in for you yourself deep inside know the truth trust yourself trust them when will it be love instead of fear? Elephant Rave.
Yes, Cursed Treasure and Kingdom Rush are definitely the best tower defense games out there.
There's also an expansion pack for Cursed Treasure, if you didn't know.
I was used to a different game with trebuchets I prefer over it, and expected way more out of Angry Birds than I got. I'll agree that it's fun, though.
It's called Going Up... that link is to the copy hosted on Armor Games, but it's also on many other game sites like addictinggames etc.
I just started playing it a month ago... out of curiosity I tried out a cheat version and it appears the game does not have an end.
Yes, therapy helps, a lot make an appointment.
Oft times you need more of a quick pick me up to get through the day. When I feel like this I try to start off with something that gets me going, if it's chilly out I start with a nice hot cup of coffee.
I'm a big fan of pets. There's nothing like the realization of how a pet loves you for you, they certainly don't judge.
Seek out /r/funny, I do this on purpose because sometimes even just laughing will break that mood.
Make a pick me up playlist, great songs will break a mood wonderfully. I have a few on Grooveshark, that are made for this reason alone. Keep it going in the background.
Good flash game: http://armorgames.com/play/12326/siege-hero-viking-vengeance Concentrating on something else helps, and after some time you start to forget about the stupid dream.
I hope this helps some. Good Luck :-)
A really great defense game with RPG elements. It may be difficult at first but it has a lot of replay-ability as achievements give you rewards that carry over to new games.
Very close to the Cave Story style is Momodora 2. There is Knytt Stories for the exploration element only. If you don't mind playing in a browser there's K.O.L.M.
http://armorgames.com/play/5272/balloon-in-a-wasteland
It took me 6 in-game days to figure out that I had to repair the balloon myself. I just figured something would happen eventually and you just had to survive...
Every time a new Gemcraft game comes out, I know it's going to devour my social life until I've beaten it.
That being said, have you played Gemcraft Labyrinth yet?
The one thing that bugs me is it's been #1 on the App Store for about a year and a half when there are so many other great games. AB is a rip-off of Crush the Castle and many other flash games.
From this post. (direct link to the game)
Edit: okay, this post came first, but that one about the game was what I saw first.
I don't understand this angry birds game. It's been free for the PC and looks better for years. Only it's called Crush the Castle. I'll take a Trebuchet and boulders over cartoon birds and a sling shot any day.
I didn't know what the hoopla was about either, I tried it on the PC its instantly recognizable as a clone 'destroy-the-x' style game.
Angry birds can be the mascot of Apple Gaming.
Crush The Castle is a good example of this style of gameplay.