Fugdale’s Funhouse

Review: This game provides a really unique mechanism, which I haven’t seen in any other online game before. The concept has a similar feel to other progressive puzzlers. You must make your way through a series of increasingly difficult courses and pop all the balloons you find. You accomplish this feat by maneuvering two little smiley faces called Globz. The two faces are joined together by a string. When you click the mouse one of the Globz anchors itself to the ground and the other one spins around it. You wait for the spinning glob to aim the direction you want to travel and hit the mouse button again. It then anchors itself and spins the other Globz. You have a red and a yellow glob and each of them can pop the blue balloons, but you must also pop multi-layered balloons and each Globz can only pop a layer of it’s own color.

You will soon discover that many of the walls on the courses are secret passageways to other areas of the course and you will also discover hidden bonus hearts and other obstacles and traps as the levels progress. The game play is unique and fun, but the fact that you must pop all balloons in under a minute on each course can make for some frustrating and frantic gameplay.

This game is simple and effective and a lot of fun. But don’t get on my case if it bursts your bubble.

Review: This game of skill presents you with 24 progressively more difficult obstacle courses to work your way through. You must move your ball through each course by turning the entire course clockwise or counter-clockwise. Gravity pulls the ball downward on the screen and propels your ball onward. Watch out for menacing spikes, flames and other obstacles which line the walls of most courses.

The game does a great job of giving you pointers on how to advance past certain types of obstacles and the first 10 courses will move along pretty nicely, but then things get increasingly more difficult and this game may have you pulling your hair out. It even warns that it won’t be responsible for manaical homicidal tendancies resulting from frustration. I imagine that the game won’t have you actually killing people, but it does present quite a challenge. Luckily it will save your progress automatically, so you can come back when you have cooled down a bit.

The mechanics of the game feels smooth and responsive and the challenges seem surmountable eventually, but I dare say most players won’t be able to reach the end in one sitting. This game has similar physics to games such as Wone and Everybody Panic both reviewed previously on this blog.

I just love these physics-based obstacle course games and I hope to see more versions on the theme in the future. For now, this game will give you plenty of game-playing pleasure and will turn your world upside down.

Review: This drawing game may give you nightmares. Well, at the very least, you might have a heck of a time getting past the first 5 or 6 levels without a great deal of concentration and a steady hand. You have a course and a few moveable obstacles to work around or through. Use your mouse or graphic tablet to draw a path for your ball to follow, to make it to the star at the end. Then hit the space bar and send your ball forward on it’s path to the star.

If you only had to do that, you would ace every course, but each level requires you to work around lumbering obstacles. Some large objects obstruct your pathway several times. When you get around it one direction, you have to quickly move the object to avoid the ball later down the path. Other objects only move in one direction or only rotate.

You face three challenges on each level. First, you must determine your path carefully in order to take into account all the various obstacles. Second, you must use your very steady hand to draw a clean path. Draw your line as economically as possible because you can run out of ink before reaching the star. Finally, you face the challenge of keeping your ball safe as it travels along the path. If you come too close to a wall or object the ball will burst.

This simple concept makes for an excellent challenge and I do mean challenge. Prepare to die a lot, almost to the point of trying your patience. The background music seems lively at first, but after you’ve popped your ball for the umpteenth time, it starts to grate a little. Still, you have to give the designer(s) credit for coming up with a unique game, which truly forces you to earn your way through it. I still find myself stuggling on level 5. Tell everyone about your success.