

KERO BLASTER, STUDIO PIXEL, 2014:



This game is what started me on the road to creating this webpage. I purchased it using the resources allocated to me by mysterious claw of god's free market just so I could become a frog. This game is by Pixel who did Cave Story but in my opinion it's a better game, reasons include: there's nothing like that one bit in CS where you have to collect all the puppies and also you're a frog. It's less sprawling but more charming I think. I like that the frog is a janitor. The plot is basically melancholy but in a weirdly understated way for videogames. The frog's only ways of acting are by jumping and shooting so it's unable to help its friends until their emotional problems get bad enough for this hyperspecific skillset to become relevant again.



FROG FACTOR: This game was originally designed for mobile so there's an initially offputting thing in place where you can't change the direction you're shooting in until you let go of the fire button. I liked it because it's a very squat little frog with a big gun and I liked the suggestion that the frog has trouble dealing with the gun, that it's not that suited for the work at hand physically but still goes through with it out of iron determination. The frog is very cute and small. It has a stoic face. It's sad that you shoot so many animals but the frog doesn't have any interest in dealing with this, even though it is also an animal, so the first few levels are..... sad? "War is hell". When you go to the ice zone the frog puts on a tiny little jacket and always looks sooooooooo happy and excited when it finds the jacket again. It's moving. In short, I liked this game.



RATING: 100