Gliding through Temples

The Nitrome team has just dug up some mysterious things... Flying Mummy Birds, Ancient Sarcophaguses, and Magical Rings of Light? This sounds like an interesting discovery.

Nitrome has just released their latest game: Temple Glider! You play as a Flying Mummy Bird who has to get to the end of each level alive, avoiding Quicksand, Spikes, Arrows, and more! This is another Checkpoint game, like Parasite and Fault Line. Instead of having lives, you just respawn at the most recent checkpoint you touched. You can fly through rings of light for points, too. The control scheme for this game involves two keys (well, actually, there's 4 keys, but they preform the exact same action when pressed). And, bearing a graphical tomb-like resemblance to Onekey, this game could be nicknamed Twokeys. The controls are left/A to run/fly left, and right/D to run/fly right. If you hold a key for 1 second while you are running or falling, you will take off. Now, it's not as simple as it sounds. For example, if you are flying right, and you need to turn left, you don't immediately flip directions. You deaccelerate, meaning you fall a bit, then you turn around. This is what makes the game unique.

Now, from now on, on most of my game pages, I'll have a 2-8 step review. This one has 6 steps, but maybe not all the steps you will see - There will be more! I have just re-played the game and re-evaluated it a bit more.

Review:
Style: 4.5/5 Rating this part based on originality, the graphics and sound are new, but the Flying Bird Mummy does a Nitromific cute dance when you beat the level and the blocks resemble Onekey's blocks. The style is very original but not completely, which is why it only has 4.5.
Controls: 4/5: The controls are uniqe and interesting, and give the game that 2010 Nitrome feel, but are hard to get used to. I give the controls a 4 because they could be more user-friendly and have 4 keys, 2 for running and 2 for flying.
Difficulty: 4/5: The game is fun, but some levels are too difficult, and some just pointlessly easy. That seems to satisfy some of my friends, though (and a commenter on this post) so I bumped it up to a 4, realising that's also what makes it interesting.
Addictiveness: 3/5: The game is still fun and difficult, but just not that addicting. I quit at level 9 to post this review, but may go back to it in a while... or tomorrow. Well, it's the day after I posted this, going on a spellcheck spree, and I just played it for about 10 minutes. I think it should have many more new elements added throughout the game, a multiplayer mode, and 4 keys, as mentioned above.
Length: 3.5/5 The game has 20 levels: some short, some long, some easy, some hard. The game should take an average length of 1.5 hours to 4 hours for an average person to complete it. The game could be longer, but not by increasing the difficulty. I just visited my friend's house and he already beat the game. Where oh where are Nitrome's original games with new things in every level and levels that can only be passed after 10 tries? It took me and my friend 2 weeks to beat Skywire 2 the first time! Only 50 levels! (But of course now I can beat the whole game in about 10 minutes or so) Ahh... the good old Retro-Nitrome days.
Users: 3/5: Most games would be better with multiplayer mode, but this one seems to be so simple it will only ever be single player. But if that's not enough, you can take turns beating the same level with someone and see who has the better score.
Overall: 22/30: The game is new and good, and may keep some people going for hours, but still could be improved in many ways. This was also the 81st Nitrome game ever released!

So go and play Temple Glider now!
   ~Ben

Defenitions of Nitrome

I made these up when I posted them on my Facebook Profile, but I may use them in my blog posts so if you need to refer to anythingI say look here. Nitrome: Noun, Verb, Adjective. Noun: (1) Nitrome: A free online flash games website founded by Mat Annal and Heather Stancliffe that are awesome. (2) Nitrome: A slang term for anything filled with pure, raw, perfect, awesomeness. Verb: (1) ...Nitroming: (Joe: whatcha doin'? Bob: Nitroming.) On the Nitrome website or any official fan pages, either playing games, reading posts, changing skins, or anything else. (2) Buying Nitrome/Nitro-Stocking/Purchasing Nitro-Stock: Purchasing anything from Nitrome including Games, Game features, Music, Products, or Clothing. (3) Playing Nitrome: Playing any game on nitrome. Adjective: (1) Nitrome: (Joe: is that bike awesome? Bob: No, even better! It's Nitrome!) A term to describe something at it's best, above excellent and awesome, and even unbeleivable. (2) Nitromific: (Joe: That burger looks good. Bob: It's Nitromific!) Something beyond awesome that is almost equal to perfect, but with none of the disadvantages of perfect. (3) Nitromely: Something of Royalty that is almost as unbeleivably perfect as Nitrome. (4) Great, Powerful, Awesome, and NITROME (Or GPA Nitrome): Something of extremely unbeleivably awesome and excellence that is great and powerful... and SUPREME OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE!!! And those are the 9 different defenitions of "Nitrome"! (Only 1 of them you should already know.)

Mystery Tank Game!

Nitrome released this picture on their Facebook page, and a smaller one on the blog and Facebook. This game seems to be a game where you attach and buy parts to make a tank, including furnace room, restaurant, small and large conveyors, thin and thick guns, repair room, thin and thick cannons, and flag. There is also a henchman from Dirk Valentine. Hint to a sequel, anyone? Anyways, that seems to be all there is to it, but who knows? It might not even be tanks! Guess we'll just have to wait it out for a few days.

Squawk! Polly wants Gold!

After over 18 months, Nitrome added a new minigame to the collection! This one is another progressive minigame like Magic Touch and Gift Wrapped, where the game gets harder the longer you play. This one, however, you have 3 lives, and many different gameplay objects. There's you, the spherical little green parrot who is greedy for some pirate gold. There's coins, which you want to collect for score, There's the steering pegs, which is how you steer the parrot, by clicking on one which attracts the parrot magnetically. Maybe the parot has too much gold on him? There's barrels, that you bounce off casually. "Ooh, look! A barrel! I'm going to randomly smash into it and bounce off in another direction!" There's also 4 enemies, who each take a life when you touch them. Pirates pop up but are in a fixed position. Sharks pop up but then pop down and appear at any of the touching blocks, Electric Blocks come in groups and if one is in the same colum on row as another a dangerous electric chain forms between them. Holes stay open forever and you might not want to fall into them. But don't worry, Hearts will give you back a life. I assume there's also Stars, much later in the game, that get you like 5 times more points then coins. Anyways, this game gets old fast, and you might end up quitting because you're bored, not because you lost. And I've found it's actually somewhat entertaining to write or draw ideas for what this game should have. Maybe Nitrome will make a Squawk! 2... I'd give this game a 2.5/5 on the Minigame scale. Repeats itself, control is unique and difficult, not enough gameplay objects, cute graphics and easy to progress.

Factory Skin

I know this is extremely delayed, but a new Nitrome skin has been released, or more had been released, August 7th, 2010. Check it out.
   ~Ben

Worm Food: The Game

Sorrt

Sorry about the late update, I've been busy with my other blogs. Anyways, Nitrome's game Worm Food is the latest hit, still at the top spot in popularity. That may be because it is still the most recent game. This is another Nitrome game where you play as an evil villain. In this invenstment, you play as a giant mutant worm who must eat many villagers to survive, whilst avoiding their attacks. Worm Food: Nitrome's take on legends of eeeevil teeeerror raving on hunger, bent on revenge, thirsty for blooddddd - nope, it's just a mutant worm. The controls, personally, can be very frustrating, but at the same time perfect for the challenge in this game where you try to eat a specified amount of villagers in a specified amount of time. Health is really uninportant in most levels, except for ones with mines. If you fall down a gap, you lose. if you run out of time and are still hungry, you lose. If you take too much health, you lose. Basically this game is very, very difficult. I'm still on level 11! I like the way the physics work. In the ground there is no gravity, but you still have to accelerate. Trees and homes and rocks slow you down, which can be bad for jumps, but give you points. Water is very much like ground. In the air, you can still change your direction slightly, but gravity exists. And when you get enough villagers to (temporarily) satisfy your hunger, you win the level. So go ahead and take on Nitrome's challenge - destroy the human race!

Rabbit says "Ribbit"

A new game on Nitrome just came out today, and it's called "Ribbit". Why? Because the brilliant Dr. Siamese just invented a machine that morphs 2 animals. He tests it on a Frog and a Rabbit, and you get a Ribbit. Now you're after him to get revenge. You have to bounce your way through the level avoiding traps and enemies, as usual. But here's something different: The control scheme. You're constantly bouncing, similar to in Cheese Dreams, only you don't move when you press Left or Right, you rotate. You bounce in the direction that you're currently facing, and that can really mess up those people who are used to the "Platformer" scheme. When you press Up, you quickly rotate to face up so that you don't move left or right at all. But you can also use a Super-Bounce. To do this you do a 180 (or a little bit less, if you're not bouncing left or right) and then you go extra-high/far/fast/ You can only hurt enemies while Super-Bouncing unless they're not moving. If you do a Super-Bounce and then another Super-Bounce, it becomes a Super-Duper-Bounce. At one point Dr. iamese sends a giant Rhino Beetle after you, and it's instant death. Personally, I like "Chased" levels, unless they're too hard. It's like Skywire 2 level 27 or Off The rails "Train" levels. But that's what adds to the challange. Push buttons to make things happen, and pass through magic rings to affect yourself. When you pass through the Finish ring, the level is over. So now that you know how to play, and more, go on out and play it! I give it a 4/5 only because I think it could be longer (it's 20 levels).... and I'm really bad at level 8.