Online Games

Dance Step Pad for PC

2008-11-12T07:01:00.000-08:00

My second youngest kid wanted a dance pad for his birthday that would work with a PC.

I went to Wally World (Walmart), no such, they have one for the game cube, WII, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360.

Well, I thought Fry's would have one. Called down there (since it's a 30 mile drive), yes, they have one. So I drove all the way down only to have the sales puke assure me that not only did they not have one but that none existed. I've seen them advertised on websites, so I know they exist. But he says they don't because Dance Dance Revolution was never licensed for the PC.

I told him that my son wanted to use it with Step Mania anyway. He told me the control schemes for Step Mania and DDR weren't the same so that was yet another problem.

Well, next I tried Best Buy, the guy there was slightly more enlightened. He said the Xbox 360 used a USB connection and so conceivably an Xbox 360 version could work if the software supported it.

I ended up buying a Konami Dance Dance Universe 3 Revolution pad for the Xbox 360.

It turns out that this works fine with a PC running Windows-XP and Step Mania. All the crap the sales people told me about the control schemes being different was bogus. We didn't even have to load any drivers, Windows-XP SP3 already had the necessary drivers and recognized it as soon as we plugged it in.

So if you're looking for a Step Pad for the PC, you don't have to spend the extra exhorbitant bucks for the "PC" versions advertised on the web, the Xbox 360 version made by Konami works fine.

Do be sure to get the Xbox 360 version and NOT the vanilla Xbox version. The latter does not have a USB connection and will not work with a PC because there is no way to connect it. The versions for the Xbox 360 are about three times what the versions of the vanilla Xbox go for, but then again they're about a third of what the web-advertised PC versions go for and they work fine.

Metalix

2008-09-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

I've played many defense games and Metalix is absolutely unique among them in not just one but many ways. The Japanese have a unique style in any artistic endeavor and it is really expressed in this game. Nothing about Metalix is mediocre, the graphics are superb, the sound effects are superb, and the game play is superb.

This is one of two Tower Defense games I took a serious interest in and could not beat in a couple of hours, Elite Conquest being the other. I have played Conquest all the way through, but it took several days. I have not yet been able to complete Metalix.

Wave one starts out easy; only a handful of weak creeps and enough gold to buy several towers. I usually start with two canon's and a laser tower. Notice the unique metallic graphics, the playing field is metallic, the creeps are metallic, and the turrets are mostly metallic. The menus and status board are translucent. And the graphics give a three dimensional appearance that adds to the realism of the animation.

There are only three basic types of turrets in Metalix. The least expensive are cannon's which act much like your basic turret in other games. The next type is a laser turret and these seem to be the most damaging but damage only one creep at a time. The last and most expensive is the fire turret which damages multiple creeps but has a slow reload.

In wave two you'll see that the path has totally changed. That is one of the unique aspects of this games play. Each wave takes a new path.

Another unique characteristic is that each turret can move. You program the moves between waves and it is also possible to do so during waves. When the paths change, it is possible that turrets may end up on a path. If the creeps reach a turret on their path before the turret is moved off the path, they will destroy the turret and you've lost your defensive investment.

You'll notice something new in wave 3, the turrets are taller. This means I've upgraded the towers range. One aspect of this game that is unique is that you can upgrade the towers range, power, quantity (which really means firing rate), and moving ability, all separately, giving a really large number of potential turret characteristics from a limited number of turret types. Different types of upgrades affect the physical appearance of the turrets differently.

I've upgraded a laser and added another cannon in this round. Note the red jewel at the end of the path; ordinary creeps inflict damage if they reach it and when totally destroyed, the game is over. Bosses destroy it in one hit; so the first boss to get through ends the game. The first boss happens on level ten, and currently that's where my game ends.

By level 7 things get crazy; the animation of the creeps is really wild; you'll need to play the game to experience that. By this level you are usually getting two types of creeps simultaneously, the things that look like the back end of a shark, and a hopping creep that is really difficult to kill.

That ball with the red lights is the first boss creep. When he gets through it's game over. I have not succeeded in getting past him yet. The best I've been able to do is about 80% kill no matter what combination of towers and upgrades I get even when I get a very lucky path that brings him past the same towers multiple times.

Now as I've stated, the turrets can move in this game. I think this is probably key to winning level 10, moving your turrets dynamically during that level to inflict sufficient damage, but so far I haven't been able to do this in a sufficiently coordinated way.

You give it a try! Click on the button at the top of this post or the link. If you manage to get past level ten share with us how you did it. I guarantee you'll find this quite a different experience from other defense games you may have played.

Defense-Games.Com

2008-09-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

I've become so enamored with the Tower Defense genre of games that I've created a website dedicated to them, "defense-games.com". Currently, I have 150 games on the site but I am still adding to it.

I've designed the site for minimum clutter and maximum game space; you'll find images of each game in a matrix that re-sizes with your browser, with the games in alphabetical order. If you mouse over the image, the game name will appear.

The main page itself re-sizes to any browser size, but because flash applications will not dynamically re-size the way static content will, I've opted for a minimum screen dimension of 1024x768.

The majority of games, where the author allowed; are hosted locally so they will load quickly and reliably, but there are a handful where the game was not allowed to execute off of the authors site, where it loads from a remote site and may not be as quick or reliable.

The majority of the games are flash but a handful are java, and there may be some that are silver-light based if I can ever get that to work for me. There are some truly unique games there so check it out, and if you find it worthwhile, I really would appreciate a link from your website or a post on relevant forums to help spread the word.

I have tested defense-games.com on Firefox 3, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. For the most part it works properly on all of these browsers. Here is an image of the main screen (sorry for the small glitch at the bottom, I actually had to stitch together two images if the browser because it would not fit in one window without scrolling):

If you know of any that are not included there yet, please let me know. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!

Dungeon Defender

2008-06-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, in response to my post regarding Random Defence, someone asked me what my favorite defence game is. What makes that difficult to answer is the fact that every time I think I've found a favorite, something new comes along that is even better.

Dungeon Defender is something of a cross between a tower defence type game and dungeons and dragons type game. It is one of the most complex defence games I've played, and it's fun and challenging. The game is addictive, the music trans-inducing. In short it's the kind of game I enjoy.

The downside to this game is that with the exception of the opening screen, the graphics are lousy. For all the games complexity it could benefit from better graphics. The graphics are on par with something you might expect to be running on a Commodore-64 or early Atari console game. If this were trying to emulate some classic game that would be fine, but it's not, it's a more complex derivative of tower games which are a relatively modern genre and as such it ought to have graphics to match.

Still it is highly compelling, it's a game I wasn't successful at completing in an hour which means it actually has some challenge to it, and you will probably find once you get into it, the graphics aren't that great of a handicap.

Random Defence

2008-06-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

Random Defence is yet another horribly addictive tower defence game. Incidentally, I'm curious why the British variant of "defence" seems to be the one most of these games use. This one has numerous boards, about 51 swarms, and a number of funky defenses. The trick is not to loose lives but to do so as cheaply as possible because both your assets remaining and lives remaining figure into the final score.

Personally, I have fairly good luck at surviving with about seven missile turrets upgraded as fast as I can afford to but I never end up with a lot of money that way so my final score isn't great.

The round things to the left are research and financial centers. The blue is electrical research, the green gun research (what could be more environmentally friendly than large artillery?), the yellow is a financial center, supposedly it adds interest to your money at each level, and the red is explosives research.

You have to have a certain technology level to upgrade various weapons. That thing shooting the green beam, that's a super turret with a laser. That sucker is expensive both directly, and in that it requires all three research centers to be at certain levels for various levels before you can acquire it and to upgrade the turret; but it kills anything.

This is a screen shot of the last swarm which is referred to as "The Yard Sale", and this is also a fairly typical configuration that I use; preferring the missile turrets to other weapons systems. They are reliable defenders but they are expensive.

To play, click on the article title or the graphical icon above. Have fun!

Stack The Cats

2008-05-16T05:43:00.001-07:00

Stack the Cats is a Tetris-Like game in which the object is to get four like cats together at which point they vaporize and the rows drop. The idea is not to let any row reach the top of the game.

The purple haired lady is extremely troubled by cat stacking. She sounds like she smokes ten packs a day and will issue a running commentary. "Cats are not for stacking.", "Don't you DARE stack my cats!", "Stacking cats is WRONG!", "Oh crud!", "Piss"...

It's one of those games you just have to play.

Super Mario World 3

2008-03-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

Super Mario World 3 is by far the best flash version of Mario World I've ever played. The graphics are similar to the original Super Nintendo graphics in terms of resolution and number of colors and it is essentially two dimensional like the original Super Mario World.

The audio is fantastic and really contributes to the fun of playing this game. It has the usual Mario World theme to the music but it is extremely well done, with acoustics that have depth to them much like the Nintendo-64 sound. The whole audio spectrum is used effectively. You will get the most of this game if you connect a decent audio system, something with robust bass and highs, to your sound card. Pee Cee speakers just won't do this game justice.

The overall play is good, the game is responsive and doesn't lag even when played full screen on a 1.8 Ghz AMD based machine that isn't exactly a speed demon.

Protector

2008-03-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Protector is the coolest tower defense game I've played. It is like a bunch of tower defense games in one with a variety of different maps.

The graphics are good, full color, shading, detail, three dimensional, and creative. You really need to see it full screen to fully appreciate it, some of the detail is lost in the screen shot here because of downsizing and compression.

This plays full screen on a 1.8 GHz machine with a screen full of active creatures and no lag. It is very efficiently coded. This in spite of the fact that this game offers considerably more detail in the graphics, and considerably more complexity in the play than any other tower defense I've ever played.

You pretty much have to do this real time though. You can't just build, start a wave and go get coffee. It's hard to predict and you have to react in real time.

You can pave unpaved areas for a price and then equip them with defense units. As the defense units gain experience, you can upgrade them making them more powerful.

This game is elemental also, like many RPG's, not just generic monsters and weapons. Some monsters will be weak against one element, strong against another, and immune to others.

If you haven't played this before, this game will be a new addiction.

Age of War

2008-03-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Age of War

So when haven't we been in an age of war. This game is kind of like a Tower Defense game with an offense added. You have everything from primitive catapults to high-tech laser weapons that you can defend your fort with. That part plays just like a tower defense where you use your money to buy bigger and better weapons to defend your tower. But then you also have an assault on your enemy's fort.

You start with primitive weapons, clubs and spears, and your most powerful asset is your spear carrying dinosaur rider.

After a while you get the advancement of slingshots. And from there you basically go through the ages, catapults, pots of hot oil, catapults throwing flaming things, cannons, and down the road you get ion weapons, and finally laser weapons.

Here is what the most advanced defense looks like. Four lasers is the maximum defense you can have and it suffices to kill pretty much anything that comes it's way.

To win the game it is necessary not only to defend your position but to launch an effective assault on your enemy.

And that's where super soldiers fit in. They're expensive as all get out but that Reynolds Wrap really does the trick. They can kill anything. They can defeat a tank with a kick or two. Now that would come in handy during rush hour.

Ah, finally victory! I've defeated the ennemy! (Yes, it is spelled that way in the game!)

Zwingo

2008-02-20T04:41:00.000-08:00

This is a simple game in which you control a small white ball that you swing around on a string. The object of the game is to prevent the black balls that enter from random directions from knocking the large white ball out of the ring in the center. You do this primarily by slamming into the black balls with the ball on your string, knocking them away from the white ball. But another tactic you can use is to steer the black balls to hit the white ball from the side that knocks it towards the center of the ring.

The game plays in rounds, like boxing, and each time you survive a round, the large white ball is re-centered and you have the opportunity to use points to buy various upgrades.

Galactic Gravity Golf

2008-02-17T23:07:00.000-08:00

Galactic Gravity Golf isn't your usual flash putt-putt game. You're teeing off into space and you've got a hell of a swing, hitting your ball interplanetary distances. Your ball is attracted and deflected by the gravity of various bodies. There are additional modifiers that come into play, energy barriers, worm holes, bombs. If your ball takes on fuel, internal rockets can power up and allow you to change direction and velocity in flight.

As you get further into the game the shots become increasingly complex and difficult. This is a screen shot at level nine. The arrow is where you are shooting from. The white ball with the tail is the golf ball. The larger the planets are, the greater their gravitational attraction and the more you have to adjust for their deflection. Planets eat golf balls. It looks simple but the naturalness of the motion and the variety makes the fun last.

Redesign

2008-02-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

I redesigned the block for a light on black theme with a stronger graphical component. I know a lot of people used to reading paper don't care for light on dark text, but I think most people who are going to be into computer games will grock it OK. I welcome your feedback either way.

Shift

2008-02-14T05:03:00.000-08:00

Shift is a puzzle game with a unique twist. I'm not going to post a bunch of graphics because I don't want to ruin it for you. Suffice it to say it's unique and addicting. Try it!

Fancy Pants World 2

2008-01-31T02:24:00.001-08:00

If you liked the original Fancy Pants Adventure World One, you're going to LOVE Fancy Pants Adventure World 2. Brad Borne is a flash game genius!

There are a handful of games that really sucked me into their world, the old original Infocom text adventure games, especially the first, Zork, a text adventure game called "World". The first graphical game that did this was Super Mario World 64 for the Nintendo-64, and then the Turok series which were available for multiple platforms but I played them on the Nintendo-64.

The former text games succeeded in bringing me into their world because they had such vivid descriptions that I could readily see the surroundings in my minds eye.

With Mario World and Turok, it was the naturalness of the movement combined with vivid graphics. In Mario World, whenever I'd fall off of something high, I'd feel the downward acceleration of gravity as if I'd really fallen. Flying in Super Mario World 64 was an absolute trip and that's really what addicted me to that game.

Turok introduced an interesting psychological ploy in which your arm holding the controller appeared to extend into the screen holding a weapon. I think this was a particularly effective tactic. It definitely sucked me in for many hours and I found myself getting motion sickness from time to time. One of the Turok games also had this dinosaur like thing with heavy weapons that shook the Earth that you got to ride and destroy things with and that was immensely fun, especially since I got to play it on a big-screen and had a reasonably decent sound system so I could really feel the bass that went with the creatures shaking the Earth.

Now Fancy Pants World 2 has resurrected the feeling of being sucked in and part of the game. Fancy Pants World 1 had this effect to some degree but it is much stronger in Fancy Pants World 2. What is amazing is that it has done so without the aid of the sophisticated three dimensional graphics and detailed scenery present in the Nintendo games.

Fancy Pants the character is still a line drawing; though much of the scenery and other characters are much more detailed in Fancy Pants World 2 than in the original Fancy Pants World 1, and the game now makes generous use of color, but not usually natural color, instead, saturated primary colors that may or may not be realistic for the item in question.

The flash coding appears to be amazingly efficient as the game does both horizontal and vertical scrolling as well as rapid movement and update of the entire screen, and yet, even playing full screen there is no noticeable lag.

After completing a round of snail shell golf and receiving your ice cream reward, it's snatched away by an angry purple rabbit, and thus the game is kicked off, go get your ice cream! And some changes of pants while you're at it!

Rainbow Chaser

2008-01-27T02:51:00.000-08:00

Rainbow Chaser is a Korean memory practice game similar in some ways to the Simon game. As with Simon, you are presented with a sequence of colors that you have to remember and repeat. However, unlike Simon there are seven colors, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, instead of just four. Also, unlike Simon the colors aren't in fixed locations so you not only have to remember what order the colors were displayed in but where.

There are three buttons on the opening screen. The left most button takes you to Pure Pulses website. The second button gives you a demonstration of how to play the game. The third takes you directly to game play.

If you haven't played this game before, I recommend watching the demonstration.

The demo menu has two buttons at the bottom. The left starts demo mode where the game plays itself so you can see how to play it and the right starts the game.

The little bubbles won't be there, I just added those so that you would know what button does what since the game is Korean. Once you get to the actual game play, the language isn't important since it's entirely graphical in nature.

This is what the game looks like when you actually play it. You move the dropper with your mouse, pick a color and fill the dropper, then fill the blocks with the appropriate colors. It sounds simple but the number of colors and blocks increases as you play. It's a good practice for short-term register memory.

Tempt Fate

2008-01-26T01:10:00.000-08:00

This is a simple shoot at attacking enemies type space game where you defend the Earth from attacking enemies. What makes it different than others similar games is that you can change the characteristics of the enemies.

All in all there really isn't enough in this game to keep most people interested for long, it's pretty much just a twitch finger exercise.

Fire

2008-01-24T03:30:00.000-08:00

The object of this game is simply to bring warmth and light into the lives of as many people as possible, and what better way than by setting them on fire? Avoiding rain from the occasional black clouds overhead as they cool your flames and you shrink into nothingness.

I think the author totally missed the boat with respect to the music; a much better theme would have been a song by the Dead Milkmen, If you love somebody set them on fire.

Fancy Pants Adventure

2008-01-24T02:30:00.000-08:00

Fancy Pants Adventure is a Brad Borne game. It has a minimalist almost stick drawing style, yet, conveys movement and action in a way that feels very natural. The animation is excellent.

Fancy pants scrolls horizontally and vertically, and there is a great deal of freedom of movement within the game. It's easy to quickly get into the game and feel like you're Fancy Pants.

As you play, you'll find yourself having to figure out new ways to do things to progress. Jump on spiders to kill them, jump up to the next vertical level, oops, too far out of reach! Bounce off the walls!

Some people have reported freezing, if this happens to you, try reducing the quality. If you have a reasonable modern computer and don't have a hundred gazillion other things running at the same time, you should be fine.

Bomb It

2008-01-09T03:56:00.000-08:00

Bomb It is a fun cutsie web flash Bomber Man clone. The game play is crisp and smooth making it especially fun and somewhat addictive.

This will play on any suitably flash equipped computer. You don't need to download or purchase anything, just click on the image above or go to http://www.eskimo.com/games/bombit and start having fun.

Portal The Flash Version

2007-11-26T23:24:00.000-08:00

Portal is a very addictive game based upon an extremely simple concept. You've got a hand held device that allows you to shoot two holes in something which creates a portal between those two holes that you can then walk through.

Along the way various complications are added, like the necessity to shoot while transiting the portal, or to use gravity to gain velocity and transfer that into momentum in some other direction, using portals.

In the first level you start out inside a cell and the task is simply to get out and exit the level alive. Here, I've already shot two holes, one in the ceiling above the platform, and the second in the floor of my cell.

Avoid shooting a hole in the ceiling directly above the location in the floor where you shoot the other hole. If you step an infinite loop results like shown in the animation you see while the game loads.

Here I've stepped into the first hole and am now falling out of the second in the ceiling. I want to know where to get one of these portal guns. These could really come in handy.

I've jumped off the platform and am heading towards the exit. That's all there is to level one, but it's just a trainer. It gets more interesting as you continue to higher levels. I'll not spoil the game. Press the button at the top of this post and play for yourself!

Chibi

2007-11-22T01:57:00.000-08:00

In the first three levels, little red, green, and blue humanoid figures are visible in a cluttered scene. You have to see and click on with your mouse in a limited amount of time.

In the first level I've added little yellow arrows to point these figures out so you can know what you are looking for.

The second level comes with a more complex screen and more little humanoid creatures to find and click on.

This third level differs from the first two in that all of the characters are not initially present. As you click on the ones that are present, they reappear somewhere else once. Once you've gotten them in their new location they're gone for good.

In the forth level, a row of people fill the screen and these little humanoids fly back and forth across the screen. There are a large number of them and you have to click on each one within the time allotment.

In the fifth and final level, these little creatures just fill the screen and you have to click on them as rapidly as possible and in an orderly fashion to get rid of them all within the allotted time.

If you complete this level successfully, it's just takes you to an advertisement for another purchasable game. So the ending is rather a disappointment but it's still a fun little game that helps train your brain to see.

Alien Attack - Nick Peplow Productions

2007-11-19T23:17:00.000-08:00

There is another game by the same name which has much more realistic three dimensional graphics and is a shooter game with attacking aliens, but there is something to the simplicity and a certain nostalgia to this one that I enjoy.

Particularly, the way they drew the little dish on the bottom of the alien craft reminds me of the first War of the Worlds movie (based upon Orson Wells radio play by the same name), and of coarse Tim Burton had fun with those in Mars Attacks as well.

Your ship being made to resemble the US space shuttle is also not without it's humor. They can barely get that thing off the ground and landed again without it self-destructing. The idea of going up against alien technology sufficiently advanced to get here from another planet with a bus propelled into space with 2.2 million pounds of high explosive is utterly ludicrous which only adds to the humor of the game.

Love Hina Dating RPG

2007-11-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

The story is based upon the Love Hina anime series. If you haven't seen it, it's a fun light hearted series. You're hired to be the manager of Hina Inn because basically nobody else would do it. The girls all want to kick the crap out of you. Your job is to go to Tokyo U, improve yourself, and make the girls your girlfriends. Good luck.

The Girls

Kaolla	Kaolla is basically insane. She left her parents because they moved around too much. She likes tama turtles. She likes to pull pranks, steels a car to drive it into the creek, puts ice cream on people while they're sleeping, pies down their pants. Gives a box of bugs and dirt as a gift and asks if you like to eat snails.
Mitsuni	Mitsuni is severely alcoholic and smokes. She likes Vodka, Sake, Jack Daniels, but Sake is here favorite. She likes money, and power. Frequently wants to have your pants when she is drunk. Likes to party hardy but pukes a lot. She's been known to set fire to guys jeans.
Motoko	Motoko has a bit of an attitude problem. She likes swords, dope, and lsd. In men she likes magic and power. She wets herself when excited. Her sister Tusruku runs the training center.
Mutsumi	Mutsumi is clumsy. She trips over her own feet, falls down stairs, occasionally smashes her head into the wall for no apparent reason. Has a thing for watermelons. Fights with them, eats them in great quantities, has sex with them. She failed to get into Tokyo U four times. Likes intelligence and power although she has neither.
Naru	Naru goes to Tokyo U. She has serious anger management problems. Likes Lidu-Kun. In men she likes intelligence, and power.
Shinubu	Shinubu's parents are always moving around and she didn't want to move so moved into Hina Inn. Likes cooking, frying pans, and intelligence. she claims not to like violence and is generally friendly but enjoys a good fight. Nothing she likes to do more than cooking. Once burnt a fish and set herself, Kaolla, Naru, and the kitchen on fire. Frequently awake at night. She likes the beach.

Strategy

Like most SIM games, early on you want to work on increasing your hit points fast because the more hit points you have the more you can get done in a day between sleeping. You also want to increase your intelligence, power, and magic. These increase your pay when you work. You can do all of these things at Tokyo U. Some gifts you can only get by fighting at the training center. After you play all the way through the first time you get a cheat code.

Sexy Girl Connect

2007-11-14T03:04:00.000-08:00

Sexy Girl Connect is a simple game in which the object is to connect the girls using three or fewer straight lines. You are given a limited amount of time to accomplish this for all of the pairs of girls at each level. You get points for time remaining at the end of each level.

Each pair of matching girls connected removes that pair from the screen and gives you fifteen points. If you connect additional pairs within one second, the point value given for that pair increases ten points. For example, if you connect one pair, 15 points, connect another within a second, 25 points, connect another within a second, 35 points, and so on, but if you fail to connect a pair of matching girls within a second, you're back to 15 points for the pair.

Any attempt to connect non-matching girls results in a deduction of ten points, and if you're on a multiple pair connect run, resets the pair point value back to 15 points. Accuracy as well as speed counts.

Things become more difficult as the level progresses though not necessarily in a linear fashion. The first level has the girls only sparely populating the screen, with most of them close to identical girls, making it easy to get a match with three or less connecting lines.

The second level has more girls populating the screen and identical girls are more frequently not located in close proximity making the task of connecting them more difficult.

The third level has the screen almost full but like girls are still frequently in close proximity. There is an open area in the center and generally working from the inside out seems to be a good strategy on this level.

The forth level finds the screen solidly filled but there are pairs of adjacent girls here and there so you can create opening(s) and work from there. Sometimes you may reach a point where it is not possible to match any girls with only three lines, then you'll need to hit reset which will re-order the girls on the screen.

The fifth level is similar to the forth in initial setup but each column collapses down as matching girls are eliminated. This re-arranging makes it difficult to get multiple successive pairs and the points that go with that.

The sixth level is like the fifth except the columns collapse upward.

The seventh level is like the fifth and sixth except that rows collapse to the right. In the eight level the rows collapse to the left.

In the ninth and final level, the girls collapse outwardly creating a widening empty area near the center. This game maintains a global high score so that people playing it everywhere compete against each other for the highest score. The top 100 scores are kept, the lowest as of this writing is 18,000+ and I've not succeeded in toping about 8,200. :(

Twinkle Revue

2007-11-11T05:30:00.001-08:00

Twinkle Revue

Twinkle Revue is a dating SIM game in which the object is to make your character intelligent, rich, strong, and charming enough to become irresistible to the girls, befriend them, and get them to become your girlfriend, in a limited period of time.

Like many of the games of this genre, the girls have a serious anger management problem and tendency towards violence, but some of them actually like it when you fight them and win.

The artwork is reasonably good, not the best I've seen in this genre but better than average. The girls expressions are always cute and happy even when they're angry and about to or in the process of killing you.

In this story; you travel to an island to work for a studio. You're told not to mess with the girls but of coarse you must, that's the object of the game.

The game is too easy, once you figure out the basic formula and what each girl likes and dislikes you can build your characters stats up and get all the girls without too much difficulty. Wish it were as easy in real life.

Momo, it runs the place. I say "it" because as you can see, even though Momo floats in the air with no clothes on, Momo is sexually ambiguous. Momo's facial features suggest femininity, but in the context of the game Momo appears to be male. Perhaps a commentary on Hollywood producer types.

The shop lady is never named so we'll never know who she is, but she runs the shop where you can purchase various gifts such as flowers, mp3 players, rings, and oh, automatic weapons. Keep these in mind for Christmas.

The Girls

Ginger loves to surf and party. She is generally friendly and easy to get along with as long as you love beer and pot and the beach." She'll appreciate the beauty of relatively inexpensive gifts but is easily offended if you don't remember her dislikes and likes. This is true of all the girls to some extend but some are more easily offended than others.

Crystal loves fights, guns, and explosives. She is always contemplating violent acts, loves violent movies, gun play, and a worthy opponent. Like Violet, she likes a good fight, but unlike Violet she's not at all stuck up, on the contrary very friendly as long as you know how to make Napalm and like to blow things up yourself.

Hazel likes to think she can sing and hopes to become a famous singer but her singing is not so good. She always words questions so that it's almost impossible to answer her without insulting her. Reinforcing the idea that she is a good singer and can succeed will get you on her good side over time.

Rose is a sweet friendly girl who loves to cook but her feelings are easily hurt. Rose loves cuddly things and doesn't like to fight. Regardless of who wins you'll be less favored by Rose if you fight with her so avoid conflict at all costs. Rose doesn't like unrefined tough talk, be a gentleman with Rose if you want to befriend her.

Scarlet appreciates natural beauty. She doesn't like shallow people and she seems to not want to believe in your sincerity. Like Rose, she seems to be easily offended or hurt. Scarlet seems a bit on the psychotic side. She is unpredictable. She seems to warm up awhile if you are consistent.

Violet is stuck up and won't give you the time of day unless she feels you are her superior. She wants a man of strength and wealth. She welcomes a fight with you and if defeated, will gain respect for you. She appreciates expensive gifts. In conversation she likes her vision of herself as being superior to be regularly reinforced.

Stratedgy

This is a spoiler so you might just want to play the game and figure it out for yourself rather than reading on. I'd really recommend not reading further unless you're actually having a hard time of it and about to give up, in which case read on.

First, get something to write on and make a note of everything the girls tell you as you encounter them. Becoming close with them later on is strongly dependent upon your ability to remember their preferences.

The more energy you have, the more things you can do in a day, the faster you can improve all of your other stats, so, in the beginning of the game, concentrate on increasing your energy.

The more intelligent you are, the more money you earn for your time. So after investing in ramping up your energy, intelligence is the next attribute you want to focus on.

Once you're a super-brain, get some cash stashed for gifts for the girls later on. Pay attention to the girls preference and general personalities as you encounter them. The most expensive gifts aren't always the best. Crystal will appreciate a fully automatic weapon over a diamond ring any day.

Next work on your strength and charm. These things are important to some of the girls. If you do these things in this order and are effective, the game is easy, the girls are easy. If real life was as easy as this game, we'd all be as rich as Bill Gates and have our own personal harem.

Click on the icon at the top of the page to play the game. Click on any of the pictures of the characters to see an enlargement of that picture.