Freeware Game Pick: !i (David Williamson)
!i (or 'Not I') is a clever artillery-style shooter for one or two players. The world is divided up into black and white, and each player takes it in turns to fire off a block of their own colour, and eradicate the enemy from beneath.
The two teams exist on opposite sides of the world, and the screen can be flipped to allow either player to be on top. A single player can battle against a AI-controlled army (although the computer is far too good) or two players can go head-to-head. What is really rather awesome is that all the text around the screen reads the same way when turned upside down. You can even flip the title screen!
Give it a PC, Mac or Linux download at GooeyBlob.
Comments
I have no idea what is going on in this game and what a horrible user interface.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 28, 2010 12:34 PM
It's one of those "negative space" games. The white player sees black areas as air and white areas as dirt, whereas the black player sees white as air and black as dirt. The upshot is that if the white player digs a hole, a mound appears in the black player's world. Or, as in this game, dropping a brick creates a brick-shaped hole in the opponent's world.
Posted by: L | July 28, 2010 1:47 PM
I like what this game is trying to do. I approve of it on that level. I like the circularly reflective words in the game, that's cool.
But, either the flip should be compulsory or the UI elements should remain static on the screen regardless of if my opponent flipped them and each unit should remember the last firing position sot hat making adjustments to your previous shot is possible. As it is this is just an exercise in frustration.
Can't find any place to put feedback on the guys site so I hope he sees this.
Posted by: Joe Larson | July 28, 2010 2:28 PM
@Joe: Yeah, I definitely agree with you there - the way your shot is reset after every go is quite frustrating.
Posted by: M Rose | July 28, 2010 2:30 PM
@Joe Larson,
Hey you're from Bytejacker!
Anywho, I actually came to post exactly what you had said. It's also very annoying for the AI to only randomly decide to flip the screen, instead of always or never doing it.
My other complaint, is that you have to click the tiny square to aim. I just want to click on the screen, and the aiming thing will snap to where I'm pointing.
Posted by: Coded One | July 28, 2010 3:24 PM
The combining of defensive and offensive strategies makes this game unique. I agree with the comments above about rotation and targeting.
My addition to those comments is that I wanted some kind of reward for beating that tough AI. No "victoly a winner is you"? It seemed very metaphysical to continue shooting after you had defeated your opponent.
Posted by: Josh | July 28, 2010 6:19 PM
If it kept track of your last shot and maintained the shot angle, every game would end in a stalemate. One round of offense, one round of defense.
Posted by: gorb | July 28, 2010 8:06 PM
@gorb I disagree. Even if it remembered my shots I wouldn't be able to make my shots every time. Maybe in a "perfect game" scenario, but That's the exception.
@Coded One - Heh, "from Bytejacker". Well, yes, I frequent bytejacker. probably their #1 fan.
Posted by: Joe Larson | July 29, 2010 1:56 AM
@Joe Larson,
I know you did the ASCII Portal too, but I first discovered you on Bytejacker.
"Who is this guy that keeps sending in video comments? Oh... he makes games. OH GOD ASCII PORTAL. HELL YES."
Posted by: Coded One | July 29, 2010 2:40 AM
Hi, I'm the developer of !i. Thanks everyone for the feedback. I am currently addressing many of the issues raised, but I did want explain about not preserving shot settings. The intention is that having to set up each shot fresh will reward the better player. This is especially true when one team only has one man left. With preserved settings the one man would get to tweak his shot every turn where as the other team has to cycle through all all his men before making tweaks.
Posted by: David Williamson | July 29, 2010 10:23 AM