2008 Competition Results: (6:We Like It Retro)

3rd Place – Lightmare – Total: 280

Ian:

“I vant to suck your blood. Ha Ha Ha!” There’s nothing quite as cool as playing as a vampire in a horror themed game (unless you’re playing as a werewolf of course). Vampires are cool. Everyone knows that. They’ve had a pretty shit time in the movies of late, but some of the best films have them in. Who could possibly forget the first time they saw the young boy vamp tapping on his brother’s bedroom window in the David Soul classic “Salem’s Lot”? Or seeing George Clooney shit his pants in “From Dusk Till Dawn”? Or the children of the night in “The Lost Boys”? Fangtastic stuff.

This game isn’t quite up there in the scare the shit out of you “stakes”. It’s not really even about giving some big boobed blonde bimbo an exsanguinating hickey. There’s not even really a hint of claret (or even the colour red, for that matter) in the game.

Nope, what we have here is a platform game, where the aim of the game is to take control of a cute Count Dracula look-alike and negotiate the platforms and hazards (which include flickering lampposts, flashing lights, miniature cars and lasers to name but a few) to reach what one assumes might be a vial of blood. Quite.

Each level is quite small (static and scrolling), but still very demanding, requiring perfect timing to allow progress.

The game is presented in an original Gameboy style, with a limited palette, albeit as if played on a Super Gameboy. Sound, like the graphics is simple and repetitive.

Control is fast and responsive, and the gameplay deceptively tricky, despite its innocent looks. It’s one of those games that you’ll get further each time you play, but wished had a save point or password a la old Gameboy games, as repeating the same old levels time and time again just to get that little further is frustrating.

A nice and simple looking game with a surprisingly old-school challenge.

71%

Geekay:

The book has been rewritten – well, according to Kevin Oke anyway.  Vampires can be killed by street lights and cars.  That’s it.  Why didn’t anyone tell Buffy and it could have saved us endless seasons of painful drivel.

Lightmare is a fantastic little Gameboy inspired platformer where you, as a Vampire, must collect the vials of blood on each level.  He doesn’t like killing people you see, and at the end of every high street is a conical flask with some blood in it, just like real life.

You know what, I want this game to play on my GBA or DS.  It’s good enough to be actually played on the handheld’s without the need for homage.  It looks and sounds the part, and wait for it, it’s more fun that some of the professional Game Boy released that came out in the day.  All the right combination of things are together; the good looking and distinguishable sprites, the blippy bloppy cheerful tune and the sheer simplicity of it.

Oke has kept it no frills, and for that one thing, the game works well and I like it.  It may lack complexity, it may even lack any long term enjoyability, but for a now I am playing it.

78%

Spray:

Vampires have got themselves a bad name over the years as blood sucking evil doers of wrong, deflowering virgins, murdering innocent souls and reaping havoc on poor unsuspecting travellers who just want somewhere to sleep for the night.

You know, however, that things are bad for you when you start getting portrayed in film by the likes of Tom cruise, Grace Jones and (shudder) Alex Winter.

So how about a little appreciation for the poor sod? Lightmare puts you in the role of a vampire who needs to go and collect all the vials of blood he dropped after his last visit to the blood bank.

The clever use of Game-Boy ‘feel’ graphics makes this look fun to play from the off and, though the background tune is annoying after a little while, if you can ignore it (or just turn it off) then you have a perfectly playable game.

It certainly doesn’t SUCK – Haha – vampire – suck – I’m wasted here…

74%

Oogy:

Aparently you take the roll of a vampire. A vampire with an extreme sensitivity to light. Any light for that matter, so make sure you avoid them while picking up the L shaped thingy on every level. That’s about the best I can do for the game’s story, since nothing was supplied with it.

This game would be something you would see for the original Gameboy. it sports four grey/yellow tones as its colour palette, and even the sound feels like it’s befitting the first handheld from Nintendo. Your aim is to walk and jump, avoiding moving enemies and the lights. The first few levels aren’t too bad, but it gets difficult rather quickly. Animation is minimal and the graphics don’t change much over the course of the game.

Again, this is one of those games that I think the author didn’t pay much attention to the game itself, but was rather satisfied that he had a game to submit. There doesn’t seem to be much thought put into it, and that’s a shame.

57%