This week on the Screenshot Survey, we take a look at a collection of games that impressed me with their vibrant visuals, even more vibrant than I've seen in most weeks. I was but a growing games enthusiast back in the glory days of the Game Boy Advance, and while others might have overlooked the vast majority of that system's games due to their portable nature, I always viewed it as an alternate universe where 2D graphics in games could still thrive. Thankfully, the rest of the world caught up to my imagination and now impressive 2D and 3D worlds are realized every day. Let's take a look at a few of them now.
https://twitter.com/torpedolab/status/627443456579907584https://twitter.com/IncubatorGames/status/6…
One advantage that phone games sometimes have over their bigger brothers is that they have limitations just like games did back in the old days. You're not dealing with endless hardware specs, so concessions have to be made, which can lead to unique styles that pop off the screen. Super Briefcase immediately captured my eye when I saw this tweet in motion. Only after a while did I even notice that the little protagonist dodging bombs was also a businessman, which explains the name. Everything on display here is great, from the fire effects to the Metal Slug-like explosions. The game started life as a Flash game with much less distinctive visuals, and I'm happy to see the developer take another crack at it and turn out something so pretty.
https://twitter.com/AdventIslands/status/627559735252926464
Another upgraded title, Super Dangerous Dungeons is the continuation of a couple of Flash games, including a Game Boy demake. The game's crisp pixels and great animations are just proof that the developer has been cracking away on a wide variety of cool games for a few years now. The game is about three fourths of the way to completion, and looks to be a fine entry into the huge pile of 2D platformers that I really need to get around to checking out. Ahh well, such is life.
https://twitter.com/Cryamore/status/627689454841536512
Cryamore is an old school action-RPG that has been working towards a Summer 2016 release since blowing away its Kickstarter goal in February of 2013. The environments and huge sprites that are posted all along the game's Twitter timeline are quite appealing, almost as appealing as the name of the company making them, which is NostalgiCO. Kind of reminds me of the early days of game companies, with your SErvice GAmes and your NAMCOs. In any case, a demo of the game in on track to be released later this month for those who are as interested as I am.
https://twitter.com/tehbignic/status/627633374887174145
From appealing sprites to appealing animations, here is Domina, a gladiator action game from the maker of Corporate Lifestyle Simulator. That game was filled with zombies, which is something we have in abundance, so I'm glad to see that their new project is in the mostly untapped space of swords and sandals. The environments might be a bit sparse, but the way that the characters are thrusting with their weapons remind me a more fleshed out Nidhogg. There is also a bit of Crawl in there now that I think about it. Definitely great company to be in, and I could watch this GIF for a long while before getting bored.
https://twitter.com/IncubatorGames/status/627463858005741569
Finally this week, we gradually move away from the color to bring you a horrible nightmare creature. This amusing monstrosity is an enemy from Trudy's Mechanicals, a steampunk turn based tactics game with a great style both in its concept art and in the 3D models actually present in the game. The furnace at the top of the page is actually also from this game, and everything in the promotional materials reveals a highly fleshed out world ready for exploring. The game will be released early next year on PC, and I will prioritize digging into this one to see what other maddening things the robots will do.
Are there any interesting games in development that you've seen out there? Did you ever play that Astro Boy game on the Game Boy Advance? It's really, really good. Better than it has any right to be. Comment below and let me know!