MathewKumar
on - last edited on by
Laura
I had previously mentioned an intention to write about independent developers on a semi-regular basis after writing up a piece on Adam Atomic, however I haven't been able to write anything since. So I thought today we'd take a look at Flashbang Studios, a neat developer working in the Unity platform. Unity requires the download of their web player before you can play any of the games, but if you're used to flash web games the games the Unity player can provide should blow you away. Full 3D titles load in a similar amount of time as flash titles, but often I've found them to run better!
A Minotaur in a China Shop, yesterday
And it's Flashbang's titles that are probably the flagship games which show off the potential of the platform. My personal favourite? Well, it's got to be Minotaur China Shop.
A clever little joke, you play a clumsy Minotaur trying to run a china shop (er, I guess that was obvious from the title), and you're roughly scored on how well you managed to get through each day of running the shop without destroying too much of your stock. But! In a nice twist, if you do destroy too much stock, it makes more sense for the Minotaur to try and rack up a big insurance claim, so you've got carte blanche to destroy as much as possible!
Sounds completely silly, but there's a nice balance between the two, diametrically opposite goals; you can try your best to be a good shop owner, but when it starts to go wrong you really do want to go mad and smash the place up. It's a great title for showing of Flashbang's achievement system; there are lots of ways to try and play it and you're rewarded for them all (as long as you sign up for a Blurst account; of course, you can play the titles as a guest.)
Minotaur China Shop is my favourite, but most others select Off-Road Velociraptor Safari as theirs, and with good reason. I'm happy to admit that this fast, exciting title--which honestly asks you to drive around in a jeep, smashing into dinosaurs before collecting them and delivering them--is immediately playable and it has a really pleasing "just-one-more-go" feel if you like to compete for high scores.
There are a range of other games on Flashbang's Blurst website, all worth at least a quick go--from Blush to Crane Wars--but my other top pick is merely "published" by them on the site (actually developed by Infinite Ammo, from Winnipeg!). Paper Moon is an astonishingly gorgeous little 2D platformer that has a wonderfully 3D mechanic--scenery that pops forward and backwards. It's so good that I'm still kind of astonished that it's available for free rather than as a WiiWare title (or something.) Check it out!
