Mushroomer by Jotapeh
Seeing the phrase “Just like a real video game!” immediately made me smile, but sadly the rest of the game couldn’t quite pull off enough to keep that smile on my face. A run and jump platformer made vaguely interesting with slidey controls and ninja rope goodness. Escape the cave before you lose all your lives or a ten minute timer expires. Competently done (nice backdrop!) and points for the rope, but a tad plain. 63%

Mushroom Stew by iarwain
Wahey, more mushrooms! You can never have enough mushrooms, folks. In this case you have to blast through a story of confusion and deception to find out why your mushroom buddies are suddenly trying to kill you. Use your crouching and time-bending skills to reach the end. Technically very good with several tricks used to enliven the graphics – sharp gameplay too, if a tad repetitive. Even has a level editor! 77%

Oh Crackers, Not Again! by The Greenest Banana
In a spicy, tangy twist to normality, here you have to protect a helpless little girl as she tries to get back home following a path which is infested with monsters. You take the part of her faithful and happily indestructible hound who can jump on enemies’ heads to stop them from being such a nuisance. A charming Flash effort but quite challenging even on the easiest difficulty. Needs more levels but still a great effort. 78%

One Pack by MrRoboman
Being a toned ace space pilot is all very well but it’s oh-so-easy to pile on the pounds in your retirement. Such is the problem Ace Fatman now faces in his quest for… okay, I have no idea what his quest is, since this game is one for the “unfinished” pile. But it’s enough to raise a guffaw at the creative use of assets. Multi-purpose flab, anyone? Throw a can or three of polish at this and it could have an entertaining future! 52%

Today we have:

• Have Adventures
• Higher Still
• Hubris Quest Online
• Labyrinth
• Led’s Get Shooting
• Mechwar (Battle for Narita)
• Mr. Kitty’s Quest
• Mulder’s Totally Bogus (Rabbit) Journey

Off we go, then!

Have Adventures by Cap Petschulat
A curious proof-of-concept entry that showcases the powers of javascript and a canvas inside your browser. Not a hugely fun experience at the moment but continued development may yield interesting results. 35%

Higher Still by Aquanoctis
Use your amazing power of being able to jump four times your own height in order to scale a lofty prison and rescue a princess! Your journey is made a tad more interesting with glowy sprite wotsits that’ll flip the world upside down, an occasional miniboss, and in the author’s words “lots of trippy weirdness”. Unforgiving if you make a mistake and a little buggy, but still not one you should ignore. 72%

Hubris Quest Online by SimpleSyrup
HQO isn’t finished, and as it stands is only somewhat playable. But scoring it just on that would be unfair, because the scale of what SimpleSyrup has tried to do is pretty staggering given the competition deadline. Essentially it’s the basis of a fully-featured flash MMORPG and as a technical achievement in such a short space of time this is definitely a game to watch closely. Vote to see it completed! 60%

Labyrinth by Space_man
Couldn’t really be much simpler: you just have to survive the evil bad guys and escape the devious maze you find yourself in. Points for being atmospheric – play this in a dark room and you might find yourself surprised at how creepy it is! Beyond that, however, the gameplay becomes a bit samey. If mapping dungeons is your thing, go ahead and help yourself, but there is little else to hold your attention. 52%

Led’s Get Shooting by FrozenCow
For an executable that’s only 66KB in size, LGS packs a tremendous punch. Fight against ever-more-persistent waves of enemies with pew-pew lasers and ’splody grenades. It’s fair to say that the all-too-brief gameplay ambles along the border to the repetitive side but the unique and highly neato LED-style graphics are impressive. A satisfying diversion for a few minutes. 73%

Mechwar (Battle for Narita) by Treff
Ooooh, an RTS – that probably deserves a point in itself since we haven’t had any of those yet! Sadly it isn’t 100% finished, and while it is fun to play around with (and indeed quite challenging to wipe out the enemy without cheating), there is no storyline or campaign to play through. No sound, but technically very good otherwise. Needs a little more work but shows great promise. 64%

Mr. Kitty’s Quest by Ben Pettengill
Zelda-esque adventure ahoy! Help Mr. Kitty to bring home a gallon of milk so his owner won’t think him quite so useless. This one is pretty epic and I won’t pretend I’ve had chance to play through all of it, but everything I saw was fantastic. The art style is among the most consistent of all entrants and the gameplay is pretty sublime – and funny to boot. Highly recommended, this gets one of my votes! 89%

Mulder’s Totally Bogus (Rabbit) Journey by moonmagic
Assist Mulder the rabbit in rescuing his friends in a journey through heaven. Defend yourself from danger by hiding, digging holes or just plain running away! Unfortunately the competition version has only a handful of screens to explore but moonmagic is continuing to work toward bringing it to completion. Perhaps as a rabbit owner myself I’m biased but hey, too bad! A really charming game that’s full of appeal. 85%

Darker Than Your Soul by KissMaj7
Explaining the story too much would be a spoiler since this game is so short, but suffice to say that you play the part of a mighty warrior who is sent upon a quest. Try it and be surprised! DTYS is a lo-fi throwback to the classic RPGs of old like Dungeon Master with a first-person view of the dungeon and real-time combat. Points lost for being far too short (I wanted more!) and poor monster AI (they won’t chase you around corners). 72%

DEBT by floatstarpx
Intergalactic traveller Owen has fallen upon hard times. Help him to eradicate his debt by platforming your way through 3 distinct planets to collect all of the valuable goodies within. I like the mix of 2D and 3D effects, and the game itself is quite addictive as you hurry around grabbing loot. Forces you to think tactically on a short game – figuring out which planet you can scavenge the most from is key if you’re going for the world’s best online highscore. 75%

Dog and Bone are Friends by Jake Elliott
A very pleasant Flash puzzle game. Help Dog and Bone get around various obstacles so that they can meet up and play together. As you might expect, both characters have unique abilities: Bone – who doesn’t like birds – can climb ladders and use magic statues to rearrange the landscape, while Dog can jump around and bark to scare birds away if he’s close enough. Level design may seem too easy, but you’ll be playing through them again with added challenges later! 79%

Dot Dot Dot by Noyb
Ah, now here we have something quite shallow, and yet at the same time, very deep! Tell me, are you a philosophical gamer? Do you like analysing true meaning and the exact nature of whatever the deuce you’re doing? Find out! Take part in a short series of minigames and decide for yourself whether there is some greater purpose. The style is actually quite good, and while I would normally dismiss a “game” like this, I found myself smiling at the end. Bonus points for cat usage! 68%

One thing I forgot to mention in the first TAR post is that the download links will point you to the final competition version of the games – bear in mind there may also be further updated downloads! For the most recent links be sure to check the TIGForum threads.

Anyhow, this installment should be a good one, so let’s not hang around any longer. Here they come…

Bang Bang Roguelution by Sos
Holy macaroni, it’s a thinly veiled clone of Dance Dance Revolution complete with hordes of retro sprites! Get ready to mash your keyboard like there’s no tomorrow and maybe, just maybe, you can bag yourself a highscore. Includes 23 blippy tunes to savour the madness with. Steer clear of this one if you are prone to seizures, but otherwise get in there and have a laugh! 71%

BirdyWorld by Logan Ames
Billed as a “collaborative Zelda“, this has to be one of the competition’s star entries. Explore a world that has been created by other players (that includes the monsters and dungeons, too) and expand the world yourself as you go! A cool concept indeed. It’s let down by the lack of any sound or music, but the gameplay is horribly addictive despite the lack of clear objectives… 83%

Bitworld by Ivan Safrin
Imaginative use of 2.5D makes this another strong challenger for an Assemblee victory. It’s a Roguelike dungeon romp where you take either a knight, wizzard (sic) or archer into ye olde dwarven fortress in order to defeat the stompy red demon of doom which has invaded the place. Very, very smoothly done. Switching between axiseses is fun! 86%

Bleerg …
I couldn’t get this to work, so I’ll return to it later in TAR when I’ve had chance to find out why it hates me

Boulder Dodge by EzekielKnight
A single-screen time attack where you must keep the counter running for as long as possible while picking up gems and multipliers to increase your score. And, weirdly enough, there are these boulder thingies which you have to… erm… give me a minute… dodge, that was it, dodge! Or they’ll bash you on the head and make you lose, and stuff. Nothing special – good, simple fun for a few minutes. 59%

Quick note: click on the or icons for an appropriate download link, or  to visit the relevant thread on the TIGForums. Anything not safe for work is marked with a .

6nine by JMickle
Oh, good. A game packed with male reproductive organs. How original! This game isn’t just made of cocks – it is cock. Almost non-existant gameplay. In truth, a waste of perfectly good bandwidth. 15%

30 Bomb of Awesome Frags by C. A. Sinclair
“I seize my material!” Quite fun. Bonus points for nonsensical storyline. Short but tough gameplay in a style you could liken to  Meritous – navigate through a dungeon and kill enemies by charging your attacks to release bombs. 74%

87 Spiderbats go to the Inn by Sos
Points awarded for technical skill – this is a proper Atari 2600 game! Nice, but unfortunately the game itself is rather basic. Stop the dreaded spiderbats from invading your inn by killing 87 of them before you lose all your lives or too many get past you. 58%

Backworld by Juha Kangas & Anders Ekermo
An impressive game with an interesting gameplay mechanic. Guide the rabbit to the end of each screen in a grayscale world. To do so you will need to paint holes into the “backworld” to erase obstacles, reveal platforms or even reverse gravity. Good stuff. 84%

Expect more TAR over the weekend!

Despite this, I believe I still have some way to go in order to get myself on webpagesthatsuck.com’s Ugliest / Worst Websites of 2009 list. At least I hope I do…

Anyhow, super special awesome original theme, GO! Come the change in host, I’ll be changing the theme too. Twitter has told me this must be so. Fun times ahead, eh?

Meet Tetoris [link], the smallest yet at the same time biggest variation of Tetris I’ve ever seen. Good luck on actually building a complete tetris line…

Thanks to Offworld for the heads-up.

I love it! It’s even got authentic-looking wear and tear. Very professional indeed, and best of all it’s completely safe. Oh, and your cake is just through that doorway over there…

There’s some more pictures over on the original Shacknews post.

Perhaps it was Sergei Shmolik’s first big match and he’d had a few to calm the nerves beforehand…

Oh dear. Someone give the poor fellow another drink!

(Source: BBC News)