PEGBRJE: Rooftop Cop and Super Slime Arena
Ambience and Cute Violence
Rooftop Cops is an ambient experience made by S.L Clark, whom some may remember from their previous entry in the bundle with Witchball (the racing tennis fusion in a dystopian futureland). Players this time are treated to a series of short game vignettes, each titled and given a description, that loosely create a narrative in which these ‘Cops’ lose their way. Who are the Cops? I’m not sure, and quite frankly I don’t know if I will be sure.
Rooftop Cops falls into a similar vein as many other titles within the bundle that I like to dub ‘experiences’ for there’s barely an apt description for them otherwise that thoroughly explains how they feel. Each game utilizes a different mechanic to tell its story with absolutely 0 attempts at verbal communication, rather having players live the story itself. The first title is easily the one I connected to the ‘overarching narrative’ immediately, as the protagonist is giving citations to individuals to offset a budgetary amount. The catch is that each individual has a limit as to how much they can be ‘cited’, as I found this out the hard way after the protagonist stabbed the guy. Capture the Flag, for One is the second title, which I feel I missed the point of completely, as it was a simple jaunt in a snowstorm to pick up a flag, and then return home.
My favourite duo of Rooftop Cops were games III and IV, spending quite a few attempts to see how far I could push both of them. Game III, dubbed ‘The Datamines’, as a Cop fall through glass ceilings while collecting as much incriminating evidence as possible on each floor. Each item has a weight to it, which speeds up the time it takes to fall through the floor but there are different ‘thicknesses’ of glass so to speak as some floors would crack immediately upon landing. Players also need to ensure that they do fall through, as there are guards that will report them; if these guards reach the while the Cop is still on the same floor, the game is over. There’s also the fear that falling too many flights of stairs with a heavy bag will crush the Cop, also ending the attempt. It struck this bizarre balance of strategy that I wasn’t expecting, figuring out when to ditch the bag of goods through a balcony to gain permanent points while hurting my ability to fall, or push my luck and keep going through the floors quickly.
Game IV, God Bles Everyone, starts only with two individuals on a small area which turns out to be a raft. They must build it out with the debris they collect while creating items with batteries and other essentials to survive. I found it to be quite compelling without even realizing it at first; the raft needing to extend to buildings to rescue other stranded individuals while possibly finding more resources, yet parts would get clipped by the buildings when hit. It’s an unending management of resources that contains the sinking feeling that these individuals are going to lose, and it doesn’t entirely matter. That didn’t stop me, though — I wanted to keep going, to see what new sights could be seen and what new items or creations I could make. I wanted to find out where it may end, if it ever did.
The final game in Rooftop Cop is Palace of the Organizer, and just like with game 2 I feel I missed the objective. Players can wander an icy landscape with only a small printer in the corner. Interacting with the printer starts the print, and players will need to ensure that when it stops unexpectedly, it restarts. That’s… all I could figure out. If there’s a meaning to the designs on the papers printed, such as they are the paths I must take to unlock something, I’m all ears.
At the end, Rooftop Cop is an experience best done in first person, for my ramblings will not entirely explain the small nuances that one may come across. Each title (the ones I understood, anyway) had a feeling of story within them, even if they didn’t properly state any, by simply having players play. The design choices, art direction and UI elements would do the rest, so to speak. Many of the games are ‘unending’, but can all be experienced within an hour or so depending on the player, so if you have an hour that wishes to be filled with ambience this can do the trick.
Super Slime Arena is an arena brawler made by JellyTeam, a trio of developers working with slimes. As the name suggests, players play as slimes in a winner takes all brawl, where individual slimes have their own super powers that are needed to take lives off of the opponents.
Super Slime Arena keeps things simple when it comes to slimey violence; outside of standard movement, there are only two buttons that players will need to worry about. The first button is for jumping, which all slimes can do but not within the same capacity. Some can jump then fly, others can jump really far as if physics no longer effects them, while some do a bizarre double jump by slamming into the ground to bounce higher. The second is the button needed to take out the opponents, which varies even more than the jumping based on each slime. The key to understanding each slime is in their visual design, such as the rhinoceros beetle slime utilizing its horn to charge and grab a slime to ‘KO’ it.
The game modes within Super Slime Arena are also worth mentioning, as they allow for a bunch of different variations thanks to the customization in the options menu. My personal favourite, Slime Swap, is reminiscent of Call of Duty’s Gun Game; every KO causes the killer to become a new slime, with the goal of reaching 0 slimes left to become by the end. With o32 slimes to rotate through, this game can go on for quite a while if no clear cut winner appears to dominate the arena. The aforementioned options can limit this certain subsets of slimes such as crowned or winged, or increase the stock number instead and make it even longer.
With absolutely 0 limit on how many controllers can be connected, Super Slime Arena can become an absolute cluster of nonsense — on their itch.io there’s a game being played with at least 50 characters connected which looks like utter chaos. It contains dozens of cute slimes to play around with, and a soundtrack that bops along with players and they attempt to defeat each other in a cutesy yet deadly arena. If you’re looking for a Super Smash Bros alternative that doesn’t limit you on players while keeping things simple and clean, Super Slime Arena looks to be a fantastic addition to the roster.
