PEGBRJE: whirlibird, Splodey Vaders and Ouroboros: The Sacrifice
20! Weren’t expecting three to start, were ya?
whirlibird is a flying ‘action’ adventure made by ‘farfromsleep’, a solo indie dev based in the United States. Players are a helicopter pilot in this wonderfully peaceful archipelago, retrieving citizens stranded while recovering packages to return to the station. The tagline says to fly responsibly, but seeing as I crashed twice on my first mission I don’t think that’s possible anymore.
whirlibird has players starting up a mission to rescue a set amount of individuals and retrieve that same number of packages before the timer runs out. To accomplish this mission, players will have to get over the first and easily most challenging hurdle; deciding which control scheme feels comfortable to play with and which is an ‘absolute abomination of cognitive functionality’. Why hyperbolic, thanks to how 3D movement can be extremely tricky to execute properly the two control schemes offer wildly different feelings as to how to control a helicopter from this camera angle. I ended up using the gamepad control scheme for its simplicity even though I found the precision and directional movement to be a tad odd. Once a control scheme is conquered, players will lift off from HQ and explore the islands in search of the citizens and cargo stranded and grab ahold of it. Thankfully the arm automatically deploys so players don’t need to worry about that, and people even will walk towards the helicopter if close enough so precision isn’t that necessary. Thanks, citizens, for being at least a tad bit co-operative. I should note that only two people can be on the helicopter at once, so if there are more to save then the player needs to return to a heli-pad to drop the passengers off, refueling while there.
Where things get ridiculous is when flight goes awry due to the numerous factors at play. Of course controls will cause crashing in to walls — which damage is shown by smoke from the helicopter — but there are many other hazards to be aware of. Alien ships are casually flying around the islands for ‘reasons’ which can ram in to players without care thanks to their seeming invincibility, so worrying about the altitude of the helicopter becomes important. Typhoons get introduced as well, dragging the helicopter in to its storm and destroying it if not careful; giving it a wide birth isn’t always possible, but getting as low to the ground as possible can reduce its pull to allow for some escapes. Then there’s those fighter jets — the Reckless Endangerment Display Squad — that just decide to fly straight overhead as well and will destroy anything they view as a threat. Seriously, for summer vibes there are some seriously angry/violent objects in this airspace.
whirlibird is meant to be a fun adventure through the islands, a speedy saving simulation if you will; how you go about doing this is completely up to you. There are three game modes to try out of differing difficulties to ensure that players who want to relax can do so, while others begging for a challenge are given their dues. There are tons of different options to toy with the game in accessibility and functionality, and coupled with its adorable pixel-based aesthetic it creates a lovely environment to simply fly around and take in the sights. If you want to island hop while saving civilians and then possibly get hit by aliens, this is the title to try.
Splodey Vaders is an arcade shoot ‘em up space title made by Scared Square Games, the solo indie name for Stuart Lilford of the UK. As the invaders descend upon the unknown and frankly unimportant location, it is up to the player as a cool spaceship to blow them in to the sky. Emphasis on the part where they explode, because there’s going to be a lot of those.
The name gives it away; Splodey Vaders has players explode invaders infinitely. Enemies will spawn forever, increasing their speed and spawnrate as the game goes on to make it more challenging. Players only have control over the horizontal directions, as this spaceship is equipped with an auto firing gun to blast the enemies away. Unfortunately the gun’s fire rate is a bit low so getting the bullets to connect is a bit more tricky if the enemy spawns after a bullet is shot. What happens if an explosion occurs, however, is he twist of the title and the main gameplay changer; explosions cause debris, which cannot be destroyed nor shot down. This can work for or against the player, as while they cannot destroy the debris, it also hasn’t sided with the enemy meaning that it can collide with invaders to destroy them. This creates a multiplier and wracks up the points substantially while allowing for players not to worry too much about hitting their shots. Of course, if the debris hits the player it’s treated like if the ships did, which means the ship is the next to explode and shower the sky with debris. Hopefully get some extra points on the way out.
Splodey Vaders set out to be a simple retro arcade title with a twist, and achieves it’s goals easily. The game is easy to pick up and understand, while the gameplay has been altered thanks to the debris mechanic to allow for something a little more fresh. There are some slight customization options like changing the overall colour palette and the ship design, but ultimately it sets out to do one thing, and one thing really well; let you just blow up a bunch of invaders. If that’s your jam — especially on mobile if you are commuting — then this might be a small title to try.
Ouroboros: The Sacrifice is a point and click narrative horror made by indie dev The Forgotten Workshop. Within players will step in to a fantastical world of a frozen wasteland and follow Iyu, one among many sent to guard the borders of their land for eternity, as he receives a Journey from the Gods. Unfortunately for him, that Goddess is the one of Death.
Players will be set on their journey within Ouroboros through text, learning of the world while lamenting with Iyu at the seeming nothingness that his life has become while guarding a wall for the majority of his life. At first players will simply be following his plot, clicking along to learn of his trials before being summoned by a Prophet and learning of his upcoming Journey. From here, players will be solving puzzles in order to venture to the Journey’s start, centred around a journal that the Prophet gives. This journal reads mainly as a lore dump, but with a few chapters containing scribbles and hints as to how to solve certain puzzles. Each solution can be deciphered from the journal — even stated that all solutions can be found within — so half of the puzzle is merely discovering exactly where the solution can be found within. The journal is also missing pages which may or may not be discoverable throughout the game depending on a few factors, so keeping an eye out is important. Just because the codes have been cracked, however, doesn’t mean that the puzzles are all simple to execute; many rely on memorizing strings of inputs to execute properly, and getting back in to the book isn’t the fastest. There are also some puzzles that are very finnicky to figure out exactly how to solve, utilizing sound and visual cues in very particular ways that can be easily ignored. Case and point, the wind chime puzzle caused me to google and watch two youtube videos, and even then I barely figured it out.
Just as soon as I got the groove of the title, as the tension began to rise as players found what their Journey was leading them to, Ouroboros comes to a halt; it’s a beginning to an adventure, not the entire thing. While disappointing, it’s an interesting proof of concept to create an atmospheric point-and-click with a horror/thriller aesthetic. I’ve seen this utilized a few times in other games — such as a few in this bundle — and I wouldn’t turn down more. If you are a fan of fantastical settings that are more dark and wasteland-centric, this might be a fun one to dive in to.
