An IGF student showcase finalist by a team from a university in Barcelona, Galaxy Scraper is a sort of 3D platformer set on a succession of planets. You're a little spaceman running about a planet, Super Mario Galaxy-style; controls are straight-forward (arrow keys for movement, right-click to kick and left-click to jump, Enter to bring up the menu), but at times awkward, since the arrow keys restrict you to cardinal directions, and the planet is spherical, meaning you can only face in those cardinal directions even when you'd really like to be pointing off-angle.
A simple framework, but what's interesting is that the levels (that is, planets) are quite different, and require different sorts of gameplay. For instance, the first planet has a mouth at one location and an ass at the other; little bug-like critters wander around it. You have to kick 20 of them into the mouth, avoiding getting eaten yourself, then run to the ass, where a fart blasts you off to the next level. The second level is, however, a more classic platformer lava level; beating it means jumping across lava, avoiding hurtling boulders, and unlocking a gate. On each planet, there are some sign-posts that give clues to what you have to do; you have to complete your task in a set amount of time (and avoid dying, of course).
It's cute, cheerful, brightly colored and featuring a bouncy musical score; not a huge advance on the state of the art, but good clean fun in a classic mold.
N.B.: The system requirements on the developer's site calls for a 2GHz machine, but this runs fine on my 1.5GHz one.
Frustratingly Flawed
What a frustrating control system. If the game wasn't so unforgiving in the way that you can fall off platforms if you so much as get anywhere near the edge the control system might be tolerable. As it is, the game soon became an exercise in annoyance. One for the masochists I think.
Hi, my name is Xavi and i'm
Hi, my name is Xavi and i'm of the programmers of Galaxy Scrapper. I would like to thank you for talking about our game. About the keyboard-control system, we know is awful but we designed the game to be played with a joypad, so we encourage you to try it again using any kind of joypad, so you won't have any direction limit. Thanks again, see you!
Control Issues
The keyboard controls are truly terrible. I'll withhold rating this game until I try it with a joypad, but to the folks who made the game, I'll say that simple rotational camera control system would have done wonders to help the issue. The camera seems to be free-moving anyway, so I'm trying to figure out why this wasn't added.
Ah well. I'll give it a shot with a gamepad sometime soon.