On the other hand…

It’s not often that you see something that is unique, yet so familiar it almost falls natural. I’d reckon it’s pretty darn rare to behold something like that.

Nevertheless, I’ve recently had that very experience with a new game title. The title is Scary Girl, a game that is a collaboration of several forces, but altogether an Australian product from Touch My Pixel.

What is unique about the game? Well, how about the fact that it’s done in a wonderful and very atmospheric and characteristic art style? That it has several kinds of game mechanics, yet at its core it’s still a platform game? Or that it’s soundtrack and story is both amusing and emotional? And how about the fact that it’s an online Flash-based game, that you can play anywhere? No installation require, and save games are kept on the server, so you can save on one computer and continue on another. Last, but certainly not least, there is the rather interesting fact that the game is free.

The game starts out with a small introduction. We see Scary Girl’s dream in which she is dragged underwater, stumbles upon several strange creatures and a man’s face haunts her dreams too. She wakes up, heavy breathing, determined to figure this dream out. She thinks she needs to see her guardians Bunniguru (a bunny) or Blister (an octopussy).

Scary Girl is no ordinary girl. She’s not entirely human. She has got some kind of tentacles instead of arms and legs, yet, one arm is seemingly severed, revealing bone. The other has a pirate hook at the end. With her wee hat (with a Jolly Roger symbol) and eye patch, she does look somewhat like a octo-human-girly-pirate. She is no beauty, she’s a bit scary, but she’s also really charming to look at.

Scary Girl is a rather versatile… creature. She runs, jumps, spins (for attacking), and she has a pretty nifty spin-jump too. Later in the game she’ll dive, drive, fly and fight – to name but a few of the things she’ll get herself into. She can also interact with certain objects, like the eggs she finds lying about. Pick them up and throw them, and they’ll break. Either you’ll get goodies (gems for points, fish for energy), an annoying bomb that’ll steal your energy if you aren’t fast, or a sleek, black cat, that’ll make you invincible for a while. Or what about a golden fish, that’ll start a rain of fish?

Anyway, the game starts out as a pretty normal platform game. You run about, jump on foes (not all though), do spin-kills and collects items. However, the story you need to unfold calls for communication with your friends and … foes? The first one you meet, is the meditating Bunniguru, a mild-spirited, yet rather mystical bunny, that likes to be coy and playful. He’ll help you anyway, though.

The first little puzzle is easy, and seeing Bunniguru will solve the problem, making way for progress. But don’t get too comfortable, things will be much trickier on your way to solving the puzzle of your dreams and figure out just who that mystical face belongs to, and why you are dreaming of him in the first place.

While Scary Girl does have some text in order to explain how you control the main character and to tell some of the story, much of the game uses small animations and pictograms. Like when you ask Bunniguru about the face in your dream and he explains what you should do.

As you can see in the picture to the left, a sort of speech bubble pops up, an in it plays a small animation of what you should do. In this case, you see a bike getting assembled and driving through a city to a temple.

One could be forgiven for think that is what you need to do next. But it’s not that simple. The instructions you are given, are not always your very next step. There can be several steps in between. But your friends do know what the future holds, although they sometimes show the future in a bit obscure way.

The system works well though, and I’d say that kids should be able to get through this game without understanding the text or even being able to read.

I’ve mentioned earlier, that Scary Girl is versatile – and she is. Later stages involves diving (remember to pop up in airholes to breathe), fighting (a bit simple, but still fun), racing on a rocket-driving motorcycle and there are boss battles and lots of collecting of stuff. Most puzzles aren’t so bad, they can be solved with a bit of patience and thinking.

Scary Girl has a lot going for it. The graphics are really well drawn and everything ooze charm and character. The music is well suited for the game and you find yourself humming along some of the tunes. The gameplay is good. Mostly it’s fairly good platforming, broken by the occasionel stage with something entirely different. There are some annoying points in the game, but with a bit of patience, most people will be able to get through these.

As mentioned earlier, you can save the game and it will store your progress on the server. This works by creating an account on the game’s website, and it works fine… most of the time. Sure, it only saves at the beginning of each stage which is okay with me. But I’ve had it skip a stage somehow, when I loaded a save position. And you only have one. The game does have a few bugs. Like when I fell into a hole and Scary Girl’s energy didn’t run out. So I could sort of control her off screen indefinitely, which meant I had to access the game’s menu and restart the level.

Oh, I almost forgot. The game also offers a few bonus games in form of “Console Games” you can collect. Once collected, you can click on a small tv in the upper left corner  (to access the in-game menu) from which you can play the console games you have collected. They are quite simple affairs like a Pong/Break-out clone, a Space Invaders clone and a small race game (seen to the right). All these games are simplistic both graphics, sound and game play-wise, but they are a jolly good addition nevertheless. Even though the pong clone gets the ball stuck behind the bat and racks up points at an alarming rate (if it’s your opponent) or strips you of your lives very fast (if it’s you). And even though the racing game lets you position your car so it will never hit anything!

Even  with the mentioned bugs and even if the game demands a decent CPU (it’s not always ultra-smooth on my old P4 3GHz), its charm, game play, price and neat little story makes it something special.

If your gaming needs to be in 3D to be enjoyable, you might as well stay clear of Scary Girl. It’s not “next-gen”. But it’s still a very pretty, highly enjoyable and very competent game for those of us who like our platforming to be full of charm and character. Sure, it’s sometimes a pain to see what is actually a platform, and what is just background graphics, and the controls aren’t perfect by any means. But as for the “what’s a platform”-struggle, I suppose it was a choice the developers made in order to maintain the artistic style.

I’d also wish for a downloadable version. Heck, I’d gladly pay some bucks for it. The developers deserve it. In fact, how about a port for the Xbox 360? The game has potential written all over it, so why not make a decent buck that way. And optimize the game for the platform, because I’d love to enjoy the game full screen, something I can’t in this version. And that is a shame, since the game is a joy to behold. Click here to enjoy it!

Score: 8 out of 10

-Jacob

Trailer of the game:

Another, longer preview: