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Who needs big budgets and CGI?
By Martin
Kingsley
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You play that tiny little albino
dude
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I've gotta give big ups
to the freeware community.
For nigh on twenty years, hard working programmers,
graphics designers and only John-Carmack-knows who else have been
writing, drawing, rendering, compiling and generally exercising
their collective grey matter in various inventive ways to entertain
and intrigue us.
From the ASCII days of Rogue to things like Crimson
Lands, (gory, crazy, odd, Crimson Lands is an arcade shooter and
it rocks…look it up) and Soldat (Worms meets Counter-Strike
on crack cocaine…also rocks hard), these guys have always been
there, on the fringe.
Normally, they're never recognised, but occasionally, just occasionally,
someone on the outside looking in realises, "hey, these guys
are putting their hearts and souls into this - give 'em a round
of applause".
Seiklus, developed by experienced one-man-band freeware designer
'cly5m' is one of those games that deserve recognition for being
so damn addictive and clever in so many ways.
You are a nameless microscopic man reclining with your similarly
microscopic girlfriend on a clifftop stargazing when a meteorite
careens out of the sky in a way that is subtly hilarious and knocks
you arse-over-bread-basket to Earth.
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Weee!
*Don't try this at home
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From there, you must find your way through caverns, over grassy
knolls, into a volcano, out into a winter wonderland, and back again
to find the necessary items to get you back with your girl.
You don't even get told this much, but you don't need to. Seiklus
is clever in that it makes everything apparent without a word, but
still leaves so much there to be discovered.
Through observation and lateral thinking, puzzles will be solved,
and through reflexes and timing will obstacles be defeated.
With stylised graphics reminiscent of classic SNES platformers
and quietly cool MIDI/MOD music that gets you tapping your feet
without ever realising it, Seiklus is a head trip that keeps you
coming back for more.
It's a big game in its actual content, despite being a relatively
small download (2.4MB, zipped). I advise you; no, I implore you
- take a look at Seiklus. You won't forget it nor regret it.
Game: Seiklus
System: PC
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: cly5m
Distributor: cly5m
Rating: 95%
(Ratings
Key/Explanation)
Seiklus is available for free
download now.
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