Colander Ken
Colander Ken
After so many mods where I helped Szemi, finally a mod where he helped me. Together we have created what I am sure is the single greatest mod that has ever been created.
Inspired by the utterly awesome game Supra Mayro Kratt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2apiZ5_E5Dc this mod is the single last thing I shall ever work on, for I shall never be able to do anything this incredible ever again.
Get it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/394 ... LANDER.zip
Inspired by the utterly awesome game Supra Mayro Kratt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2apiZ5_E5Dc this mod is the single last thing I shall ever work on, for I shall never be able to do anything this incredible ever again.
Get it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/394 ... LANDER.zip
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
- Paramultart
- VBB's Partner in Crime
- Posts: 3004
- Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:36
Nice. A mod parodying bad modding/game designing. I've seen worse productions that have aimed not to be bad. Went through everything except the maze-like level where I cheated to get the keys.
Now back to real work y'all. Which means O:S coding for me.
Now back to real work y'all. Which means O:S coding for me.
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
Don't worry folks, another production will be forthcomming, hopefully in less than a month. This was just a little brain fart that I was compelled to foist upon you.
Nooooo! You're just jealous is all!Bernie wrote:100/10!!!!
jokes was a bit funny but sucked pretty bad, 2/10. ill never understand you levellass
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
-
- Vorticon Elite
- Posts: 336
- Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2013 18:46
Colander Ken: A Review
By J. Jones
When I booted up the game, I was greeted by a wonderfully abstract title screen, evocative of our modern times, and Bobby Prince's classic "Too Hot to Handle", which proceeded to loop throughout the rest of my gaming experience. Less cultured players may be put off by the conflicting styles presented on this, the first screen of the game - to the left, a partly minimalistic, partly anti-aliased portrayal of the protagonist, and to the right, an otter, which appears to have been traced from an unrelated work (an excellent demonstration of innovation via appropriation, I might add). Upon witnessing this spectacle, some players may terminate the game immediately. In this way, the game culls those who are not fit to appreciate it. I, of course, not being of such ilk, selected "New Gaem" (after perusing the "Sotry", of course).
Beginning a new gaem places the player on a simplistic overworld painted in a foreboding red colour. The map consists of square nodes interconnected by narrow passageways. All but one of the nodes contains a stage, and there are but eight stages altogether. This may seem, at a glance, a paltry offering, but the modders wisely recognized that there was no need for more, lest their unified vision be muddled by pretensions formed by imaginations perhaps too active.
In the first stage, I am greeted by a portrait of a rabbit or other creature of a leporid nature. This is likely the first aspect of the stage to be noticed by the player, and the asset is unique to this stage alone. I must confess that I am presently boggled by the inclusion of the portrait, even with my advanced intellect. If anybody out there can give me the explanation for this absurd inclusion, I ask of you: don't. I would like to stew in this for some time, until I come to an answer, accurate or no, which is meaningful to me.
Now, as a game, some may criticize this work for its low level of difficulty. Indeed, most stages are quite short, and none are greatly difficult. For enemies, there are bizarre gingers with big afros who pose no serious threat, and skillfully rendered snakes which may strike down our hero, but which also may be dispatched or evaded with ease. Ammo is limited, for it is largely unwarranted. The greatest gameplay challenge comes in the form of tedium, as exhibited by the final stage, which I refuse to spoil in this essay (suffice it to say that, due to the layout of that stage, I became trapped in a box bordering on the existential, and had to reset the game; I had not saved - a striking lesson on mortality). However, unto you I say: pish posh. To focus on the gameplay, such a tiny aspect of the game, is to avert one's gaze from the grander picture, and, furthermore, to confine the game unnecessarily within a box and limit one's ability to fully appreciate what is a young and developing expressive medium.
It's not supposed to be difficult to play.
It's supposed to be difficult to understand.
To expand upon my argument, allow me to take you back to that simplistic map whereabouts the player is shunted into the game without great fanfare or explanation. Before now, I neglected to mention an important note about the map, for I have saved it for the conclusion of this essay. Unlike the game which served as the basis for this modification, all levels are immediately playable, and it is quite possible to skip to the final level and beat the game within minutes. In this way, seven out of eight of the already easy-to-best levels become moot. Difficulty, at this point, appears to be an absolute joke. However, I implore you to think of it this way: can one really be said to have "beaten" the game without experiencing it in its entirety? And, additionally, can one really be said to have won simply by surpassing the crude challenges of gameplay without having grappled and thrown down the challenges of the mind and of the soul so clearly issued with each bare expanse of land, each fragmented, seemingly-haphazardly-placed brick? Colander Ken passes behind both light and shadow at once, slipping through a tile into a much deeper, eldritch realm of the subconscious.
Left with the game's brief, cryptic, yet strangely positive message in the climactic finale, it is ultimately up to the player to decipher the true meaning of this work. Much time have I spent pondering these lines of thought, and, although I submit my musings forthwith, I have yet to arrive at answers in which I can place my complete confidence. Mayhap it is the purpose of this mod to remain thusly inscrutable, and, in its inscrutability, imbue with its audience the desire for understanding so natural to mankind on such an abstract level that we may readily recognize this desire within ourselves and, in turn, the limits of our knowledge on a grander scale. "Too Hot to Handle" continues to ring in my ears as I type this final sentence, echoing through my mind and into my soul, my dreams surely to be emblazoned by its mysterious melody as I drift into the abyss of night.
Graphics 10/10
Sound 10/10
Music 10/10
Gameplay 10/10
Sotry 10/10
Overall 10/10
By J. Jones
When I booted up the game, I was greeted by a wonderfully abstract title screen, evocative of our modern times, and Bobby Prince's classic "Too Hot to Handle", which proceeded to loop throughout the rest of my gaming experience. Less cultured players may be put off by the conflicting styles presented on this, the first screen of the game - to the left, a partly minimalistic, partly anti-aliased portrayal of the protagonist, and to the right, an otter, which appears to have been traced from an unrelated work (an excellent demonstration of innovation via appropriation, I might add). Upon witnessing this spectacle, some players may terminate the game immediately. In this way, the game culls those who are not fit to appreciate it. I, of course, not being of such ilk, selected "New Gaem" (after perusing the "Sotry", of course).
Beginning a new gaem places the player on a simplistic overworld painted in a foreboding red colour. The map consists of square nodes interconnected by narrow passageways. All but one of the nodes contains a stage, and there are but eight stages altogether. This may seem, at a glance, a paltry offering, but the modders wisely recognized that there was no need for more, lest their unified vision be muddled by pretensions formed by imaginations perhaps too active.
In the first stage, I am greeted by a portrait of a rabbit or other creature of a leporid nature. This is likely the first aspect of the stage to be noticed by the player, and the asset is unique to this stage alone. I must confess that I am presently boggled by the inclusion of the portrait, even with my advanced intellect. If anybody out there can give me the explanation for this absurd inclusion, I ask of you: don't. I would like to stew in this for some time, until I come to an answer, accurate or no, which is meaningful to me.
Now, as a game, some may criticize this work for its low level of difficulty. Indeed, most stages are quite short, and none are greatly difficult. For enemies, there are bizarre gingers with big afros who pose no serious threat, and skillfully rendered snakes which may strike down our hero, but which also may be dispatched or evaded with ease. Ammo is limited, for it is largely unwarranted. The greatest gameplay challenge comes in the form of tedium, as exhibited by the final stage, which I refuse to spoil in this essay (suffice it to say that, due to the layout of that stage, I became trapped in a box bordering on the existential, and had to reset the game; I had not saved - a striking lesson on mortality). However, unto you I say: pish posh. To focus on the gameplay, such a tiny aspect of the game, is to avert one's gaze from the grander picture, and, furthermore, to confine the game unnecessarily within a box and limit one's ability to fully appreciate what is a young and developing expressive medium.
It's not supposed to be difficult to play.
It's supposed to be difficult to understand.
To expand upon my argument, allow me to take you back to that simplistic map whereabouts the player is shunted into the game without great fanfare or explanation. Before now, I neglected to mention an important note about the map, for I have saved it for the conclusion of this essay. Unlike the game which served as the basis for this modification, all levels are immediately playable, and it is quite possible to skip to the final level and beat the game within minutes. In this way, seven out of eight of the already easy-to-best levels become moot. Difficulty, at this point, appears to be an absolute joke. However, I implore you to think of it this way: can one really be said to have "beaten" the game without experiencing it in its entirety? And, additionally, can one really be said to have won simply by surpassing the crude challenges of gameplay without having grappled and thrown down the challenges of the mind and of the soul so clearly issued with each bare expanse of land, each fragmented, seemingly-haphazardly-placed brick? Colander Ken passes behind both light and shadow at once, slipping through a tile into a much deeper, eldritch realm of the subconscious.
Left with the game's brief, cryptic, yet strangely positive message in the climactic finale, it is ultimately up to the player to decipher the true meaning of this work. Much time have I spent pondering these lines of thought, and, although I submit my musings forthwith, I have yet to arrive at answers in which I can place my complete confidence. Mayhap it is the purpose of this mod to remain thusly inscrutable, and, in its inscrutability, imbue with its audience the desire for understanding so natural to mankind on such an abstract level that we may readily recognize this desire within ourselves and, in turn, the limits of our knowledge on a grander scale. "Too Hot to Handle" continues to ring in my ears as I type this final sentence, echoing through my mind and into my soul, my dreams surely to be emblazoned by its mysterious melody as I drift into the abyss of night.
Graphics 10/10
Sound 10/10
Music 10/10
Gameplay 10/10
Sotry 10/10
Overall 10/10
Last edited by Plasma Captain on Sun Oct 18, 2015 13:23, edited 1 time in total.
- VikingBoyBilly
- Vorticon Elite
- Posts: 4158
- Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:06
- Location: The spaghetti island of the faces of dinosaur world for a vacation
- Paramultart
- VBB's Partner in Crime
- Posts: 3004
- Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:36
-
- Vortininja
- Posts: 82
- Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2012 14:36
- StupidBunny
- format c:
- Posts: 2155
- Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 19:19
- Location: The Centre of the Moon
- Contact:
Boldly defies every convention of what we believe makes a mod good...and for doing that, it is better than all other mods. I was especially astounded by the robot spaceship thing in that big ugly maze level, which presents itself as a formidable "boss" of sorts but then impotently drifts ever so slowly towards the left edge of the screen, confounding all expectations of what final levels should be. Like KeenRush, I, too, cheated to get the keys in order to winrar, a fact which makes a powerful statement on modern people's patience to deal with incredibly tedious and likely fruitless situations. Ending it on a bad pun was brilliant too. 314/10
- StupidBunny
- format c:
- Posts: 2155
- Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 19:19
- Location: The Centre of the Moon
- Contact: