Time Surfer, Punch Quest and QWOP

[size=+1]Time Surfer, Punch Quest and QWOP[/size]​

So...I've found that I've been on my tablet quite a bit. That's good because it's justifying the £60 price tag. But, I have to say, I didn't expect any of the last Android Humble bundle to still have some of my attention. And they do, but only in differing levels that I'll order for you right here. So, from least absorbing to the most, here's Time Surfer, QWOP and Punch Quest for Android.

QWOP​

Something else linking these three titles is not only their presence in a bundle but their Arcade/Flash game styling in their presentation. Aaaand QWOP is the most blatant lift from a flash game that has been altered for an Android release.

Yeah. Remember that game you picked up and played with for five minutes, laughing for only two as the silly little man tries to walk and fails again and again?

Well, that got an Android HD update. Thanks Humble Bundle?

The Game is largely unchanged. QWOP is an athlete from somewhere that couldn't train their only hope for gold in anything, let alone walking. So, with all the grace of a new born lamb, you attempt to participate anyway. Expect to flop straight over regularly because, if anything, the controls are even more awkward.

The appeal of the last game was mainly in it's novelty. It was one joke about this silly game being incredibly hard to play properly. You could beat it if you were masochistic enough to figure out a way of moving forwards and staying upright. You could beat it but mostly, I remember people playing it for about an hour. After that, it was on to the next stupid thing the internet had to offer. Or back to Line Rider.

The Android version needed to overcome the gameplay being anything other than a novelty. It needed to be playable while also adding something the flash game could have used.

So, this port has touch controls. QWOP's arms and legs are controlled by the position of your thumbs between two diamonds on either side of the screen. With these, you can make QWOP go through the motions of running by bending and stretching his leg. The idea is to move your thumbs around to make him plod along as best as you can for as long as you can. For added control, tilting the tablet back and forth will make QWOP lean forwards or backwards to help balance you.

I can't do this for the life of me. The controls seem just about solid as you can get when you remove the keyboard from the equation. Give Noodlecake credit for realising that onscreen buttons can be difficult to roll your thumb over when you need them. For a tablet, this is the best QWOP could ever be. But I find that I don't care much for it.

It has extra modes. Not just the standard 100m sprint but a steeplechase and a hurdles mode. I can't get the guy to move forwards without face-planting the ground. What challenge trying to get him to jump over stuff is hilariously greater than my abilities. I simply don't care enough to really try and complete this game. I can't play it very well so I don't pick it up as often. The HD upgrade is nice but it's ultimately pointless as far as I'm concerned.

Punch Quest​

This is kinda fun. I don't feel that much affinity for it but it is a solid little thing to get through bus journeys with.

The formula to this is very basic and anyone that has played even a modicum of flash games will feel familiarity with this one.

While napping, a muscle bound meathead is hit on the head with an apple. He assumes he was attacked and so goes on a rampage in a nearby dungeon full of monsters and stuff. Another female meathead hears the word 'punch' and decides to join in the rampage of the stupid. Thus the plot begins.

Oh! And there's a Gnome that gives you bonuses for fulfilling achievements and gains XP. Each level brings him closer to his goal of being a God. Barely mentioned otherwise and pops up sparingly. It's just some weird addition they threw in to be zany, I guess.

Gameplay is a basic as beat-em-ups can possibly get. You will constantly run forwards. Every time you hit one button, you punch. Hit the other and you uppercut. This is the only upwards move you have and counts as your jump as well. If you hit the uppercut in mid-air, you can then slam things into the ground with your fists to make them crash into enemies.

The gameplay is actually fast, fluid, challenging and kinda fun. Your aim is to pummel through waves of these monsters made up of usual dungeon crawler monsters. They get harder and their variation is decent. Some will cast magic missiles, some will carry shields and some will fly. Your aim is to survive through this dungeon for as long as possible. What's nice is that you can't just hammer the punch button the whole way. Some you have to block or jump over to avoid damage before unleashing your fists. They even threw in a few, simple bosses that give a nice big reward for them afterwards.

There's a leveling system in there too which increases your life bar every increment and seems to be filled by killing stuff. Seeing as you start this randomly generated dungeon run over again when you die, killing everything isn't a bad strategy to rake everything possible from a fresh run.

Lastly, you build up a sort of rage meter at the bottom of the screen as you kill enemies. Your punches gain higher levels of power as you go, resulting in mega-damage once it's at maximum. It's kept topped up by killing things. So, to maintain the uber-power-up, you kill things. Makes sense.

So, the main game is quick, simple and engaging. The rest of it is an upgrade-a-thon. You collect coins in game that you spend on upgrades. These range from special attack variants, alternative punching styles, extra passive abilities to hats and gameplay enhancers. Yeah, you can customise your character as well as give yourself a temporary boost to either money potential or enemy likelihood. They work and I don't see many additions here that feel useless, outside of simple cosmetics.

However...The game's also kinda a meh for me too. Your only sense of progression through this game is in what you've managed to buy so far. It's a rather damning staple of Flash Games that can take away from some games but add to others, depending on the context.

Take Learn To Fly or Hedgehog Launch two games that utilise a monetary system to indicate progress. Go play them, they're a couple of favourites of mine. Both of them have a clear goal your spending your wealth towards. Either your a penguin attempting to build a working flying machine or a tiny space program hoping to make their first ever prickly astronaut get into space. There's a clear goal throughout, driving your little struggle with your limited resources forwards.

Punch Quest has nothing like that. It's experience is soiled by the fact, at least for me, that you have nothing to strive for except filling up an XP bar and buying things. It's basically Gold Grinding: The Game. That's not something I'll play for too long, no matter how well presented it is.

Time Surfer​

So, as the last on this list, you've guessed that this is my favourite out of the three chosen. While, yes, it feels like a Flash game that's been lifted up and given an HD upgrade, but actually isn't, Time Surfer proves to be not only the more grasping but more challenging of the three. It's simple and just as pick up and play than the others, sure. It's the effect and care in the design that elevates it a little. At least in it's execution.

Plot? Umm...Your a little man on a surfboard trying to outrun the End of the Universe. And for some reason, you can turn back time, Prince of Persia style!

Seriously, that's it! We're not looking for anything more complex than "Look out, duuuuuuuude! Ya gonna be Hawking'd! That's Steven Hawking'd duuuuude! Time to ride!". And, yes...I had that same voice in my head writing that as you had reading it.

As you can guess, we're going more gameplay based here. The first comparison would be Line Rider and it's close but imagine that crossed with Canabalt.

Your little man on a surfboard has to traverse a wibbly-wobbly line using nothing but momentum gained from riding the slopes. The momentum increases and builds speed, meaning you're further away from the danger of the 'End of the World' but now harder to control. Seeing as it's still possible to lose your momentum over time, you have to keep it up by riding slopes, stomping on something or picking up speed boosts. This needs skill as your only control over your movement is a dive button that makes your character force a plummet to the ground. Ordinarily, this is used to gain speed on downward slopes but it can also be to immediately dive under something to avoid death or land on a platform so you don't fall into a pit.

Seeing as you will almost always need to move forwards or The End of the World will get you, this control idea makes sense. It also demands a little skill with timing. In order to get the maximum from a slope, you have to time when you push and release the dive button well enough to then engage at the very top and release at the very bottom. Hold it down the whole time and you'll cling to the ground and inch along like a snail. Remember; your constantly followed by a Fiery Wall of Doom!

To make things a little more complex, you have other stuff too. There's pits to fall into. There's Aliens and Asteroids that can either be bounced off of or crashed into, reminiscent of the momentum mechanics of the Sonic games. They make sense here too, as they don't 'hurt' you, only slow you down for the aforementioned Wall of Death coming for you. Then there's the planets that float around and let you ride on their rings to let you fly onwards, keeping your speed. Lastly, straight up speed boosts.

But, if you've ever played a 2D Sonic or Mr Fancypants game, you'll be familiar with momentum mechanics. It's actually in the time travel that it makes itself a little more interesting.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was pretty neat in the sense that it was unheard of to be able to instantly review mistakes and take the chance to fix them at a moments notice. At any moment, you could halt the fight your currently having and run the other way or hit someone else or not screw up this time.

Time Surfer has a similar idea at it's core but it actually feels integral to the experience. Because your character can get up to such ridiculous speeds, trying to avoid an obstacle in your way can be near impossible. You've likely hit it before you've seen it. But, the rewind lets you take things back and avoid it as if you knew it was there all along. That little editing thing can be surprisingly powerful for avoiding death.

Like The Sands of Time, rewinding isn't infinite. It takes purple gems to replenish your time power. Now, the amount of time you can rewind at maximum is decent for your needs and gems are plentiful. Usually, you'll be fine trying to keep your time powers. No real complaints, except that we're starting to sound a lot like Punch Quest, decent little romp but ultimately pointless.

Not so. There's a little mission system that unlocks pets and cake bonuses.

Pets will do various things and you can only take one with you as you surf the cosmos. Some give bonuses to speed or gem collection or something while others protect you from obstacles or death by pit by spitting you back out onto land. Unlocking them through completing these 'missions' does give a decent amount of purpose and challenge to the game, surprisingly! This is mainly in their creativity, such as actually being killed by 'The Wall of Death' within a certain distance or avoiding collecting gems.

Some are irritatingly confusing, such as collecting all the gems in a constellation without a Magnet power-up (which would ordinarily allow me to hoover up gems easily). It took me ages to figure out that gems you pick up are unaffected by your rewind. The solution is to fly back and forth through the gems with your rewind until you've picked them all up. Truly infuriating but a rare example of what's usually asked of you.

The other reason to unlock things is to pick up Space Cake. This is the currency of the game that unlocks new trails for your character and new character costumes. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care but some of these are pretty awesome. They have certain bonuses attached, meaning that there's actually a point to unlocking each one. Usually, it's in order to help you complete a certain mission. But they also made some pretty awesome costumes like...well...

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These are all kinda charming to me. They might not add much more than a small buff to certain aspects of the game, but I don't care. I like that the forethought was made to try and include these and up the novelty a bit. It's nice touch...for me too geek out on.

Very lastly, as if this all wasn't enough, the game has two extra modes. Flicking right on the title screen reveals 'Hell Zone' and 'The Kepler Run'. These are just extra variants on the game if you get bored. Hell Zone is just as super hard mode and The Kepler Run introduces black holes that have to be used like slingshots to gain speed. Both are welcome.

So, in recap; QWOP is still as unplayable as ever. Punch Quest is silly but didn't hold my attention for very long. Time Surfer is a big winner with me.

A game that let's me drive a DeLorean like a drunken Evil Kenevil get's a thumbs up from me, I seems.