Title: Chalked
Creator: rece
Genre: Action & Adventure

Price: 400 Points

Countries: Canada, United Kingdom, United States
Languages: English

Publisher’s Description
Save the city… or destroy it! Play as the hero and save the city by calling in tips, surrounding suspect buildings, and running down the bad guys. Or choose to destroy the city by avoiding the patrolling heroes and setting bombs inside the buildings – leveling the city building by building.

What We Think:
Chalked succeeds where so many other game developing upstarts have failed – the basics.  With simple and intuitive controls, wonderfully inventive and beautifully realized black and white visuals (the characters look like faceless Gumbys) and an awesome soundtrack, this seemingly simple take on Simon – that is, matching button combinations, is rather more challenging and multi-layered than it seems at first glance.

The game actually combines a variety of games – the Simon element, a puzzle solving element involving figuring out what buildings to topple in strategic sequence, and then the classic Pac Man – run from the ghosts element.  You see – you play the role of a miscreant with an insatiable lust for bombing buildings to the ground.  When destroyed, a building dissolves into the ground leaving a space where once it stood.  Then the “good guys” come after you for your misdeed.  It’s not an easy game at first, but it’s easy enough to navigate and fun enough to look at that it holds interest long enough to figure out some basic strategies.

We wish all community games merited the 400 points like Chalked does.

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Have you played Chalked? What were your impressions?

Title: Artoon
Creator: Oscar K
Genre: Platformer

Price: 400 Points

Countries: Canada, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
Languages: English

Publisher’s Description
Artoon chronicles the adventures of Art as he bounces his way through a variety of visual artworks. Can you earn those elusive top rankings in this score-attack psychedelic platformer?

What We Think:
Artoon is a of the QBert genus – requiring the player to tag squares by bouncing on them, awarding points for avoiding repeat squares unless required and threatening to toss the character into the depths of oblivion if he somehow bounces off the map altogether.

Adding to this, and perhaps the source of the game’s namesake, is the colorful techno-centric music and graphics reminiscent of Lumines Live – one of the best games for the Xbox 360 ever made.  The ever-changing backdrops and score keep this game fresh and the gameplay itself is always challenging.  For 400 points it is a steal.  I was also reminded of some of the later challenges in the vastly underrated psychedelic Xbox platformer Psychonauts wherein the hero is running around a huge cube being chased by dozens of science experiments in an attempt to excorcise his psychic demons.

My only point of contention is with the title of the game itself: not knowing what it was, I inferred from its title that it might be some sort of paint program.  Perhaps something a little more enticing or creative as a title would bring this excellent effort the audience it deserves.

SUPER COOL BONUS:
The creator has an extra cool bonus: you can download the Artoon soundtrack for free, and remixes are encouraged.  Direct Download.

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Check out the main site at www.okgamescompany.com

Have you played Artoon? What were your impressions?