Following Freeware: November 2014 releases

With both AdventureX and the holidays chewing into our available time this year, we didn’t get to all of the games on our plate this month. But for those with massive Christmas bills to pay off and/or no games under the tree, fear not, as there are still a number of fine freeware adventures to tide you over. You can be an emotional robot trying to prevent the extermination of all humans, or a paranormal detective sucked into a 1940s horror movie to solve the latest vampiric murder. A scenic Portuguese park might seem like the perfect setting for a first date until everything starts to go awry, while a quest to slay the last Oceanspirit proves a lengthy journey filled with colourful companions and loads of dirty jokes. All these await in this month’s abbreviated round-up of releases from the freeware scene (with more carrying over to next month’s article).
 

I Want an Identity

I Want an Identity, by Akkad Estudios, is the sequel to 2007’s Quiero Morir (I Want to Die). The returning protagonist, Max, is a V-2000 robot that has the ability to feel emotions. Following the death of his maker, Max had been enjoying his life on Planet Hope. However, the robotic rebellion spreading across the universe finally reached Max’s planet and he was forced to flee. Overhearing the rebels say that there are only humans left on the planet Kalam, Max tries to get there to see if he can help stop the rebels from taking over. On his quest he meets a lot of different characters and learns more about both robots and humans than Dr. Polansk could ever teach him. In this lengthy game with an epic story, Max’s quest changes the way he thinks about humans, robots and the rebels, and he struggles with what he learns. He also makes mistakes sometimes. Max is quite a philosophical robot, and he often muses over how it must be to be a human.

Played from a third-person perspective, the game’s backgrounds look as if they were constructed in a 3D editor, almost all of them featuring bright colors and simple yet fairly realistic images. Some of the places Max visits look much like Earth but others are very alien, with pink sand, silver-colored trees and purple skies. Max himself is modeled in full 3D as he walks around. There are no voices or sound effects in the game, with texts displayed in a different color for each character. The action is accompanied by an electronic tune that reflects the futuristic aspect of the game quite well.

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The interface is mouse-driven: right-clicking or scrolling the mouse wheel lets you choose between things Max can do, like talk, grab, and walk, the cursor changing its shape accordingly. On the top left of the screen is an inventory tab that slides down when the cursor is hovered over it. If Max has a map of the planet he is on, it can be accessed from the top right. This can be used to quick-travel, which is handy because Max has to move around a great deal. Hotspots are indicated by a short description on the bottom of the screen when highlighted by the cursor. There are inventory puzzles to solve throughout the course of the game, and you will also do some chemistry and try to get equipment like spaceships and other machinery working. In between, you’ll have to talk to robots and sometimes figure out which ones can be trusted. Max’s emotions and the way he deals with his quest and the worlds around him make the game well worth playing.

I Want an Identity can be downloaded from Akkad Estudios.

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Vortex Point 5: Monster Movie

In the fifth installment of the Vortex Point series by Carmel Games, it’s Halloween night and almost everybody has fled the town because people are scared. Even the paranormal investigators have left, except for Kevin who remains behind. He is bored and decides to go to the cinema to watch a 1940s horror movie. The story really begins when the movie starts, because Kevin mysteriously finds himself with his own role to play in it as a detective. In this movie-turned-reality, Kenneth Robinson, a new man in town who arrived following a vampire, has been murdered! He was found dead in his house with two small bite marks on his neck and all the blood drained from his body. So Kevin sets out to investigate, and soon finds himself visiting an ancient castle, getting some planks and nails from the toy shop owner, helping a lady calm her baby, making a Ouija board for the local fortune teller and shouting at a barman to solve the case.

This fifth series installment is a small but fun detective mystery in the spirit of Halloween. Most of the game is in black and white, because Kevin has been transported to the 1940s movie he was watching. As in all of Carmel’s games, the production values here are very high, with the familiar detailed cartoony graphics and excellent music, sound effects and voice acting. For subtitles there are eight different languages to choose from, even Dutch and Chinese. The story is funny and involves a lot of helping people to get to the core of the crime.

Kevin is controlled using a single mouse click, and the game’s interface is fairly simple, with a context-sensitive cursor shaped like a skeleton hand and an inventory in the lower right part of the screen. Most hotspots are easy to see, but there is one that is a bit hard to find. The puzzles are mostly inventory-based and sometimes quite difficult because it’s not always clear what you have to do next, but there’s an icon in the upper left that supposedly links to an online video walkthrough, though I couldn’t get it to play on my computer. Luckily you can find it on YouTube if you’re stuck.

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Vortex Point 5: Monster Movie can be played online at MouseCity.