Super Win The Game

published by Minor Key Games / IndieBox in 2014-10-01, developed by Minor Key Games, running on Linux

type: platformer
genre: Metroidvania
perspective: side view bird's-eye
player options: single player

languages: eng

Personal review

Zelda II, Metroid, and Super Mario without swords or any weapons, epic music, extra lives, boss battles, life meter, destroyable enemies, cutting edge 8-bit graphics, or magic. What does it add for the things it lacks?

Optionally, it can be experienced in CRT mode. CRT mode is everything bad about playing on old style TVs. Fuzzy moire hexagonal screen pixels, color bleeding, curved screen distortion, invisible overscan and rounded off image corners, motion blur/phosphor burn, reflections on the CRT frame. Even rolling screen, RF interference, and static make an appearance. But it's nostalgic... I think this might well be the only Linux game that has "action safe" and "title safe" design (google it). CRT mode is also tunable to better match the old TV players used when they had no other choice. Personally, I found CRT mode to be worth 15 seconds of enjoyment, then I switched it off. But, that's just my personal preference. Turning off CRT mode does not result in 'modern' graphics. Without the CRT mode, this game is about gameplay only.

It also ads some sort of quasi-bonus, playable dream segments. Same gameplay but confusing transdimensional level design and dialog I cannot make any sense of. The author admits that the dream segments are about something deeply personal. With that, I expect few would understand. This is OK, the dream segments don't require the player do do anything except progress through them and the author hasn't decided to leave the gaming industry or threaten to (like some others have after their deeply personal game designing when uninterpreted).

All sorts of game mechanics make up the game. Double-jumping, wall clinging, wall jumping, invisible structures, switch-on platforms, etc... Each one needs to be earned. Each new ability opens more areas to explore and more places to discover when revisiting. And to make 100% completion, full expert use of each mechanic will be required.

There are no map spoilers. The in-game mapping falls somewhere between Metroid and Super Metroid. There is no in-game map item to reveal areas you've missed. Get out your oldskol grid paper and start making checklists if you want to do a 100% completion of the game. Once again, this seems a deliberate feature to invoke nostalgia.

Speedruns are also added to the mix. Complete with online leader boards.

Finally, death is instant, likley frequet, but not costly. Everything kills the player without HP, shield, or mercy. The player cannot eliminate enemies at all, only earn better methods to avoid them. In contrast, pretty much every door is a retry point.

In short, I you like(d) NES games, SWTG is for you. If you've never played NES games and are curious, SWTG is for you.