I played two games last night - Mask of the Rose, which is a very literate graphical text adventure, made in large part by a friend of mine from the text adventure scene. It takes place in the 1800s in an alternate London. It has what I think is hand-drawn art. I met two interesting characters, I had lovely conversations and was properly motivated to go exploring.
The other one I played was the PC pinball game Xenotilt, which I would describe as the work of an uncaged Tasmanian devil that was specifically trying to trigger epileptics.
Xenotilt is insane madness. Very little is given to how a real pinball machine would do any of the crazy shit that this game is throwing at you. You can plunge the ball with the spacebar. You can work the many, many screens of flippers with the shift keys. Rather than limit itself to a single playfield, or a scrolling one, there are like 3 or four different areas you can get to. Sometimes your ball gets teleported to the new area, and I think they are teleporting it "The Prestige" style. The camera is really well-implemented! The game knows how much of the playfield it needs to show you, and the camera zooms out to the right spot. The music is fun; I hope to write catchy electronica like what is in this game before the year is out. And there is an English gal with a robotic voice talking to you the entire time you are playing. One of my favorite parts is that when your ball drains she says in a disappointed inflection, "Never mind." Relatable.
It's got just enough pixel-style graphics to get me in the zone when I need a pixel art game to play. I really do like everything about this game, and it's important to note that the real enemy is not the cyborg gal at the very top of the screen yelling at you, but Microsoft's desire to have you turn on "Sticky Keys."
Xenotilt is on sale as part of the Steam Spring Sale going on now.
