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December's Desura Dementia #11: Squids

01/12/12 - Ballistic05/12/12 - Mutant Mudds09/12/12 - Slydris
02/12/12 - Band of Bugs06/12/12 - Oniken10/12/12 - Soulcaster
03/12/12 - Escape Goat07/12/12 - Outpost Kaloki11/12/12 - Squids
04/12/12 - MiniFlake08/12/12 - Reprisal12/12/12 - UnEpic

December the Eleventh

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The game: The Game Bakers' Squids

The source: The Gone Fishin' Indie Royale Bundle

The pre-amble: Squids is a strategy RPG? Sort of? that features a colorful group of warrior cephalopods fighting against a wave of creatures infected by an oozy darkness that threatens to overrun the aquatic kingdom they call home. French studio The Game Bakers filled Squids with plenty of bright colors and upbeat music, but it's a kinda badass strategy game that occasionally requires some contemplation and forethought. I also approve of any game that chooses to combine the elastic attacking mechanics of Rocket Slime with the deeper strategy of something like FFT or Fire Emblem - specifically, following the chief rule of moving as a group and being ever mindful of surprises and ambushes.

The playthrough: Another great game. I'm almost starting to not regret this whole exercise. Squids is another like Slydris that seems purpose-built for iOS, since it's clearly inspired by the aforementioned DS game that had itself found an excellent way to utilize its console's touch controls to produce a fun combat system. Much of the game's mechanics depend on the momentum of the squids; choosing to pull a squid back as far as possible before releasing will send them flying, hitting enemies hard and covering longer distances, but it's also vital to exercise some constraint due to a plethora of spiky sea urchins and insta-kill ledges (never mind that all this marine life could feasibly swim through the "air" and not have that issue) as well as a few useful items scattered about, occasionally requiring that one of your team goes out of its way to grab them. Knocking into an enemy as hard as possible is a solid strategy early on, but you'll soon discover that getting around them and then hitting them towards said ledges and sea urchins will produce better results.

No fish puns throughout this whole article, but resisting the temptation almost killed me. The sacrifices I make...
No fish puns throughout this whole article, but resisting the temptation almost killed me. The sacrifices I make...

The RPG aspect is admittedly minor, as players can level up their individual team members for a steadily inflating fee and they can be powered up even further by unlocking items in the world and purchasing them in the between-mission store. Hats - the only form of equipment - will add permanent stat boosts to the character class they pertain to and then become merely cosmetic, rather than the usual system of only conferring their bonuses while being worn: It's a laid-back, casual-friendly way to ensure there's enough constant stat growth to counter the increasing enemy difficulty as well as allowing players to wear whichever headgear pleases them most aesthetically. In fact, the whole game has a similar atmosphere of breezy effervescence to it, which definitely befits its aquatic ambiance - I believe I once heard something about how life is the bubbles under the sea. Possibly from Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Or maybe it was a talking crab. What do I look like, a marine biologist?

So Squids is another excellent Desura exclusive, albeit one that's probably also available on those "intelligent portable telephones" people keep going on about. If you liked Rocket Slime, I can happily recommend this product. If you didn't play Rocket Slime, then what the heck are you doing here reading an internet blog? Go track it down already. And if you didn't like Rocket Slime, then I believe we are all done here, Mr Buttface.

The verdict: Sure, I can't wait to get back to it.

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