Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Mole’ and ‘Viv and Bob’
You cannot call your neice a mole, at least not out loud.
Mole is an arcade adaptation of the classic ‘Whack-A-Mole’ by Badjano Entertainment, a solo indie dev in Brazil. As the name implies, we get an adaptation on the classic game with three terrifyingly addictive modes to sink time in to.
In case anyone is unfamiliar, Whack-A-Mole is exactly as it sounds — moles appear, and the player hits them for points. I’m not entirely sure why moles, but it does roll off the tongue. Where this game differs is in those three modes in order to spice up the gameplay and introduce lives.
Normally players just hit moles until they run out of time and see their high score, but these three modes (and some of the moles) introduce mechanics to ensure that the lives are seen as a limited resource, and the gameplay stays fresh. One such example is the bomb mole, who will appear to scare players as they think they need to hit them; do NOT DO THAT. Bomb moles will immediately take health off of the player if there is any.
King mode plays on the idea that moles are a limited resource to hit. Since there are only so many, every missed mole is a chance to lose points, and unfortunately the moles will increase in pace as the game goes on.
Lover mode is the most curious, as it introduces the ‘Lover’ mole. Every time a mole is not hit, a heart is spawned over top of one of the holes, and the Loer mole will attempt to steal it. If successful, then players lose a heart. This means that not only is missing moles dangerous, but it can be disastrous if strings of moles are missed.
Finally is the Devil mode, easily the most cruel of the modes, as a timer is introduced. Every missed mole will reduce the amount of time available, while hitting them increases it.
As you might expect, Mole is a great way to spice up a tried and true game. The colours are crisp and bright to avoid confusion and the controls are as responsive as you’d want them to be for a fast-paced smashing game. If you enjoy having your time sucked away without realizing because you just can’t seem to beat your high score, this is the game for you.
Bob and Viv is a puzzle adventure created by Impergatox, an indie dev specializing in pixel art and Gameboy aesthetics in Germany. Players will follow the tale of Lil Viv and her Uncle Bob as they wander a forest only for Viv to run off to an abandoned house and get them both stuck inside. Finding the exit is their only goal now, but something seems a tad off about where they are; specifically, that they are in mirrors of each other.
Playing as an ‘episodic’ puzzle where each room is isolated, players will be utilizing both Viv and Bob to solve the question of how to trigger the door opening to continue. While players can only control one at a time, both characters are in the ‘same room’ as the game uses the mirrored room idea; whatever happens in one room will happen in the other as well.
Interacting with a mirror in the room will switch to the other room and the other character, but it will also cause the other person to automatically teleport to that mirror even if they had been somewhere else. Basically, the room state remains the same, but both Bob and Viv will always ‘spawn’ by the mirror when they switch to the other room as if they are not part of the ‘static room state’. So if there are two mirrors, and Bob interacts with one on the right to switch to Viv, if she interacts with the other mirror Bob will automatically spawn at that mirror instead of the one he was at previously. It’s a bit confusing, but easy once seen.
Where the mirrored gameplay kicks in is the difference between our two characters. Bob is able to push heavy objects, which can trigger plates to activate puzzles, whereas Lil Viv can run across potentially dangerous floors without falling through (don’t tell Bob, he’d throw a fit).
Since everything is mirrored, players will be jumping back and forth between the two, although many of the puzzles will be using Uncle Bob’s strength more than Lil Viv’s agility. Entire rooms can be cleared without even mirroring, so don’t fret that things may have been ‘missed’.
At the end of the day, however, Bob and Viv succeeds at its goal of creating a puzzle game for the Gameboy. The gameplay is simple, but efficient and fits cleanly on a system that did not have the most functionality — it was made for portability, after all.
Speaking of which, the download is actually for Gameboy — the only way to play without is through the lovely browser version. So if you want some nostalgia you can install it and hack your way through a Gameboy version, or use an emulator if you are so inclined. Otherwise, enjoy a game about reuniting and realizing that your Uncle has to put up with way too much some days.
