Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Quible Sphere’ and ‘Catlandia: Crisis at Fort Pawprint’
What an adorable sounding duo
Quible Sphere is a puzzle game created by Hertzole, a solo indie dev in Sweden, featuring the music of Alexander Kiran. Players will take control of the titular ‘Quible Sphere’ named Quible, and lead them to the white cube of victory found at the end of each level. Well, that’s the goal anyway.
Anyone familiar with marble track games will immediately understand the initial trial that Quible must overcome; not falling off in to the grid-death below. There are no rails to save them, only the occasional wall on particularly speedy turns.
This means that the first puzzle to figure out is how much acceleration players are comfortable with, especially considering on their input device and sensitivity. Once this is overcome, players can reach the end to get graded based on three objectives. First is being able to reach the end before the timer hits zero; while this might imply that the level ends immediately, in fact it just goes in to the negative and ‘fails’ the objective. Second is finishing the track without dying which can be tricky as it is.
The third is collecting all of the points on a track. These take the shape of glowing cubes sat on top of the ‘base cubes’ of the track. They seem to always been on the path so it looks a bit silly to miss these, but that is before the tracks start getting wild.
See, the hazards on the map begin to include cannons knocking Quible off and lasers that instantly destroy it. Multiple branching paths get introduced as well, making the points suddenly less appealing than finishing the map on time and not dying.
Thanks to this variation and the fantastic aesthetic choices, Quible Sphere brings everything you could want in a marble puzzle game. There’s even a level editor for all you folks that love tinkering with levels and making your own. If that sounds like your jam, then give this a try.
Catlandia: Crisis at Fort Pawprint is a 2D RPG created by Polar Tabby Interactive, a collective of indie devs in Canada. Players will follow the life and times of the greatest catmando, Nugget, as they fight back against the villainous dogs that besiege their fort.
Catlandia is a JRPG that uses the mouse to control Nugget and their party both in the open world and in combat scenarios. Nugget will interact with all sorts of animals as they complete each quest, making vocal decisions in their dialogue and acquiring items as they rummage around. Just pressing and holding the mouse button will direct Nugget to their destination, and holding on top of them will open up the menu to go in-depth on stats, inventory, and more.
Combat is the expected JRPG turn-based system in which Nugget and their party will pick between various attacks to defeat their adversaries. Standard attacks cost nothing, but have varying effects that can assist with the battle.
Every attack on an enemy will build up a bar underneath their health that, if filled, will leave the enemy ‘exposed’. This means that all attacks against that enemy are automatic critical hits, encouraging focusing one enemy down at a time. This bar will naturally deplete on enemy turns, so try to make the most of it when possible.
Meowgic is the special stuff that utilizes the effort bar underneath the cat’s health, usually performing area of effect attacks. Unfortunately, reaching zero effort means that the chosen cat will fall asleep on their next turn, so balancing out attacks is critical to succeeding.
What makes Catlandia so much fun is in the amount of flavour that it brings to each asset — everything is repurposed to be cat-centric to solidify the fun that is being in a silly cat game. The conversations can be erratic and nonsensical, and Nugget’s reactions to conversations are hilarious — especially when they remain frozen in that facial position after the conversation ends. Just imagine an utterly shocked cat wandering around before fighting, that’s the kind of fun we are dealing with here.
If you love turn-based RPG combat but really wish it made more cat jokes, then this is the perfect game for you. Even if you aren’t a fan of the combat, the game’s sense of aesthetic and attention to detail will keep you entertained as you wander the lands. Best of luck, Catmando.
