Giveaway of the Day - A Man With a Monocle

A Man with a Monocle:

Installation:

A Man with a Monocle downloads to a 15.3Mb zip file that unpacks to a read me with terms and conditions and a dual setup and activation module. Once installed the file size is 24.7Mb. The default installation location is as follows:

C:\Games\A Man With a Monocle (for all operating systems)

There are no shortcuts installed so you’ll have to create your own. If you want a shortcut in the Start Menu/Program folder you’re not sure how to create a shortcut in the start menu/programs folder you can find a short tutorial in the game discussion forums that tells you how to create one. The game works on Win 7 Pro and Ultimate 64 bit and XP Pro 32 bit. Not tested it on my Vista platforms yet. (Will do so later)

Options menu

Introduction:

A Man With a Monocle is an adventure/platform game developed by Neogen2 Creations for the PC.

Follow Henry McAllister in your quest to discover the mysteries behind the Monocle and your ghost friend, Kain, while you go through many different and fascinating locations.

A Man With a Monocle is a story-based but at the same time old-school platformer, featuring over 55 levels coupled with countless challenges to overcome, alternative passages and many hidden secrets waiting to be discovered.

In addition to the story mode, there are many un-lockables such as another playable character and new game modes and levels. You can even create your own levels and campaigns, using the Level Editor released with the game and play your own and other people’s work.

reference: accessed HERE on 19th November 2010

Start of game dialogue

The Game:

The main menu is navigated by the arrow keys. To select from the various choices in the main menu use the up and down arrow keys. To toggle between full screen and windowed mode use the left and right arrow keys. Selections are automatically saved. The main game is the story mode with other modes available; The Custom Campaign mode is open at the start of the game but Iron monocle and Charles’s Story are closed. To open these you need to earn an unspecified number of golden bones.

Climb the ladders by using the up arrow key

Watch out for the red block, it’ll kill you if you touch it

Once you’ve selected Story mode you can select your difficulty from Normal, Hard and Hardcore. At the start of the game you have to watch the story unfold, which can take a few minutes. There seems to be no way of avoiding the story. As each dialogue finished you can proceed to the next one by pressing enter. Once the game starts proper you have to collect bones. Each level has a specific number to collect. Once you’ve collected the correct amount you are awarded a golden bone which will replenish your life as well as go towards unlocking new game modes (beware the end of each level as you can be transported to the next level with no chance of returning to complete your collection of bones). Apart from the first level, levels are inhabited by various enemies (10) that you must avoid or kill by jumping on top of them. If you touch any of these enemies (apart from jumping on them) you will lose a life. You can also lose lives by falling to your deathespecially when walking on unstable ground that collapses under you after a few seconds. You can pick up new lives occasionally as power ups and there are jumping platforms that enable you to make extra long jumps. You’ll also find locked doors of various colors (violet, blue, green and brown) that require the same colored key to open them. The maximum number of lives you can have is three. Once you lose a life you restart the game, but your bone collection remains intact (which rather defeats the object of having lives in the first place IMO). To the top right of the playing arena you can see how many lives you have plus the number of white bones you’ve collected and the number you require to complete that level. There’s also an indicator telling you how many golden bones you’ve collected.

Watch out for the red block, it will kill you

Look for for secret areas; these are usually signposted discreetly, and seemigly point to nowhere, but you’ll find you can walk through what look like blind endings to secret comparments.

The game includes a levels editor which enables you to create your own levels. The different layers such as Main layer, background layer and objects layer are selected by clicking on 1,2 and 3 respectively. Each section has a collection of blocks. To select a new block such as grass, no collision walls or flowers use the mouse wheel to scroll through the various blocks you can use. You can also select blocks by right clicking anywhere on the playing area and then move your mouse up and down to scroll through the various blocks. To place a block use the left mouse button. to erase a block use shift and left mouse button. The developer has created a section in the forums specifically for you to upload your creations so that you can share them with others. At the moment there are no custom made levels uploaded, but hopefully with the number of giveaway community members downloading this game we shall soon see some downloads, all of which are free. I’ve posted a link to the developer’s forums below.

If you find the music annoying you can change it by replacing the .ogg files (5) found in C:\Games\A Man with a Monocle\Music\. You’ll need to convert your MP3′s/WMA files to ogg and rename them to the files you are replacing. As a precaution I’d back up the original sounds, but if you don’t and a problem does arise you can always download the demo from the developers site; though be sure not to install the demo over the full version.

If you have any problems running the game please post in the developers forums which I’ve linked to below. You will need to create an account. I will be posting this review in the giveaway forums later so you can always post problem there as well.

Start of Game Dialogue

Control Schemes and keys:

Keyboard 1:
Shift – jump
CTRL – Run
Arrow keys – Movement
Up /Down arrows – Climb ladders

Keyboard 2 (default)
X – jump
Z – run
Arrow keys – Movement
Up /Down arrows – Climb ladders

N.B.
If a character is talking to you, you can speed up the text with the Run key and to skip the text press the Jump key.

Gamepad -:
Controls – Varies from gamepad to gamepad.

Level Editor:

Left Mouse Button – places a tile
Shift + Left Mouse button – removes a tile
1 – selects main layer blocks
2 – selects background layer blocks
3 – selects objects
Mousewheel – Scrolls through tile selection
F1 to F3 – Removes specific layers can toggle back

Moving Platform

Features:

• A unique and unpredictable story

• Old-school platforming action

• Travel across many different and fascinating locations

• Over 55 levels full of secrets and hidden passages to discover

• Un-lockable game modes and a new playable character.

• Create and play new campaigns for the game

• Soundtrack written exclusively by Swedish composer Johan Hargne

• And much more !

Images:

You can see about 30 images as a slideshow HERE

A Man with a Monocle Forums:

You can find comments and a place to post bugs and other issues as well as making suggestions to improve the game via the Developers forums. It only take a few moments to register and then post your comments, so please if you do have any suggestions please take the time to post in the developers forums. Who knows, we may get a much improved game if enough community members take the time to post their ideas and bug reports. Thanks.

Alternatively you can post comments, suggestions and bug reports over in the game discussion forums [url=http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/8876#post-85507][b]HERE[/b][/url]. I’ve placed a return link in the forums to make it easier to return to this comments section.

What other reviewers are saying:

• “One of the best stories I’ve ever seen in a indie game”- GamerGround (8/10)

• “It’s more of a steal than a deal, and should be snagged up immediately” -HarryBalls.com (4.5/5)

• “AMWAM has a lot to offer to fans of the tried and true side-scrolling platformer” – IndieGameReviewer (3.5/5)

Game modes

Conclusion:

The game is reasonably well made apart from poor instructions on how to play the game or use the levels editor. There are lots of challenges, secrets and a couple of modes (which unfortunately I wasn’t able to test as the demo I used to write up the review last night doesn’t have access to them). The graphics are retro 90’s style which may put some off, but I would recommend downloading the game and checking the game play out for yourselves as this is one of those games I think you’ll either love or hate. As platformers go this is about average IMO; however, I’m not the best person to ask as I expect something very different from the usual run of the mill platformers (hmmm, what’s normal about platformers, lol) before I get interested in playing one. I’m not overly enamoured of platform games anyway unless they have something very special about them, for example Gish, Wik & the Fable of Souls, Trine, Aquaria, The Undergarden, Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time and Gumboy Crazy Adventures (to name just a few that I like).

A saving grace for this game is the inclusion of a levels editor and the ability to share them with other owners of the game via the developer’s web site, however I couldn’t figure out how to save the level I created, (well edited as you get a preformed level when you start the level editor and have to edit the various tiles that are available..

Despite this I don’t think the game is worth more than six out of ten when compared to the other platformers that I’ve mentioned above because I found the game play just bordering on average for a platform game.
I found that automatically being transported to the next level when you ran up against the end of the level annoying when I’d not completed collecting the required number of bones to win a golden bone, I don’t remember there being any warning that it was the end. You require golden bones to regenerate your health and help you open up new modes; which isn’t possible if you are transported to the next level before completing the quest to find the right number of white bones. It’s definitely a problem that needs addressing (IMO); maybe by placing a sign at the end of the level that says something like ‘Point of No Return’ or ‘To the Next Level’; that would enable players to turn back to collect more bones if needed, though it’s not possible to return all the way to the beginning because some areas are blocked simply because of the way the levels are designed.

Level Editor

I’d also consider adding a levels map so that you can see your progress and make it so that you are allowed to replay any previous levels. There is no access to the levels editor via the main menu; to access it at present you have to create a second shortcut; which needs to be added to the main menu. Also a help menu would be great. In it you could explain the basic game play and instructions on how to use the levels editor as well as explaining how to upload the levels to your ftp and how to incorporate other player’s custom made levels into the game; (not everyone knows how to do this).

The storyline at the beginning of the game needs to be shortened by placing all the dialogue onto one page rather than trying to give an appearance of a conversation. It wouldn’t be a problem if you were able to skip the dialogue, but that isn’t possible at present.

For me something’s missing from the game. The basic game play is there, but there’s nothing special about the game that would distinguish itself from the countless other platformers that are available either as commercial or freeware alternatives. You need to add something extra special that will make this game stand out. The name is definitely unusual and implies a different sort of platformer, but IMO it doesn’t deliver on that impression. I’d also consider lowering the price to $5. You can get some excellent games from places like Big Fish and Gamehouse for less than the price you are asking, and there are hundreds of freeware platformers some of which are ‘much’ better than this game (check out the link to Caimans Games).

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Alternatives:

There are several decent platformers available from the arcade section of MyPlayCity invcluding a new Turtix adventure called Turtix: Rescue Adventures:

MyPlayCity
Also more commercial quality platform games are available at Gametop; (there’s no specific section for platformers so check under arcade and puzzle games). Finally you’ll find 540 freeware platform games over at Caiman Games, some of which are excellent and of a very high standard. You can also get older platform games from many of the abandonware sites such as Abandonia, GamesWin and The Game Archives (just a selection of the growing number of Abandonware sites. A lot of the games from these sites do require DOSBox to work. You can find a short tutorial on how to set up DOSBox in the game discussion forums.

Edit:

Here’s an additional Abandonware site that lists loads of Old School Platform games

This looks Sinclair ZX81 level

………………………………..Moderator Comment………………………

It’s not quite that retro, but yeah it does look old school, which is how the developer introduces the game.