Giveaway of the Day - Troll

Troll was previously given away back in January 2007, and received a positive 74% out of 151 votes. The comments posted were less than complementary initially, but those who actually played and got to grips with the game posted much more positive comments later in the day. Some were offended by the name of the king (King Uterus), that you’ll find if you read the story accessible from the main menu, and others were offended by the isolated occurrences of in game cartoon nudity and mooning by cartoon characters.

Personally I think this is quite an unusual breakout game; unlike most others of the 2D variety; and as with other Rake in Grass games, for example Jets ‘n’ Guns, there’s an element of comedy in some of the art work and animations, which I’ll mention later. You can read all of the previous comments by following the link below:
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/troll/#comments

The following are quotes from a description of the game from Rake in Grass’s home page and an edited version of my previous comment about this game.

Quote:

Become a brave troll warrior and save little humans from orcish tyranny in a beautiful fantasy adventure.

The quest will take you through six lands from green plains, across the mysterious swamps and desert, through snowy mountains and dark horror forest to the terrible wasteland, the home of orc’s. You will have to defeat many foes and face hideous and powerful creatures to finally fight the freedom for peaceful people from the Plains.

Looks like everyone is having a bad day today, lol. Am I going to be the only one commenting positively about this great giveaway today? I’m amazed as I’m an arkanoid fan and although I played the demo last year, I wasn’t sure about buying it, till I finished the time limited demo only the other day and thought it was actually not a bad clone. It has some original features, such as the meld of space invaders barriers, which in this game are the villager’s houses. As well as some interesting game play features and a novel way of hitting the fireballs that rain down on you from a great selection of castles and mansions. Watch out for the moonies.

I thought the storyline was rather funny, and know the kids like this one already. My six year old actually asked what a uterus was when I was playing the game last week; so you could say it’s even educational. There’s a whole range of humorist games out there and it’s a shame that some people have to knock a game because it doesn’t tie in with their particular brand of humor.
I can say with some authority, being familiar with ‘most’ arkanoid/breakout clones that have ever been released, that this particular arkanoid clone is definitely an unusual one. It’s nothing like the usual ball and bat clones, so if you just spend a few moments to get into the game, you may be pleasantly surprised. The only game I’ve seen that comes remotely close to this arkanoid clone is another freeware game called “Wrecker Ball Dream”. You have a similar action with respect to moving a ball around the playing area (in this case using a cock hen to swing rather than the axe of the troll; the first level is set inside a hen house. you have to break eggs as well as other things. I’d recommend this game to anyone out there who likes arkanoid games. See the last section for a link.

The Game:
You can read basic information about the game by clicking on the HTML document called Troll that can be found within the doc folder where the game is installed; just open the file and click on the help link to the top left of the page. This opens up a page with detailed information about the game play as well as the key bindings if you prefer to use the keyboard rather than the mouse to control your Troll.

Key Bindings:
LEFT_ARROW, Z : left
RIGHT_ARROW, X : right
DOWN_ARROW, LEFT_CTRL : weapon strike
UP_ARROW, LEFT_SHIFT: block
RIGHT_CTRL, SPACE : cast spell

You’ll also find details of all the power ups and bonuses that you’ll encounter in the game. These include several score multipliers, bonuses in the form of spells such as the swarm spell that summons a swarm of wasps, which causes your troll to run around manically, thus affecting your control over him. I would recommend you avoid this one because it will cause you to lose quite a lot of life through missed fireballs. There’s loads more such as the Stone skin spell, shrink, block gates, double and triple ball (breaks the fireball into two or three balls thus doing more damage), magic arrow, heavy impact, dispel (cancels out any spells still running), plus lots more. Some become available once you have captured one of several castles, though you must be adjacent to one of the huts, or other places such as Baba Yaga’s hut, or the pyramid. There are two kinds of magic spells in the game; duration spells and cast spells. Duration spells are used immediately and their effects last several seconds. Cast spells can be used anytime during the level by RIGHT_CTRL or SPACE. The last taken cast spell is shown in single slot above the “magic” sign to the right of the playing field. Duration spells are in lower three slots.

To access the game you need to create a profile, and then you are taken to the levels map. The only levels you can play are the ones with crossed swords or those you’ve previously won. When selecting levels you are able to select any level that is adjacent to the level you played, which as already mentioned is denoted by crossed swords overlaid onto a castle. You select your level by clicking on a castle turret. Each castle has a name which can be seen at the bottom of the screen when you hover your mouse over the castle, with names like Crystal Palace, Windy Hill, Skull Keep, Fort Despair and poison valley, you can see that the overall theme is dark. Besides the castles you’ll find several other buildings which include a pyramid, tents and a few others which bestow specific magical abilities (see the help page in the Troll HTML document for more details). You need to be adjacent to one of these buildings to activate the ability. For example the ruins called ‘Monk Stones’ you can invoke the gods of sky to help you with their magic.

Watch out for the funny animations such as the cccp sputnik like ship that wanders slowly across the map screen occasionally, dragons and even old nessy (the Loch Ness monster) and the odd mooner and naked streaker, all of course done in the best possible taste. (legs crossed – British humor – Kenny Everett)

You can see which power ups are running by looking to the right hand pane which shows the power ups caught in four boxes labeled ‘magic. Above these are the life indicators for both the enemy (red) and the troll (green) that are in the form of old bulb thermometers though there is a score at the top of each indicator. The enemy is marked out of 100 and the troll out of 10. Above this is the score, then the word Troll which is initially in bold gold lettering. As you collect letters these change to white. Once you’ve completed the word, you’ll see a figure to the left of the playing arena pop in with a billboard saying ‘Bonus!’, this will give you an access to a secret level (different for each of the six scenario’s). If you fail to collect all letters in one level, you can play the level again to get the remaining ones. You can’t miss the little fellow with the billboard though because he waves at you manically. You have to keep your eye on the fire ball breathing monster above and the monsters attacking your village from below. There’s no let up at all. Thankfully, if you lose the level, you can restart the level without losing any progress apart from the score you made in the level prior to losing it.

The theme remains similar throughout, that is you have to prevent the fireballs from destroying your villages and return the fire balls and kill the monsters attacking you, Each level has it’s own monsters and art work. It’s not as easy as you think, with each castle needing a specific amount of damage done to it by the returning fireballs. Your progress can be hindered or helped by the power ups that fall frequently. The most important (IMO) are the life power ups that help to repair damage done by fireballs.

Images - Slideshow:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Troll/?albumview=slideshow

Images – all on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Troll/?start=all&special_track=album_paginate_top_view_all

Music:

I think most community members are going to hate the music. Unfortunately, unless you’re a dab hand at editing script (using a text editor that supports hex) you’ll have to put up with it. I personally think it fits in with the medieval theme and don’t mind the music so long as it’ turned down.

System requirements:
Minimum:
CPU 400 MHz
32 Memory RAM
Good 3D accelerated GFX card (8 MB)
Win 9x
DirectX 8.0

Recommended:

CPU 800 MHz
64 MB RAM
GeForce 2 MX + (32 MB)
Sound card
Win 9x / ME / 2000 / XP
DirectX 8.1+

Conclusion:
Personally the cartoon nudity that some found unacceptable the first time this was given away, in my opinion is nothing to be worried about. Though if you are a parent who wants to shield their children from anything remotely related to nudity, or words that refer to parts of the female reproductive system, then I would keep this I your passworded accounts. For me it’s well worth keeping. It’s got some original features when comparing it with other breakout clones, and it’s also quite hard to bat. There’s only one difficulty level, and you only get one life, but as already mentioned if you lose you can resume where you left off, so no progress is lost. Well worth 7 out of 10.

Thank you Rake in Grass and the game giveaway team for another excellent game.

Further information:
The closest I could compare this game to is the Freeware breakout game Wrecker Ball Dream by Glinkie Games, which you can find a link to in the freeware section of this site i.e.:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/2005/03/21/wreckerball-dream/

or via:

http://www.glinkiegames.com/main/

There’s even a troll forum where you can read information about the game, though the last post was nearly 18 months ago.

Troll forums:

http://forum.rakeingrass.com/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=660819f210163b26d7df7aa3ee78ae83

The games home page is:

http://troll.rakeingrass.com

For loads of free arkanoids/breakouts check out the thread in the games discussion forums. You’ll find lots of free ‘full version’ shareware games as well as freeware and browser based games:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2607

Poor king Uterus. No wonder he can’t fight off the evil Orcs. He’s been banished to “the exile”, he’s the king of defenseless little people, and his name is a very personal part of a woman’s anatomy. The graphics are great. I’m not a fan of war games, but this looks like a good one for my nephew. Installed and works fine on my Vista. They got the coding down fine, now they just have to work on their English.