Some games take time to “kick-in”. This is one such example. And boy, does it kick hard! – [Review on GameMakerGames]
Some old game maker games may need to be converted to work on Windows Vista/7 using this tool.
(This is a guest post by Cactus)
Albero and the Great Blue Emblem (Dex)
Posted by Cactus
on August 16, 2012
I’ve been playing this game since the other day when Terry was looking for it on Twitter, I really like it.
Anyone know the author of it? I rudely went back and dug out his old website from https://web.archive.org/web/20070819194225/https://www.dexxent.com/
I’m kind of interested in the development history behind it and whether it was influenced much by Cave story or whether it was actually developed before/at the same time as it.
But then I should probably ignore these things and just enjoy the mystery of it.
Cave Story was translated ten months before the release of Albero, which was in development for three months. Dex may very well have been inspired by Cave Story, although I don’t remember any real tell tale signs that would hint at that back when I played it. Here’s an old interview:
https://www.autofish.net/video_games/creation/game_maker/profiles/dex.html
this was very fun, but be warned, there’s at least one game-breaking glitch where you’ll get 4 emblem pieces and it will say you have 3, but you need 4 to get past a certain door. the LP i watched showed the player getting the same glitch I did, but his key showed up, while mine never did 🙁
I’m surprised to not yet enjoy this one sufficiently to be sure whether to bother continuing, despite the description text suggesting further riches to come and despite my generally being a total sucker for this sort of game.
As-is, the biggest gripe I have is that a bunch of small decisions add up to what feels like a lack of respect for the player’s time.
I’m currently at the section with the orbs/barriers and the new black player-character who travels — so, so slowly — through the pipes. I should admit that part of my frustration is that I’m having a hard time intuiting which barrier each pedestal unlocks, but the situation is exacerbated by the slow, disorienting pipe-travel and the decision to only allow character-switching at designated stations. Without either one of those two limitations, I’d probably find this section a lot more enjoyable. (That said, I glean a similar lack of respect from the slow elevator sequences and the fact that redeeming the found butterfly-like critters requires repeating them ad nauseum.)
But maybe I’ll pick this up again some time later. I do like a lot of what it’s doing (though I’m surprised to find the lack of sound effects bothering me; that feels like such a petty complaint, and mostly besides the point, but for some reason their lack here is proving…distracting, I guess).