This week, we have a load of adventures and stories for you to play. You can be rude at a tea party while surrounded by a bunch of older folks, or become a dragon looking for dragon eggs. You can travel through space on a whale full of ghosts bugs, fight to reclaim your palace as a talented fencer, or simply avoid fire and collect roses for your love. There’s quite a variety to be found in the free games that have released recently – so why not take a journey through them and enjoy?
Lovely Pleasant Teatime Simulator by Damon Wakes
Ever thought about doing inappropriate things during a quaint tea party? In Lovely Pleasant Teatime Simulator, a text adventure, you can do some very bizarre things indeed.You’re heading to a tea party at Mrs Weatherby’s, which you will expect to be a nice uneventful time of drinking tea and eating scones. And, well, everything seems pretty normal at the start of the party.
Each time that you play the game the story is a bit different – much like any tea party you go to. There will always be tea, scones, and a bit of conversation, but the conversation options and story changes. Sometimes you might get to a pet a cat, but other times you might get the option to rub jam all over your body in front of the guests. You lose the game by doing something completely inappropriate, because soon everyone will know what you have done and you won’t be invited to a tea party again.
Lovely Pleasant Teatime Simulator allows you to do everything you’d ever imagine doing at a little tea party – and some things you haven’t – without any of the weird looks or ramifications of you choice.
Little Dragon Adventure by Mush
In Little Dragon Adventure, a cute platformer, you play a tiny dragon on an epic quest to collect your eggs. You’re recently hatched, so you’re lacking in abilities, but you must find a way to collect up your siblings, who are currently still eggs. They can’t defend themselves, so you’ll need to learn and grow on your adventures. As you explore the dungeon and the world around you, you fill out the map of the dungeon, fight bosses and unlock different abilities!
Shooting fireballs, learning to double jumps, and gaining more health are all be a part of growing up as a dragon. Around the world there are various turtle creatures, slime balls, and skeletons that will want to destroy you, and when you find eggs you have to do a small boss battle against the bats which are holding them hostage. Little Dragon Adventure is impressive, especially for the limitations of the Pico-8 engine.
Fire & Fondness: Enhanced Edition by John Gabriel
You could always try playing a hopeless romantic, risking his life to gain some flowers for his love in the puzzle game Fire & Fondness: Enhanced Edition. Collecting flowers sounds simple in theory. The problem is the flamethrower located in each room.
This flamethrower goes off after nine moves, burning anyone who’s not protected by walls. Walls must be opened and closed (via colour matching switches) in order to clear your path around the level, but you’ll really need to pay attention to that flamethrower!
You don’t actually have to grab roses. You can just make your way to your love. But where is the fun in that? Collecting the roses and risking your life shows just how devoted you are. If you don’t collect them then you’ll be judged harshly, but still allowed to go to the next area to try again. Don’t forget you’ll also need to protect your love, making sure the fire doesn’t touch them. It’s far less romantic when either of you are burnt to a crisp.
Kerry and Alice Run into Some Trouble by Andrew Yolland
Kerry and Alice Run into Some Trouble takes you on a little adventure through outer space, on a space whale! Alice, your space whale and vessel, has been feeling rather ill. You’ve got to investigate her symptoms and get her well enough to continue your journey. It seems like there are a lot of strange things in outer space, and Alice has come down with a case of ghost-space-bugs.
These bugs have formed inside and outside Alice, causing loads of pain as they dig into the lovely whale. You must get rid of these bugs by following a maze full of teleporters. But they might not be the parasites they seem – they have a goal, and don’t seem to know that they are hurting their host.
Kerry and Alice Run into Some Trouble has a funny, well written story that is worth reading, and the conversations between this space explorer and their beloved whale is truly wonderful.
En Garde! by Adrien Poncet, Valentin Capitaine, Corentin Mangé, Sylvain Schmück, Pierre Chapelet, Tim Guthmann, Anaïs Simonnet, Julien Fenoglio, & Ludwig Wu
If you’d rather wield a sword and take back your palace, then you can fence your way through En Garde!
This 17th century action adventure game has you playing as a noble swordswoman who’s trying to reclaim her palace. Having come home from an adventure, you find a whole new bunch of guards living within your palace. Looking to restore your family’s honor, you will need to fight through the unwelcome guests, reaching captains to extract new clues.
You’re quite nimble and well-trained in the use of the rapier, able to dodge moves and fight as well as anyone else. You can also climb and freerun around the palace. The game is open, giving you the freedom to roam anywhere you want, but you’re given goals along the way that help guide you.
En Garde! has wonderful cutscenes that are fully voice acted to pull you into the story. This game is so well done – even though it is just a beta – that it’s well worth a look – though it is definitely worth noting that En Garde! plays better with a controller.
Disclosure: Jupiter Hadley is an apprentice games wizard at Armor Games, helping them to find released free games to sign.