Free 2D Action Platformers made by Doomers

After playing through Unloved by Paul Schneider, I became curious about the man behind the curtain and that led me to GunGirl 2, another of his projects. I find it interesting because of the Doomy elements that have seeped through his subconscious and into this other work - even the game's main font is reminiscent of Dooms. Anyways, it's a Metroidvania-style zombie hunter. It's not bad, but I didn't play it for long - only long enough to beat one boss, and to descend into a delightfully-Doomy Hell. Ultimately, none of the monsters are really a joy to fight. You, though, may like it better.

I found Iji through a list of good free games (I'm cheap) and it was only afterward that I noticed the Doom II maps on the creator's homepage. I haven't tried any of those yet, but their mere existence on his site is a sign of his distinguished taste. Iji feels a little bit stiff - you can't shoot while in midair, and you can't run - but it's still a lot of fun to play, thanks to the interesting weapon and monster designs. Iji is less about non-stop action and more about using the right weapon and the right strategy to pass each obstacle elegantly. It's also about collecting "nano," which you use to level up, which gives you points, which you can spend to upgrade various abilities, and I know that you've read all of that before in the ad copy of countless shovelware titles, but hear me out! While most of these games have you spending points to progress from doing something badly to doing it well, here you need to spend points to earn the right to pick up new weapons and the ability to open new doors, and because points are limited, choosing which weapons to wield and which doors to open is an interesting strategic element. Also, even though the game's creator can't draw humans, the art and animation are pretty good, the music's great, and the setting and story are oddly compelling. There's nothing obviously Doomy about this one, but it could be that Doom pacifist demos are what inspired him to make it possible to do a pacifist run of the entire game, killing no living thing but the final boss.

"Eye-Blob Demon", found in the Gun Girl enemies list:



I think this is an obvious indicator that Doom is where he got his inspiration for some elements of the game.

I actually helped test the beta of gungirl2, and basically edited half the dialogue, heh. Schneider actually added some more stuff that I should've looked at, but I never got around to it. And yeah there're a few doom references in there, mixed with a lot of other things. I couldn't figure out where the scientist's SCIENCE! interjections came from, but I didn't look very hard.

ArmouredBlood said:

I couldn't figure out where the scientist's SCIENCE! interjections came from, but I didn't look very hard.

I don't have Gungirl2 (I didn't even know it existed - will have to check it) however, from the way you describe them I wonder if the "SCIENCE" interjections are anything like the ones in this song?

"SCIENCE!" is kind of just a thing. There may be a root source, but if it's ever meant as a reference anymore, then it's just referencing other references.

OMG

SUCH a good song

AND video

Creaphis said:

"SCIENCE!" is kind of just a thing. There may be a root source, but if it's ever meant as a reference anymore, then it's just referencing other references.

Not unlike "A wizard did it!"

Creaphis said:

"SCIENCE!" is kind of just a thing. There may be a root source, but if it's ever meant as a reference anymore, then it's just referencing other references.

science

aaaaand, the game is pretty neat too. Not quite my cup of tea, but fun and captures pretty well what the old 2D platformers were about IMO. The music is cool too. Anyone know what format it is in? I'd like to be able to play it outside the game too.

It's in .ogg, or at least the beta was. Don't think he'd change the format though, heh. My favorite is the marsh-hell one, but I also like Hell02/earth hell and the final stage. Dat violin. So yeah I just play it in VLC.

Hmmm... I tried opening as oggs in a few programs but none recognised them. :/

Weird. I'll dl the newest version to see if he changed anything regarding music.

E: yeah I'm not sure what's up with this g2m format. Possibly the people who made it wanted to make sure players would get it from them or maybe schneider just needed to make it that format for some odd reason. I could send you a link for the music, but I'll check out the band first.

E2: nevermind, the artist has all the music on his site.

marsh hell is #20, hell02 is #8, and #24 is the final stage.

OK, thanks. I'll check that site.