Primary

As a PBR swilling indie gamer, I have a soft spot for underground platformers you've probably never heard of. They tend to be reminiscent of Mario before it was cool, or perhaps after it became ironic.

As such, I always like to check out the latest plaformer guns before they become cool. One such game might be a little too top 40 for me, since it has over 850,000 hits on Newgrounds which makes it too passe'. However, since I know many of you are sheeple who are too conformist to know about this game, so I decided to review it anyway.

Eh, it stopped being cool when it got popular.

Primary (Flash)
Developed by: JackSmack & FrozenFire
Released on: Feb 17, 2010 

In this game you are playing as  Roy, a super soldier in the land of the HUEman, who has the task of climbing up to the top of Prizim tower to close a portal that is allowing horrible inky goop monsters into his world who are reeking havoc. Some of them you simply don't want to touch, or they will kill you. Some of them throw out slime balls that kill you, and also if you touch them they kill you. Then there's also a slime on some of the walls and floors that kill you if you touch it. This clearly represents the futility of life.

Those inky bits with tentacles? They're called Vortexes

This obviously is supposed to mirror the real world, where Walmart and pop music do the same to everyone else. You get three different forms, red, yellow, and blue, with their own abilities. For starters, there are platforms you can only step on if your the same color. So you can't stand on a blue platform if your yellow, to explain it to those Katy Perry loving sheeple. Blue makes ice blocks that can hold down buttons and give you a surface to jump off of. The buttons most often hold open doors, as anyone who has played any platformer would assume. The blocks break after 10 seconds or if you make a new ice block, so you have to be clever about it, something that might frustrate the ignorant mind of a typical FPS player.

Then there's Yellow. Yellow has the ability to turn invisible. When your invisible, you can pass through lasers . Also, you can't move. Most of the lasers are surrounded my oil slicks or are on conveyer belts so you just hold still until your through and then turn visible again before you run into danger. Also, all the save platforms are yellow, so only yellow can save in the middle of a level.

Behold the power of lethargy!

Lastly, there's red. Red has the ability to fight certain monsters by shooting a fire ball at it. Note that you can't fight vortexes or the slime on the floors and walls. After the monsters are killed they burst into a series of colored bubbles that raise your score. This is probably the most simplistic power. However, this is the most fun character for those of you used to Mario, so you'll probably like it best.

So uncultured and loutish

The game also features a series of other small puzzles, that might be annoying to those not used to thinking, such as having the floating platforms change color, requiring you to change color mid jump. The game also allows you to slide down and grasp the side of a wall in order to check for, and avoid, obstacles. There are also puzzle doors later in the game that only open when the switches are turned a certain way.

This clearly represents something but I don't know what yet....

In order to get from level to level, you have to get from elevator to elevator. Each level you complete opens up another floor, which seems like an eccentric and arbitrary floor plan, suggesting this building was an office for an alternative, artsy business. That would also explain the odd arrangement of the floors.

The game mechanics are pretty simple. You move with WASD, press R to open doors and change switches, Space to make ice blocks or shoot fire, and S to get in and out of invisible alternative super ninja mode. I don't know why the yellow power is activated using a different key, probably because yellow is the most alt. You can jump higher by jumping off walls, and, like in Megaman X, you can cling to walls to check for hidden traps and enemies by pressing W.

So, simply put, this alternative, indie platformer is the perfect alternative to popular commercial games, so you can show your friends how cool and hip you are. But that doesn't matter because I still played it before you, so I'm still more alt. I would suggest, since the primary colors are so mainstream, the sequels should include more alternative colors like cyan or magenta, but then sequels are so top 40.

If you too, want to play this game, you can see it here.

Or here if Newgrounds is too mainstream go here.