Hi Jonas, thanks for creating such a fun game. Please let us know if you need any Beta teters. I'm sure you'll find willing participants who frequent these gamin threads. I for one have lenty of time on my hands. :) Great to hear from you.

Regards

Whiterabbit

Hi, Jonas, welcome to the GOTD-Forums!
In deed, this must be a very special day for our game enthusiasts, a game designer has found our "family"!
WOW
I hope you'll come back and -maybe- one day you'll present your new game ...
Until then, many thanks for this cute game.
Good luck and tack för besöket :)
graylox aka notblocklox

Glad you found us, Jonas. Thanks for the explanation, and don't be a stranger. In fact, if you've developed anything else... We're even not against paid software here. It's just that we get spammers... In any case, drop in any time!

Those photos of those lovely young ladies illustrate your point well. I can see the inspiration for the character. Their heads are almost always down. I wonder if Pandas didn't like to get photographed, or maybe it's some Scandinavian shyness. I've heard some Scandivanians are reserved, but I hadn't heard camera shy. Mainly, I've heard Finns are often shy. As I've heard it, many young Finns are more comfortably texting than having face to face conversations. The land of Nokia!

I thought those might have been albums, but thought tires made more sense lol. That's cool to have a developer come in and actually describe their game for us. Thanks very much and kudos on a great game. =)

Hi there! I'm one of the three developers of Pandaland.

Notblocklox is indeed right, the game is an 8bit retro homage to a defunct (sort of ) indie rock/pop subculture called (in swedish) Pandor, litterally translated to Pandas, becaue of their look..

Typical panda:
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/93/l_8bd6d792ca17483a840ed4dedce75f19.jpg

and more:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=393700468&albumId=451357

(no affiliation to the people in the pictures)

They were sort of the indiepop/rock outcast "elite" here in Sweden back in.. around 2002 and so. The game takes place at real locations in a part of Stockholm called Södermalm, the little bit more artsy part of central Stockholm. Boss and enemies are everything a panda does not approve of (brats, bimbos) and they've taken over our Amanda Pandas favourite parts of Södermalm! Oh and your throwing LP albums in the hard mode, not tires :D

These days, people who would've been Pandas back in 2002 are sort of emo hipsters instead :/

Scapegraces. Neat! I looked it up. Roughly reprobates. I wondered why the bytejacker guy was calling the women something that sounded like prostitutes (wonder what he actually said, sirostitute?) Wow! If I keep learning stuff like that, I might be hip someday..........uhhhhhh, nope. Lost cause! I think your sign off should often be written this way: informativelox.

Some more info to the background.
The game is about Amanda Panda an Indie-Pop-Girl fighting against all those spoilt scapegraces and posers who are going to change the culture in a quarter of Stockholm.
This quarter is called Söder/Södermalm (söder = south) and is famous for its party-life. This story is set in original locations.

To the game:
There is a secret room:

Warp Zone! :
When you jump down into the 4th water hole of the first stage "Nytorget", then you come to a secret room which is the direct way to "Carmen".
Seems to work only in easy mode.

Some reviews:
Weekend Freebie: Pandaland
an indie freeware retro platformer all about hipsters in Sweden
pretty sweet, solid retro platformer

My Swedish grand-kids are currently visiting us, they taught me how to play this game :)
gaminglox

Thanks for the extra info Watcher as well as the link to bytejacker. I thought the site was lots of fun and it's now been bookmarked. :)

To expand on wizz and the curiosity of the cigarette thing, did some double checking and indeed it isn't meant as a kids game. Amanda Panda in her 2 hair colors (maybe she's a bohemian) stands in for the average game geek in destroying those types they hated from high school - jocks and some kind of loose, popular girl (?). It appears to be partially set in bars or nightclubs or something. Translation from another part of the the site: "Collect peppe (powerups) from roll, smoke and cheap beer!" Here's a youtube review from a site called bytejacker who do professional web content that reviews games, among other things. The link takes you right to the last minute and a half where Pandaland is reviewed. If you back up to watch the whole web cast - dedicated to "free indie of the week" - stick through the first :30 seconds or so which features a semi-sentient kid mumbling through a game review before you get to the actual bytejacker host. He says the game contains a couple unlockable modes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ2FhAjpbLU#t=8m22s

bytejacker's primary mission is apparently reviews of free indie games.
Right up our alley!: http://www.bytejacker.com/

Lol! And it looks so darned... sweet. Thanks, wizz.

Cigarettes?!? Maybe this ISN'T a kids game. Sheesh!

lol those are funny translations. I have no idea what that third one was even saying!

I guessed the language was Swedish after seeing the word Stokholm a couple of times, so did a translation using Google. Here's what it said about the game:

"Tired of games in fantasy worlds? Now Panda Country, which takes place in the South."
Aftonbladet

"The game will have indie kids of all ages cry of joy"
DN On the Town

"You get peppers in the form of energy for different objects plastglasöl, roll, iPods and cigarettes."
Nöjesguiden

"Stockholm's nightlife has been parody and turned into a sockersöt Super Mario clone. We are selling" Super Play

:)

Yeah a good one; thank you
Regards

Whiterabbit

What? You've never had whitewall pie? Mixes good with rhubarb. Deeeeeelicious! Seriously, you're right. Cherries to tires is an odd juxtaposition. Thanks for the link!

Thanks, Wizzard. Nice finds as usual.
Also, thanks for letting me post tomorrow instead of Friday.

Today's game is an excellent and very cute platformer titled Pandaland. Pandaland is a very short game that shouldn't take anyone very long to beat, but is still a very enjoyable experience. The gameplay is a tad on the easy side, but there are two difficulty options...easy and hard. Depending on what difficulty setting you choose, you will have one of two characters. In easy mode, you will control a dark haired girl who uses cherries to defeat her enemies. In hard mode, you control a blonde headed girl who uses tires(?) to defeat her enemies.

Controls

In title screen:
- Enter = Start easy mode
- D = Start hard mode

In game:
- Arrows = Move and jump
- Ctrl = Throw things
- F4 = Full screen / windowed
- Esc = Exit game

Overall, I give this game an 8/10 and I'm left wishing for more levels. To download from the author's site, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the word här. On the next page, simply click on it again. Enjoy!

Download:
http://www.pandaland.nu/