My review of Abandoned Well:
Whoop-de-doo, another clone of an 8-bit 80s computer game. At least they cloned a worthwhile one this time.
This game is a direct clone of Oils Well(yes, the title contains a grammatical error), which was actually cloned a few times back when it was new. It's easy to see why, as it offers a great mix of offensive and defensive gameplay - try to eat all of the dots without letting the enemies eat your unprotected surface pipe. My only qualm about the gameplay is that enemies pass right through the walls, which makes it slightly less fun than the original. I want to believe that it's just a bug, but it's more likely that it's deliberate. Also, the different enemy types all act in exactly the same ways - they're the same code with different sprites.
The graphics, though, are pretty bad. While they are certainly better than the original's monochrome pixel sprites, they are incredibly unprofessional. Animations are slow, pillow shading is used liberally, and there really isn't much variety. At least the menu and icon look decent.
The sounds are boring, rather than actually bad. They are a definite step up from the original's blips and beeps, but they are bland and lack any sort of character. The music is very quiet, even at its loudest setting, and is very droney, while the sound effects are practically interchangeable with each other. Still, they are much better than some of the sounds that have appeared on this site recently, as they are merely boring without actually being bad.
The story is interesting, though, even if it contains a few non-sequiturs. Similar to 50s sci-fi, everything in the future is nuclear-powered. However, your home planet is running out of resources, and, even though scientists have developed a way to convert spent nuclear waste into low-grade fuel, there still isn't enough to go around. Thus, exploratory missions have been sent to other planets to find elements suitable for fuel, and to set up mining operations. The player's character has found several veins of nuclear waste suitable for conversion, but the creatures that feed on it are guarding it from your driller.
This raises several questions. For example, have people lost their knowledge of chemical energy? How much fuel did it take to launch you to another planet, with little hope of recovery? How can nuclear waste be converted to fuel at all? Why do the native fauna eat it? Clearly, these questions are all unanswerable, and aren't even worth the bother.
Overall, I give Abandoned Well a score of six and a half out of ten(eight for gameplay, five for graphics, six for sound, and eight for theme). Behind the subpar graphics and nondescript sound is a game that is actually quite fun.
Small side note:
What is a "suburban planet"? Is it like Coruscant, but less developed?
