Dan! Da! Dan! Is an excellent and completely original shoot 'em up, in which you must destroy blocks rather than ships.
Dan! Da! Dan! (3.8Mb)
Dan! Da! Dan! is an odd shoot 'em up. And I mean that in the best possible way. Not only does it manage to be totally addictive it also manages to come off as a complete original in its field. There seems to be a growing breed of 'abstract' freeware shoot 'em ups, where you don't shoot the usual barrage of enemy space ships, but rather beams of light or different objects, or in this case large colored blocks.
You might think this concept sounds extraordinarily boring but it is still essentially a 'shoot everything in sight' variety of shoot 'em up, which is both fast and slow-paced when it chooses to be. You just aren't shooting the usual variety of enemies. The game gradually gets more challenging as it moves along, giving you the chance to at least feel as if you are getting somewhere within the game. Personally I think this breed of games breathes new life into what could be considered a tired genre and I welcome any games such as this that provide an original perspective on an old concept.
The graphics are bright, cheerful and appear to have a lot of class with some really nice graphical effects thrown in to spice things up. The sound seems to try and match the bright and cheerful side of the game, rather than its shoot 'em up roots, with a soundtrack that sounds as if it has been developed for a younger audience. Seriously though, once you are fully involved frantic action in the game, the soundtrack will be the last thing on your mind and the explosive sound effects will be the only thing your ears will notice.
For any hardcore shoot 'em up fans with open minds or looking for something a little different, I would highly recommend this. Absolute purists may not be quite so enthusiastic though.
Reference accessed HERE July 25th 2010
When you click on the games executable (DDD) you will be asked whether you want t play the game in full screen mode; clicking no will start the game in windowed mode. Thr is a flashing notice that says ”Press Start” I’ve not checked to see if my X-Box controller works, but I’m presumig it will. However if you don’t have a controller set up for your PC (you can use X-Box controllers with the appropriate plug converter) to start the game press Z, this brings up another notice with a flashing box to the left of it; this is the main menu. You can scroll through the menu (which only shows one option at a time) using the left and right cursor keys 1up, ranking, and options are available. Select each one y pressing the Z key then us the arrow keys (any) to scroll through the various selections. Selecting Optioms gives you the following choices:
Return - Z
Texture - toggle between 16 and 32 bit using the Z key
Color Depth - toggle between 16 and 32 bit using the Z key
Play count - couldn’t find any way to adjust
Play Time – couldn’t find any way to adjust
Controls:
Z starts the game
Alt - Pause
Esc - exits the game
To input your name into the high score table you use the cursor keys to navigate around a virtual keyboard, then when you select a letter click on Z
Download:
The only English download sites I could find for this game (very few) seem to have had the game removed for some reason, or the file was inaccessible so I searched out the developer Omega and found a Japanese site that had the game. It’s in the lzh format which is common to Japan, Winrar, Stiffit, 7 Zip PeaZip and BitZipper (as well as a few more such as ArcDiff Archivarius and Alpha Zip) all unpack the game. You have to manually install the game and create your own shortcut.
As it’s quite difficult to navigate through the Japanese site I’ve posted directly to the download page. The download button is partway down the page and can easily be seen a sit’s a large green affair that has Download now as well as Japanese characters. If you don’t have te language packs installed all you’ll see of the Japanese script is image insets. The main body of text will probably show up as small squares, some with code within the square.
Download Dan! Da! Dan! HERE
