Favorite single-screen games

[Randorama]

LordHypnos opened an interesting thread about games with good score systems that are not shmups (thanks, LH). Out of curiosity, I checked how many games involve mechanics similar to Pirate Ship Higemaru, mentioned in the thread. The game is simple: a pirate must push rolling barrels against enemy pirates, and squash as many enemies as possible on each single screen. These games qualify as clones/variants of Pengo clones, as the first title by Coreland/Sega appeared in 1982 and introduced the concept. A long list is on Moby Games, the game database financially backed by Atari, and also includes Capcom's Don't Pull, from Three Wonders.

A variant originates in Technos' Dommy (1983), in which a funny-looking character pushes various objects and squashes enemies who end up being under these falling object (e.g. push one wall in the left direction, the tile falls in the next space to the left and hopefully squashes an enemy). Mr. Jong (Kiwako, 1983), with Mahjong tiles squashing enemies. Namco's ultra-cute Rompers is a 1989 interpretation in which a young farmer must rescue his betrothed from a demon princess. He must thus squash ultra-cutesy enemies across 64 (!) stages. It is a Namco game, i.e. progressively difficult until it becomes a nightmarish challenge.

Don't we all love ultra-cutesy violence condensed in one single screen of love?

[LordHypnos]

These games qualify as clones/variants of Pengo clones, as the first title by Coreland/Sega appeared in 1982 and introduced the concept.

This post reminded me that I had been meaning to check out Pengo. Higemaru is clearly a riff on this concept, even down to using parts of the wall to crush enemies. I think, compared to Higemaru, I find Pengo quite difficult, because you need to have an enemy (or enemies) actually lined up with the wall segments to crush them, wheras in Higemaru, you can pick up the barrels and go to the enemies. Additionally, Higemaru has the point items and the Captain as added mechanics. Also, I think I remember reading that you can be offset from an enemy and still crush them with barrels, which is interesting. Not sure what the details of that are.

I also ended up playing Kitten Kaboodle (Konami) thanks to your Blockout post mentioning it as a pre-tetris puzzle game, and I would say that that also should be considered a Pengo-like. The matching blocks and the keys are the added elements here, but it's the same concept of pushing around blocks to crush enemies. As a scoring game (not that this is the non-shmup scoring games thread), I wonder if it would be prone to heavy milking on stages due to the stage not ending when the enemies have been defeated, but I suppose you could also milk the Captain in stages in Higemaru, because there are IIRC always some indestructable barrels. No idea if these would be better than just playing through more stages though (probably not if the games infinitely loop, or if you aren't reaching the last stage). In Pengo, it looks like the stages will eventually time out if you don't kill the enemies fast enough.

I'll definitely look at Don't Pull and Three Wonders when I get a chance.

[Randorama]

Ah yes, Kitten Kaboodle is somewhere in the Mobygames list too, though I needed the F3 key to find it. I believe that Don't Pull takes its "matching blocks" mechanic from the Konami title: if you line the "heart" blocks on any Stage, Don (the rabbit) and Pull (the squirrel) become invincible and enemies dance for 15 seconds or so, being completely vulnerable to attacks. Fun stuff, but more in general this micro-genre includes all these games with minor variations in their mechanics that end up providing quite different gaming experiences. An interesting fact is that Higemaru is not in that list, though Mobygames tend to have noticeable holes when it comes to arcade games and their classification. Also, I am wondering if Taito has ever made a game that might qualify as a "Pengo-like". I feel like I am forgetting something, quite frankly, but I am not finding any titles that may qualify on the usual databases. I am going to put together all these ideas in an upcoming Don't Pull mini-squib, as PCEFX! rose his hand to place a request for it

[LordHypnos]

Would be pretty surprising if Taito had no entry into that genre!

[Randorama]

LH: I entirely agree with the feeling, but I am possibly blind, and I cannot seem to find Taito games that would qualify as Pengo[-like. I wonder if I am simply overlooking something, so if anyone reading this thread actually knows, please help us out

By the way: we have a Sokoban thread of which I completely forgot the existence. I am posting a link here for ease of reference, as Soko-ban-like games definitely represent single-screen gaming in an idealised form. I am all for having specialised threads, but I think that having a link here may be very convenient to casual readers.

The Tetris Variants thread is also good reference for those who like this classic "genre onto itself" game.

[Sumez]

Holy shit, I knew Teddy Boy Blues was a fun game, but I never really tried giving it a fair go until I went for a high score at a local """arcade""" yesterday (and previously my primary experience with it was from the Master System port).
Such a brilliantly designed game - it's action packed and fast paced, the controls are perfect, and the puzzle aspect is really solid, which IMO makes it one of the few games to genuinely feel adjacent to something like Bubble Bobble.

I need to play this some more. Maybe I'll grow tired of it later, but right now it feels severely underrated.

[Randorama]

OK, can I officially cry after reading your post, Sumez? I suddenly feel less lonely, after 40 years or so of solitary worshipping of this beauty (...I am being over-dramatic, OK). I believe that it also has a great scoring system, though I always ignored this component because even early Stages become remarkably challenging, if played for score. What Stage did you reach, by the way?














(and just in case: my Squib is here).