When I first downloaded my DRM-free copy of Overgrowth from Humble, I tested it for a bit and it worked just fine. However, when I went back to play it recently, it was somehow missing a dll file, and after I downloaded that, I got another error. All I can think to do to fix it would be to redownload all 20GB of the game, and I’m not up for that now, so I just deleted it and went back to my Steam backlog:

• Pitcher and the Whale
  

  11 minutes playtime

  no achievements

Yes, this platformer is only 11 minutes long. It’s not a demo. Besides standard left/right movement and jump, you carry a bucket that can carry water or be thrown at enemies to stun them. Well, I say “enemies,” but they can only stun you, too. The goal is to go around to different puddles of water, wait for your bucket to refill, then head back to the whale at the start and throw the bucket at the whale so it doesn’t dehydrate. At first, I thought I had to get the whale’s water meter to a certain level, but then I realized it was constantly decreasing. Instead, you just have to keep it from dying until the timer runs out, and that timer is why the game takes so long to beat. There’s only the one level (which is maybe 3x3 screens large), and while it’s designed okay, it only takes about 30 seconds or so to get from one end to the other. Once the timer runs out, the game is over and you see the ending. The biggest challenge is walking slow enough that your bucket doesn’t tilt backward and spill the water before you get back to the whale.

Anyway, since that game was surprisingly short, I decided to play another one before making another post.

First, more shoddy port job issues. As soon as you try to run the game, it flips through some images and closes. To run the game properly, you have to right click -> properties -> set compatibility mode to Windows 95 (that said, this is the first time compatibility mode actually solved the problems I was having with an old game, so maybe they did do some maintenance this time). Even with that, there’s still one screen that gets blown by quickly; luckily, it’s of no importance. Once you’re in the game, you’ll see it has an option to view an “online” manual, and as crucial as the manual was for the first game, you’d think they’d maintain this one, right? Nope; trying to access it gives you an error saying either you don’t have enough memory (unlikely) or that you don’t have the CD inserted. Again, this is the digitally-distributed version of the game from Humble Trove (and probably GOG as well); there’s no CD for me to insert, or even an ISO to mount. Oh, and you can’t increase the size of the playfield’s window; it’s stuck at 568x378, which is awfully tiny on a 1440p monitor.

As for the game itself, there are some improvements over the first game. For example, your inventory is a separate window, so you can see all the parts available at once instead of having to flip through several pages. There’s a magnifying glass icon that you can click to read a blurb about different objects and what they do/how they interact with other objects. Objects like seesaws no longer have box collision for random objects, so anything can be placed on top of the transparent pixels. They expanded the level editor so you can add actual win-states instead of having to rely on the honor system. Heck, there’s even a multiplayer mode with exclusive levels where you take (timed) turns with someone else placing an object in the playfield (you can’t take out a second object until your next turn, even if you put your first object back), and whoever’s turn it is when the level is solved wins. Lastly, the score system is gone.

That said, there are some drawbacks. Notably, the magnifying glass icon only shows up on inventory items; if an object is pre-placed in the level, you have to go to the level editor and find the object there in order to read up on it. Pipe tiles also stretch one pixel past unit boundaries, so you won’t be able to put things directly on top/below/beside them unless the object has pixel-placement instead of unit-placement (this issue was also in the first game, but wasn’t as prevalent). The difficulty curve is a bit better, but still pretty wonky despite levels being grouped into “easy,” “medium,” etc.; the first level says to “knock the eight ball off the screen” and there are eight balls grouped together to the left of the eight ball, so it’s easy to misread it and get the wrong idea. There are even moments of trial and error: Easy 24 seems like it wouldn’t be that hard (light the rocket and connect the slopes so it’s pushed up), but it kept exploding mid-slope. I even activated hints, but they only told me what I already knew: use the inclines to adjust the missile’s trajectory. Eventually, I figured it out: instead of connecting the slopes directly, I had to use slopes of gradually-increasing steepness. A potentially-bigger issue is despite the apparent improvement with seesaws, Medium 28 still requires the same unintuitive tactic as level 71 from the first game, and despite the blurbs, this mechanic was once again neglected to be mentioned (it’s arguably worse since you have to place the Tin Snips in the field on your own, unlike how the first game had the bellows pre-set). Meanwhile, Hard 1 can be easily and quickly sequence-broken by–you guessed it–putting an unlit rocket above a flashlight. Heck, there were even a couple times where moving an object screwed up the physics in an unrelated area: the first time wasn’t too bad (failed attempt at Medium 30), but the second time was after I had a fan blow the soccer ball (center-right) in Very Hard 16: when I moved the flint-rocks up a bit so the flame would reach the kettle (bottom-right), suddenly the soccer ball wouldn’t budge, even though it blew just fine last time.

Despite all of that, the worst offender is Very Hard 24. All the directions say is to get the guy off the right side of the screen. That’s it. So I create a path for the guy to walk across, but even though the guy gets 3-4 units past the right side, the solution doesn’t take; I hear the sound for the guy falling down, and the scene keeps running. Okay, maybe I didn’t get him far enough; maybe I need to get him to ride a blimp past the right side, so that’s what I do: I readjust my setup so the guy falls on a blimp and rides it across the right side of the screen…

…AND IT STILL. DIDN’T. TAKE. I even looked up a walkthrough (the only time I did so for this game), and while the walkthrough’s solution was quite a bit different than mine, it still ended with the guy riding a blimp! After a bit more trial-and-error, I figured it out: he had to ride the blimp straight right, not angled. Would’ve been nice to know that ahead of time, game.

Not recommended. Again, there are a few genuinely tricky puzzles here (Very Hard 1, 2, 13, 21, and maybe Hard 31), but it’s not worth putting up with the trial and error.