Your Five Favorite Alt+Escape Games of 2009

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

It’s a brand-new year, and since we’re all off recovering from hangovers thanks to last night’s hard-partying ways, we here at The Escapist thought we’d take a look at the most popular Alt+Escape titles from 2009 – and what you had to say about them.

#5: Spewer

We Said: Spewer falls somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Yes, it’s a game about puking. But it’s also about growing, about learning your purpose in life, about self-actualization. Across Spewer‘s 50-plus levels, you’ll learn to harness your powers of emesis to navigate the obstacles placed before you. You’ll also swim through pools of your vomit to cross razor-filled chasms and propel yourself with barf like a gastrointestinal jet pack. In all, there are five distinct phases of Spewer, each with its own puke-tastic game mechanic.

You Said: I was playing it on Kongregate for a while about half an hour before I saw the article. It’s pretty fun, and yes it does chug on browsers when there’s a lot of goop on the field- we ARE talking about Flash here, after all.

My only complaint is that some of the puzzles are fairly tricky and seem to depend on the physics engine being in a good mood (like where you need every last drop of puke as a propellant to get up a high wall).

– The Rogue Wolf

Very fun game, so long as you don’t think too hard about exactly what you’re swimming in/eating/climbing on.

– orannis62

Next: You can’t say no to high production values and imaginative art design.

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

#4: Scarygirl

We Said: The gameplay is fairly standard fare for a platformer – jump, swim, and spin your way through the worlds, collect lots and lots of items, etc. – but it’s the game’s aesthetics and the fantastic production that really sell it. Once you’re having a dotted-line conversation with the giant octopus that has a full head of hair and is wearing a tiny little Trilby hat, you’ll see what I mean.

You Said: <3 Alt+Escape is my favourite Escapist feature.

Scarygirl, although filled with fun things and pretty pictures, is frustrating because I keep dying when I try to get all the fishies and shiny-things. =\ It’s so hard trying to train myself to ignore them and get through the level! And the platforming is awful. But I’m determined to finish this. Does anyone know how many levels there are?

– Florion

Even having the browser version, I’d gladly shell-out $10-15 for this on X-Box Live just so that I could use a controller for it. Another thing I think this game really needs is more than two buttons, this isn’t the NES here. Having Spacebar act as Attack, Interact, Super Jump, sometimes regular jumping… and probably a few other functions, just doesn’t really work.

– WhiteTigerShiro

Next: Being “artsy” is overrated. So is being hygienic.

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

#3: Amateur Surgeon

We Said: The entire game is pretty much Trauma Center, just with a morbid and slightly gross sense of humor about the whole thing. Cut people open with your pizza slicer, staple their wounds together, cauterize them with your lighter … it just goes on and on. I’m a few levels in at this point – no word on if Alan will have to tackle a manmade cyber alien virus (whoops, spoilers), but I wouldn’t be surprised.

You Said: Cute – better than Trauma Center! I still reach a point where I’m not fast enough though…and there’s not button with which to call for adrenaline or a couple of units of whole blood…

– justnotcricket

Blimey, it’s quite hard… but still entertaining enough to distract me from my hangover so that’s alright.

– thecaptainof

Next: Best. Title. Ever.

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

#2: Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar

We Said: What follows is a pretty generic (and extremely short) shmup where your only weapon is your roarbeam. That’s a severe limitation for a shmup, but the beam recharging mechanic actually works quite well, forcing you to conserve your roars and unleash them when they’re most effective. The visuals may be simplistic, but they’re well animated, and the sound effects are hilarious, if a little grating. Robot Dinosaurs may only be good for a play-through between sending off a few emails at work, but let’s be honest: With a title this good, you don’t need any more than 10 minutes of solid gameplay.

You Said: Best flash game I’ve played in a long time. The cutscenes were beyond epic.

– WinterSoldier

The cutscenes in this are hilarious, and pretty much worth the play through.

“Like us, these humans are… DINO-TASTIC”

– Sparrow

Next: Poetry in motion.

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

#1: Today I Die

We Said: To be honest, half the fun in Today I Die is figuring out how to play the thing in the first place, so it’s hard to really talk about the “gameplay” such as it is. Even so, the game manages to tell an interesting and compelling story with less than twenty words. It just requires you to think about it for a little bit.

Also, it’s got a pretty awesome soundtrack (courtesy of Hernan Rozenwasser), which is always a plus.

You Said: I view this in the same area as PixelJunk: Eden, in that it is a re imagining of an existing genre of game. To me, PJ:E was a re imagining of the platformer, and this to me was a re imagining of the Point-and-Click adventure game. Great game, really beautiful.

– FROGGEman2

I think I just won at art.

– Phantom Sheep

Really great poetry, and spectacular music. Liked the second ending more than the first, for some reason.

– Jolan_BG

The initial poem was powerful in its darkness, sorrow and simplicity, much like a well-done Haiku. To see it change into something equally beautiful but more optimistic as you progressed was very emotionally strong.

– Clashero

Did we miss one of your favorite Alt+Escape games of 2009? Check the Archives and let us know in the comments!