The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Let’s just look at a little thing today. Unpleasant Horse.

Apparently Popcap made this little spinoff studio called 4th and Battery who exists just to be kind of a “make whatever you like and not be bound by the fact that we’re Popcap” kind of deal. Which sounds like a great idea to me. Popcap is obviously a genius company, but they’re kind of restricted by the fact that most of their hits are so casual. Plants vs Zombies was kind of a shock coming from them, as accessible as it was, as it’s definitely not a game that seems immediately pick-upable at a glance (though honestly, it kind of is). Giving some of those honestly really brilliant designers, artists, and such a bit more of a loose leash makes sense.

Their first release is a free iOS game called Unpleasant Horse, as I already mentioned. I honestly don’t know why it’s free. It doesn’t seem like there’s any way to make money from it built in. There are no ads or anything. I guess it’s just to get the 4th and Battery name out there? I don’t know. I’m not going to complain about a fun, free game, but they could have easily charged a buck for it and I certainly wouldn’t have complained.

Basically, you’re an unpleasant horse living in a world of “pritty ponies” who fly about a beautiful, cloud and bird filled sky. All this is floating over a ground of spinning sawblades, for some reason. Since you’re such a dick, your job is to leap around from cloud to cloud by tapping the screen. Ram into and kill a bird, and you get a feather, which you can use for an additional jump in the air without landing on something. You can stockpile a large number of these, I think up to eight. Jump onto a pony, and you ride the pony as it plummets down to the sawblades below, killing it in a spray of blood and bones. The longer you stand on the back of the pony, the more points you get, but if you don’t jump off fast enough, you’ll get caught in the sawblades too.

What brings it above is really the presentation. It’s sugary sweet, except the intense metal on the title screen, and the rather intense, though cartoony, gore in the game. The ponies neigh in great pain as the saws grind them up. It’s humorous to watch. Well, if you find a little black humor funny. It’s got that design polish that Popcap is all about, but it’s not Popcap-style stuff that’s being presented. Which is cool.

That’s basically it. You try for a high score until you mess up and land in the sawblades, with no feathers to let you jump away from danger. It’s a fine game for little short bursts, and has a nice risk/reward setup to it, where you can try to play it safe with how long you stay on the ponies and how brave the leaps you make are, or you can just try to play it safe and hope you don’t run out of easily accessible targets. It’s not going to last you forever, but I find many games of this sort, like your Tiny Wings and whatnot, to have similar amounts of replay time, and some people really, really, really play those all the time. I’m sure this can be the same way. And hell, this is free, as I said. Download it and give it a go.