tentacles

The new Deal of the Week is a repeat sale, but thankfully it's for a game that hasn't been on sale in a while: Glow Artisan. You can get it for just $1.99. If that's not savings enough, Tentacles has also received a permanent price drop to $2.99. What else do both games have in common? They're not easy!

Glow Artisan is a colorful puzzle game with an artistic bent. Players are tasked with recreating a pixelated picture by drawing colored lines and overlapping lines to make new colors. Achievement-wise it gets pretty tough due to some strict time limits, but if you’re just playing for fun, this title will give you a glowing smile. Check out our review for more info.

Tentacles is the story of Lemmy, a microscopic, artificially-created, tentacled creature. He journeys through 40 stages inside a mad scientist’s body, eating tons of eyes along the way. That’s the good part – the bad part is the countless unnecessary deaths due to poor design decisions like taking control away from the player when you’re getting hit and the occasional horrible currents that push Lemmy to his doom. For the full story, check out my review. But Tentacles has a lot of fans who don’t mind the whacked-out difficulty, so the sale price may be right up your alley. It also just received an 80 MS Point DLC expansion that adds 16 new levels but no extra Achievements.

Glow Artisan is on sale for $1.99 for one week only, down from $2.99. Marketplace link

Tentacles now permanently costs $2.99, down from $4.99. Marketplace Link

Thanks to Lucas for the clarification on Tentacles' price drop.

While we’ve seen several repeat Xbox Live Deals of the Week lately, this week’s special is something fresh. Tentacles, the Windows Phone-exclusive title from Press Play, is now on sale for $2.99.

Tentacles is a game that you’re bound to fall in love with, at least early on. Pulling protagonist Lemmy around one-tentacle at a time is different and fun. The stellar graphics, sound, and humorous story sequences instantly appeal. Unfortunately, later in the game the level design goes way downhill, creating lots of frustration from repeated deaths. It’s annoying and unfitting a game that would otherwise have huge mass appeal. I discuss the issue more fully in our review. Not everybody has a problem with the difficulty though, so many of you will likely enjoy it anyway.

Tentacles is on sale for $2.99 for one week only. To buy it, use the appendage of your choice to head over here on the Marketplace.

Like many of you, we here at WPCentral were excited about Windows Phone-exclusive Xbox Live game Tentacles prior to its release. Press Play’s follow-up to Max and the Magic Marker shows all the creativity we would expect from them, with a control method that’s unlike any other game, ever.

But if you actually play the game and get farther into it, you may notice something seems a bit off… Namely, this game is hard! I mean Ninja Gaiden, put your groin into a vice grip and spin the handle hard. The latter half of the game is just tortuous rather than fun. Every little mistake results in the death of Lemmy, the tentacled hero. Levels win which currents push Lemmy into spikes are particularly frustrating. A small percentage of gamers (masochists, I call them) prefer games to be uber-challenging, but most don’t – especially on mobile phones. Why should Tentacles be this tough?

As it turns out, the developers hold no animosity toward gamers. According to Ole Teglbjærg, the game's director:

...We probably underestimated the difficulty a bit.... When we saw how few [players] actually made it through the game, we decided that it would be silly not to have more people enjoy the later levels and bosses, that we have put so much effort into creating.

Press Play has informed us that a future update will address Tentacles’ challenge in a couple of ways:

Easy mode: We have made an easy mode, which basically lets Lemmy take more damage without dying. At the same time we really back the idea that achievements should be earned and not be too easy to get. So when you play in easy mode, you will not get the “No Death” star at the end of the level. So if you want all the achievements, you still need to be hardcore.
Furthermore we polished a few problematic areas and tweaked here and there – see if you can find them!!!

It's great to see them taking steps to extend the game's appeal to a wider audience, because the game has a lot to love – when it’s not trying to break players’ spirits. Locking a couple of the Achievements out of Easy mode is not so great, but maybe those extra refinements they mention will reduce the frustration for Achievement hunters too. We’re willing to give Press Play the benefit of a doubt, so we’ll hold off on our review until the update lands.

Now that Windows Phone-exclusive Beards and Beaks is available on the Marketplace, would you expect Microsoft to follow up next week with something less exciting? An iPhone puzzle game port, maybe? I mean, we can all agree that there simply aren’t enough puzzle games on Windows Phone... Well too bad, suckas! Next week marks two big Xbox Live releases in a row as Tentacles from Press Play comes to the Marketplace.

Tentacles is a top-down platformer starring Lemmy, a microscopic tentacled creature. Lemmy journeys through the body of the scientist who created him, eating eyeballs (?) and battling dangerous creatures along the way. Tapping the screen moves the little hero one tentacle at a time, and he also has a clawed tentacle for attacks. Press Play’s latest game has impressive 3D graphics and a subversive sense of humor – no surprise as they are the team who brought us the highly creative Max and the Magic Marker, which happens to be the Deal of the Week right now.

Tentacles crawls to the Marketplace on Wednesday, July 20 for the price of $4.99. That’s like $1.25 per tentacle! Read WPCentral’s interview with developer Press Play for more screens and details.