![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
COMPLETE: Lawn Mower
Feb. 9th, 2020 05:30 pmI was using Hakchi2 to flash various games to my NES Classic console, and I noticed within the sort of app-store-like module repository, next to the RetroArch cores, emulators for various other systems, and other mods and options, they offered a selection of homebrew games you could just download and install. Some of them looked pretty neat, and I was adding a kjhgpillion games to this thing anyway, so why not toss them in, right? You might hear about the other ones on here if we get around to them, but I started with this one because a staged-based arcade thing-doer seemed shorter and less of a commitment than, say, a Crystalis/Zelda-like ARPG.
Anyway, Lawn Mower. You are the world's least efficient riding mower, able to last an impressive ten seconds or so on a full tank of gas. You drive around at one of two speeds: leisurely, and hold A for AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. You need to mow every grass tile before you run out of fuel. Gas cans appear one at a time, in a random location that can be any already-mowed grass tile. This makes stages easier when you first start them, since you know the can is going to be nearby and within easy reach, but woe unto you if you're like 99% done and working on one corner of the screen and the can spawns all the way over there in the other one. You need to clear everywhere, but since the can can be anywhere you've cleared, things get tricky.
There are also flowers and rocks, which you're meant to avoid at the cost of a significant loss of fuel if you smack into them. Flowers become standard mowable tiles once you hit them once whereas rocks are still there no matter how many times you run over them, but let's be honest; you hit either one once and you're probably going to run out of fuel and lose anyway.
All in all, it's a very solid concept for a stage-clearer game, and it's pretty enjoyable early on. I was starting to run into Down Ward syndrome toward the end, where the stages were getting longer and harder and oh God how much longer is this? Am I almost done? I then looked up a playthrough video and it turned out that I was on the literal last stage, and all I had to do was sweat it out for one more lawn and I'd have it. And so I did.
So yeah, good experience, neat fun little thing, ended just in time if not one single stage too late.
Anyway, Lawn Mower. You are the world's least efficient riding mower, able to last an impressive ten seconds or so on a full tank of gas. You drive around at one of two speeds: leisurely, and hold A for AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. You need to mow every grass tile before you run out of fuel. Gas cans appear one at a time, in a random location that can be any already-mowed grass tile. This makes stages easier when you first start them, since you know the can is going to be nearby and within easy reach, but woe unto you if you're like 99% done and working on one corner of the screen and the can spawns all the way over there in the other one. You need to clear everywhere, but since the can can be anywhere you've cleared, things get tricky.
There are also flowers and rocks, which you're meant to avoid at the cost of a significant loss of fuel if you smack into them. Flowers become standard mowable tiles once you hit them once whereas rocks are still there no matter how many times you run over them, but let's be honest; you hit either one once and you're probably going to run out of fuel and lose anyway.
All in all, it's a very solid concept for a stage-clearer game, and it's pretty enjoyable early on. I was starting to run into Down Ward syndrome toward the end, where the stages were getting longer and harder and oh God how much longer is this? Am I almost done? I then looked up a playthrough video and it turned out that I was on the literal last stage, and all I had to do was sweat it out for one more lawn and I'd have it. And so I did.
So yeah, good experience, neat fun little thing, ended just in time if not one single stage too late.