Two screenshots for you this time. Check it out.

This one is an action screenshot, pretty much just because a guy on the Retro Remakes forum wanted to see the game in action. Not much else to say about it.

A marine without a helmet? This is Derelict's mysterious antagonist who taunts our heroes as they struggle their way through the Atlas. I haven't really put much else in the game at the moment, just slowly chipping away at it. I won't be able to work on it this weekend (Holiday) but I will try to get some serious work done on it next week.

Time for my second random free game pick:

This is the first screen grab submitted by someone else, in this case Sam Jeffreys who has contributed a few levels and textures for Derelict. This is his new medical deck level and it is bloody brilliant. It appears here he managed to get most of the way through the level but ran afoul of a last minute enemy ambush.

I am very happy to announce that Derelict has finally reached its 0.5 beta. It is the accumulation of six month's spare time work. It only has 10 levels and 1 boss fight (I had originally intended to have 12 levels and 2 boss fights) but is nonetheless challenging and will take anyone a decent length of time to conquer (especially on the harder difficulties!)

EDIT: Malcolm has again generously agreed to host it on his site. It can be downloaded here

I thought up an idea for yet another regular blog feature: the Random Free Game Review. Every week or so I will pick the first game from a randomised list of freeware games, have a decent play of it and report my experience on the blog, as a way of expanding my gaming palette and to hopefully find some unknown treasures.

My very first thought (which may be the same as yours) was "what the hell is this". Indeed the graphics don't appear to resemble anything from real life (Actually they kind of remind me of that tower defense game). Despite that they're rather soothing and have some nice particle effects. The Game is a Game made in Game Maker that is a remake of another Game made in Game Maker (!!). I haven't played the original though so I can't compare. The object of the game is to play through a number of levels with increasing numbers of enemies. You control where your character is moving and aiming with the mouse. You can shoot by clicking, however only one shot can be on screen at any time, but you can always cancel the shot by right clicking. A middle click restarts the level if you end up dead. I found the game to be briefly addictive. The gameplay is fast and frantic as you weave your "Yum Yum" through enemy fire and launch strikes. There are a good number of levels (I didn't get to see them all) as well as a decent variety of different enemies. However there are a few annoyances that stop the game from shining. For starters, I couldn't find any sound or music anywhere in the game. The game seems to be a demo so there are a couple of game modes that you can't access (leaving you with the 'adventure' mode) and the gameplay has some things that are as annoying as hell. In -some- levels (not all) you seem to start in a spot in the bottom right corner of the level rather then in the same place you finished the last level, which really throws me off. On top of this there is absolutely no grace period - you can die within a second of starting a level if enemies spawn right next to you. Overall I found Yum Yum Remake to be an enjoyable, if frustrating diversion for a few minutes. If the game had been more fair and polished I might have given it an 8/10, but I will be leaving it with a 6/10.