DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper

The more i play it, the more i hate it. Game is overall good but there are so many little things adds up to make me "hate" the game. First of all, death/ending cutscenes. You can't skip them. So lets say you are playing a mini-game for the first time, you need to watch this unskippable end scene for at least 4-5 seconds each time you fail. On most of the games i died like in 2 seconds because i didnt understand how to beat it (like the hotdog mini game) and game forced me to watch this failing cutscene for literally more than i played it (in seconds). Thats just frustrating and some of the failing scenes are more than 10 seconds. Second one is a personal issue, i encountered a bug on final mission of chapter 3(?) where we need to drive car and deliver an item to customers. One of the rival cars blocked me and i tried to move for a reeeeaaaly long time until i wanted to restart. Which you can't, you need to play all other 19 mini games to get to the final one. The only time i wish timer was a thing. https://prnt.sc/UJkHa-WKLGVf Third and last: The Timer. Some of these mini games have some animations that you cant skip and it counts from your timer. (for example rocket building one, it takes like 6-7 precious seconds of mine; that i failed that one so many times.) I really want to like this game but again, the more i play it more i hate it. And no, i dont take the "we designed it to be bad" answer seriously.

[h1] Игра, которая поможет свести ОЛДскулы и одновременно отправить тебя на Марс.[/h1] [code] Время прохождения на ОРИГИНАЛЬНОЙ сложности - 7 часов. [/code] [u] [b] ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ:[/b][/u] По статистике достижений Стим - прошли игру лишь 4% игроков, и думаю причина бросания у всех одна. ✅[i] [b] - КОНЦЕПЦИЯ.[/b][/i] Прикольная идея, 100 старых (а может и новых) ретро-игр. ✅[i] [b] - АРТЫ.[/b][/i] Приятные. ✅[i] [b] - ОТСЫЛКИ.[/b][/i] Главный плюс игры, много мемов, улыбнуло. ✅[i] [b] - ЭКСТРА-МАТЕРИАЛЫ.[/b][/i] Всегда интересно почитать как разрабатывалась игра и в частности мысли разработчиков. ✅[i] [b] - САУНДТРЕКИ.[/b][/i] Почти в каждой мини-игр свой саунд, это круто. ❌[i] [b] -ПОВТОРЕНИЕ - МАТЬ УЧЕНИЯ.[/b][/i] Главная проблема игры. Перед каждой мини игрой есть краткое управление и цель. Но пока ты не увидишь мини игру - ты не поймёшь что делать, т.к. тебе надо иметь представление, 2Д игра это, с видом сверху, от 1-го лица, ГОНКИ, ФАЙТИНГ и тд. Ты будешь проигрывать, ты будешь переигрывать. пока не выучишь тайминги и анимации. ТЫ ОБЯЗАН ВЫУЧИТЬ УРОВЕНЬ, местоположение ключевых объектов, поведение врагов. Я проходил одну главу и мне просто становилось душно и скучно, делал паузу в неделю перед следующей главой. ❌[i] [b] -ХИТ-БОКСЫ.[/b][/i] Конечно никто тут не прорабатывал каждую игру досконально, поэтому кое-где персонаж будет умирать даже если пуля в 10 пикселях от него. ❌[i] [b] -ГЕЙМПЛЕЙ.[/b][/i] Иногда персонаж автоматически двигается (по задумке уровня), ты не можешь его контролировать, но в это время тебе надо ещё и драться, и уклоняться от препятствий. Если уровни на реакцию я прохожу с первого раза, там всё интуитивно понятно - вовремя нажми кнопку, то уровни где нужно двигаться это АД. ❌[i] [b] -ВЛИЯНИЕ РАНДОМА.[/b][/i] Как будут вести себя враги - залог успеха. Какая будет трасса/карта - залог успеха. В каком порядке расположатся первые 19 уровней - залог успеха. (ведь каждые 10 и 15 пройденных уровней игра усложняется). У тебя может быть один заход СУПЕР ПОТНЫМ, а на втором ИИ вообще в ступор встанет. И тоже самое на пазл-уровнях, может зарандомить на простое расположение объектов, а пожмет на высматривание пикселя. ❌[i] [b] -БОСС-УРОВНИ.[/b][/i] Самые долгие уровни в игре. Их нельзя пропустить, потратив жизнь. Умер на 5-й минуте? - начинай с начала. ❌[i] [b] -УПРАВЛЕНИЕ.[/b][/i] Само управление не чувствуется, что оно откликивается. Поддержки мыши вообще нет, приходится курсор двигать на WASD в 2023 году в СТИМЕ. Переназначить кнопки нельзя. У меня свободные Q и E, это УДОБНО, но разработчики сделали действия на ZXC. WASD - бегать, а ZXC - взаимодействовать. Q и E НИКАК НЕ ЗАДЕЙСТВОВАНЫ. ❌[i] [b] -МЕХАНИКА УРОВНЕЙ.[/b][/i] Очень много уровней повторяются геймплейными механиками, особенно в последней главе.

Not very friendly in terms of accessibility. Retro-themed or not, that's no excuse to: * Throw in a lot of button mashing games, enough that I went and bound single and multiple button turbos via Steam's controller profiles. My days of playing Smash Melee and/or Mario Party are long gone, and I have low tolerance for thoughtless inputs/mashes. * Have several tests where one must quickly identify colors of similar shades, some of which are mild or even imperceptible to me. I'm red-green colorblind and it got in the way more than once. * Put in a mandatory sequence of ~9 randomized button presses while a very annoying tone plays (unless changing the difficulty from Original) within a 5 second timer every time a game is failed. While trivial for me to perform, it wasn't trivial for my SO, and between having to do this and having to watch every game's intro every run, there's many games where you spend more time doing this than playing the game! There's even a Steam thread where someone brought this issue up and the developer was entirely unsympathetic, claiming that's how retro games are...which is a load of bs. * Have several cases of "Gotcha!" where if you haven't played the game before, information you're not privy to will have you dead man walking, such as off-screen obstacles where you need to be in certain positions or speeds yet have no clue beforehand that that's the case. * Balance is all over the place, with some games being trivial regardless of difficulty setting and others being difficult even on Easy. * The boss of Story's second chapter induced motion sickness on me. Its one of those 16-bit era first person dungeon POVs, with an awkward camera and generic walls. You can't skip boss fights, so this hard-locked me out of getting to more content for over an hour, until my SO was able to get one successful clear. And this is only having seen the first 60 of 100 games. Its not for hating retro - I grew up in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, and have been exposed to and enjoyed games that predate those eras. But most of those games don't go out of their way to annoy like this game does. And if you're thinking this is more of a WarioWare style game, the pacing is wrong for that too - controls are not intuitive without hints enabled, game intros/outros take too long, and ultimately its less about reaction speed and more about filler. I'll probably attempt to finish due to sunk cost, but I don't anticipate enough changes happening to make this a positive review in the future. --- Regarding the developer's comment: 1) At the time of this review, I have seen 60 games. Of those, I can think of several off memory that rely on button mashing (jungle escape, cat dinner, baseball, race with water hurdles) where the main point of the minigame is the speed of the mashing. There are others where it can be argued, such as the tortoise/hare race where a preset order of keys need repeated, that mashing may or may not be present. 3) The problem is when I want to play original difficulty without the added tedium. My experience is that the "cheat code" sequence is both time wasted, and in the case of the partner I'm playing with, very stressful. But if I don't pick original, letting them play the Easy half and me the Normal/Hard half, then we can't share the experience. To borrow a comparison from a well known game, think of L-canceling from Smash Melee. It was already correct to do, it wasn't hard to do, but it must be done since failing to do so doubled your landing lag. In essence, it made players do extra inputs that had no purpose other than to be mandatory, since anyone decent at the game wouldn't mess them up. Your cheat code system is just like this. Listen to an annoying sound while inputting arbitrary presses, and even if I mess up, there's enough time to do it again...except for players who aren't so fast and get screwed over by such a system existing. It serves no purpose other than to gatekeep and/or waste a player's time. 6) I have since found that the game does not handle mirroring well unless I both turn off G-sync and force 60 FPS through Nvidia Control Panel. If I do that, the framerate is more stable, at the cost of having to change it back whenever playing unmirrored on my main monitor. While G-sync is not something you have control over, there should be a setting in the options for setting a frame limit, and ideally for toggling V-sync as well.

I wanted to like this game, it has some good ideas, but I ended up with more frustration than fun, so I can't recommend it. The game is about minigames, like WarioWare, but in that game games are intuitive and fast-paced, here they're not, a few are, bust most aren't. While Wario would give you instructions in a couple of words and you would immediately know what to do, here you are given a whole dialogue box explaining the game and the controls, and that's for each of the 100 minigames, so, not good. As for the games themselves, I liked a few quite a lot, most are just okay, some are bad, and some are godawful, mainly the bosses. Some of the games have terrible controls, and some even feel that no matter what you do, it comes down to pure luck, while others seem to require and absolute perfect execution, whether that means memorizing the game to know what's coming, or leaving no room for error. Most of the ideas for the games are fine, they have potential, but they're poorly executed. My main complain would be the bosses, the second one was the first real problem, up to that point only a couple of games had been frustrating, but the rest was okay and the pacing was good, but upon reaching the second boss the pace comes to a halt, the boss is so long and slow and uninteresting, again, the idea was good, but it could have been handled so much better. When I got to the 4th boss I immediately liked the concept, but I quickly ended up hating the game, because, again, it was implemented poorly and it ends up being frustrated, at one point I was about to finish and I accidentally hit a random thing in front of a person I needed to deliver something to, thus softlocking it, it was just absurd. The worst game is the 5th boss, again, the idea was interesting and I liked it at first, until I started running into enemies with patterns that clash with your current trajectory, which you can't modify, so you have to waste a lot of time adjusting that trajectory running back and forth to be able to get past the enemies, and worst of all some parts that require VERY precision platforming, all while not being able to control your character because he runs on his own, and when if you lose your lives you have to start from the beginning and lose another 10 minutes or so doing the same stuff, while not being able to do it any faster, which makes it feel all the slower and boring. You can't skip the intros, so you have to watch again everytime you fail, and in some games you know that you've already lost after a few seconds because you weren't perfect as the game required, but still you have to wait for the time to finish or to use all your moves to lose, because you can't restart. It seems that just a couple of days ago there was a patch, apparently previously you could lose all of your lives in the bosses and you would have to do all 20 minigames again, they changed that. That was a good call, the last 2 stages already feel like torture, I can't imagine it being worse. Sadly during my time with the game I can recall more frustration than fun, and the bad outweighs to good, which is a shame because I think it did have potential, but it's ultimately wasted.

好不容易打到最后一关，然而BOSS战没有任何引导，不知道怎么操作，直接暴毙了。结果又重刚开始重新打，心态有点炸。游戏还是比较优秀了，我很喜欢。就是最后一关没引导的BOSS战给我整不会了:(

When people hear DUCK, most of them think there’s a really angry person screaming something about fluffy swimming quacking birds. Those of us with combat experience instantly drop to the floor. A super tiny amount of people think DuckDuckGo is finally gaining recognition throughout the internet. But I guarantee that, a couple of years ago, not a single person thought of DUCK as an acronym for Destructive Unicorn Comboing a Knight. Oh, wait, hold on, I think I got that wrong. Let me check my notes. Ah, here we go, Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper. Yeah, I guarantee not a soul thought of that acronym a few years ago… but now, if you don’t, you should, because it’s the name of a pretty fun game! Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper, or [b]DUCK for short, is basically a collection of 100 micro-games.[/b] You play as one of 5 ducklings, depending on the story chapter. The story goes that the siblings found a random 1-in-100 cartridge for their game console and decided to just plug it in, because why not. Well, I’ll tell you why not: the cartridge was actually an evil spirit who locked the ducklings in the room and forced them to play the games contained within the cartridge. At this point you might be thinking: “hey, this isn’t evil at all!” and honestly you’d be right, if not for the whole “if you lose I’ll trap your soul in my game” thing that I forgot to mention. …And that’s it for the story, really. Each chapter is one sibling playing through 20 of the games, with the goal of beating all of them and being freed by the evil spirit. [b]The story might not be too much but that’s okay because it’s absolutely just a way to lead the player into the micro-games themselves.[/b] You barely spend any time in dialogue, and even the few lines there are can be skipped by pressing a button. The game clearly banks all of its enjoyment and value in the microgames and the other gameplay modes available, and that’s perfectly fine as a premise. However, in order to work in practice, the microgames have to actually be, you know… good. So, are they? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934819388 [b]Well, I’m pleased to say I had a good time with them, yes! Well, with most of them anyway. If you have 100 microgames in a game, you’re bound to get a few stinkers in there.[/b] Even Mario Party can’t escape this curse. But before we get to that point, let’s explain what these microgames actually are. They’re arcade-y games usually lasting 30s or less, with some reaching up to 1m and a few very rare ones, 5m. These last ones are usually the boss rounds. [b]The variety in these microgames is astounding.[/b] You have stuff that tests your coordination, other minigames that test your luck and navigation skills, some other that test your reaction speed… the list goes on. Most of the classic arcade games you can think of have a copy in this game. Others are more original and creative. You might even recognize some popular memes here. While the games are all varied, they all have very simple controls, again, akin to the classics. At the beginning of each microgame, you also get a screen explaining the rules and the controls. While you might be tempted to just skip it and figure stuff out yourself, I’d caution against that, as some of the minigames are not super intuitive. Or maybe I’m just too low IQ for this. [b]As far as difficulty goes, there are two things that affects it, at least in story mode: the actual difficulty you choose and the position the microgame is located in the queue, which is randomized.[/b] Basically, play through the chapter, the score you need to achieve to complete a microgame increases once after 10 games cleared, and a second time after 15 games cleared. The other way to increase your difficulty is during chapter selection. As you choose a chapter, you can pick one of four difficulty levels. What they change varies a lot between each microgame, with some getting lower time limits and others getting stuff like whole different, and harder, maps for you to play through. They put a lot of care into trying to make difficulties feel unique, which I appreciate… but I can’t help but feel it’s still lacking in some senses. I played the game in hard mode, and lots of the stages were still pretty easy to get through, while other microgames felt almost impossible. [b]Stage skipping works like this: in story mode, you have your five ducklings. Every chapter, they all start alive, and end up working as your life. Every time you skip a level, or whenever you die during the boss microgame, you lose a duckling.[/b] Lose all 5 and you get to start the chapter from the beginning. This creates a very interesting mechanic if you’re playing without knowing the microgames beforehand, because you have to decide whether you want to save your ducklings for the final round, which tends to be a lot more difficult, or if you want to skip a particularly annoying level and lose a duckling. It’s an interesting mechanic, but trust me, you will find it hard to resist the urge to skip some levels. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934819484 [b]While most microgames felt good to me, a few of them were particularly obnoxious to play through.[/b] I really couldn’t stomach them. But again, this is subjective and you may very well enjoy all the game has to offer, or dislike a selection that I loved. But I still had to mention this to get a point across: you won’t be a fan of every microgame. It may sound obvious, but you never know who needs to hear this sorta thing. That being said, though, if you dislike some microgames, you don’t necessarily HAVE to deal with them! Aside from the skip I mentioned, [b]the game also has other gamemodes.[/b] There’s a practice mode if you want to git gud at the pesky microgames that keep eluding you, as well as a golden duck game that has you playing through each microgame on all difficulty settings to earn golden ducks, which you can then use for the collectibles I’ll talk about in a bit. There’s also an endless mode where it’s just minigame after minigame in whatever difficulty you choose, including randomized difficulty if you prefer. If you’re not a loner like myself, there’s also a party mode! Remember how I said there are 5 ducklings? Well, you can get together with up to 4 of your friends for a total of 5 people playing the game! There are two modes here, both of them competitive. [b]Throughout the game, as you play all these modes, you’ll naturally achieve hidden objectives that give you different rewards.[/b] There are two main types of rewards: one is decoration and the other is achievements. Decorations are basically cool looking frames for your minigames, while achievements are… well, achievements. The ones you’re used to. The game tracks them in a menu, and even gives you hints on what to do to unlock them. Same for the decorations. It’s all pretty nice to have! [b]And if you’re curious about the other aspects of the game, well… I’m pleased to say the visuals are really good, and the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal at times.[/b] Technically speaking, the game is well optimized, but I did run into some typos and instructions that were slightly wrong, such as telling me I had 25 seconds to finish a level when in reality I only had 20. Very minor stuff though! All in all, I was really glad to have had this experience. And I certainly plan on going back to it once I get someone to play the microgames with me! It doesn’t even need to be next to you: apparently, the game supports steam remote play together, so you may want to give that a try! If you do pick up the game, let me know how you like it. Or not like it. [quote]This review is also available in video format over on youtube! Check it out below! [/quote] https://youtu.be/VB9o0i9YotQ

A chic collection of mini-games in 8-bit style! The idea of some of the games was taken from the original NES games, some of the games were invented from scratch. The style of the drawn ducks and the environment is cool. The music and sounds are perfect. DUCK will appeal to those who spent a lot of time playing NES in childhood and adolescence, and also, thanks to its easy controls, is perfect for children as an introduction to video games. The downside for me was a few very difficult mini-games that just drove me furious.

[h1]Quck-my beer[/h1] Ladies and gentlemen, we got them? Freaking 100 in 1! This game will have you quacking with excitement as you waddle through levels, dodging enemies and playing some old stuff. [b][u]STORY/LORE[/u][/b] In DUCK, you play as a daring duck who has been tasked with saving the world from the evil Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper. Now, I know what you're thinking, "What does a duck know about saving the world?" Well, apparently more than we thought, because this feathery hero is up to the task. [b][u]GAMEPLAY[/u][/b] The gaming process is where this game really shines. You control your duck with precision, flapping your wings to jump and avoid obstacles. You can also collect power-ups to help you on your mission, including a speed boost and invincibility. And let's not forget about the cartridges - collecting these will unlock new levels and abilities. Trust me, this is will be so damn awesome. [b][u]STYLE(GRAPHIC/SOUND DESIGN)[/u][/b] This game may not have the most advanced graphics, but what it lacks in realism, it makes up for in charm. The bright colors and cartoonish design of the levels and enemies will have you feeling like you're in a classic cartoon. [b][u]PROBLEMS[/u][/b] Of course, no game is perfect, and this project does have its problems. For one, the controls can be a bit finicky, and it can be frustrating when your duck doesn't jump when you want it to. Also, the game can be a bit short - I beat it in just a few hours. But let's be honest, you're not playing DUCK for a deep, immersive experience. You're playing it for the sheer joy of being a duck on a mission. DUCK is a quacking good time. It's not the most complex game out there, but it doesn't need to be. It's a fun, light-hearted adventure that will have you laughing and smiling from start to finish. So if you're looking for a game that will have you feeling like a hero, look no further than DUCK. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43513836]FOLLOW MY COURATOR SIGHT[/url] [i]*click*[/i]

Bazı minigameleri çok kaliteli ve bazıları ise aşırı rezalet... Bir sürü oyun barındırıyor içerisinde ama yarısı iyi yarısı boş ve çok kötü... Arkadaşlarla remote play ile oynarız diyorduk ama party modu çok kötü ve kalitesiz... Beklentilerimi karşılamadı. (Ayrıca 12 USD edecek bir oyun değil.) 4/10

I really like the base idea of this: a group of duck friends find a cartridge which has 100 games on it and they decided to play it at home, however the cartridge has a spirit and traps all of them to play the games on the cartridge. They have to beat 20 games each without failing too many times to beat the spirit. After a character beats 10 games, the next 5 going to get a little bit more difficult somehow, and for the next 4 the difficulty increases again. It has lot of different mini games from different time of gaming history, which are either referencing well known games or the general games which you can find in those time, and I think this is really cool. The controls and the gameplay are well explained for all of the mini games and the original difficulty gives enough challenge for the player. There are also secrets in certain mini games which can unlock additional content for the whole game. There is also a couch multiplayer for it. The sound design fitting as well. However there are some mini games which are just annoying to play, either because of the controls are not fitting well for that game type or the mini game is really difficult and has traps in it which you can't really expect, however if you play on the original difficulty you have 5 lives per character which can skip that mini game, but there are also boss mini games at the end of each chapter, which are longer and most of the times more difficult to beat and some of them just nerve wrecking and you can't skip them. You need lot of retries to get used to them which is accessible on the original difficulty, but I can't imagine how bad on higher difficulty settings and this basically killed all the fun for me. I really tried to enjoy this game, getting back to it multiple times to give it another shot but I got stuck at chapter 5 boss level and I really don't have the patience anymore. This is a difficult game for sure which can be annoying for some, for me it's just a mid game but still positive. If you enjoy these gauntlet type games then I recommend you to give it a shot but get it under 7€ in my opinion, otherwise just skip.