The Elephant Collection

I love this game very very much. It was actually pivotal to my development, and one of my core memories (even if I didn’t quite understand english at the time). It is very worth it, and very fun. That said, I would love a proper linux port. As is, the game appears to have some memory leak and other compatibility issues. But it runs fine after you open it, for around an hour and a half. Nevertheless! Pretty, and as sweet as I remembered.

Played a bunch of these games growing up. Worth buying for the sole purpose of supporting the dev.

I played these games a lot when Flash was still alive, and I still think they're fun. However, do not go into these expecting amazing gameplay. They're changed only in areas where it was impossible to leave them as their original. The physics are still very janky, and certain achievements are evil (I'm not doing the 20 combo jump on hamsters). It's good, but I'm not sure $15 is worth it. I got it on sale.

While I think John is a nice lad who's games I've played since I was young, this collection of game was very fun and engaging with a way to financially support but I am now done 100%ing the game and left frustrated at how tedious some of the games were. Some were lagging after a while, many have way too much screen effects that make it hard to tell what's happening, and the challenge for several of the achievements let alone modes are ridiculous. Understandably a lot of these flash games are old and are not going to be really touched upon as a "balance patch" nonetheless that doesn't make the last 5+ hours of my time with this game (almost half if not over it) not NOT tedious and frankly not worthwhile. I also brought up an issue via Bluesky about a bug and was met with a "oh, yea that's unfortunate" making me have to redo a whole game over at 99%... blegh, yea, no thanks. Sorry Jmbt02, the rose tinted glasses are gone. (Tl;Dr fun novelty but do not 100% the collection)

It is a genuinely good thing to see art preserved like this. Mostly just purchased for elephant quest. The rest are good, EQ is one of the best games ever made.

Fun series, but an obnoxious amount of seizure-inducing screen flashes and grind, really should be fixed in the year of our lord 2000+

final rating 7/10 This is a bunch of nostalgia bait but is also genuinely a fun little collection of games. I mainly bought this for the achievement unlocked games that I never did beat as a kid but the other games are nice too. I wish I could rated it higher but the fact that they didn't really fix any of the old bugs and had a handful of crashes knocked down the rating. Final verdict buy it on sale. It's worth like 5$ not the 15$ it sells for.

Expect performance below 30fps. I was hoping for a constant 60. One thing that detracked from my experience was the constant stuttering. I don't know if it because the games are running off a Flash emulator. The gameplay is fine. the music score is good (especially for the raves). The little developer commentary tidbits over each game's door was interesting. But Nostalgia is a cruel mistress and I just didn't enjoy my time for most of the games (mainly due to the performance). Elephant Quest looked like it would have been fun to play (since I never played that one back in the day) but the poor performance is just too much for me. I noticed the stutters especially in that one.

elephant

[u] DISCLAIMER: What you are about to read is heavily influenced by childhood nostalgia and may not be an accurate representation of the games contained in this collection. All games are available online for free using the Ruffle flash emulator. Please proceed with caution. You have been warned. [/u] [h1] Background [/h1] [b] The Elephant Collection [/b] is a collection of thirteen classic adobe flash games by jmtb02, all featuring a little blue elephant. Chances are that if you were born in the early 2000’s, and had unlimited access to the internet, you probably stumbled upon one of jmtb02’s before. He was a major contributor to the flash game scene on both Armor Games and Kongregate. Eventually becoming the CEO of Armor Games. While maybe not as influential as figures such as Tom Fulp, I believe that jmtb02 has his own place in flash gaming’s Hall of Fame Personally, I remember playing these games so much. I can’t tell you how many times I would finish my schoolwork on the computer early and just boot up [i] This is the Only Level 2 [/i]. These games made up such a huge part of my childhood. When I saw that they were remastered and brought to Steam, it was an almost instant purchase for me. Not just to relive my childhood, but also to support this small developer responsible for making such clever games. [h1] Story [/h1] The little blue elephant has forgotten. He has no recollection of any of his accomplishments. To remember his past achievements, he is to go through and play his old adventures and obtain achievements in each game. Only then will he remember his history. As for the flash games themselves. The most you may get is a sentence or two at the start of the games describing why the Elephant is doing this. Then once you beat the game, a short cutscene showing the results of your endeavor. I think the game with the most story to it might be [i] Achievement Unlocked 3 [/i]. Ultimately, these games are meant to just be pick up ‘n play fun. No stories are needed. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] There are thirteen games in this collection, for the sake of brevity I’d like to just focus on some of my favorites and least favorites. If a game isn’t discussed here, I likely just thought it was... meh. [h3] Achievement Unlocked 1, 2, and 3 [/h3] Because I’m a freak that loves getting notifications in games telling me I did something, these are my favorites of this collection. [i] Achievement Unlocked [/i] is a series of games all about... unlocking achievements. These flash games were made when achievements in games were still relatively new, and they could be construed as a satire of the mechanic. Everything you do in these games gives you an achievement. Moving right, moving left, jumping, doing nothing, dying. Anything you can possibly do in the game gives you an achievement. [i] Achievement Unlocked 1 [/i] keeps it simple. The Elephant is confined in a room, there are 100 achievements, get them. For as basic as a concept it is, it still manages to be fun. [i] Achievement Unlocked 2 [/i] is probably the highlight of the series, though. More rooms were added in and with that, more achievements. Each room is jampacked with things to do, adding a gimmick to each room for the player to play with. This is the one I go back to the most. [i] Achievement Unlocked 3 [/i] is where it becomes a little too much. The number of achievements has been more than doubled, and the map size has grown even bigger. While the nature of doing little tasks for an achievement can get old fast, this is the only game where it gets tedious. It’s still fun to play through once, but there is just too much here to justify repeat playthroughs. [h3] This is the Only Level 1, 2, and 3 [/h3] Another highlight from [b] The Elephant Collection [/b]. [i] This is the Only Level [/i] is a series of games revolved around playing the same level over and over again, but each time is a little different. The game typically starts with completing the level normally, but next time you may have to solve it backwards. Maybe you can only move by pressing left and right in quick succession. Each subsequent replay has its own gimmick to overcome. The quality of each game in the series is like [i] Achievement Unlocked [/i]. The first game keeps it simple; the second expands the concept while keeping the gameplay tight, and the third game just does way too much. If the game is based around repetivity with minor changes, I’d rather be spending at most a minute on each level and trying to shorten my playtime. The first and second games do this well, with a tight level design that keeps things simple. The third game’s level just has too many elements to it with the lever and teleportation doors. Each repeat just feels like it takes a little too long to complete, which gets tedious when trying to optimize your playtime. [h3] Run, Elephant, Run [/h3] God, this game is annoying. It’s a short game, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome and is enjoyable casually. But if you try to get every achievement in this game, prepare for frustration. This one is plagued with bad collision and annoying platforming, paired with having to dodge all the obstacles. This is the only game in the collection that I can confidently say that I hate. [h3] LOOT the Game [/h3] [i] LOOT the Game [/i] is a game where the little blue elephant chases down a train, collecting loot and getting more powerful in the progress. I had mixed feelings about this game. The start of the game is slow and destroying one train car can take way too long. When turrets start to get added to the train cars this just increases how long it takes to just destroy a single car. And the turrets will always eat your health away. I don’t have a problem with this in theory; they should pose a threat. No matter how upgraded you are and how much armor you have on, one hit from the turrets will take half your health bar away. It can just get annoying when you’re in the early game and you get stuck because the turrets are too powerful and you can’t do enough damage to them. [h1] Gamefeel [/h1] I enjoyed the hub world of [b] The Elephant Collection [/b]. It seems to take some inspiration from the Namco Museum series and provides some history to the creation and development of each game in the collection. I take great interest in learning the behind-the-scenes details about video games I play. Each game having about three paragraphs of information about each of them was super cool to see. Especially in a smaller title like this about a bunch of old flash games. Being ported to Steam really benefits these flash games. Because it had to be compressed for Flash, performance was always hit-or-miss on the browser. This was especially apparent when more entities would be spawned in the games. [i] Achievement Unlocked 3 [/i] is perhaps the biggest offender of this, slowing to a crawl with all the hamsters and pastries on screen. But once these games were able to take full advantage of the computer’s hardware, performance became such a non-problem. My computer had no issues keeping up with any of the games even while being bombarded with effects and entities. It was cathartic being able to experience everything at a smooth, consistent framerate. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] [b] The Elephant Collection [/b] is targeting a more niche audience. I would anticipate people who have never played these flash games being underwhelmed by the package. For those who grew up playing these flash games, this game is a great trip down memory lane. None of the games have been overly modified from their original experiences, its only performance that was focused on and improved. I had a lot of fun with this game, though. I still find myself going back to it in my free time and playing a couple of the games in the collection. I would recommend this to anyone who has played any of jmtb02’s games before. If you haven’t, maybe try out the browser versions before committing to this.