Day 85 - Camel of Fortune: Operation Gold2th
Platformer, Immersive Sim, WTF ·
Skeeter’s Take:
Alright, so full disclosure: I’ve had a long day, I’m exhausted, and the edible I took an hour ago is making me hear those strange croaking noises coming from my closet again. I only mention this, because it is relevant to today’s game: Camel of Fortune: Operation Gold2th.
Here’s a snippet from the “Background” section on this game’s itch.io page:
So, needless to say, I’m in the right “mindset” for this kind of thing.
I spent a lot of time on the menu screen when I first launched. Camel of Fortune: Operation Gold2th has its own theme song, and it bangs harder than my fictional granny when she’s playing with her hardcore band (she plays drums). I legitimately couldn’t figure out if I was listening to some old 60’s folk rock group. I was wondering if the dev had based the game on an old tune or something. Did he dig up a hidden Donovan track from a secret vault somewhere? It wasn’t until the singer said “gameboy” that the pieces clicked in for me - this was an original tune written for the game. I don’t know if the dev wrote and produced this themselves or commissioned the song out, but major props to whoever made that dime.
Allow me to refer you to another relevant snip from the Background section:
Thanks, man. I did. I really did.
I don’t know if this game was actually meant to be played high. Well, the main menu definitely was, but let me tell you, from a first hand experimental experience - I struggled.
So this is me. I’m the camel. Above me are sharks, and eels, and Aerodactyls. These are not friendly creatures to a camel. They want to kill camels.
Also above me is a gray, Star Wars droid looking object which just happens to be the camel’s spawn point should he fall a very likely timely death.
The camel has a weapon though - bananas. The camel can shoot bananas horizontally, and they can sporadically bounce off of walls.
There’s one problem. The enemies can fly, and often swoop down on the camel from above, out of reach of his banana bullets. The camel tries to escape, but the pink dotted platform to his right disappears each time it’s hit with a banana.
The camel must keep shooting bananas, or he will die to the evil baddies who constantly send reinforcements and swarm him like an ever-growing hoard of wasps.
So, the camel runs around, fruitlessly attempting to escape, caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, spitting bananas, and being ouchied by meanie heads. An amazing metaphor for life.
But then, the camel gets hit with a bit of the Darwin and realizes, if he immediately moves right he can make it to the platform and teleport away in his Doctor Who phone booth (That I can’t remember the name of right now and won’t look up get absolutely tore up Dr. Who nerds lmao). Upon making his great escape: He’s met with the head of Doctor Who himself:
Amazing. The camel has been set free by his magnetic hammer or whatever Doctor Who has (CAN’T believe the Doctor Who fans are still reading LMAO get rekt again nerds) - He is free to roam.
While there are still bad guys out to steal from the camel’s blood wallet, they have been coming in a slow trickle instead of a swarm. The camel has found he can handle that amount of threat without issue.
He finds a jazz club.
It’s a rough club. There are a couple baddies the camel swiftly disperses of. He sees a playing card for $33.79. He cannot afford that yet. But he does have 30 dollars. He kills a few more evil guys walking through the door, picks up their money, and purchases the playing card.
The camel was hoping the instruments would play. Instead, nothing happened. The camel simply paid $33.79 for a playing card.
The camel felt ripped off. While attempting to take a photo of the instruments in the Jazz club, the camel made the error of not stopping time (which is something camels can do) prior to snapping the picture.
This resulted in the camel getting suckerpunched by a shark, sending him back to the spawn.
And his friends were waiting there. The swarm of bad guys had been sitting there the entire time, ready for their revenge. And they got it.
The playing card the camel picked up actually did do something. The camel did not initially notice, but every time the camel jumped, a rainbow trail would be left behind and would do damage to his enemies. This became a problem escaping the pit of death as the pink disappearing platform would be triggered every time the camel jumped rainbow clouds out.
The camel kept exploring, but everytime the camel died, he would have to either remember to move right immediately, or fall to the pit of death.
The camel should have restarted his journey earlier, but decided to rest for the night, or eternity.
I was initially going to not recommend this game.
Here’s an example the dev posted to the itch.io page:
This camel is going nuts - he’s spitting bananas everywhere and absolutely demolishing that screensaver.
I was the camel. But I was nothing. I never got anywhere close to that level. I was initially frustrated at this game. The death loop I found myself in wasn’t the game’s fault. It was my fault. I altered my state to be a fake gamer who can’t even Dark Souls roll. I was the reason I was frustrated. I revoke my title of gamer, which I never had, which makes that double negative (don’t look up double negative), so I reinstate my title of gamer.
That was a close one.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I want to give this another go at some point when I’m not so tired and fried. It’s clear, if the theme song is any indication, that this is someone’s passion project, so I’d like to give it another shot and see why they are passionate about it.
For the meantime, I can recommend sitting on the main menu and listening to the theme song on repeat.
Recommend:
Replay Percentage Chance: 75%
Time Played: Game: 17 Minutes Main Menu: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Sam’s Take:
Recommend: I’ve been trapped inside with covid for a week now
Replay Percentage Chance: I did the song in Audacity, please send help
Time Played: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(Sam Note: I sent this game to Dicegame on Discord and he said something so potent that I asked him if I could use it as a review. So I present to you…)
Guest Writer Dicegame’s Take:
THIS IS ANIMAL WELL IF IT WAS GOOD!!
Recommend: yes. i have animal well related ptsd
Replay Percentage Chance: 50%
Time Played: 10 min
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