‘Pozor!’ the sharklike fish tries to warn me. But it’s already too late, the skull crashes on his goldfish friend and kills her. Time to restart the level and plan my steps more carefully. But before that I will take a break and tell you about this very unique puzzle game I am playing right now. Basically it’s an intriguing cross between Tetris, Soko-Ban and Boulder Dash. Oh and if you couldn’t already tell by the opening quote: It’s also from a smaller Czech indie developer. Therefore the fish only speak in Czech… fortunately with multilingual subtitles. Well, this does have a certain charm, doesn’t it?
Somehow everyone – who is honest – has been waiting for it or at least has firmly planned a fictitious lottery win in this way: a whole ocean liner full of beautiful women who are all waiting for an amorous adventure with their own personal cock of the walk. The journey promises light-heartedness and luxury and not least the view into some black abyss behind the tanned facade oiled with experienced hands.
Not an grumpy shellback with a white beard and wind tanned skin is the captain of the ship, but a first class blonde. The dream of every man at top of the dream ship knows about her own charms. Therefore, only a very special and extraordinarily successful male hero may be her companion for the week. The prerequisite is the completion of a series of competitions which are held on the ship during the journey. Only real men can pass and the player has the thankless task to lead our sad imitation of a man to the top of the masculine virtues.
The story of one of the unsung heroes of computer game design begins here: David Lester. His company, Impressions, made a name for itself in the mid-90s with some popular strategy games (mainly the Lords of the Realm and Caesar series). Though when that happened, most people who had followed their history up until that point were actually surprised, as in previous years, reception of their releases had been almost universally negative, so that it was actually surprising that they survived financially. Yes, better keep your expectations down for Merchant Colony.