It's hip to be Square.
The brilliant Doctor Octagon has been kidnapped! Square must find him, and rescue him from the clutches of the Circle of Evil, a mysterious cult hellbent on the domination of Shape Land. He will square off against terrible monsters and impossible traps in order to prove that he's no square when it comes to justice. Guide him to the center of the Circles' domain, unravel their malicious plot, and win the day fair and square!
The Adventures of Square is a First-Person Shooter using a heavily modified Doom engine from BigBrik Games. It's available as a freeware download. The protagonist, Square, fights on a quest to find Doctor Octagon, who has been kidnapped by the Circle of Evil.
The game is still under development and currently has two episodes, with the full version slated to have three. You can download the latest version of the game from their official website
.
This game provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: The low-level weapons run on blue or green paint, while the Shotbow evidently shoots entire shotgun shells.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer E1A2: Sewerside takes place in sewage treatment facility. Rooms in this place are spacious enough to contain several groups of enemies.Square: Why does it have to be a sewer?
- Air-Vent Passageway: Some levels have vents that Square can crawl into. They usually contain some items.
- All There in the Manual: The official website has some additional information about characters and the world of this game.
- Asteroids Monster: Killing Eyescreamers will spawn three Spy Eyes from them.
- Aquatic Mook: Angle fishes are hostile fish robots, and the water of levels may have them.
- Big "NO!": The final boss of Episode 2, Shadius screams "NOOOOOOOOO!!" when it's killed.
- Bland-Name Product: The red drink that heals Square to 100 health is called "Circool-Aid".
- Bond One-Liner: Square sometimes does this. They are mostly shape-related puns.
- Boom Stick: Cresceptre is a staff with spinning crescent-shaped head, and it fires barrages of homing projectiles.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Mini Destructinators. They are a small version of their boss counterpart, but still have a large amount of health and various deadly attacks.
- Build Like an Egyptian: The second secret level of Episode 2 features pyramids and underground tombs. Apparently, these pyramids are made for cows.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: The large orange mooks are the only circles who use no weapons save for a grappling hook and their own fists. They can even toss Square into the air if they are in melee range.
- Cheesy Moon: The moon. It even has (toxic) milk rivers and molten cheddar in place of lava.
- Clipped-Wing Angel: When the Destructinator is killed, it ejects its brain from the body and starts assaulting you again. However, the brain can only attack with lasers and it doesn't have much health, so it's much weaker than the first phase.
- Clone Army: The Circle jerks are implied to be this. You can discover their clone vats in episode 2.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Touching boiling water or lava pool will instantly kill Square, but he is fine as long as don't touch them.
- Crapsaccharine World: The cartoony art style downplays the fact that the circles are a dangerous military force and civilians are liable to be gunned down in the streets, even by the hero of the game. And this is even before Dr. Octagon's true motives are brought up.
- Cult: The Circle of Evil, according to backstory. These circle jerks are trying to take over Shape land.
- Cutscene Incompetence: After killing the boss of Episode 2, Square tries to stop Doctor Octagon with his starter paintgun. However, the doctor strikes back with a defibrillator, knocks Square out and successfully flees! It's a far cry from usual, One-Man Army Square you have seen throughout the game.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Some robotic enemies will explode violently when killed. Their explosion can harm you, so beware.
- Developer's Foresight: While vacuum areas in Episode 2 only have robotic enemies, if you spawn non-robotic enemies via console commands, the spawned enemies will take damage and die because they can't breathe.
- Distressed Dude: Doctor Octagon was kidnapped by the Circle of Evil at the start of the story. However, the end of Episode 2 reveals that he wasn't kidnapped by them, Octagon has been siding with the circles from the start.
- A Dog Named "Dog": The protagonist of this game is a living square with arms and legs. His name is Square.
- Exploding Barrels: Three flavors:
- Explosions from TNT crates can damage anyone including Square.
- Explosions from Nuclear crates are like TNT crates, but they also generate harmful green globs.
- Explosions from Soda crates can somehow damage enemies, but are harmless to Square.
- Face–Heel Turn: Doctor Octagon at the end of Episode 2 reveals he has been working with the circles willingly.
- Fat Bastard: Jetpack jerks. They are fat and durable, and they shoot painful lasers at your face from the air. They also have a very annoying laugh.
- Firebreathing Diner: Picking up a bottle of hot sauce causes Square to run around for a moment with flames spewing from his mouth (burning any enemies who get close).
- Fishbowl Helmet: Wearing a fishbowl allows you to explore underwater or vacuum without suffocating. However it doesn't last forever, so you have to get the new one after some time.
- Flunky Boss: When you fight against the final boss of Episode 2, Shadius summons smaller black ghosts.
- Green Hill Zone: Early levels of Episode 1. Grassy fields, rivers, and waterfalls...
- The Goomba: Knife jerks. They can only stab you with their pathetically small knives. They also have very low health.
- Guns Akimbo: Square can dual wield his paint guns, or Oozis (ooze-firing gun).
- Harder Than Hard: CUBULAR! difficulty. Enemies become faster and aggressive, projectiles from them also become faster, and healing items are replaced with less tasty and ineffective ones. A very dangerous enemy, Rectangolier is exclusive to this difficulty.
- Haunted Castle: The final level of Episode 2. Many evil ghosts are roaming in this palace, and blood pools are everywhere.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Most of the healing items are foods or drinks, and they heal you instantly.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels:
- "Totally Square"
- "Let's Rocktangle"
- "Ready to Rhombus"
- "Quadrilateral Damage"
- "CUBULAR!"
- Innocent Bystander: Purple shape people, who are innocent citizens of Shapeland. They will run away if attacks hit them.
- Invincibility Power-Up: Getting the angel sphere makes Square invincible for awhile. In addition, this power-up also gives Square a flight ability.
- Lethal Lava Land: Later levels in Episode 2 feature many lava lakes and rivers.
- Living Polyhedron: Every single character (OK, circles aren't polyhedra, but still).
- The Lost Woods: E2A5 features a weird blue-colored forest... on the moon! Some of these trees even have eyes.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Killing circle enemies will always spawn tons of colorful globs, and a pair of their eyes.
- Mecha-Mooks: The Circle of Evil utilizes many security robots. They are typically more durable and attack harder than common mooks. They also have a tendency to explode on death.
- More Dakka: The Paintgun cannon. This big gun has triple barrels, and can fire projectiles very fast. Interestingly, it's also one of the most accurate weapons in the game.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Knife jerks are very weak enemies, and Square sometimes say this phrase word by word after he killed them.
- Nitro Boost: Drinking Power-zade makes Square run faster.
- No OSHA Compliance: Like Doom, most buildings are not particularly safe. Some buildings even have pools of deadly boiled cyan water, with no railings.
- One-Man Army: Square. Like most First-Person Shooter protagonists, he will take out hundreds of enemies throughout levels. Even more so on higher difficulties.
- One-Man Industrial Revolution: Dr. Octagon is the smartest person in Shape Land, and he is responsible for moving Shape land to its technological age. High-tech facilities or weapons that Square and Circle jerks use have the logo of his company, Octotech.
- Our Demons Are Different: Shadius, the final boss of Episode 2. It's a circle-shaped, formidable black demon from the other dimension.
- Quad Damage: The Devil Sphere doubles Square's attack power.
- Ranged Emergency Weapon: The purple paint gun. It has infinite ammo, but it doesn't deal much damage.
- Rescue Equipment Attack: In the game, the Defibrillator serves as your melee weapon, which isusually available in later stages. It has infinite ammunition and deals tons of damage at a rapid-fire rate.
- Rocket Jump: You are able to do it with the Hellshell launcher. If you used it well, you can complete levels much faster. Notably, rocket jumping is actually required to enter some secret areas.
- Shock and Awe: Square can use a defibrillator as melee weapon. It deals hefty damage to enemies. Using it in underwater is probably not a good idea.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The Quadcannon can shoot 4 shots in a row and buckshots are more powerful than Shotbow, but it has wider spread.
- Shout-Out:
- The three-barreled rapid-firing gun, Paintgun Cannon (the slot 4 weapon) is modeled on Duke Nukem 3D's Chaingun Cannon. Square also borrows more than a few catchphrases from the man himself.
- The dark maze section from "E2A2: The Butterforge" is an homage to E1M2 of Doom. A room containing a defibrillator is especially similar to E1M2's chainsaw room.
- The strongman enemy can throw grappling hooks to pull Square to him. Naturally, one quote for this is "Get over here!"
- Result screen states "You ain't no Indiana Cones." if you found only a few secret areas. You can also find a dead adventurer and a golden idol in secret tomb area of E2A8.[1]
- You can find a town named "The town with no shape" in the western-themed secret level.
- The Oozi is modeled on the Uzi from Shadow Warrior (1997).
- Most of the color palette is derived from the EGA display standard used in games such as Commander Keen.
- In the level "Wild Bleu Yonder", Square comments "What a bunch of weird-looking trees...", a quote from the mod MassMouth 2.
- The deadly shape-killing robot, Destructoiner sometimes says "Put down your weapon. You have 3 seconds to comply." like ED-209.
- The final boss of Episode 2 says "I live... AGAIN!" before it appears.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The secret level of Episode 1 takes place in base in arctic region. This is only place in the game you can see snow, and the water in this level damages you because it's so cold!
- Sniper Pistol: Your paintguns are very accurate weapons. It can even shoot pixel-perfect shots with semi-auto fire.
- Smoking Is Cool: Square always smokes. Machinegun-toting Elite Mooks smoke too.
- Smoldering Shoes: If circle jerks or Square are killed, they will always leave their shoes in where they were standing.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: When the lava starts rising in E2A9, the music becomes more frantic.
- Space Is Noisy: Downplayed. Sounds are somewhat muffled in the vacuum areas, but you can still hear things.
- Space Station: Episode Two begins in spaceport above the moon. It houses a Space Elevator that can take Square to the surface of the moon.
- Species Surname: Square and Professor Octagon are named after, well, the shapes they are.
- Stealth Pun:
- Most of the Circle Mooks are called "jerks". It's a pun on "circlejerk".
- E2A11 has Bluegrass song as its theme, and the ground of this level is covered with... blue grass.
- Teleport Spam: The boss enemy of Episode 1, Destructinator, loves to employ this tactic. Fortunately, it can only teleport to predefined places.
- Toilet Humor: When Jetpack Jerks die, they make a stock farting noise.
- Unique Enemy: All secret levels have them.
- The secret level of Episode 1 has Shatterbox, an icy variant of Chatterbox (a green robot that attacks you by biting). It spawns painful ice projectiles when killed.
- First secret level of Episode 2 has Hexas rangers, Western-themed enemies wearing cowboy hats. They attack you with their dual pistols.
- Second secret level of Episode 2 has Pyramine, a robot resembling a pyramid. It charges into you, then violently explodes.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: You can murder purple shape people, who are just citizens seeking help. You won't receive any penalty for killing them, and the player character even gives exclusive Bond One-Liner.
- The Wild West: E2A11: Heart O' Hexas is western-themed level on the moon, so there are lots of farms, cows, and saloons. But there are also many hostile bandit robots and Hexas rangers, so beware.
- World of Pun: Practically everything is some sort of pun, including names of the enemies, the pickups, the levels, and of course everything Square says.
