'Little Wheel': The Perfect Flash Adventure Treat

"Little Wheel" is a Flash adventure game in the style of Space Quest or Monkey Island. It's only 20 minutes long, but in that time it manages to craft a world that I want to get to know a lot better. Here's the lowdown:

Planet populated by robots suddenly loses power to its main generator and everyone/thing shuts down. 10,000 years later, a handy lighting bolt rouses a lone one-legged robot back to life, and it's up to him to start the generator back up and wake the entire planet up. It seems more epic than it plays out (again, it's only 20 minutes long), but "Little Wheel" leaves quite an impression in that short time.

First off, the jazzy soundtrack brings to mind "Grim Fandango," and the slapstick sense of humor that pervades the games simple puzzles really moves things along nicely. It's also got a groundbreaking new concept for Flash adventure games: The gray bubble. In these sorts of games you're usually forced to click about the screen, desperately searching for the objects that can be interacted with. In "Little Wheel" there's no guessing required...but figuring out when and how to interact with the objects is still a puzzle.

It is, however, quite easy and should be manageable for anyone that's played an adventure game in the past 20 years. The simplicity cuts down on frustration, though, and actually lets you finish the game, which is usually an impossible task for this sort of game.

Anyway, while you were reading this you probably could've beaten "Little Wheel" already, so get to it!

"Little Wheel" (via Offworld)

Tags little wheel