Usually when on the rare occasions I update this dumb blog, it's either a wall of text about a subject, or egotistical bragging about things I've acquired for my gaming collection. Not today, however. Today, I'm going to recommend a game I played recently. And that game is Treasure Adventure Game, a freeware indie game you can nab right now if you want to.

Treasure Adventure Game is, well, exactly what the title says. But to elaborate, it's an open-world side-scrolling platformer with an emphasis on exploring and discovering things. Not going to spoil anything, but the gist of it is, you're a kid with a hook hand exploring the islands of the game's world in search of the 12 legendary treasures the game's plot is centered around. Along the way, you find tools such as the shovel and the magic bottle (which is used in many of the game's puzzles, and, depending on what you put in it, sprays water, spews fire, and other stuff). For what this game is, it's immense in depth. Finding the maps, finding the treasures, talking to NPCs, digging, diving, stumbling on things you didn't expect to, it's got a lot to it. Not to mention that its pixel art style looks great and suits it well, and its music is excellent and has a few tracks that'll definitely stick with you long after you've completed the game.

It threw me off guard a bit, too. When I learned the story centers around finding 12 artifacts, I immediately thought "So, there's gonna be 12 temples, each one with a piece of equipment in it, a boss to fight, and one of the artifacts" like all games that have you collecting all the legendary/sacred/whatever [x] are. I was surprised because where these artifacts are is varied, and some of them aren't even guarded by a boss at all, but they're challenging to get in another way.

The game does have a few minor flaws I noticed when playing it. One being that there's the occasional minor movement-related bug here and there. The most noticeable one I found was that if you push your boat up against an object on the water just right, its graphics will flicker between their normal size and 2x-ish larger sometimes. However, I didn't notice any major, game-breaking issues, so I wouldn't consider what bugs there are to be bad enough to drag the experience down.

I first heard of the game from the free indie game bundle site, and figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. More people need to play this game, seriously.

Humorously, if the game wasn't freeware I'd be worried I look like a spambot, praising it and linking to it like I am.