Fluffy Ralph

Fluffy Ralph is a 1993 top-down action-adventure game developed by Azurelore Korrigan under the A-J Games label & released as shareware on BBS servers before being put on compilation CD-ROMs years later. The game was made using mh:awesomegames:RSD Game-Maker, a year before it would have its final release, then get edited a year after its final release to apply changes to take advantage of some of the new features that version 3.0 had to offer. It is a spin-off to the A-J series of games.

Plot
Welcome to the world of Noniyan, where a being's life force is held inside a green crystal and anything can happen.

Enter Fluffy Ralph, Otherwise known of as Ralf, a tiny chicken-duck with a taste for mystery.

Ralf has heard of a far better place, virtually forgotten in Noniyan for centuries.

Ralf is captivated by elders' tales of this place. He wants to be there more than anything.

One day, Ralf made up his mind. He was going to find this place, no matter what it took. He was going to go to paradise -- Earth.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great graphics, as usual for her: they have the bounciness of a rubber ball while giving off an interesting, very symmetrical & organized way that gives off a unique & charming vibe to it, while also giving off the feeling of unknowingness, sort of like seeing a strange illusion that you don't know if it's friendly or not, giving in a sense of curiosity.
 * 2) The presentation is neato. After the word, "Register!" goes up & down the screen as well as the A-J Games logo, Ralf opens up the curtain that makes up the background to look at the audience, only for the game's logo to appear & Ralf to then descend. Aside from that amusing sequence, there are cool transition effects within the main menu when you pick up one of the 4 options, something most other authors don't do.
 * 3) The music chosen for the levels are really good & mostly fit the atmosphere of the levels themselves. For example, the 1st level's music is a mysterious little tune called "Morning Light Drizzle" which fits the tone of the 1st level being the start of a strange adventure awaiting.
 * 4) * Another example is with level 5, which its strangely mechanical tune more-or-less the weird lemony appearance of the level, suggesting that it's some sort of robotic lemon fest. That, combined with the little white enemies that look like those tiny guitar chips, can give it an almost futuristic civilization feel.
 * 5) * Level 6's tune is a short, very menacing tune which fits with the level's tone of claustrophobia being in crazy effect & having to get out before the fear overtakes Ralf.
 * 6) * Level 8's tune is a quiet tone theme that greatly affects the sheer emptiness of what otherwise looks like a wild technicolor mess, with scant bits of life here & there, all of which are nothing but orange little spike balls who are seemingly searching for other life throughout their part of Noniyan.
 * 7) * The ending theme fits the tone of the rather downer side that the ending has with its sort of menacing tone, but not quite committing to it, sort of giving off the feeling that things seem like nothing's really going to change.
 * 8) The controls are easy to understand & have the right amount of responsiveness to it. They also fit the character very well, being a small chicken-duck that wants to go to Earth, so he's bound to fast & precise about where he would want to go to get to the next destination on his journey.
 * 9) The gameplay is simple & easy to understand, yet very engaging: you shoot enemies to turn them into the crystals that they form from & you must destroy all the enemy spawning points in order to progress to the next level.
 * 10) The enemy AI is usually easy at the start, but sooner progresses challenging, but still fair. This leads to the player having to use more strategic ways of getting around the levels & shooting the enemies.
 * 11) Speaking of which, the progression in this game is absolutely outstanding! Now you need that magnifying glass to destroy the crystal-based creatures, but it's inside a treasure chest in the 1st level, so you get the key, go towards the treasure chest, then pick up the magnifying glass so that you can shoot out beams of light to kill off the enemies & destroy the enemy spawners. Go to the next level, & you'll find out that the 2nd level has unkillable enemies. What do you need to do? Get another key to open up another treasure chest to reveal a stronger magnifying glass to shoot out those stronger enemies! And eventually, you'll need yet another stronger magnifying glass for the enemies from level 4 onwards, so you'll do the key-and-chest mechanic again. Then on level 7, you must get a pair of shoes in order to run faster, presumably to make going to Earth much easier. To summarize, this is an incredible way to tell a story without actually telling one alongside being interactive, making it a perfect case of "show, don't tell."
 * 12) And even better, the level design accommodates for the interesting approach at story-telling the game does!
 * 13) * The 1st level, Forest Village, starts right off at Ralf's house, which itself is a good way to start the game. The key is nearby down, but you wouldn't have any idea what it does, but you find a strange area to the right, which leads to the chest with the magnifying glass! Now THAT is a great way of showcasing that exploration will be a primary focus within this game!
 * 14) * The 2nd level, Dungeon Central, further showcases the idea of exploration with the dungeon being bigger than the village & this time, the key isn't nearby, letting Ralf & the player know that where to go to find what you need isn't always going to be easy like how it was in the previous level.
 * 15) * The 3rd level, Pillow City, can be seen as a trick to make the player think that this level is going to be easier when in actuality, the spots where the enemies spawn are going to be harder to spot, requiring the player to go through every spot, either through walking on every tile or watching carefully for their locations as enemies appear.
 * 16) * The 5th level, Tea For Thee, is interesting in that it is a bunch of various lemon "islands" connected to a bunch of lines made of what looks to be the white cheese you usually get on those square pizzas you find at a store, which is a very creative way to make the level instead of having it just be one big lemon arena.
 * 17) * The 6th level, Boxundrum, is not only smaller in scale, but also has a claustrophobia-like feel, which seems to be intentional considering the short, very menacing tone that plays as well as the fact that rocks are going all around, seemingly to make progress seem impossible for poor little Ralf. This forces you to try to find the quickest path to the cyan chest, letting you learn about quick-time reflexes in a more narrative manner than beforehand.
 * 18) * The 7th level, The Sky, puts the skills you have learned to the test, combining the use of exploration, quick-time reflexes, strategic movement & shooting, & careful watching to find the location of the enemy spawners all into one radical action-packed level!
 * 19) * The 8th level, Psychodelic, is where things start to slow down, making the player act like something weird is going on, but is actually the game leading to the end, where what remains in Ralf's way is not very harmful, but instead just there as the almost lonely spirits that exist within the deepest depths of Noniyan.
 * 20) * The 10th level, Limbo Is Nice, is a showcase of how far Ralf has truly come. He went so far on going to Earth that he went to the void of nothingness where many things have their bodies be swooped around by mysterious forces of unknown origin, giving off a rather haunting vibe to it.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) The shoes in level 7 are rather slippery, making it a bit harder to avoid enemies along the way. Thankfully, by the time you would've got them, most, if not all of the enemy spawners have likely been destroyed & later on you won't have to worry that much about getting hit by an incoming enemy in the next 3 levels.

Videos
v2wdmhhyzYQ