Virtual Pwnies

Virtual Pwnies
Delving into the overlooked world of horses in media and video games.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

CLOP

What is CLOP?  CLOP is hard.

Clop
noun 
the sound a horse's hooves make against hard surfaces, such as packed ground, or the cobblestone streets of old London.

 Every horse person from a young age learns the gaits of a horse and how it moves.  When the timing of footfalls occur and names of each mode of movement.  The 4 beat slow walk.  The two beat diagonal trot and parallel pace.  The three beat canter.  And the four beat gallop.

We also learn the exotic gaits, such as the running walk, foxtrot, tolt, and fancy moves like the pasage, piaffe, spanish walk ect.

However most movements like jittering and spazzing around until you fall over are reserved for neurological or spinal issues that are best left to the large animal veterinarians.  Not in CLOP!


You play CLOP the unicorn helping your young man friend trying to get to a virgin damsel.  Unicorns and virginal damsels go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so he cannot deny her call. (We at VP are still looking for a unicorn with low standards.)  But instead of this young jakanape walking to fair damsel.  Because he is a solid mass of unmoving pixels, plus he's probably lazy.  He sends you, his kinetically animated, uncoordinated, top-heavy, unicorn friend.  Why would a unicorn be friends with this Casanova?  He probably has those lower standards we were talking about.

Seriously this thing's horn must be made of tungsten.   


You control the legs individually to make the unicorn move.  And boy does this sound fun, but it is not.  You would think a horse person has some advantage over the non horsey.  I mean, we did spend all those years learning horse gaits and all that crap I mention above, right?  Sadly the advantage is minimal.  It helps you, until you get to the hill.  The biggest problem in this game is keeping the unicorn's legs under him and him off his back.  You can fall on your face.  You can do that plenty of times.







It's until you get the thing on it's back that it's limbs decide to break themselves and all hope is lost.  The young lad shalst go unlay'ed this night.  And to add insult to injury he insults you when you fail.






 The meter at the bottom keeps track of how far you have gotten.  And yes.  That is a silhouette of the Andalucian Stallion Breyer model created by Chris Hess.

 Please don't tell me when you reach the maiden she runs away.

Also you may find the dragging yourself with your front legs is easier.  The back legs stretch out and you have a wider base to not fall over.  However the creator foresaw this and you will enter "LAME HORSE MODE"  where your stifles break and you become paralyzed from the loin down.  You cannot regain the use of your back legs in this mode, nor does how far you get count.

You would think a magical beast could just walk it off.

This game may seem impossible to finish.  And as far as I know it is, for anyone who isn't the creator of the game himself.  This was tweeted a year ago, so who knows, some brave unicorn hill-warrior may have shown that hill what for.

You would think that would discourage extended play.  But this game is addictive and insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.  So I've gone mad.  I'm off to go fall backwards off a hill repeatedly.

Have fun flailing, falling, and failing!


~~~~~

If you would prefer something a little more human, try running and climbing with these two similar games from the same site.  And sadly, CLOP is the easiest between the three.




http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

http://www.foddy.net/GIRP.html

I would have made a video review of this game.  But you would have just seen a unicorn falling ass-over-tea kettle in the same spot over and over and over...