Ark22 is a futuristic Zelda-like adventure game programmed and designed by David Smithson (alias Srehpog) with the program GameMaker. It's a full game experience, certainly taking up several hours with difficult puzzles and challenging boss fights. It's certainly a lot more difficult than your average Zelda game.
The story is about a large ship, the Ark22, that crashes into an unknown planet. The survivors build up little towns here and there, trying to establish contact with their homeplanet. However, there are other creatures on that planet. The "Intent". I won't spoil the storyline to explain the origin and meaning behind these lifeforms, but they're not too friendly. They're not much like any ordinary videogame enemies either.
The game starts out when the player has to go set up a radar post of some kind. Of course, something goes wrong and you wind up in an underground cavern/dungeon. The game unfolds from there on. It plays much like a Zelda game. After the first dungeon, filled with mind-boggling puzzles (I'm not kidding, some puzzles are really damn hard) and a hard boss fight at the end, you continue through the story, going to other villages, encountering new characters and fighting through other dungeons.
The game is practically made by only one man. The sprites for the characters are based on sprites from Zelda: LttP, but most of it is full original. The bosses look fantastic as well, just check some of the screenshots below. (I helped out a bit too) This game shows that with a lot of hard work and perseverance (took about 2 years, I think, and Srehpog had no programming or spriting experience beforehand), a great game can be made by an, albeit talented, individual.
I can only recommend it to anyone who likes (hardcore) gaming and certainly to fans of the Zelda series.
Site with Downloads, Screenshots and Info:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/david.smithson/ark22/index.php
Parent site with other work by Srehpog, namely his new game Umbrella Adventure (with handdrawn graphics) and also some very nice spaceship artwork:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/david.smithson/
Screenshots (more on the site):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/screens/scr00_01.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/screens/scr02_09.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/screens/scr04_02.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/screens/scr03_09.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/protoboss.png
Artwork:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/art/art_shadow.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/art/art_snakechase.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/art/art_pturn_ext.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Ark22/art/art_tentacler.jpg
