You know who else had a moustache?

April 5, 2007 9:05 AM

Pepsiwhite It's a cheezy, calcium-fueled enticement, but the implementation is rather good. A single player 3d board game with a milky message.
posted by Sparx (35 comments total)

A single player 3D board game with a frame rate of 2 per second unless you have a recent computer... :-)

(Time to tweak the budget a little...)
posted by bugmuncher at 9:22 AM on April 5, 2007

while we're at it, pork4kids has some good games too.
posted by arialblack at 9:23 AM on April 5, 2007

I've played this through, I think twice. It's flat-out amazing visually, but it doesn't really stand much for repeated play. There are lots of Flash games listed elsewhere that are better as far as gameplay go, but I've never seen anything as beautiful as this one.
posted by the dief at 9:25 AM on April 5, 2007

oh, the title for this forestalls any possible criticism. well played, sir!
posted by shmegegge at 9:25 AM on April 5, 2007

Oh, and the last puzzle is freaking annoying. I don't think there are any in-game clues that point you towards the right solution. I had to cheat to figure it out. boo hiss.
posted by the dief at 9:26 AM on April 5, 2007

I had to cheat to get that too. It's amazing what they've pushed flash to do with this game. It's very inspirational to me, as a beginner in Flash. I didn't like how the dice rolled though. It didn't "feel" right.
posted by JeremyT at 9:29 AM on April 5, 2007

Should it be played at a particular screen resolution ?
posted by chrisranjana.com at 9:36 AM on April 5, 2007

When I read PepsiWhite, the first thing I thought of was Laverne DeFazio.
posted by flarbuse at 9:38 AM on April 5, 2007

Yes, that was visually incredible. Really hard, too! Do you think they sculpted the whole terrain, then filmed it stop motion style? Those texture details seemed too real to be rendered. Fun, Incredibles-esque retro feel. :)
posted by bullitt 5 at 9:40 AM on April 5, 2007

Pepsi...DAMNIT!!
posted by loquacious at 9:49 AM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Do you think they sculpted the whole terrain, then filmed it stop motion style?

Sculpted it in 3D Studio. The whole thing is just playing pre-rendered CG movies...

I didn't like how the dice rolled though.

...except for the dice, which I think are done in 3D.
posted by belling at 10:07 AM on April 5, 2007

Visually stunning, but the interface is appalling and glitchy. The driving game and the flowers-in-the-hair game are basically unplayable because the controls are shot. After spending thirty seconds repeatedly dragging the correct flower to the correct location and having it rejected, I gave up.

For God's sake if you're going to have a game designed then get a games designer to do it, not some half-assed "interactive design firm". This isn't rocket science.
posted by Hogshead at 11:20 AM on April 5, 2007

PRELOADING...

PRELOADING...

Isn't that a tautology? Aren't all types of computer 'loading' preloading? What's the alternative? Postloading?
posted by humblepigeon at 12:02 PM on April 5, 2007

I think the flowers have to be put on in layer order, from back to front, as well as their correct position.

The driving game is mostly un-winnable. I did it once, pure luck. This was featured on "jayisgames" a couple of weeks ago, a good source of new flash trinkets to while away your productivity.
posted by maxwelton at 12:05 PM on April 5, 2007

it's gorgeous but it's barely a game
posted by empath at 12:10 PM on April 5, 2007

The flower/hair game appears to be impossible to win. Some flowers just won't stick and all I get is a beep. I even wasted several goes trying the flowers in different positions, but they still won't stick where they're supposed to.
posted by humblepigeon at 12:17 PM on April 5, 2007

Looks nice, but uninspiring gameplay. I got through the flowers (didn't have to do them in order, I don't think), and then got bored and quit.

Also, milk sucks. Totally.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:23 PM on April 5, 2007

FWIW, I found the driving game quite easy, but the flowers puzzle killed me every time.

And, FWIW, I used to have a moustache myself.
posted by Samizdata at 12:42 PM on April 5, 2007

FWIW, I use FWIW too much.
posted by Samizdata at 12:43 PM on April 5, 2007

I would have gone with PepsiMoo, myself.
posted by CRM114 at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

FWIW, every time I see that acronym I hear a high-pitched little siren noise in my head. Fweeeeeeewwwwwww......
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:00 PM on April 5, 2007

PTCHOO PTCHOO!

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

PTCHOO PTCHOO!

KABOOM!
posted by Samizdata at 2:00 PM on April 5, 2007

nice to see the leader board's been hacked.
posted by shmegegge at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2007

dude. this is beautiful.
posted by phaedon at 2:45 PM on April 5, 2007

YES, you need to put the flowers in the proper layer order, too. Otherwise, it won't work. I'm at the stupid thing with the giant number you have to figure out... wtf?
posted by ookamaka at 2:51 PM on April 5, 2007

oh nevermind, i figured out the combination
posted by ookamaka at 3:21 PM on April 5, 2007

I didn't have any problems with this. I quickly figured out you had to put the backmost flowers on first (though I agree that's dumb) and I quickly figured out how to get into the fridge and what the question was to win the game. So I guess I can feel all superior. Yay me!
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:26 PM on April 5, 2007

and the driving game is not pure chance - just remember to slow down (let go of the mouse button)
posted by ookamaka at 3:44 PM on April 5, 2007

Nice use of pre-rendered stuff, kinda fun concept, good marketing trick.

As for the minigames, I had no trouble with the driving game, and on the hair game I just went left to right with the exception that I put the yellow flower on top of her head before the reddish one, worked fine after that.
posted by sotonohito at 3:51 PM on April 5, 2007

Second on the flower order -- there's some overlap which was mighty difficult to see on my monster monitor. Might be worse on others. The numbers I used on the vault were conveniently won in the challenges. I had to google the question though :(

The driving can be kind of a challenge if you keep the pedal to the metal...

Fun and quite beautiful. Made the preloading nonsense worth it. Good times.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:58 PM on April 5, 2007

On the subject of replayability - yeah, I played it once a couple of weeks ago, and thought, "that's neat" then wandered away. It was only upon coming by it again from a different source and giving it another go, right through, twice (because I got stuck in milkatraz) , that I thought "this is actually fun enough to play through again" and decided to post it (as I rarely play games twice owing to my attention deficit ooh shiny).

I've done the flower minigame successfully twice - sorry if it's giving people the grim weasels. I'm probably just stupidly lucky.

But the last puzzle is solvable - and is just clued enough in-game to make you smack your forehead when you get it, which I like in a game.

And yes - pepsimoo would have been a whole heap better. Cursed hindsight.
posted by Sparx at 4:46 PM on April 5, 2007

Is anyone else sort of disturbed at how much money California's milk industry has?
posted by spiderskull at 5:04 PM on April 5, 2007

They devoted a while interactive puzzle to PMS? WTF?
posted by greatgefilte at 5:45 PM on April 5, 2007

s/while/whole
posted by greatgefilte at 5:50 PM on April 5, 2007

Milk: The other white meat.
posted by chairface at 8:30 PM on April 5, 2007