Pueblo de Mendoza

Pueblo de Mendoza
Screenshot showing buildings and surroundings of Pueblo de Mendoza
First Published	2008
Designer	babywinter
Design & Style	Buildings
Game Play	Find all diamonds, destroy all icemen and find the checkered finish marker
Award	2nd Place City Contest
Link	http://www.challengeyou.com/games/Maze23060
Preceded by	Journey To Eden
Followed by	Kung Fu Junction

Pueblo de Mendoza is a contest-winning game on ChallengeYou.

This game was created by babywinter, and it won second prize in the City Contest. It was edged out by the spectacular first place winning game City Life by Blind_Sorrow.

The game was last saved on April 11, 2011, but the game was first published in 2008. This third game of babywinter combines game design and techniques found in her previous two games: Call of the Ancients and Journey To Eden. Massive stone structures that towers above the game are inspired by Call of the Ancients, while the green environment and sloping hills with an open-world feel are inspired by Journey To Eden.

The game description for the game is as follows: "The city is overran by ancient spirits and you are summoned as a shaman to save the city from destruction."

Story

Pueblo de Mendoza has been deserted for a month because of unwanted spirits that terrorize the city. You are a young shaman, summoned by the city council to help cast away the unwanted spirits.

As you go to the city council, you were told that the ruins in the canyon of the city were disturbed by merchants who were allegedly stealing valuable items from the ruins. It was greed that defiled the sacredness of the Ruins, which had been the heritage of the people of the city.

The only way to clean the city is by casting away the spirits in the main buildings of the city, and by returning the stolen treasures in the altar in the ruins. But this could be only done by a young shaman like you, who is the complete opposite of the greedy merchants who were pulled apart by their worldly desires. You are innocent and pure: the secret power that can battle the spirit of greed.

Features

Map of Pueblo de Mendoza showing its buildings incorporated in an open world surroundings

Open-World + Buildings. The game combines game designing and techniques applied by babywinter in her first two games: Call of the Ancients and Journey To Eden. Since in Call of the Ancients, the player cannot see the whole enormous castle from the outside, babywinter thought of creating a game where the player can see the outside of the buildings before entering them. In order to this, the buildings must be incorporated in an open world similar to that in Journey To Eden, complete with hill slopes and trees. Other elements, such as a ship as the starting point, seems to mirror the starting time traveling ship in Journey To Eden, but this time, the ship is an old galleon to complete Spanish feel in the game.

Babywinter in front of a multiple-choice quiz in Pueblo de Mendoza. Choose the wrong option, and the player is led to a portal that automatically restarts the game loosing all the player's progress.

Quiz + Portal Trap. Babywinter used a multiple-choice quiz in the game. However, if the player chooses the wrong answer, he or she is led to a trap. In most games, prior to Pueblo de Mendoza, traps are usually pits where the player has left with no choice but to restart the game. Some game makers let the player fall into the sea, forcing the game to restart, but still keeping their retrieved items. In this game, however, babywinter used portals, that automatically restarts the player loosing all of his or her items. The use of portals allegedly rakes up number of plays for games.

Babywinter with slingshot ready to battle icemen in the game

Slingshot. This is the first game babywinter used slingshot and crumbs for her game. The slingshot is not only used in destroying icemen, but in retrieving diamonds out of the player's reach (i.e. floating diamonds). To adhere with the game's story line: "to cast away unwanted spirits" means in-game "destroy the icemen", while "return the stolen treasures in the altar" means in-game "retrieve the diamonds".

Epitaphs located in the Ruins at the end of the game seen in Pueblo de Mendoza

Epitaphs. Just like in Call of the Ancients, babywinter honored players who finished this game with epitaphs. There are three epitaphs in the game. The three epitaphs are dedicated to legendary members of ChallengeYou, namely: Blind_Sorrow, ilikegames44, and Haakson.

Game Play

The player must "find all diamonds, destroy all icemen and find the checkered finish marker" to complete the game. There are 20 icemen in the games, stationed at hordes of five in the four mission towers in the game. As for the diamonds, there are 10 of them that can be found at the end of the game near the checkered finish marker.

The central plaza connecting the four challenge towers, briefing building, a terminal, and a ship as seen in Pueblo de Mendoza

The game begins in the ship. You have to walk straight passing Terminal Del Aguila, the central plaza, and finally up Edificio del Aguila del Vuelo. In this building, you must retrieve key #1 to unlock Edificio Azul del Mar. But before going to the first mission tower, you have to retrieve the slingshot and crumbs in the lone room of the ship.

Edificio Azul del Mar donning purple banners as seen in Pueblo de Mendoza

Inside Edificio Azul del Mar, you are confronted by a quiz that goes: "Just as the rain falls to merely hoist a colorful rainbow in the sky, so shall the way up to this edifice is to go down—choose the trap door that leads 'up' or all of your belongings be spirited away to the beginning." The poem tells the player to choose the Spanish word for "up". Failing to choose the right one will lead to a room with a portal, thus removing all your game progress so far. Here are the choices in that level (name in asterisks is the correct answer):

• Fuego
• Encimade***
• Tierra
• Viento
• Oro
• Del Norte
• Almiento
• (blank)

The ladder climb as seen in Pueblo de Mendoza

After choosing "encimade", the player is led to a ladder climb. Players must climb the ladder and switch to a succeeding ladder by jumping. Atop the tower, player must destroy the five icemen lurking on the balcony. After destroying the icemen, the player must jump out of the balcony, then proceed to his or her next challenge: Edificio del Fuego Rojo.

Edificio del Fuego Rojo donning red banners as seen in Pueblo de Mendoza

Inside Edificio del Fuego Rojo, you are confronted by a quiz similar to your first challenge: "Just as the piece of wood crumbles down to raise up a fiery smolder of fire, shall the way up of this edifice is to lay low—choose the right trapdoor that leads 'down' or everything you have worked for will perish in fire." The player must choose the Spanish word that means "down". Here are the choices in thta level (name in asterisk is the correct answer):

• Del Mar
• Rojo
• Tierra
• Llevado
• Abajo***
• Pescados
• Sangre
• Del Sur

After choosing "abajo", the player must tackle a ladder climb. On top of the building, the player must see to it that the five icemen lurking in the balcony are well-handled. After completing the task, the player must head way to Edificio del Viento, and then to Edificio del Arbol.

Player must climb a five-level tower to destroy icemen guarding each level in Edificio del Viento and Edificio del Arbol

Just as Azul del Mar and Fuego Rojo share the same quiz challenge, Edificio del Viento and Edificio del Arbol, the third and the fourth challenge towers respectively, pose the same challenge to the player. The player must unlock the building kith a key retrieved previously from a preceding challenge. The player must proceed to a one-way labyrinth, leading to a teleporter, then into five-leveled tower with one iceman guarding each level. The player must destroy icemen in each of the levels.

The Ruins where the adventure ends in Pueblo de Mendoza

After destroying all 20 icemen, the player is directed to a secret passageway to the Ruins. Once there, the player must retrieve the floating diamonds in the Ruins using the slingshot. Once this is completed, the player can step in the checkered finish marker that ends with this note: "Great shaman, you have done well not just for the city, but the whole world as well."

Epitaphs

This is the second time, babywinter placed epitaphs to honor players who completed her game. The first was in Call of the Ancients. In this game, the epitaphs were placed near the finish line, across the stone boulders of the Ruins. The epitaphs in this game are as follow:

• BLIND SORROW — your [kindred] soul outlasts the pliant of the rainbow
• ILIKEGAMES44 — your deeds and perseverance saved us from its darkest hour
• HAAKSON — [your] courage [has] made the fear of the people of this town gone

Trivia

Here are fun trivia regarding this game:

• Six buildings in this game are in Spanish.
  • Terminal del Aguila (Eagle Terminal)
  • Edificio del Aguila del Vuelo (Flying Eagle Building)
  • Edificio Azul del Mar (Blue Sea Building)
  • Edificio del Fuego Rojo (Red Fire Building)
  • Edificio del Viento (Wind Building)
  • Edificio del Arbol (Tree Building)
• Pueblo means "town". Mendoza is a city in Argentina.
• Terminal del Aguila contains a huge eagle model on top. The abstract model of the eagle is rendered in "egypt".
• The idea of using a portal trap for the quizzes came later. The initial plan was to have the trapdoor open so the player will go down straight into the sea. Such design defeats the purpose of the quiz, as players can view the bottom too easily, and opt to choose something else. The tunnel was made that ends with a hole to the sea. Such design makes players restart, so putting a portal in the middle of the tunnel (no more holes) automatically restarts players, wiping out their progress, adhering to the game story.
• The initial concept for design in this game is supposed to be clusters of houses, just like in a village, instead of massive buildings. The land space in Azul del Mar and Fuego Rojo are supposed to be for two-story houses, but the idea was abandoned as creating the houses will exceed the limit of items per level.
• The space occupied by Viento, Arbol and Aguila del Vuelo are supposed to be for more houses.
• The game was originally conceptualized as a free-roam type of game, where players can buy houses and improve them as they visit the game or through collaboration with the creator. Babywinter however thought of submitting it in the contest for more plays.
• If the free-roam type of game was pursued, the land space of the Ruins on top of the hill should have been a mansion.
• The pier was in the original conceptualization of the game. Babywinter wanted to create a city with a pier, so she can build a ship.
• The old ship is supposed to be in Journey To Eden, but a futuristic time ship was used in that game.
• EASTER EGG: On both sides of Edificio del Aguila del Vuelo, a master key and a teleporter is hidden in plain sight. The key gives the player access to open the challenges in any order he or she wants. The teleporter transfers the player directly to the Ruins. The easter eggs however do not give an advantage to the player who might access it, as the teleporter, for example was placed there to visit the epitaphs at the ruins easily without doing the challenges.