RagDoll Cannon

Cannons have a unique place in human history. Throughout the ages, they have served as an offensive weapon to knock down fortifications, an accentuation in pieces of classical music, and a rudimentary yet entertaining transport for clowns. Continuing in this rich tradition, let's launch stickmen at bricks to dignified tunes!

RagDoll Cannon, from Johnny_K (Poiser, Domino-P), places you in command of semi-automatic artillery ripped straight out of the center ring. Use your mouse to choose the right angle and just enough force to hit the "HERE!" pad.

Through your stick-slinging adventures, you'll encounter obstacles that stand in your way. Sometimes you'll have to spend a stickman to clear an object out of your way, or set up a chain reaction. You can have up to five stickmen on your screen at once, and each shot earns one point. The game's golf-style scoring values low scores, so only masters of mortars will rack up a perfect score of 21 points over 20 levels.

Analysis: RagDoll Cannon is a charming projectile game created in JohnnyK's signature blueprint style familiar to fans of his other work. The game itself feels polished, with the physics consistent and reasonable. The music seems like a nice touch at first, but can subtly grab your nerve endings and drag them along a cheese grater; thankfully, it can be disabled, but the button rather strangely fires a stickman when pressed. It seems like something that should've been caught before production, but it won't impact your score, thanks to the "reset level" button (which, incidentally, you will make heavy usage of if you're shooting for a perfect score).

The usage of stickmen as cannon fodder leads to some interesting problems and equally interesting solutions; whilst on one level, it may spin the wrong way and block the path to victory, another level may hinge upon impaling it along a platform and sliding it to victory. Adding to potential frustration is the occasional pixelhunt to find just the right range of values that will work. But once you get going in this Howitzer hoedown, you'll have trouble extinguishing your fuse.