Well played, DigiPen. You almost got me. For the first time since AEscher, I had to google the meaning of one of the words in a game's title. Turns out the word "Contrata" isn't even English, though. Dirty trick, guys. Low blow.
Alright, now let's get into the game. Empyrean Contrata is a nightmare in every sense of the word. It must have been a nightmare to build and it's certainly a nightmare to play. It's one of those Civilization-esque games that just does everything wrong. I've never played Civilization, mind you. It just never appealed to me, so maybe this is how Civilization players like their games. I wouldn't know. My opinion, though, is that this game is a crowded, choppy, unintuitive mess.
Let's run down the issues, shall we? First off, the framerate is preposterously choppy. All the textures are very simple, so I don't see any reason for this. Plus, I ran this game with Fraps just for kicks, and it said it was running at an optimal 60fps, meaning this is an inherent problem with the game, not a problem with my hardware.
Next, along that same line, the visuals are messy and ugly. Even when you look at a unit from close up in the "units" screen, it just doesn't look appealing. It's a frothy mixture of pixels that are all just different shades of the same color, though I suppose this is necessary considering how far back the camera is. It's zoomed out so much that all the textures just kind of blend in with one another, creating a very convoluted combination of dark, ugly pixels.
Alright, that's enough on the visuals. Let's get to the real meat of the problem. The GUI. Oh, the GUI. This is the textbook definition of sensory overload. I'm almost at a loss for words. Just getting through the tutorial text takes like 5 minutes of mindless left-clicking, but you need to go through with it because otherwise you'll know what 0% of what's happening on the screen means instead of the required 5%. Even after the instructions are spoon-fed to you, everything is conveyed so, so poorly. This game would give Egoraptor a heart attack.
You know what? I can't even go into detail about how poorly everything is conveyed in this game. Play it for yourself and experience how truly clueless a game can leave you.
The only positive purposes I can ever see this game serving are as follows:
1) for some reason, you really want to deter someone from the video gaming medium as a whole, so you show them this game and they never look back.
2) you use it as a learning experience. A what-not-to-do guide if you will.
That's all I got for now. This game tired me out. Until next time, stay organized.
Links
adfhgaikjafadf what?: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25112
