F4RM

Yeah this was pretty much the worst experience of my life...

Ok, I don't want to be rude to the people who worked hard on this game, but it was just...so unfulfilling.

First off, pretty much the second after the tutorial ended, I lost and had to start all over.  I did everything they told me to do, but I still failed very quickly.  This isn't the kind of unforgivingly challenging game that justifies such a design trait, either.  It should be a relaxing experience given the aesthetic they were working with.

Nothing about this game is engaging.  Everything is told to you in text dumps, and...ugh, I can't even formulate complete sentences.

You know what?  I'm ending the review here.  Stay away from F4RM.

Links
why: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26140

Eye on Earth

You know what I love about games?  They're totally eco-friendly.  Nobody has to chop down trees to create the lines of code that will one day become a video game.  If only there were a game that celebrated this completely relevant and totally legitimate reason to love the video gaming medium.  Well fear not, readers, because Eye on Earth does that and pretty much nothing else.

Eye on Earth is an RTS game with the only enemy being time.  You are tasked with maximizing the energy-to-pollution ratio of two different parts of the world.  You are given only a short time to do this, so you must work quickly and efficiently.

The graphical style is alright, I guess.  Everything looks exactly like what it's supposed to, which is more than I can say for some games *cough* Empyrean Contrata *cough*

Actually, let's stick with the comparison to Empyrean Contrata.  The two games go about conveying the mechanics of the game from vastly different angles.  If you've read my Empyrean Contrata review, you know how much I loathe that game's "five-minute-text-dump" style of tutorial.  Eye on Earth ambitiously does the exact opposite of that and throws the player directly into the game with no instruction whatsoever.  I've always said that this is exactly what a game should be able to do.  All things considered, Eye on Earth does a fairly good job of it.  I say "fairly" because I've played the game four times and I still don't quite know how to optimally utilize all of the game's mechanics.  I know that the big buildings and power plants are there for a reason, but I get the best results by just spamming trees everywhere.

I think the big take-away from Eye on Earth is that it is possible to let the player figure out the mechanics for himself or herself with no written instruction provided the basic mechanics of the game support player inquiry.  Eye on Earth does a good job of that.  It's short playtime and only slightly crowded GUI never deterred me from toying around with the buttons on my keyboard until I figured out how to play.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay green.

Links

Save the whales: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=403