Deadlines really suck, don't they? All you want to do is bring your creative experience to life at your own pace, but having a deadline means you either need to sacrifice some of your own ingenuity or just deliver an unfinished product.
Gravitation chose the latter, and what we're left with is a demonstration for a brilliant engine for a really unique and intuitive game with no soundtrack, unrefined visuals and unreasonable health system.
There you go, that's the review. Screw all those literary snobs who say you should keep details from your audience just to make them read more of your stuff.
Of course, if you want to hear more of my ramblings, you're more than welcome to read on.
Let me get the praise out of the way first. This game understands the true purpose of combat in a game. The only games where combat should be the central focus are fighting games and beat-em-ups. Otherwise, combat is there as a way to piece the whole experience together. It's a favorite in games because there is a clear objective and means to overcome that objective. That makes it a great way to string together your game mechanics but awful as a story device (which is the main reason I and so many others dislike the recent Call of Duty games). Without the combat, Gravitation would simply have no challenge. Thus, it serves its purpose.
That covers one of the mouse buttons; how about the other? The titular gravitation mechanic is fun and intuitive. There's something really empowering about being able to bend the laws of physics to your will. There would be, at least, if the health system didn't reduce you to the human equivalent on a marshmallow on a pair of toothpicks.
And thus we move into the criticism. You take way too much falling damage in this game. As far as I could tell, there's no way to regain health either. If there was some other objective than "run around, shoot sea urchins and have fun," this mechanic might work as a way of forcing the character to strategize on how to navigate each room taking as little damage as possible. A little tweaking would have gone a long way here.
And of course, that just leaves the big one. The sound direction is nonexistent. This game is completely silent. If ever you want to see just how important a good soundtrack is in a game, look no further than Gravitation, because the mechanics hold up very well but the silence makes it a thoroughly boring and almost a little nerve-racking experience.
Great start, but needs a lot of work before it can get my seal of approval. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay...uh...gravitational? (this is hard, leave me alone)
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=397
