Monday, July 8, 2013

Phobia

eh...nothing much to say about this one.

I think this game's only real selling point is that it looks pretty as hell. Everything is stylized really well, but poor optimization and weird graphical glitches keep it from getting the gold star in even its strongest department.

The basic gist of the game is that you are a little night demon (which is what my Physics teacher calls his dog) whose goal it is to scare every last person in town.  In order to scare them properly, you must creep up behind them before delivering the big "boo!" You can lure people into auspicious positions by dropping candy or money, but other than that, you're just a purple bat-creature who sounds like a dying cat.

Candy is used to lure kids, whereas money is used to lure adults.  It's a cute little detail, but whether you drop candy or money is completely random, so all this adds to the game is the fact that sometimes you'll end up with no choice but to drop a stack of candies with a dollar bill on top.  Luckily, you have an unlimited supply of candy, or this would've been really frustrating.

The game as a whole is just kind of dull.  The "proper" scares that you need to accomplish in order to progress trigger cutscenes that hang around just long enough to be annoying.  In addition, the dead zones created by lampposts are not very well distinguished, meaning falling into an inescapable death trap is way too easy.

All in all, this is a cute looking game that needed a lot of polish before it was ready to be called playable, and a lot more design brainstorming before it was ready to be called fun.

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

Links
meow of terror: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8727