Solstice is an "experimental" exploration game. Now, I'm fine with experiments, but I have to ask what hypothesis this particular experiment was testing. It seems to be "players will want to keep playing a game even if they're given no motivation whatsoever to continue playing it," which is a hypothesis long since proven false and the negative of which has been held as a basic tenant of game design long before games even stepped into the video world.
In Solstice, you play as a little fairy thing who flies around the world looking for sun fragments. The sun, you see, exploded one day for no particular reason, leaving the world to fester in darkness. Now it's up to you to fly around activating these sun fragments and filling the world's dark soul with LIIIIGHHTTTT....LIGGHTT..LIGHT...light....light....
Sorry.
In the beginning of Solstice, the game tells you that the game is not about winning or losing, but about immersing yourself in a world of music, flight and freedom. At first, I thought that was just a little hint at how to best play the game, like in the beginning of Amnesia, the Dark Descent, but only after I activated enough sun fragments to make the plants come back and found myself flying utterly aimlessly throughout the world I'd just unmasked did I realize that they were actually foreshadowing the "ending" if you can call it that. After a while, you're just left to fly around with no goals, no motivation whatsoever...at least I think so. The game gives you no indication as to whether or not you've accomplished all there is to accomplish. I would've at least started scrolling the credits over the screen or something.
Before the endgame phase, though, you're lead around the dark world from waypoint to waypoint...wait a second, waypoints?! I thought this was an exploration game, why am I still being lead on a linear path? Eh, whatever. At each waypoint, a man trying to do a dark, ominous voice will explain a little bit about what's happening. I have to say, the tone of the voice really clashes with the tone of the game. It's like if the voice overs from Kirby's Epic Yarn featured a Norwegian folk metal vocalist to shout the dialogue to chugging guitars and bagpipes.
And that's Solstice in a nutshell. It's insubstantial and goes from giving the player no freedom to do anything but go from point a to point b to giving the player the freedom to do anything he or she wants in a world in which there is absolutely nothing to do. If I wanted to immerse myself in music, I'd zone out to my Spa station on Pandora.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay experimental.
Links
Sun go Boom: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25267
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Solar Flare
Solar Flare is a 3D RTS wherein you are a planet hell bent on killing all the other planets. Seems legit.
The general rule of thumb with an RTS game is: the less wait time, the better. Actually, that's a good rule to stick to for any game, but RTS games seem to violate that rule more often than games of other genres do. Solar Flare commits the cardinal sin of "steadily refilling resource points," which means if you build stuff too quickly (that is to say, not making yourself a sandwich every time you erect a cannon), you're going to be waiting around quite a bit for your energy bar to fill up.
To Solar Flare's credit, it does try to keep things as fast-paced as possible, making the player control when the cannons fire rather than having them auto-fire. Honestly, though, that's just not enough. I spent about 3 quarters of a match just building energy towers to make my points refill faster, but I still had to wait an annoyingly long amount of time between cannon builds.
That's pretty much all there is to say about Solar Flare, really. It can be fun if you're patient enough not to mind taking a little nap every time you click a button, but I personally need more engagement. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay solar.
Links
Ahm Bliiind: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8719
The general rule of thumb with an RTS game is: the less wait time, the better. Actually, that's a good rule to stick to for any game, but RTS games seem to violate that rule more often than games of other genres do. Solar Flare commits the cardinal sin of "steadily refilling resource points," which means if you build stuff too quickly (that is to say, not making yourself a sandwich every time you erect a cannon), you're going to be waiting around quite a bit for your energy bar to fill up.
To Solar Flare's credit, it does try to keep things as fast-paced as possible, making the player control when the cannons fire rather than having them auto-fire. Honestly, though, that's just not enough. I spent about 3 quarters of a match just building energy towers to make my points refill faster, but I still had to wait an annoyingly long amount of time between cannon builds.
That's pretty much all there is to say about Solar Flare, really. It can be fun if you're patient enough not to mind taking a little nap every time you click a button, but I personally need more engagement. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay solar.
Links
Ahm Bliiind: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8719
Solace
The way I see it, there are 3 different kinds of video game narrative. First, there's the kind that explains the plot, setting, etc directly and overtly, like in Mass Effect or pretty much any AAA game. Then, there's the Oniro kind of narrative wherein you're given a vague idea of who you are and why you are where you are, but the events of the story aren't conveyed by traditional means; they're instead conveyed using symbols in the mechanics. That's my favorite kind of narrative, personally, but I digress. The third kind of narrative is the one in which there isn't really any narrative at all. No, I'm not talking about zero-context games like A Series of Tubes, I'm talking about the kind of games that just focus on an emotion or one theme and, rather than expand upon that theme with a story, characters, etc, they skip the middleman and just build their game to reinforce it, like in Shattered Nocturne.
Solace is in the third camp of video game narrative. It's a top-down rhythmic shooter that consists of 5 stages, each one named after one of the five stages of grief. For example, "Anger" has you decked out with a crap-ton of weapons from the get-go while super fast and powerful enemies flood the screen as metal music blasts in the background, each of your shots generating another guitar chug. "Depression" on the other hand, features enemies that pose you no threat whatsoever while your shots, which are almost completely ineffective, generate little acoustic guitar riffs as if played by the world's most depressed country music star. It's nice to see this kind of juxtaposition in the level design.
I only have two minor complaints for this game. First off, the rhythm in the depression stage needed work. Player input generating the music was an integral part of the game, and I understand the concept of taking a bit of control from the player in the depression stage, but the guitar riffs are just slightly off-beat, which is hard to ignore.
Second, some of the stages overstay their welcome a bit. Once again, depression is the worst offender, but really all the stages with the exception of bargaining and acceptance linger just a bit too long. I feel that the emotion they were trying to build gets built to its capacity a good 3-5 minutes before the level ends. Maybe I'm just a bit impatient, but timing is very important in a game like this.
Aside from that, though, the game is great. It's structured wonderfully, the gameplay is fun and varied, and while I won't say it makes you think, it certainly makes you feel. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay comfy.
Links
Sock Lice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18525
Solace is in the third camp of video game narrative. It's a top-down rhythmic shooter that consists of 5 stages, each one named after one of the five stages of grief. For example, "Anger" has you decked out with a crap-ton of weapons from the get-go while super fast and powerful enemies flood the screen as metal music blasts in the background, each of your shots generating another guitar chug. "Depression" on the other hand, features enemies that pose you no threat whatsoever while your shots, which are almost completely ineffective, generate little acoustic guitar riffs as if played by the world's most depressed country music star. It's nice to see this kind of juxtaposition in the level design.
I only have two minor complaints for this game. First off, the rhythm in the depression stage needed work. Player input generating the music was an integral part of the game, and I understand the concept of taking a bit of control from the player in the depression stage, but the guitar riffs are just slightly off-beat, which is hard to ignore.
Second, some of the stages overstay their welcome a bit. Once again, depression is the worst offender, but really all the stages with the exception of bargaining and acceptance linger just a bit too long. I feel that the emotion they were trying to build gets built to its capacity a good 3-5 minutes before the level ends. Maybe I'm just a bit impatient, but timing is very important in a game like this.
Aside from that, though, the game is great. It's structured wonderfully, the gameplay is fun and varied, and while I won't say it makes you think, it certainly makes you feel. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay comfy.
Links
Sock Lice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18525
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