Duality

Duality is a first person 3D platforming puzzle game that focuses on solving puzzles by taking advantage of seamless dimensional rifts."  You mean...portals?  Oh dear, it's going to be one of those reviews, isn't it?  I thought I had my obligatory "this game is trying to be Portal review with Crystaline.  Well who knows, maybe this game will turn out to be original after all.

...nope.

Oh okay, fine, it's not exactly like Portal.  It also features dual-world gameplay (hence the title) so yeah nothing really too original to be seen here.  Oh well, just because the game's not terribly interesting doesn't mean it's not fun, right?

Well it's not boring, so that's good.  The levels are largely linear, leaving little room for the player to get lost.  The mechanics are functional and intuitive, the 3D world is really pretty and the music is enjoyable, especially when it fades from Dark World to Light World.  That said, why am I not particularly enthusiastic about this game?  It would be because there's simply not enough ingenuity or fun to be had to justify the little quirks about this game. The little things nipping at my heels would be perfectly acceptable if there was some sort of larger payoff, like if they were scraping the dead skin off my heels and making me look young again.  But as it stands, they're just pesky little annoyances that I'd rather kick into the next dimension.


For one thing, the bridges that you have to make for yourself are conveyed very poorly.  They're made out of glowing orbs that all form together to make one circular disk.  The problem is that it's impossible to tell at first glance where one disk begins and the other ends, leading to several moments like this:

This one in particular tricked me into falling into the lake below, which instantly teleported me to the beginning where I had to undo all my progress just to redo it again in.  Yeah, it's one of those games...

Another thing that grinds my gears is that in the third and final level, these moving portals are introduced.  They are never referred to again and they're completely obnoxious.  They don't add any level of challenge or depth, they just make you play the game at the game's pace, which is really annoying.  Remember Super Mario 64? That game knew how to implement moving platforms.  The player had to calculate the right moment to jump in order to progress.  It was challenging and fun.  The moving portals in Duality are neither of those.

And why is it that in the first 2 levels, the Light World's water turns into the Dark World's lava, but in the third level it's always water?  This whole game just feels a bit unfinished.  Not the broken kind of unfinished like Sonic '06, but the annoying "beta-build" feel that makes it seem like you're playtesting rather than playing.

Duality isn't terrible.  It had potential to be cool, albeit not very original, but it blew it with clumsy design.  The game as a whole isn't really that challenging.  All the puzzles are very simple, even the last one.  I was able to blow through all of them without even thinking, and I'm not usually very good at puzzle games.

Cool concept, sub-par game.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay bipolar.

Links
more like Poo-ality...heh: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=11752

DROP

Boy oh boy I'm tired.  It's a good thing DROP isn't a very complex game, because my mind is in no shape to delve into the intricacies of the video gaming medium right now.  Luckily, all I have to do is review a game about falling down a pit and avoiding stuff.

That's it.  That's all there is to it.  Simplicity is bliss, as they say, and if that's the case, this is the most blissful experience you're gonna get.

to be fair, you're also given a few shields that you can activate with LMB, which do enhance the gameplay experience.  It's all about making split-second decisions, this game:  "Do I use up a shield to keep my streak going or do I save the shield and try and move the mouse precisely enough to avoid this onslaught of obstacles?"

That quote is pretty much the entire review of the game in a nutshell.  Essentially, I think what the creators of this game tried to do was to pack as much content as they possibly could into the smallest possible package, hence the achievements, streak bonuses, shields, variety of obstacles, etc.

It's a fun game, but there's not much to it.  Yep, it's one of those games.  It wasn't quite fun enough to get my seal of approval, but it's an amusing, low-intensity game that you can keep in your start menu to play while your YouTube video buffers.

Links
CANNONBALLLLLL: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24357

Dreamside Maroon

Oh lookie, another IGF game.

Hot damn this game was good.  You may remember two days ago, when my partner in crime reviewed a game that advertised itself as a "poetic experience."  If any game is deserving of that title, it's Dreamside Maroon (although it never advertises itself as such.  Go figure).

I actually have a lot to say about this game, much of which I'm not going to be able to.  For now, know this:  I didn't play 100% of this game.  Not even close.  I played just enough to sample the mechanics and write a review.

The main premise of this game is that you are trying to travel to the moon by growing a vine toward it.  While in reality this idea is about as ingenious as a cheese grater made of soap, things go surprisingly well for Aster, the game's protagonist.

Now, the word of the day is "exploration," and I have to say, I'm so glad I have this game to hold up as an example of the right way to go about exploration, the antithesis of Skyrim's succession of pre-paved paths under the false pretense of "exploration game."  You are given all you need to have the best possible exploration experience: a primary objective (reach the moon), incentive to get off the beaten path (the poetry lamps that I'll explain later), and genuinely interesting environments to explore (every floating island, especially the shifting ones).  Granted, the game lacks a bit in the third category, but I'll get to that in a bit.

First, let me talk about these poetry lamps.  Along the way, you can light up lamps that do two things: give you fireflies and give you lines of verse.  These lines of verse are combined into a poem that you can access at any time throughout the game.  This appeals to two of the gaming aficionado's most prominent senses (at least in my opinion): achievement within the confines of game mechanics and exploration of the game's subtext.  The fireflies appeal to the sense of achievement, because you need fireflies in order to save yourself if you fall into the depths of space.  The poetry allows for a deeper examination of the game's themes and ideas as a whole, which makes people like me go nuts.  I'm going to shove this game into the face of everyone I know so that I can have conversations about such things.

EDIT: I replayed the game, and it turns out the fireflies are completely unnecessary.  They're just trinkets to be found.  Thus, consider the last paragraph as a reflection on what I would have liked to write about the game if it had implemented design choices more to my liking.

Let me talk a bit about the technical side of things before going into what I didn't like about the game.

The controls are nice and fluid and do exactly what you'd expect them to (once you go into the settings and set "inverse y on camera" from "off" to "on").  The only mechanical issue I had a problem with was the fact that if you press "S" to dismount your vine, walking on it is very difficult and unruly, which is likely to send you flying into the depths of space.  Granted, you can't die in this game, so it's not a huge problem.

That being said, there's no consequence for dying.  I find this to be a mark of flawed design in general, but what really gets me is that it takes any sense of danger or challenge out of the game.  The feeling of danger...the emotion that you could fail at any time...these are the kinds of moods that made Life of Pi such an amazing movie.  If you knew for a fact that the kid and the tiger would stumble upon an island village of zoophiles and that Pi and Richard Parker would start a family and live happily ever after, the movie would be reduced to nothing but a visual rollercoaster (by the way, nothing of the sort happens in Life of Pi.  Don't worry, I'd put 'spoiler alert' in front of a paragraph with legitimate spoilers).

Other than that, the worst thing I can say about this game is that it severely needs a skip feature.  This is the kind of game that would encourage you to replay it multiple times because every play experience is different. You'll likely get a completely different poem every time, etc.  Let me get right into the good stuff!  Don't make me watch the same artsy slideshow that I've watched every time I boot up the damn game.  And for cryin out loud, let me skip the credits!  Or at least put my stats before the credits so that I can make a mental note of them before alt+f4ing past the credits myself.  It's not that I'm not interested in who made the game, it's just that I already knew that by reading DigiPen's webpage, and I certainly don't need to see it more than once.

Despite this game's flaws (which were plentiful and pronounced), I had a lot of fun with it.  I really thing this game is artistic rather than artsy, which is an important difference.  Dreamside Maroon proudly joins my list of artistic masterpieces, right alongside Braid and Bastion.  Sure Dreamside Maroon might be the little nerdy pipsqueak that the other artistic games pick on, but he's still in the club and real proud of it.  It's miles above pretentious, artsy games like Douse in my opinion.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay poetic.  I leave you with one particular line from Dreamside Maroon that stuck with me: "But as long as I am young and the world is not as it should be, I am forced to define it.  An Idea.  To share it with the world."

Links
Fly me to the moon: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8715

Drake Savage Space Ninja

Remakes have a special place in video game history.  Whether they're direct reboots, sequels with identical mechanics to their predecessors, or completely new IP paying homage to their more notable ancestors, remakes are rampant in all sectors of the video game medium.

Drake Savage falls into the third category, obviously, and I'm glad to say it's everything a remake should be.  It uses the exact same controls as does Asteroids with one simple addition: instead of just fending for your life in space until you inevitably die, Drake Savage has set objectives for you to destroy (kind of like Sinistar, but without the terrifying monster or story appeal).  As you whittle down their defenses with your special weapon (another innovation), they release more enemies to chip away at your health bar.

The only real con about this game is that there's really no narrative to be found, which I recognize isn't really a flaw, but I can't help but think it makes the game smell a bit of missed potential.  After all, the game has already demonstrated its skill of conveyance by getting me to master the controls without so much as an on-screen button tutorial.

I am a huge fan of this game.  Maybe it doesn't have a story and maybe it borrows most of its good aspects from an already popular game or two, but Drake Savage fulfills my two main criteria for a truly good game:  It's fun to play and it provides a lesson for future game designers.  This is a textbook "what-to-do" guide on making remakes.  Anyone out there who feels like it's their duty to bring Space Invaders to the next dimension should play this game first.  That way, the tragedy of Space Raiders will never have to happen again...*shivers*

Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24671

PS- okay, I confess, I never actually played Space Raiders, but come on...

Douse (guest review)

And with this, I wish a very happy birthday to my bestest bud Luis.  You may know him from the guest review he did a while ago.  Well guess who's back?  As a birthday gift, I'm letting him steal the spotlight once again.  Without further ado, this:

Hello again! I am once again commandeering the good ship Dean and Digipen, and intend to sail it straight into the depths of irrelevance. But before I do that, Douse.

Now, let me say this before I begin. I have (almost) never played a game where the story is the main, if not only, focus. I have never placed my hands on Dear Esther, I have never fired up The Walking Dead, I have never woken up the PS3 I don’t own to play a few minutes of Journey. But one thing I can do is respect a solid, engaging, engrossing game story, seeing as there’s so few that have one. It’s part of the reason why Bastion is basically my favorite game since ever. So I was thoroughly skeptical going into Douse. But enough of this rambling.

Douse is marketed as a 2D story experience, but mechanically is a bit more similar to a platformer. You play as a raindrop, using mystical raindrop powers given unto you by the god of Shut Up And Play, who walks through a forest bringing dead plants back to life. As you can probably tell, I suck at explaining these things.

Aside from that though, this story that I was mentioning. Now, you’re likely to say that there isn’t one. And in a traditional sense, yes, the game lacks a narrative in the traditional “characters and a conflict” sense. But it does convey an experience. It conveys the daily life of a magical raindrop goin’ about his business and helping regrow dead forest plants. And you know what? I like that. It’s fun, it’s engaging, and most impressively, it’s done without words. I felt connected to this little raindrop sprite.

This game has one of the best visual aesthetics I’ve seen in awhile. Everything is designed with this visually delightful pastel tone, and it's a blast to walk through. You bounce off of spiderwebs and mushrooms, you walk across leaves and branches and fallen logs. It's amazing just to go through, and it really made me sad when, fifteen short minutes after starting, I was told that the game was over. I wanted to see more of this world. I wanted to see a fully realized, extensive, explorable game world.

Musically, the game is fabulous. The world is permeated by this magnificently relaxing acoustic guitar track. But what really makes the music stand out is how it blends with the world. Bounce on a mushroom, spring from a spiderweb, soar through a cloud, you get a corresponding musical cue. When I first realized this, I was overjoyed. I spent a few minutes just bouncing from cloud to mushroom to spiderweb and back, trying to time everything with the in-game soundtrack. The last time I actually wanted to explore every nook and cranny of a game world and just mess with the mechanics was with Portal. That’s right, I just compared this little indie title to what Yahtzee called “the earthly manifestation of Christ.” Come to think of it, the only game I can remember doing something like this was Portal 2, when you step on an Aerial Faith Plate and are greeted by a corresponding electronic height-based crescendo, or when you go through the Excursion Funnel and get that relaxing-ass music that makes you feel like you’re swimming through a magical sea of happiness and friendship.

As for faults, there are two things that I am going to complain about. One is that it isn’t longer. Like I said earlier, I seriously want these guys to release a full version that I need to pay for and lasts for about an hour. Or two. Or three. Aside from that, the “hitboxes” on the plants are a bit wonky. Sometimes it takes just a tap with the mouse to let the rains fall and the plants grow, and other times I’m sitting here for thirty seconds waiting for the grass to realize that yes, that is rain and yes, please grow so I can keep moving and not feel guilty about leaving you dead.

All in all, Douse is awesome, and is definitely more deserving of some kind of IGF recognition than some of its peers.

Seriously, go play this.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

------------------------------------------------

Splish Splash: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25890

Shameless plug: http://potentiallymeaningful.blogspot.com/

Cool story, bro!  Personally, I don't have the same opinion as my colleague here.  I thought the game was anemic and pretentious and that the only thing it had going for it was the presentation, which was, let's not mince words, absolutely friggin gorgeous from start to finish.  The aesthetic does not make the game, however, and once I looked past it, I saw nothing but a sub-par platformer with sticky controls.  But hey, that's just my opinion.  Plus, it's Luis's birthday, which makes his opinion like a million times better than anyone else's according to the laws of who gives a good gosh darn.

Thanks again for the review from the vastly more talented Luis Gomez.  Check out his blog if you want some damn good quality stories.  I ain't just saying that cuz its his birthday.

Dougie Digger

Hey look, URL not found!   Goodie, that means I get to go right into the special gift I had planned for today...stay tuned!

Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18530

Dots n Circles

Alright, time for a lightning round:

Dots n Circles is your standard "collect x avoid y" affair.  Nothing about the game is very original, which is probably why I'm so lukewarm about it.

From a technical standpoint, the game is perfect.  A+ worthy, I'd say.  However, is that really what you play a game for?  Do you really enjoy just playing a dumbed down version of Ikaruga that brings nothing to the table but an overused, glow-hockey aesthetic?  I, personally, don't.

There's very little I can actually say about this game.  These are the kinds of games I really hate reviewing.  I'm not saying simplicity is a bad thing.  In fact, I think simplicity is essential to successful game design in a lot of ways.  One of the reasons I like Starfox 64 so much is because it's so simple.  Just point, shoot and win.  That game brought something truly special to the table, though.  Memorable characters, original settings, and flawless game feel all worked together to reinforce the core experience.  The bells and whistles in Dots n Circles don't really feel like they're an integral part of the game, rather that they were just kind of tacked on to make the game a tad more enjoyable.

Dots n Circles is not a bad game by any means, and it definitely shows off the skill that the freshmen who made it have in programming.  My guess is that this is one of, if not the first project these guys worked on, and thus they were not focused on making a good game as much as they were focused on making a functional and fun game.  It's nothing too praiseworthy, but it's not bad as a debut title.  Check it out if you've got a few minutes to kill, but don't sweat it if you pass this one up.

Until next time, stay away from things that are different from you.  Otherwise you'll turn into a black hole.  True story; I learned it from video games.

Links
MY EYES!:https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24356