Aww, look at da cute little kitty
Ok so the first thing I noticed about Fragment was that the art style kind of reminds me of a more modern Crazy Cross. The "cutscenes" are given in like a pencil-storyboard format (or at least the first one was). Once I had time to appreciate that I was thrust into the game whereupon two more things grabbed my attention. First, whatever planet you're on must be made of Fun Zone balls or something because your jump can easily catapult you right off the screen. Second, the music is, to quote a wise philosopher, quite bitchin' (oh, that's not a swear. Ger over it).
As I write this, I'm no more than 30 seconds into the actual game, and I can say that I have really high hopes for it. Let me talk about two more things that I noticed right off the bat. First off, the graphical style is not for everybody, but it is certainly for me. I personally love the cartooney, cell-shaded Wind Waker-ey style, but I know a lot of people who don't. Anyway, that's the kind of thing Fragment is going for.
Second, let me talk about that glorious Egoraptorian ideal of perfect conveyance. Fragment starts you off with absolutely no knowledge. All you had was an insubstantial "cutscene" thing. And you know what? That's how I like it! Fragment truly does rely on the game mechanics to teach the player about themselves. Here's an example. Right when you start off, the level is designed in a very linear way. You press "D" and you progress through. It looks like a 2.5D sidescroller at first. Then, I reached a dead end and thought "well what the hell, I'm only 15 seconds in and I already reach a dead end?" But, as it turns out, I was just being an idiot. See, right before I reached the dead end, the world kind of curved a little bit to give the feeling of depth. From this, one may infer that this actually isn't a 2.5D game, but a full-fledged 3D, third-person experience. The game never explicitly told me I had to completely change the paradigm of how I went about playing to progress, but the level design made it easy for me to infer it. This is how you design a game!
and, of course, right as I say that, the ever-infamous information disks are introduced. Whatever, though. In this case I think they're kind of necessary. I would never have figured out that "F" gives me a bird's-eye view of the level I'm at. Oh wait, this game was designed to be used with an Xbox 360 controller, so there's pretty much no excuse...and since I don't have any of those controllers lying around, there are some pretty annoying things I have to deal with.
I want to know who was in charge of mapping the PC controls for this game. Then I want to know if they've ever played a game before. The mouse controls are completely inverted and it feels extremely unnatural, especially when you try to adjust your view while blasting forward and end up probing through your character's nostrils because the mouse controls are a mess!
*pants angrily*
Ok, I think I'm good now. Were it not for the messy control scheme, I'd be really enthused about this game. I love how everything is presented, I love the art style, I love the pacing, I love how the world gradually expands, giving it a tangible sense of enormity. I guess the best way to describe this game is "the result when the best designers out there meet a team of really promising young programmers and one simpleton who thought it was a good idea to completely invert the mouse controls and make playing on a PC an absolute nightmare."
That's all I got for now. If that one guy who's responsible for the shameless act I mentioned happens to read this, sorry for being so harsh, but come on. I can't let something like that slide. Until next time, stay purrrrfect.
Links
Space Meow! https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24674
I like cats, if you couldn't tell...
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
FP-FS
Oh goodie, another FPS game! Will it be a fun and intuitive experience like Fight Zone or will it give me more headaches than Echo did? Yes, I've had a pretty interesting experience when it comes to DigiPen FPS games. The noble first person shooter is, while not really a genre in and of itself, my favorite "breed" of video game. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those foam-mouthed thrill seekers who play FPS games for the rush of the violence. In fact, I think it's a shame that modern FPS games tend to stick to the same formula when my favorite game of all time (slight props to anyone who can figure it out) deviated so greatly from the "linear shooting gallery" rigmarole. The perspective allows you to truly inject yourself into the character and experience the narrative to the fullest extent and the mechanics of a typical "shooter" game tend to be intuitive and natural. That said, it's very easy to use those qualities as fallbacks to justify an overall mediocre experience.
But now I'm just rambling, so I'm going to cut myself off there. Let's get into the review and find out where on the FPS spectrum FP-FS lands, shall we?
Well, upon starting up FP-FS I was delighted to see that it seemed to take a bit of inspiration from my aforementioned favorite game of all time, using words like "augmentation" and "multitool" (is it clear enough yet?). Indeed, the soundless tutorial screens got me fired up enough to tear through this game like a hot knife through butter. It was when I started looking for the "start game" button that I noticed the words "now loading" at the bottom of the screen. This had been going on for a good 5 minutes, and there was no progress bar to speak of, so I just assumed the game had crashed.
As I write this, I plan to start the game up again and let it sit for as long as it needs to. Hopefully I'll be able to occupy myself with whatever happens to be on Animal Planet...
*sigh* Yeah, this game is just a loading screen. Darn, I was really looking forward to it, too. Oh well. I hope my random musings on FPS games were at least somewhat entertaining. Until next time...
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=448
But now I'm just rambling, so I'm going to cut myself off there. Let's get into the review and find out where on the FPS spectrum FP-FS lands, shall we?
Well, upon starting up FP-FS I was delighted to see that it seemed to take a bit of inspiration from my aforementioned favorite game of all time, using words like "augmentation" and "multitool" (is it clear enough yet?). Indeed, the soundless tutorial screens got me fired up enough to tear through this game like a hot knife through butter. It was when I started looking for the "start game" button that I noticed the words "now loading" at the bottom of the screen. This had been going on for a good 5 minutes, and there was no progress bar to speak of, so I just assumed the game had crashed.
As I write this, I plan to start the game up again and let it sit for as long as it needs to. Hopefully I'll be able to occupy myself with whatever happens to be on Animal Planet...
*sigh* Yeah, this game is just a loading screen. Darn, I was really looking forward to it, too. Oh well. I hope my random musings on FPS games were at least somewhat entertaining. Until next time...
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=448
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Foxglove Copperfield: Robot Hunter
Whoa, nelly! This is gonna be interesting. Not only is this the biggest game (with the exception of Crazy Cross, which I'm still working on) so far, but it's the only one that requires Steam to play it. This is getting serious.
Unfortunately, this is 300+MB of deadweight. That's right, it's another broken game. What a shame. It crashes right after the initial loading screen.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25276
Unfortunately, this is 300+MB of deadweight. That's right, it's another broken game. What a shame. It crashes right after the initial loading screen.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25276
Founder's Glory
At first I thought this game had the opposite problem as Flux in that the video was working fine with no audio. Then I fired my weapon, having forgotten that I turned the volume all the way up in confusion, and now my ears are spewing rivers of blood and grey matter. Hopefully I'll stay alive long enough to finsh thisdfa afghakjrgh glujgksjbn
Just kidding, of course. Let's talk about Founder's Glory
The first problem I noticed straightaway is the ever irksome issue of bad conveyance. Let's get one thing clear, alright? If you must convey basic instructions on how to play the game via text dumps from uninteresting characters (which is never, by the way) please please PLEASE do not restrict control or progress of the player during these text dumps. All I'll want to do is go forth and shoot things, but I can't do that until I've sat through a lecture where Einstein teaches me that if my health bar goes down, I die. Thanks, Einstein! What would we do without you?
Here's my overall summareview for this game: it has the foundation for a great and innovative masterpiece, but it's filled with little things that annoy me to the point of unenjoyment.
The control scheme is great. Seriously, it's perfect for a 2D platformer of this kind. You're pretty much unrestricted in all ways that make sense, and any feeling of disempowerment fits in with the narrative, which is also executed fairly well (minus the whole text dump malarkey).
The levels are designed fairly well and the enemy placement is almost Castlevania levels of ingenious. The game has you imparting strategies (which I DIDN'T need explained to me by a crotchety old professor, thank you) like jumping atop enemies to get a better vantage point from which to shoot other enemies, etc.
Okay, enough praise. Let's get into why I don't like Founder's Glory.
I don't see how you're supposed to get through even the first level without dying. Seriously, there's not really a difficulty curve as much as there is a difficulty skyscraper. The enemies can litter the stage with bullets and you're so slow and clunky that it's nigh impossible to dodge enemy fire. This would be fine if you could exchange enemy scrap for health at any point in the levels or even if there were occasional health drops, but neither of those occur, making this game frustrating rather than challenging.
The rest of the game is honestly white noise as far as I'm concerned. I could go to the R&D shop, but why would I unless I have enough scrap metal to buy anything? How do I get scrap metal? Well by completing that impossible level, of course!
Alright I gotta cut it off here or else I'm going to get angry. Until next time, stay mechanical
Links
Gorey Flounders: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1416
Just kidding, of course. Let's talk about Founder's Glory
The first problem I noticed straightaway is the ever irksome issue of bad conveyance. Let's get one thing clear, alright? If you must convey basic instructions on how to play the game via text dumps from uninteresting characters (which is never, by the way) please please PLEASE do not restrict control or progress of the player during these text dumps. All I'll want to do is go forth and shoot things, but I can't do that until I've sat through a lecture where Einstein teaches me that if my health bar goes down, I die. Thanks, Einstein! What would we do without you?
Here's my overall summareview for this game: it has the foundation for a great and innovative masterpiece, but it's filled with little things that annoy me to the point of unenjoyment.
The control scheme is great. Seriously, it's perfect for a 2D platformer of this kind. You're pretty much unrestricted in all ways that make sense, and any feeling of disempowerment fits in with the narrative, which is also executed fairly well (minus the whole text dump malarkey).
The levels are designed fairly well and the enemy placement is almost Castlevania levels of ingenious. The game has you imparting strategies (which I DIDN'T need explained to me by a crotchety old professor, thank you) like jumping atop enemies to get a better vantage point from which to shoot other enemies, etc.
Okay, enough praise. Let's get into why I don't like Founder's Glory.
I don't see how you're supposed to get through even the first level without dying. Seriously, there's not really a difficulty curve as much as there is a difficulty skyscraper. The enemies can litter the stage with bullets and you're so slow and clunky that it's nigh impossible to dodge enemy fire. This would be fine if you could exchange enemy scrap for health at any point in the levels or even if there were occasional health drops, but neither of those occur, making this game frustrating rather than challenging.
The rest of the game is honestly white noise as far as I'm concerned. I could go to the R&D shop, but why would I unless I have enough scrap metal to buy anything? How do I get scrap metal? Well by completing that impossible level, of course!
Alright I gotta cut it off here or else I'm going to get angry. Until next time, stay mechanical
Links
Gorey Flounders: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1416
Flux
aight guys, I'm going to try and rip through a bunch of these today, so the reviews are gonna be short and (hopefully) sweet.
That said, Flux is broken. Yay?
I start the game up and the music ans SFX start playing but there's no video. Oh well. Next.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26614
That said, Flux is broken. Yay?
I start the game up and the music ans SFX start playing but there's no video. Oh well. Next.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26614
Monday, April 1, 2013
Fluffy Puff Rampage
I'm going to start out this review by paraphrasing the great Yahtzee Croshaw, as I oft do, and throw my support behind his notion that a game that fails due to over-ambition is much preferable than a game that fails because it tried to play it safe. Fluffy Puff Rampage strikes me as an ambitious project that eventually frustrated its creators to the point where they decided to throw up their arms and say "screw it, that'll do."
Making a game must be a lot of work, and Fluffy Puff Rampage is, I hope, proof of that. It's riddled with design choices that strike me as "quick fixes" to problems that the devs didn't know how to fix. "Hey, boss, I don't know why, but the save feature isn't working." "Did you look over the code?" "yeah, I don't know what's wrong." "Alright, just create a bunch of default save files that start off the player from every conceivable angle so that the game at least has the semblance of having a save feature" "now that I can do!"
From a gameplay standpoint, Fluffy Puff Rampage is okay. The levels are short to the point of being unsatisfying and the controls are quite sticky, especially when trying to pull off fancy combos or special moves, which all involve the use of that finicky block button. Other than that, it's a standard 2D beat em up not quite as good as the ones that litter Newgrounds.com.
The visual style is really good...I think. The levels are all themed really well and the enemy sprites seem to have a good bit of variety to them, but they're gone so soon after they appear that you don't really get any time to appreciate them.
Honestly, my only real gripe with this game is the whole "sticky controls" thing I grazed over. Everything else can be looked past, but this game really is a button masher on account of the sticky controls. Some people like that sort of thing, but I'm not a fan of button mashers. I find them to be repetitious and dull. Pulling off combos seems cool at first until you realize that spamming "kick" is infinitely more effective. Dominant strategy, yo. Were it not for that, I might have given this game my seal of approval.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay aggressive
Links
The Pillow Fights Back: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=426
Making a game must be a lot of work, and Fluffy Puff Rampage is, I hope, proof of that. It's riddled with design choices that strike me as "quick fixes" to problems that the devs didn't know how to fix. "Hey, boss, I don't know why, but the save feature isn't working." "Did you look over the code?" "yeah, I don't know what's wrong." "Alright, just create a bunch of default save files that start off the player from every conceivable angle so that the game at least has the semblance of having a save feature" "now that I can do!"
From a gameplay standpoint, Fluffy Puff Rampage is okay. The levels are short to the point of being unsatisfying and the controls are quite sticky, especially when trying to pull off fancy combos or special moves, which all involve the use of that finicky block button. Other than that, it's a standard 2D beat em up not quite as good as the ones that litter Newgrounds.com.
The visual style is really good...I think. The levels are all themed really well and the enemy sprites seem to have a good bit of variety to them, but they're gone so soon after they appear that you don't really get any time to appreciate them.
Honestly, my only real gripe with this game is the whole "sticky controls" thing I grazed over. Everything else can be looked past, but this game really is a button masher on account of the sticky controls. Some people like that sort of thing, but I'm not a fan of button mashers. I find them to be repetitious and dull. Pulling off combos seems cool at first until you realize that spamming "kick" is infinitely more effective. Dominant strategy, yo. Were it not for that, I might have given this game my seal of approval.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay aggressive
Links
The Pillow Fights Back: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=426
Floor It!
Floor It is a game by the McLovin Squad (no, I'm not joking) that captures the emotional roller coaster of the tale of a ghost car wandering through a barren city, desperately trying to find fulfillment in his endless purgatory of existence.
April fools. It's just an unfinished racing game.
First off, I thought one of the prerequisites to being called a "racing" game was that there had to be a "race" of some kind, but the car you control is the only animated thing in the whole city.
More glaringly, however, the game just *feels* unfinished. I don't know whether to blame the engine or the graphics or what, but a game that can have you phasing through buildings to get swiftly to your next checkpoint doesn't really seem like a finished product.
When I found out that you could go through buildings without getting hurt, the game just became a round of "point your car in the direction of the little phallic arrow above you and hold 'W' until the arrow changes direction."
Then, I drove straight into a lake and transformed into what I think was a boat. Then the real fun began. At least as a car, I could enjoy the revving of my engine and the adrenaline rush that came from the speed I'd gather. In the boat, there are no such things. At least there was another boat chasing me, though. Even though it did absolutely nothing even when it rammed into my backside, it at least gave the whole experience the semblance of a racing game.
Then, I morphed into a plane and rocketed off into the sun, a confused, broken shell of a man.
The end.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay complete
Links
A Series of Roads: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=16249
April fools. It's just an unfinished racing game.
First off, I thought one of the prerequisites to being called a "racing" game was that there had to be a "race" of some kind, but the car you control is the only animated thing in the whole city.
More glaringly, however, the game just *feels* unfinished. I don't know whether to blame the engine or the graphics or what, but a game that can have you phasing through buildings to get swiftly to your next checkpoint doesn't really seem like a finished product.
When I found out that you could go through buildings without getting hurt, the game just became a round of "point your car in the direction of the little phallic arrow above you and hold 'W' until the arrow changes direction."
Then, I drove straight into a lake and transformed into what I think was a boat. Then the real fun began. At least as a car, I could enjoy the revving of my engine and the adrenaline rush that came from the speed I'd gather. In the boat, there are no such things. At least there was another boat chasing me, though. Even though it did absolutely nothing even when it rammed into my backside, it at least gave the whole experience the semblance of a racing game.
Then, I morphed into a plane and rocketed off into the sun, a confused, broken shell of a man.
The end.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay complete
Links
A Series of Roads: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=16249
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