Father forgive me for I have sinned; I didn't post yesterday and I only started writing at 10:49pm today. Blah blah blah, you guys know the spiel by now. My schedule is unpredictable. To make it up for you, I played 2 games today.
First up is Swarm, a game wherein you are the Hivelord, a badass looking albeit very vulnerable fishlike creature who has the ability to transform plankton into soldiers of war. There are (I'm assuming), three different kinds of soldiers you can transform the plankton into, but I only played far enough to unlock two before I got frustrated.
Swarm isn't a bad game, it's just not quite my cup of tea. See, I like games that give you freedom to choose your own strategy. I like a game to challenge both my mind and my reflexes. That's why I'm such a Deus Ex nerd; to me, anything that deviates from that formula is a mistake (I know how closed off that sounds, but it's my mind and it does what it wants).
what bothers me about Swarm isn't so much the fact that it doesn't let you choose your strategy, more so the potential it exhibits, yet forgoes, to do so. Why not let me solely utilize the heavy-hitting ravagers to dispatch enemies quickly at the expense of forgoing the slowing effect of the stingers (yeah, I know, I'm using game-specific jargon. Play it for yourself if you're confused)? Instead, the game tells you straight up that the only way to go is to make an equal number of ravagers and stingers. Indeed, that is, statistically, the best strategy. There's no reason to experiment: the game tells you how to win.
Though, I probably wouldn't have ragequit if the game weren't challenging. I couldn't get passed one level in particular, which ended with a boss fight that looked cool, but to me was laughable because all I was doing was holding my mouse over it while I swam around trying to avoid taking hits. It's a rather unengaging mechanic, to say the least, to simply mouse over your enemies and wait for your minions to take care of them, and it makes for an even less engaging boss fight. Still, though, if you're an adrenaline junkie and you like a game that tests your skill without making you think too hard, there's a lot of fun waiting for you in this one.
Right, then, let's talk Synaesthete. It loses points right off the bat for being friggin impossible to spell without referring back to the gallery, but I digress. After all, it's an IGF finalist. ooooohh, fancy.
The first thing I noticed about Synaesthete was its uncanny similarity to Resonance. My first criticism of the latter was that it got repetitive after only a few minutes of play, but that didn't happen with Synaesthete. I attribute that to its being a lot less cluttered than Resonance. In the latter, you had to balance regular attacks with musical attacks and special attacks all while keeping an eye on the enemies and the other eye on the rhythm bar and the whole thing was such a convoluted mess that you ended up just staying in one place and playing the riffs in time to the best of your ability and ignoring half of the stuff that was going on at any given time. Synaesthete knows that there's a limit to how much the human brain can take in, and has you attack solely by keeping in time with the music(and, occasionally, using a super OP spell move that is quite satisfying and easy to execute).In addition, getting hit by an enemy does more than just make you lose a femtometer of health. You will be stunned and the music will be interrupted. This added punishment gives you an incentive to keep moving and avoid enemies while you play, giving the whole game a hectic yet manageable and very fun feeling.
And that's Synaesthete in a nutshell. The only other thing to mention is that the tutorial is a load of ass on toast. It commits pretty much every tutorial sin there is: unskippable text, context-sensitive controls, slow voice overs (also unskippable), it's just the worst. The rest of the game, though, is a-ok. More than that, even. Not that many games have me deliberately pull myself away from them, even though I want to keep playing, just so I can write up a damn review, but this game is one of the few and proud. Amazing music, fun gameplay, charming graphics (your character looks like one of those incongruous disasters I'd throw together in Blender one night when I'm bored, and I love it), and satisfying feel all combine to deliver a heck of an experience. Give this one a shot. It earns its IGF Finalist title.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay focused.
Links
Free Will? Wazzat?: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25990
Musical Murder: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=383
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Super SternKampher Assault (kinda) and Surprise Bummies
Super SternKampher Assault crashes only a few seconds into play, so oops.
Surprise Bummies is an interesting mix of Bejeweled and tower defense. You are presented with a grid of different kinds of eggs. You move those eggs around by "throwing" them with the mouse (a very good immersive of the mouse, might I add). If you double click on a group of 3 or more eggs of the same type, those eggs will turn into projectiles and shoot toward the onslaught of enemies trying to make all your base belong to them.
Different eggs have different effects, so the gameplay is very complex, which is fine as long as the mechanics are presented adequately. Unfortunately, it's really hard to convey mechanics this complicated without using text, but that doesn't mean it's okay to completely phone it in and explain everything via text. So yeah, the tutorial needed some work.
Upon completion of the first real level, though, I was introduced to two power ups. I got frustrated and ragequit after the next level, so I'm not sure if the game keeps up this difficulty curve, but at least I can say they were off to a strong start.
I'm not sure how at fault the game is for this, but my gameplay experience was completely broken by the mouse lagging up. I was having some problems with my mouse before I started playing, so it might be a problem on my end, but I tried starting up the game 3 different times, and each time the mouse lagged up.
If you're in the mood to have your brain tingle, I'd definitely recommend this game. The art style has that kiddish Spy Fox appeal, the gameplay is fun and interesting (provided the mouse doesn't get temperamental on you), and it's challenging enough for all you smartiepantses out there.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay a'shuffling.
Links
The one with the long name: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=451
not Raving Rabids: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24363
Surprise Bummies is an interesting mix of Bejeweled and tower defense. You are presented with a grid of different kinds of eggs. You move those eggs around by "throwing" them with the mouse (a very good immersive of the mouse, might I add). If you double click on a group of 3 or more eggs of the same type, those eggs will turn into projectiles and shoot toward the onslaught of enemies trying to make all your base belong to them.
Different eggs have different effects, so the gameplay is very complex, which is fine as long as the mechanics are presented adequately. Unfortunately, it's really hard to convey mechanics this complicated without using text, but that doesn't mean it's okay to completely phone it in and explain everything via text. So yeah, the tutorial needed some work.
Upon completion of the first real level, though, I was introduced to two power ups. I got frustrated and ragequit after the next level, so I'm not sure if the game keeps up this difficulty curve, but at least I can say they were off to a strong start.
I'm not sure how at fault the game is for this, but my gameplay experience was completely broken by the mouse lagging up. I was having some problems with my mouse before I started playing, so it might be a problem on my end, but I tried starting up the game 3 different times, and each time the mouse lagged up.
If you're in the mood to have your brain tingle, I'd definitely recommend this game. The art style has that kiddish Spy Fox appeal, the gameplay is fun and interesting (provided the mouse doesn't get temperamental on you), and it's challenging enough for all you smartiepantses out there.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay a'shuffling.
Links
The one with the long name: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=451
not Raving Rabids: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24363
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Super Squirrel
Forgive me for being a bit underzealous as of late, but between my Art History and Russian Literature classes, I've been squeezing my brain dry for any semblance of wit I can wring out of the poor overworked bastard. It doesn't help that most of these games make no real mistakes but make no real triumphs, either, leading me to just phone it in and say "yeah, it's well made"
well made is a term I shouldn't throw around as much as I do, though. If a game simply doesn't offend me, that doesn't mean it was well-made, just that it was competently made. "well made" should be a term reserved for games like Super Squirrel; games that rely not on some creative gimmick to be fun to play, but on the ingenuity of its design and its mastery of pre-established formulae.
Super Squirrel is a platformer in which you have a gun and a sword to chop and blast enemies with. You start out in tutorial forest where you learn the basic ropes through a combination of good level design and obtrusive, unnecessary text. After that, you move to an overworld whence you can enter one of four levels.
Now, it's worth noting that I only completed the forest level and then went on to the desert, where I died and had to start from the very beginning of the game. That's right, once you lose all your lives, it's game over for realsies, which I think is one of the game's biggest missteps. I was very impressed, for example, of how the game gave me a wall-jump ability after the forest level and how useful it was during the desert level. I assumed that a new ability would be given at the end of each level and that all the levels were designed with ample opportunities to use them. However, since I don't have enough time or willpower to continue from the start every time I make a mistake, I can only assume, and I can't make recommendations based on assumptions.
I can, and will, however, recommend this game based on what I experienced: a genuinely well-made platformer with fantastic art style and game feel (the feeling of collecting massive amounts of acorns provides a sense of accomplishment not felt since A Flipping Good Time). If you're up for a challenge, check it out. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay careful.
Links
widdwe squirr: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=483
well made is a term I shouldn't throw around as much as I do, though. If a game simply doesn't offend me, that doesn't mean it was well-made, just that it was competently made. "well made" should be a term reserved for games like Super Squirrel; games that rely not on some creative gimmick to be fun to play, but on the ingenuity of its design and its mastery of pre-established formulae.
Super Squirrel is a platformer in which you have a gun and a sword to chop and blast enemies with. You start out in tutorial forest where you learn the basic ropes through a combination of good level design and obtrusive, unnecessary text. After that, you move to an overworld whence you can enter one of four levels.
Now, it's worth noting that I only completed the forest level and then went on to the desert, where I died and had to start from the very beginning of the game. That's right, once you lose all your lives, it's game over for realsies, which I think is one of the game's biggest missteps. I was very impressed, for example, of how the game gave me a wall-jump ability after the forest level and how useful it was during the desert level. I assumed that a new ability would be given at the end of each level and that all the levels were designed with ample opportunities to use them. However, since I don't have enough time or willpower to continue from the start every time I make a mistake, I can only assume, and I can't make recommendations based on assumptions.
I can, and will, however, recommend this game based on what I experienced: a genuinely well-made platformer with fantastic art style and game feel (the feeling of collecting massive amounts of acorns provides a sense of accomplishment not felt since A Flipping Good Time). If you're up for a challenge, check it out. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay careful.
Links
widdwe squirr: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=483
Monday, September 30, 2013
Super Space
Can't do it, guys. Sorry. The game makes it very clear that in order to play it, you need Xbox360 controllers and friends. I have neither of those things.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26067
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26067
Super Massive Shooter
You've got to be careful about adding words that are synonymous with "good" in the titles of your projects. In fact, pretty much any adjective used to describe the game itself rather than something in the game (The "Dark" in "Dark Souls" for example, is fine) is generally a bad idea. Super Massive Shooter decided to forget all that and pretty much name itself "you will have fun playing this."
And, for all it's worth, you will have fun. There are, however, a few frustrations that you'll have to deal with. First, though, let's talk about what this game does right.
First off, the "level design." I put the air bunnies there because I'm really talking about enemy design, but in a shoot 'em up like this, those two terms are pretty much synonymous (I've been using that word a lot lately, huh. Maybe I should find some synonyms...whoa). The screen fills up with just enough enemies and their projectiles to keep the game challenging without ever feeling like demise is inevitable. For me, the hallmark of a badly made bullet hell is when I've just given up on trying to conserve my supply of lives and I just bombard the enemy with as many shots as I can before I'm dead for realsies. That never happened in this game; I was always trying to maintain a bit of strategy. Gold star for that.
As you progress throughout the levels, you will gain bigger and better weapons to take down bigger and badder enemies. This keeps the player immersed at all times and gives them the rewarding feeling of getting stronger. It's the kind of lip-biting satisfaction that games like Sugarbaby will never be able to achieve. The presentation is great; the hitsparks are beautifully satisfying and the game runs at a cool 60fps.
Then there are some things that just seemed pointless. For example, throughout the entire tutorial, your ship will be blinking and emitting a noise similar to the one when your health runs low in a Zelda game. In Zelda, though, the noise serves a purpose both as a punishment for being careless with your life and a motivation to get some life back. in SMS, it's just there for no apparent reason.
What got my goat the most, though, are the things that genuinely decrease the quality of play. There's a reason most bullet hell games have enemies come exclusively from the top of the screen: that's because anything else will make the game feel cluttered and confusing. In SMS, not only do enemies blend into the background very easily, but they also spawn at random locations, leading to more than one occasion where I was killed by a completely invisible enemy. That just ain't fun.
And you know what else? I don't even think you can pause the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but "esc" didn't work. When I play games, I like to be able to stop what I'm doing and chat with a friend on the facebooks or something. A game that demands that you devote your attention to it nonstop until you're done with it is just selfish.
Anyways, while Super Massive Shooter is not entirely super nor to any degree massive, it's certainly a shooter, and an entertaining one at that. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay kersplosive.
Links
Standard Message Service: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25997
And, for all it's worth, you will have fun. There are, however, a few frustrations that you'll have to deal with. First, though, let's talk about what this game does right.
First off, the "level design." I put the air bunnies there because I'm really talking about enemy design, but in a shoot 'em up like this, those two terms are pretty much synonymous (I've been using that word a lot lately, huh. Maybe I should find some synonyms...whoa). The screen fills up with just enough enemies and their projectiles to keep the game challenging without ever feeling like demise is inevitable. For me, the hallmark of a badly made bullet hell is when I've just given up on trying to conserve my supply of lives and I just bombard the enemy with as many shots as I can before I'm dead for realsies. That never happened in this game; I was always trying to maintain a bit of strategy. Gold star for that.
As you progress throughout the levels, you will gain bigger and better weapons to take down bigger and badder enemies. This keeps the player immersed at all times and gives them the rewarding feeling of getting stronger. It's the kind of lip-biting satisfaction that games like Sugarbaby will never be able to achieve. The presentation is great; the hitsparks are beautifully satisfying and the game runs at a cool 60fps.
Then there are some things that just seemed pointless. For example, throughout the entire tutorial, your ship will be blinking and emitting a noise similar to the one when your health runs low in a Zelda game. In Zelda, though, the noise serves a purpose both as a punishment for being careless with your life and a motivation to get some life back. in SMS, it's just there for no apparent reason.
What got my goat the most, though, are the things that genuinely decrease the quality of play. There's a reason most bullet hell games have enemies come exclusively from the top of the screen: that's because anything else will make the game feel cluttered and confusing. In SMS, not only do enemies blend into the background very easily, but they also spawn at random locations, leading to more than one occasion where I was killed by a completely invisible enemy. That just ain't fun.
And you know what else? I don't even think you can pause the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but "esc" didn't work. When I play games, I like to be able to stop what I'm doing and chat with a friend on the facebooks or something. A game that demands that you devote your attention to it nonstop until you're done with it is just selfish.
Anyways, while Super Massive Shooter is not entirely super nor to any degree massive, it's certainly a shooter, and an entertaining one at that. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay kersplosive.
Links
Standard Message Service: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25997
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Sugarbaby
First impressions for this one were good when I noticed that the menu screen, instead of just telling me to click "play," "options," etc, had me drag a little sugar cube over buttons that said "play," "options," etc, thus telling me early on that I will be dragging sugar cubes around. It's little things like this that I think more games nowadays should remember more often.
Well anyway, how's the game? Well, it's not bad if you like dragging things. Each level has you using little cubes of sugar to attract these lemming-like creatures called sugarbabies (rather unfortunate name choice if you ask me, but I digress) into portals. As the levels go on, they get more and more complex, having you do things like click buttons or manipulate the attractiveness of certain sugar cubes, etc.
Do not pick this game up expecting to be challenged or tested in any way. Don't pick it up if you're looking for pulse-pounding action or brain-destroying puzzles. This game isn't meant for that. What this game is is relaxing, charming; it's something to put you in a good mood.
The downside to this kind of game, at least for me, is that it doesn't feel as fulfilling to play. See, when I play games, it's usually because there's a mountain of work that I don't want to do somewhere around me, so I want every minute of gaming to make me feel like I've accomplished something. Sugarbabies doesn't really deliver that feeling.
Again, though, that's not really what the game is about. Bottom line, I guess, the game does what it sets out to do: put a smile on your face. There's plenty of levels to keep you occupied, too, so I suppose it's a useful thing to have on your hard drive for whenever you need a pick-me-up. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay manipulative.
Links
Sugarbaby The real Sugarbaby all the Other Sugarbabies are Just Imitatin: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26016
Well anyway, how's the game? Well, it's not bad if you like dragging things. Each level has you using little cubes of sugar to attract these lemming-like creatures called sugarbabies (rather unfortunate name choice if you ask me, but I digress) into portals. As the levels go on, they get more and more complex, having you do things like click buttons or manipulate the attractiveness of certain sugar cubes, etc.
Do not pick this game up expecting to be challenged or tested in any way. Don't pick it up if you're looking for pulse-pounding action or brain-destroying puzzles. This game isn't meant for that. What this game is is relaxing, charming; it's something to put you in a good mood.
The downside to this kind of game, at least for me, is that it doesn't feel as fulfilling to play. See, when I play games, it's usually because there's a mountain of work that I don't want to do somewhere around me, so I want every minute of gaming to make me feel like I've accomplished something. Sugarbabies doesn't really deliver that feeling.
Again, though, that's not really what the game is about. Bottom line, I guess, the game does what it sets out to do: put a smile on your face. There's plenty of levels to keep you occupied, too, so I suppose it's a useful thing to have on your hard drive for whenever you need a pick-me-up. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay manipulative.
Links
Sugarbaby The real Sugarbaby all the Other Sugarbabies are Just Imitatin: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26016
Saturday, September 28, 2013
SugarSwarm
I have to admit, even after all these months of lame-brained reviews, I still feel kind of guilty when a game gives me a lot of content but I don't have much to say about it, like what happened with Subsonic. I wish I could write 30 page dissertations on each of these games, and if I wanted to devote my entire life to this blog, I probably would, but since I only have a year, I have to just write what's on my mind and move on, which doesn't always give me the best feeling. There are certain games, however, that I don't feel guilty at all in writing 2-paragraph reviews for. Sugarswarm is one of them.
Sugarswarm takes place in 3 acts, each no more than a couple minutes long. The first one is a tutorial, wherein you learn how to send and recall your maros, little marshmallow buddies that follow you around. One of the things you learn in this tutorial is that maros can break walls. Interesting, especially considering you will never ever use this ability again for the rest of the game. Seems kinda silly, doesn't it?
in act II, you're tasked with avoiding different kinds of enemies and getting from one side of the room to the other. You could use the mechanics you just learned to efficiently dispatch the enemies, but it's much quicker, easier and more effective to just run across the room. Sure, you'll lose a few maros that way, but they're not dead, see, they're just sleeping. In the game's quest to be as kid-friendly as possible, maros never die, and they can always be woken up my walking over to them.
This makes act III, the boss fight, insanely easy. All you need to do is click on the thing you want dead and run around the room waking up maros and avoiding enemies. With the exception of the damage I took when an explodey enemy was dropped on me with no warning whatsoever, I got through the whole thing unscathed on my first try.
Sugarswarm isn't a terrible game, and it's over before the adorable factor wears off, but it'll take more time to install than it will to complete, so I can recommend it only if you're very bored.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay sweet.
Links
aww, wook a da widdwe marshmawwows: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26706
Sugarswarm takes place in 3 acts, each no more than a couple minutes long. The first one is a tutorial, wherein you learn how to send and recall your maros, little marshmallow buddies that follow you around. One of the things you learn in this tutorial is that maros can break walls. Interesting, especially considering you will never ever use this ability again for the rest of the game. Seems kinda silly, doesn't it?
in act II, you're tasked with avoiding different kinds of enemies and getting from one side of the room to the other. You could use the mechanics you just learned to efficiently dispatch the enemies, but it's much quicker, easier and more effective to just run across the room. Sure, you'll lose a few maros that way, but they're not dead, see, they're just sleeping. In the game's quest to be as kid-friendly as possible, maros never die, and they can always be woken up my walking over to them.
This makes act III, the boss fight, insanely easy. All you need to do is click on the thing you want dead and run around the room waking up maros and avoiding enemies. With the exception of the damage I took when an explodey enemy was dropped on me with no warning whatsoever, I got through the whole thing unscathed on my first try.
Sugarswarm isn't a terrible game, and it's over before the adorable factor wears off, but it'll take more time to install than it will to complete, so I can recommend it only if you're very bored.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay sweet.
Links
aww, wook a da widdwe marshmawwows: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26706
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