The Lift was made with the ever-functional Zero Engine, which I haven't had much luck with in the past. At least when this one crashed it gave me the option to write an error report, so maybe this game will be functional soon...
The Root of Life is a simplistic game wherein you guide a root down into the ground to find a water supply. This is one of those games that I consider to be a complete vacuum. There's really nothing to talk about. I quit within the first 5 levels for 2 reasons: first off, the background music started to awaken murderous feelings I never knew were in me. Second off, the game was just kinda dull. Essentially, you're just clicking wherever there is a bright color until you win. The game offers no form of experimentation; you're lead by a choke chain through the levels. The game fails to make you feel like you've done anything. It's more like "hey, look, we made a whole bunch of levels. Appreciate them!" And yes, I do appreciate them. I'm sure they took quite a long time to make and you should be proud of the fruits of your labor. All I'm saying is the orchard in which the fruits grow is not very fun to play in.
I'm going to end this here before I end up torturing even more innocent metaphors. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay concise.
Links
The Broken Lift: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26734
The Prequel to The Tree of Life: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26019
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Fourth Wall, The Last Helper, and The Legend of the Steam Yard
What's this? Another 3-game review? And none of the games had those stupid NOT_REAL_EXE things? Has Christmas come early for you guys or what?
Well, actually, for once, I should be celebrating along with you, because the first game on the list is a refreshing reaffirmation that people know what they're doing over there at DigiPen (a breath of fresh air that I desperately needed after the massacre that was yesterday's batch of games).
The Fourth Wall has it all. I'm going to cut all the fluff and just tell you what especially caught my eye: it conveys its mechanics stellarly. I can almost see Egoraptor with his little notepad checking off each thing the player learns as they play. The player isn't pandered to nor is he (or she) ever left completely clueless. This is the hallmark of successful game design. Now, how about those mechanics? Well conveyed mechanics mean nothing if they're not fun to use. Well, fear not, fellow interwebbers, because the gameplay in The Fourth Wall is fun and unique. It's kind of like Perspective in that it forces you to thing around the typical conventions of platforming and manipulate the (well designed) levels rather than just jump on platforms.
This is definitely one of those games that I stopped playing because I didn't have time, not because I genuinely wanted to stop. There's really not much more to say about it, so if you like to appreciate good game design where you see it, this game is definitely for you. I'll be honest, though, while it is a fun game, don't mistake my praise for an affirmation that you will be at the edge of your seat for the duration of play. It's not that kind of game. It's the kind of game you roll around your palate for a bit before swallowing, if you catch my drift. I, being the seasoned afficionado that I am, have no problem giving this one my seal of approval.
Moving on, The Last Helper was...well, it was interesting, but not in the Braid sense of interesting where you're left pondering the symbolism of the mechanics and the significance of the design. Rather, it's interesting in the "what were they going for here, anyway?" sense of the word. As the game starts up, you're greeted by a (rather oppressively long) loading screen that spits a whole bunch of facts about HIV/AIDS at you. "Huh," I thought. "This probably means either of two things: the game wants to prove that video gaming is a legitimate medium for tackling serious issues, like HIV/AIDS, or that video games can be powerful educational tools." Both of those statements are true, but honestly, The Last Helper isn't exactly the best way to prove them. First off, I may only have an elementary knowledge of Biology, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how helper T cells work. It's totally possible to deliver an educational experience that engages the player and teaches them at the same time using the mechanics, but creating a shooter out of a white blood cell isn't how to do it. Secondly, you can't expect the player to take your message seriously if you juxtapose sobering facts about the tragedies of the modern world with pew pew whoosh kapowey laser madness.
But maybe that's not what they were going for. Maybe they just wanted to create a fun horizontal shoot-em-up in a new and interesting locale. It's possible, although the very in-your-face Missile Command-esque ending makes it seem far less plausible. Regardless, let's play devil's advocate and say the overall goal was fun. The Last Helper, well...just doesn't do anything different. It's ground that's been well trodden a million times before. You fly to the left and shoot everything in your path. Is it constructed well? Yeah, kinda. I mean there are a lot of rookie mistakes, like the shooting sound being way too loud and annoying, but it's nothing you can't get past. The problem is that I had no motivation to actually get past them because the actual gameplay is repetitive and uninteresting. It's not terrible, but I'd say this one has a long way to go.
Finally, Legend of the Steam Yard is a very short but very smooth experience, like a perfectly crafted yet dishearteningly insubstantial chocolate truffle. It's a fast-paced, 3D third person shooter. It foregoes Brute Hardcastle's interesting mechanics in favor of more typical ones, but it completely eradicates the former game's other problems. Your character moves lightning fast and there are enough enemies to keep you on your toes. The biggest problem I had was that the particle effects, while kind of cool looking in a charming "baby's first Blender project" kind of way, make it difficult to tell whether or not you're hitting an enemy at a far distance. Not that it matters, though, considering you're just going to be plowing through and spamming bullets wherever you go regardless of who's dying in front of you. This game stays as long as it takes to explore its mechanics, which is only about 3 minutes. It doesn't overstay its welcome and it doesn't offend, so this game would seem to make a pretty good house guest, but at least the other, rowdier guests had the courtesy to bring some quiche. Steam Yard showed up empty handed, told one amusing anecdote, looked at its watch, said "good lord, this metaphor is tortured" and ran off.
So yeah, we had a pretty good mix today. One great game, one decent game and one "meh." That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay steamy
Links
Hello Audience, Good Bye Tradition: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24623
Magic School Bus Gone Wrong: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26707
Robot Zappy Funtime: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18589
Well, actually, for once, I should be celebrating along with you, because the first game on the list is a refreshing reaffirmation that people know what they're doing over there at DigiPen (a breath of fresh air that I desperately needed after the massacre that was yesterday's batch of games).
The Fourth Wall has it all. I'm going to cut all the fluff and just tell you what especially caught my eye: it conveys its mechanics stellarly. I can almost see Egoraptor with his little notepad checking off each thing the player learns as they play. The player isn't pandered to nor is he (or she) ever left completely clueless. This is the hallmark of successful game design. Now, how about those mechanics? Well conveyed mechanics mean nothing if they're not fun to use. Well, fear not, fellow interwebbers, because the gameplay in The Fourth Wall is fun and unique. It's kind of like Perspective in that it forces you to thing around the typical conventions of platforming and manipulate the (well designed) levels rather than just jump on platforms.
This is definitely one of those games that I stopped playing because I didn't have time, not because I genuinely wanted to stop. There's really not much more to say about it, so if you like to appreciate good game design where you see it, this game is definitely for you. I'll be honest, though, while it is a fun game, don't mistake my praise for an affirmation that you will be at the edge of your seat for the duration of play. It's not that kind of game. It's the kind of game you roll around your palate for a bit before swallowing, if you catch my drift. I, being the seasoned afficionado that I am, have no problem giving this one my seal of approval.
Moving on, The Last Helper was...well, it was interesting, but not in the Braid sense of interesting where you're left pondering the symbolism of the mechanics and the significance of the design. Rather, it's interesting in the "what were they going for here, anyway?" sense of the word. As the game starts up, you're greeted by a (rather oppressively long) loading screen that spits a whole bunch of facts about HIV/AIDS at you. "Huh," I thought. "This probably means either of two things: the game wants to prove that video gaming is a legitimate medium for tackling serious issues, like HIV/AIDS, or that video games can be powerful educational tools." Both of those statements are true, but honestly, The Last Helper isn't exactly the best way to prove them. First off, I may only have an elementary knowledge of Biology, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how helper T cells work. It's totally possible to deliver an educational experience that engages the player and teaches them at the same time using the mechanics, but creating a shooter out of a white blood cell isn't how to do it. Secondly, you can't expect the player to take your message seriously if you juxtapose sobering facts about the tragedies of the modern world with pew pew whoosh kapowey laser madness.
But maybe that's not what they were going for. Maybe they just wanted to create a fun horizontal shoot-em-up in a new and interesting locale. It's possible, although the very in-your-face Missile Command-esque ending makes it seem far less plausible. Regardless, let's play devil's advocate and say the overall goal was fun. The Last Helper, well...just doesn't do anything different. It's ground that's been well trodden a million times before. You fly to the left and shoot everything in your path. Is it constructed well? Yeah, kinda. I mean there are a lot of rookie mistakes, like the shooting sound being way too loud and annoying, but it's nothing you can't get past. The problem is that I had no motivation to actually get past them because the actual gameplay is repetitive and uninteresting. It's not terrible, but I'd say this one has a long way to go.
Finally, Legend of the Steam Yard is a very short but very smooth experience, like a perfectly crafted yet dishearteningly insubstantial chocolate truffle. It's a fast-paced, 3D third person shooter. It foregoes Brute Hardcastle's interesting mechanics in favor of more typical ones, but it completely eradicates the former game's other problems. Your character moves lightning fast and there are enough enemies to keep you on your toes. The biggest problem I had was that the particle effects, while kind of cool looking in a charming "baby's first Blender project" kind of way, make it difficult to tell whether or not you're hitting an enemy at a far distance. Not that it matters, though, considering you're just going to be plowing through and spamming bullets wherever you go regardless of who's dying in front of you. This game stays as long as it takes to explore its mechanics, which is only about 3 minutes. It doesn't overstay its welcome and it doesn't offend, so this game would seem to make a pretty good house guest, but at least the other, rowdier guests had the courtesy to bring some quiche. Steam Yard showed up empty handed, told one amusing anecdote, looked at its watch, said "good lord, this metaphor is tortured" and ran off.
So yeah, we had a pretty good mix today. One great game, one decent game and one "meh." That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay steamy
Links
Hello Audience, Good Bye Tradition: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24623
Magic School Bus Gone Wrong: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26707
Robot Zappy Funtime: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18589
Thursday, October 24, 2013
The Chronicles of Brute Hardcastle, The Exiled (kinda), and The Fantastic Adventures of Francis McKrispi
What inspired me to write 3 reviews before noon, you ask? Well, the fact that I was inert the past two days has something to do with it, but as we all know by now, my lack of motivation knows no bounds. No, the real reason I'm giving you this splendid 3-for-1 deal is that each of these games lasted no longer than 5 minutes before I ragequit. Let's get this party started.
Brute Hardcastle is my favorite kind of game to review, even though it makes for very uninteresting reading. It's the kind of game where one or two flaws dominate the experience so intensely that nothing else matters. Firstly, the movement speed is a joke. Seriously, nobody could have playtested this game and figured "yeah, he walks about fast enough." What's worse is that this game is ostensibly a beat 'em up, so the slow movement speed doesn't even complement the gameplay. Slow movement speed can be effective when used correctly, like in the last minutes of Mass Effect 3, but when the game expects you to believe that you're in the heat of battle and you're cruising along city streets at about 2 miles per day, there's a serious problem.
The other big issue is the level design. I try to be polite in these reviews, but I can't pull my punches here. This is some of the laziest and unthoughtful level design I've seen on this list. It's a relatively expansive city built on a grid, like Manhattan, but there's nothing in it! Coupled with the slow movement speed, this means you're going to be spending a lot of time strolling casually down the sidewalk wishing that there was something to do.
You know what? I really wanted to have fun with this game. I did! That's because it uses a fight mechanic that, for a long time, I've been saying would make a game very fun to play. You control the trajectory of your fists with the mouse. I love that they included this, but even that is executed so sloppily that it's just borderline broken. This game fails to impress. Moving on.
The Exiled is one of those NOT_REAL_EXE things. I don't know what to do about that.
Francis McKrispi, or, as it's otherwise called, Bacon, is a charming little platforming hack-n-slasher wherein you are a strip of bacon with a butter knife on a mission to destroy all eggs. This is my least favorite game to review because there is no outstanding mechanic whatsoever. It's just "a game" rather than "the game that" or "the game with." Get what I'm saying?
Bacon is the only game in this post that I might review if you're bored enough that you think cracking like a bazillion eggs is going to be entertaining. I do love the aesthetic, though. It's got enough quirk to make me smirk, but it does smell a but ofrotten eggs trying too hard to be witty, which, especially to a cynic like me, is a death sentence for any piece of art because it shows how unwitty the creators actually were.
Man, I was a jerk today. Oh well. Such is life. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay cruel.
Links
Brute Slowcastle: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=499
The Exiled EXE: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=603
Yummy Pig Meat: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18527
Brute Hardcastle is my favorite kind of game to review, even though it makes for very uninteresting reading. It's the kind of game where one or two flaws dominate the experience so intensely that nothing else matters. Firstly, the movement speed is a joke. Seriously, nobody could have playtested this game and figured "yeah, he walks about fast enough." What's worse is that this game is ostensibly a beat 'em up, so the slow movement speed doesn't even complement the gameplay. Slow movement speed can be effective when used correctly, like in the last minutes of Mass Effect 3, but when the game expects you to believe that you're in the heat of battle and you're cruising along city streets at about 2 miles per day, there's a serious problem.
The other big issue is the level design. I try to be polite in these reviews, but I can't pull my punches here. This is some of the laziest and unthoughtful level design I've seen on this list. It's a relatively expansive city built on a grid, like Manhattan, but there's nothing in it! Coupled with the slow movement speed, this means you're going to be spending a lot of time strolling casually down the sidewalk wishing that there was something to do.
You know what? I really wanted to have fun with this game. I did! That's because it uses a fight mechanic that, for a long time, I've been saying would make a game very fun to play. You control the trajectory of your fists with the mouse. I love that they included this, but even that is executed so sloppily that it's just borderline broken. This game fails to impress. Moving on.
The Exiled is one of those NOT_REAL_EXE things. I don't know what to do about that.
Francis McKrispi, or, as it's otherwise called, Bacon, is a charming little platforming hack-n-slasher wherein you are a strip of bacon with a butter knife on a mission to destroy all eggs. This is my least favorite game to review because there is no outstanding mechanic whatsoever. It's just "a game" rather than "the game that" or "the game with." Get what I'm saying?
Bacon is the only game in this post that I might review if you're bored enough that you think cracking like a bazillion eggs is going to be entertaining. I do love the aesthetic, though. It's got enough quirk to make me smirk, but it does smell a but of
Man, I was a jerk today. Oh well. Such is life. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay cruel.
Links
Brute Slowcastle: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=499
The Exiled EXE: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=603
Yummy Pig Meat: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18527
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The Busted Android
First off, right out of the gate, this game's development gets the award for most creative and hilarious name I've yet encountered: "Victorious Secret."
Brilliant.
You know what's not brilliant, though? making the left and right directional buttons do the exact same thing. Seriosuly. The Busted Android is a freerunning game of sorts, kind of like Roger Fastman but without the ability to spew bullets literally everywhere.
Sometimes a gameplay feature will stick out to me so much that I stop caring about the rest. I don't care so much that the art style could be mimicked by anyone with Inkscape and three spare minutes. I don't care so much that when the game doesn't decide to throw you into an enclosed space, the game can actually induce quite a sense of flow.
Really, all I care about is the fact that holding left can cause you to rocket to the right, and holding right can cause you to rocket to the left. The way it "works" is that both the left and right buttons give you a boost in whatever direction you're facing. You switch directions when you hit a wall. It feels very unnatural and is quite difficult to learn.
And that's basically it. This one fails to impress. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay busted
Links
The Perfectly Functional Android: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26018
Brilliant.
You know what's not brilliant, though? making the left and right directional buttons do the exact same thing. Seriosuly. The Busted Android is a freerunning game of sorts, kind of like Roger Fastman but without the ability to spew bullets literally everywhere.
Sometimes a gameplay feature will stick out to me so much that I stop caring about the rest. I don't care so much that the art style could be mimicked by anyone with Inkscape and three spare minutes. I don't care so much that when the game doesn't decide to throw you into an enclosed space, the game can actually induce quite a sense of flow.
Really, all I care about is the fact that holding left can cause you to rocket to the right, and holding right can cause you to rocket to the left. The way it "works" is that both the left and right buttons give you a boost in whatever direction you're facing. You switch directions when you hit a wall. It feels very unnatural and is quite difficult to learn.
And that's basically it. This one fails to impress. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay busted
Links
The Perfectly Functional Android: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26018
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Thanatos and The Bowling Ninja
Thanatos advertises itself as having "an emphasis on balanced and tactical gameplay." I, still recovering from my bad experience with Super Street Fighter 4, was intrigued and delighted by this proposition. Then, I booted it up, and found a low-grade version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl....Hhhnnggg-
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the latter two games, it's just that I don't think they are either particularly balanced or tactical, and I was looking forward to a game less about spamming hadokens and more about outwitting your opponent on the battlefield. Thanatos does not deliver in that aspect.
The game experience is most similar to those old-style cartoon fight scenes where the characters involved just sort of dissolve into a cloud of dust and moving fists. Here's how you play Thanatos: spam special attack ad nauseam, repeat. Between the smoke clouds and tiny characters, good luck following anything that's happening.
I understand that my opinion on Brawl and Street Fighter doesn't exactly coincide with the popular opinion, so take what I say about Thanatos, which appears to have combined the worst aspects of both, with a grain of salt, but I can't recommend it.
Moving on, The Bowling Ninja...
for all my banging of the "DigiPen <3 Ikaruga" drum, I do have to admit that there are a few games on this list that try to get away from that stereotype. For example, The Bowling Ninja is Ikaruga in reverse! Seriously, I'm not stretching this point just to be funny; if I tell you that a game is about destroying things with projectiles based on their color and that the color of the projectile must coincide with the color of the object, what do you think of? Now add in the fact that projectiles tend to quickly fill up the screen, and you've got a pretty good match.
Anyway, you are a ninja with an unlimited supply of bowling balls of four different colors. You throw those bowling balls at other ninjas, who are destroyed if hit with a bowling ball that matches their color. This is an interesting concept, at least, but the game design seems rather self-destructive. The bowling balls can bounce off walls, and when they do, they turn from colored to grey, and grey bowling balls can one-shot any incoming enemy, so rather than strategically placing your shots like the designers ostensibly planned, you end up just spamming balls and spinning in a circle until every threat around you dies.
So yeah, this may be fun for a few minutes, but just pressing the same buttons over and over can get really stale really fast, so the game is not helped by the fact that each level does nothing but introduce a greater quantity of enemies you must defeat to move on. I wouldn't necessarily call the game overly frustrating, but it does a terrible job of motivating the player to continue.
So, today we had two games with relatively similar pros and cons: graphical style that resembles the dooldes of a bored 4th grader (though I can't really blame them, each coming out more than 6 years ago), repetitive and boring gameplay, and a failure to impart a feeling of agency onto the player. These games aren't terrible, but they're at least below average compared to the others on the list. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay scribbled
Links
Overused Greek Word: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=517
The Beginning of The end of Creative Naming: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=455
Saturday, October 19, 2013
TerryTori K9 and Tetragrams
TerryTori K9 is an exclusively 2-player game, so I wasn't able to play it to its fullest extent. The only thing I can really comment on is the concept. Two dogs move around a map in real time to control territories. Those territories earn points per second for their owner, and the first to reach a certain number of points wins.
It seems like it could make for a really fun game. You can choose a certain special move before the match starts, each with effects like "prevent your opponent from taking your territory" or "stun your opponent," etc. They seem balanced enough to make the game enjoyable and tense. Of course, you'll have to play it with a friend to find out.
Tetragrams, on the other hand, is a one-player game, and a damn fine one at that. As its name sort of alludes to, the game is based heavily off Tetris, but is original enough for me to call it an homage rather than a rip-off. The idea is that there are certain polygonal shapes outlined on the board. Other shapes come in through a conveyor belt, and you have to place them so that the outlined shapes get filled in.
The big seller here is that the game is absolutely frantic. I, of course, forewent the tutorial, and was thoroughly confused by the time the "game over" screen reared its ugly head. There are so many different things going on at once...so much for the player to consider; yet somehow, it never gets so overwhelming that it becomes frustrating. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (by the way, if anyone can guess what I was just foreshadowing, I will personal mail you a cookie of your choosing), I kept coming back stronger than before every time I lost. The difficulty curve is perfect and each loss only motivated me to keep trying to master the controls.
This is my favorite kind of game: simple, yet perfectly designed. I didn't come across a single flaw in its design (though, in fairness, that might just be because I wasn't able to play far enough to find one). For that, this game gets my seal of approval. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay strategic.
Links
Woof Woof Piddle Piddle: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24635
Even More Shape-Related Death than Super Hexagon: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25000
It seems like it could make for a really fun game. You can choose a certain special move before the match starts, each with effects like "prevent your opponent from taking your territory" or "stun your opponent," etc. They seem balanced enough to make the game enjoyable and tense. Of course, you'll have to play it with a friend to find out.
Tetragrams, on the other hand, is a one-player game, and a damn fine one at that. As its name sort of alludes to, the game is based heavily off Tetris, but is original enough for me to call it an homage rather than a rip-off. The idea is that there are certain polygonal shapes outlined on the board. Other shapes come in through a conveyor belt, and you have to place them so that the outlined shapes get filled in.
The big seller here is that the game is absolutely frantic. I, of course, forewent the tutorial, and was thoroughly confused by the time the "game over" screen reared its ugly head. There are so many different things going on at once...so much for the player to consider; yet somehow, it never gets so overwhelming that it becomes frustrating. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (by the way, if anyone can guess what I was just foreshadowing, I will personal mail you a cookie of your choosing), I kept coming back stronger than before every time I lost. The difficulty curve is perfect and each loss only motivated me to keep trying to master the controls.
This is my favorite kind of game: simple, yet perfectly designed. I didn't come across a single flaw in its design (though, in fairness, that might just be because I wasn't able to play far enough to find one). For that, this game gets my seal of approval. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay strategic.
Links
Woof Woof Piddle Piddle: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24635
Even More Shape-Related Death than Super Hexagon: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25000
Friday, October 18, 2013
Temporal Power Racing and Terra
Alright, so maybe I overreacted earlier. Yeah, the addition of 14 new games so close to the end of the year kinda screwed me up, but not THAT much. My schedule is relatively unchanged, though I'm going to have to do these "double the games, half the quality" type reviews more often.
Anyways, let's talk about these games quickly, because I'm tired and really looking forward to hitting the hay.
Temporal Power Racing is your standard F-Zero clone, so if you're into that kind of game, then yay for you. I found something you should totally try out. For the rest of us, though...eh. The game isn't poorly designed, but it seems a lot more frustrating than it has to be.
The basic setup is decent enough. The levels are littered with red and blue patches. You swap between red and blue by hitting the "z" button, and depending on what color you are when you go over a patch, you will either get a speed boost or be slowed to a near stop. It's one of those ideas that sounds pretty bad on paper, after all, it's just adding an unnecessary step to the racing, but it actually works out to be pretty fun, though it does nothing to alleviate the stereotype that DigiPen students approach gamemaking as "How can we remake Ikaruga today?"
The real problem with the game is the car design. Usually, in a racing game like F-Zero, where the different cars are afforded ranks for how well they turn, their max speed, acceleration, etc, the player can look at those ranks and interpret their car choice as "how do I want to win this race? Do I want to blaze past the rest carelessly or do I want to carefully maneuver around my opponents, etc, etc, etc." In this game, the question is "in which way would it be least frustrating to get absolutely piledriven into last place?" I'm not saying the game is too hard, it's just that the fast carts all have terrible turning and the carts that allow you to stay on the track are too slow to be competitive. This doesn't make for a challenge, it makes for frustration.
Still, though, the graphical style is interesting and the gameplay isn't terrible, so I'll still give it a reluctant recommendation. Now, then, let's talk Terra.
Terra confused me quite a bit at first. Firstly, there's no academic year listed next to it in the game gallery, leading me to believe that this game was conjured from some intemporal void that transcends time and space, like it's our gift from God or something. Actually, the game displays the Valve logo upon startup, oddly enough, so I guess it is a gift from God...Well, if so, it's a shame God didn't keep the receipt.
Okay, that was too harsh. Terra is actually not bad. Some might find it pretty damn good. The concept is original and creative: tilt the world using RMB to manipulate your surroundings in order to get from point A to point B. When it works, it's actually very fun. I ragequit after the second level, however, because of how easy it is to kill yourself in this game. One errant nudge could mean the difference between completing a puzzle and being squished against a wall, losing all your life in a matter of nanoseconds.
So yeah, the word of the day is "frustration," kiddies. Try to avoid it at all costs. These games didn't, and they suffered because of it. I can recommend Terra for its polished and professional look and TPR for its interesting "Mortal Combat meets F-Zero 64" graphical style, but otherwise, I am largely unimpressed.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay rewarding
Links
Big Words, Little Cars: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=434
Overused Latin Word: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=23877
Anyways, let's talk about these games quickly, because I'm tired and really looking forward to hitting the hay.
Temporal Power Racing is your standard F-Zero clone, so if you're into that kind of game, then yay for you. I found something you should totally try out. For the rest of us, though...eh. The game isn't poorly designed, but it seems a lot more frustrating than it has to be.
The basic setup is decent enough. The levels are littered with red and blue patches. You swap between red and blue by hitting the "z" button, and depending on what color you are when you go over a patch, you will either get a speed boost or be slowed to a near stop. It's one of those ideas that sounds pretty bad on paper, after all, it's just adding an unnecessary step to the racing, but it actually works out to be pretty fun, though it does nothing to alleviate the stereotype that DigiPen students approach gamemaking as "How can we remake Ikaruga today?"
The real problem with the game is the car design. Usually, in a racing game like F-Zero, where the different cars are afforded ranks for how well they turn, their max speed, acceleration, etc, the player can look at those ranks and interpret their car choice as "how do I want to win this race? Do I want to blaze past the rest carelessly or do I want to carefully maneuver around my opponents, etc, etc, etc." In this game, the question is "in which way would it be least frustrating to get absolutely piledriven into last place?" I'm not saying the game is too hard, it's just that the fast carts all have terrible turning and the carts that allow you to stay on the track are too slow to be competitive. This doesn't make for a challenge, it makes for frustration.
Still, though, the graphical style is interesting and the gameplay isn't terrible, so I'll still give it a reluctant recommendation. Now, then, let's talk Terra.
Terra confused me quite a bit at first. Firstly, there's no academic year listed next to it in the game gallery, leading me to believe that this game was conjured from some intemporal void that transcends time and space, like it's our gift from God or something. Actually, the game displays the Valve logo upon startup, oddly enough, so I guess it is a gift from God...Well, if so, it's a shame God didn't keep the receipt.
Okay, that was too harsh. Terra is actually not bad. Some might find it pretty damn good. The concept is original and creative: tilt the world using RMB to manipulate your surroundings in order to get from point A to point B. When it works, it's actually very fun. I ragequit after the second level, however, because of how easy it is to kill yourself in this game. One errant nudge could mean the difference between completing a puzzle and being squished against a wall, losing all your life in a matter of nanoseconds.
So yeah, the word of the day is "frustration," kiddies. Try to avoid it at all costs. These games didn't, and they suffered because of it. I can recommend Terra for its polished and professional look and TPR for its interesting "Mortal Combat meets F-Zero 64" graphical style, but otherwise, I am largely unimpressed.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay rewarding
Links
Big Words, Little Cars: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=434
Overused Latin Word: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=23877
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