Mass Effect 3.

it tired me out, all right.  After plowing through to the end, I hopped on the DigiPen gallery, saw that the next game in line was a 3D space shooter, and said "that is a big fat nope."

Project Pathogen

Project Pathogen is an interesting little platform game.  You play as a little square computer virus thing(?) and you have to make it to the end of the level, all the while killing other computer virus things(?).

Other than your super mega face pea shooter, you are armed with 3 weapons, a remote mine, a trampoline, and a teleporter.  You cycle through these things with "A" "S" and "D" while using the arrow keys to move, "C" to jump, and "X" to charge up and launch your weapons.  Now, I want you all to thing about this for a while.  Put your fingers on the keyboard as if you were about to play this game.  Now, record how long it takes for you to be able to perform the following actions:

-jump.

my guess is you had to think about what you were doing for at least a fraction of a second before you realized that "C" was the jump key and not "X," the one that, oh, I dunno, feels like a jump key.  And lo, herein lies the main problem of the game.  There are a million things happening on the screen at any given time.  I have neither the time nor the patience nor the health bar to have to think about what I do before I do it.

Other than that, the game is good.  The controls are solid, the music is catchy, and the mines behave pretty well.  If only the controls were more intuitive, this one would've been great.  I mean, it's tough for me to call any particular platformer "great" since its such a common genre, but I don't think anyone would deny the greatness of Megaman or Super Mario Bros.  The difference is that those games didn't make mistakes, and even when they did, they were minor enough to ignore.  Never once while playing Megaman (which this game was quite clearly influenced by) did I have to think about which button to press, and that game had like 13 different powers.  Project Pathogen only has 3.

That's all I got for today.  Until next time, stay intuitive.

Links
Proj-*cough* uh, Path *cough* gen *wheeze*: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25874

Project Mayhem

Can someone please explain to me what these "NOT REAL EXEs" are about?  I'm just so confused...

Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=600

Project Albatross

If you're a frequent reader of mine, you'll probably have picked up by now on some subtle to not-so-subtle hints that I'm not entirely fond of the American education system, or at least parts of it.  One part I hate in particular is how much weight is put on simple memory tests, some of which are presented at random and, thus, test nothing more than how absorbent a student's brain is.  That said, here's a pop quiz on my blog so far, free of consequence:

In which review did I say the game was "a demonstration for a brilliant engine for a really unique and intuitive game with no soundtrack, unrefined visuals and unreasonable health system."

Here's a hint: The game featured gravity puzzles from a first-person perspective.  Give up yet?

Of course, it was my Gravitation review!  Here's some extra credit: name one other thing I said in that review.

If you answered, "Without the combat, Gravitation would simply have no challenge," congratulations, your mind has ascended into clairvoyance and you already know exactly where I'm going with this, so you may as well stop reading now.

Before I get even more sidetracked than I already am, let me spew out my one-line review for Project Albatross:  It's Gravitation with an emphasis on puzzle solving, the complete eradication of the combat and health systems, and much more obnoxiously glowy lights contrasted with completely back floor tiles.

And, much like in that review I keep waving in front of your faces, that's that.  You now know all that I'm going to say about this game.  Of course, just like before, I'll keep writing just in case you feel inclined to keep reading.

Project Albatross showed promise but lost my attention early on because of its aesthetic.  I don't think they executed a single element thereof very well.  I mean, the game looks okay if you're one of those people who can stare at a Lite-Brite board being spun by a power drill in a pitch black room for 4 hours, but for the rest of us, it's a one-way road to eyestrain with a very stressful speed limit.

I also seem to remember having a decent amount of control over where I landed in Gravitation, but here, my character and I always end up disagreeing on how to interpret my input.

I think the biggest problem is that, without a combat system to keep people from getting bored, Project Albatross was tasked with designing the puzzles in such a way that players were challenged, but still felt the need, or want, to keep going.  That's where this game really falls short.  Instead of asking myself "how am I going to get to that glowy cube?" I usually end up asking myself "where the bloody hell is that glowy cube?"  And that's not fun.  It's annoying.  Couple that with some really obnoxiously slow block-stacking physics and you've got yourself a game that just doesn't feel good to play.

Valiant effort, guys, but this one didn't wow me.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay referential

Links
Project AlbatWRONG: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25908

Potawatomi (kinda) and Primordial

My friends, before I begin today, I would like to note that I've made a horrible mistake.  I bought Mass Effect 3.  I know, I'm a monster.  It's just that the original Mass Effect was such a beautiful piece of artwork that I felt compelled to try out the other two.  Don't worry, though, the only thing more human than making mistakes is the ability to rise above those errors and become better off for it.

That said, I could have just done Potawatomi today, declared it broken (which it is), and left you all with that, but I simply wouldn't feel right clicking on that red square with the number "3" in it until I've delivered at least some kind of real review.

Now, let's talk Primordial.

This is a side scroller from DigiPen Singapore.  Quick thing to note before I start, this game actually led me to play it to completion, so on that merit alone, it should be given some kind of praise.  Granted, it's not a very long game, but still, it gave me no reason to ragequit.

Let me get the praise out of the way first.  Yes, this game is insanely linear, and yes, there's not much room for thought when solving the puzzles, but those are both good things.  That's what the game is designed to be; it's a slowly paced journey through the game's universe that values fun above all else.

I really appreciate how some of the puzzles force you to stop thinking in "game logic" and approach the situations as if you were in the real world.  Instead of conveying a few mechanics and then trusting the player to remember them and forget all else, it almost seems as if the designers started the game as just a straight path, threw in a couple obstacles, and then thought "what would my first instinct be when approached with something like this?"  Then, they designed the level accordingly, and the final product feels great.

Now, there were, of course, areas of the game that were not all good.  The aesthetic is a good place to start: the sound direction is great.  The music in the background is immersive, fun to listen to, etc.  All the sound effects feel satisfying to listen to.

The visual style has its ups and downs.  On the one hand, the characters are all drawn quite lovably, but on the other, both background and foreground objects are sometimes colored in pitch black.  That ain't cool.

And then there were the real problems: two in particular.  First, some of the jumps are a bit unfair to make.  If I demonstrate that I know how to solve a problem (e.g- jumping over a spiked gap), solving that problem shouldn't be too difficult.  Second, the loading times make P.U.S.H seem lightning fast.  I mean my god, I thought the game had crashed when I got to the first loading screen.

Oh well. Final verdict: it's a competently put together game that's worth checking out.  I will say, on a more personal note, that I would have been willing to accept this game's flaws and issue it my seal of approval if it had had some sort of narrative or themes or something to make it more than just a running and jumping spree.  Certain design elements, specifically the ending wherein you fall into a bottomless pit which brings you to the credits, are very similar to those in Oniro, which had far and away the best narrative of any game on this list so far.  Perhaps it's only for that reason that I ended up craving some sort of exploration into the world portrayed, but as it stands, the game just kind of feels like a demo rather than a completed project.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay primeval.

Links
Potawadoesn'twork: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26616
Eat all the bunnies: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25987

Polaris

I'm going to establish a new rule: any game that tells you to go to a "menu" and then closes out when you press the "esc" key has no right to ask that I start it up again. That said, I'll comment on the limited experience I had with Polaris before I decided to retire it to the depths of my hard drive.

First, the controls are good.  Great, in fact.  You move around at a nice speed, your jump arcs are just as you'd expect them to be, and your weapons take just enough skill to use to make the game not feel like a button masher but not quite enough skill for the game to seem exclusive to hardcore gamers.

The visual style is nice, too.  It's clear that these guys weren't using the most intense of animation programs, but they worked very well with what they had.

The main premise of the game is this: kill baddies, find new weapons, use those weapons to kill more baddies, rinse and repeat.  I approve of this formula.  It incentivizes while remaining simple.

The only real problem I had with the game is in the details.  The 2-second music loop that plays throughout gets very annoying very fast, for example.

All-in-all, this game is worth checking out if you like side-scrolling platformers with swords and fire.  If it were a tad more polished and didn't make such silly mistakes as making "esc" close the whole thing, I might have even played it to completion.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay slashy

Links
Jump'nSlashMan: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=480

Polar Flux

Polar Flux is another attempt to make a platformer with an original concept.  While I'm not a huge fan of this idea in general, I must concede that the idea of allowing you to magnetize your character on command in order to move blocks and traverse the levels is, while not incredibly original, at least a competently thought-out starting point.

Of course, the real sticking point for a game like that is the execution, and I'm sorry to say that Polar Flux was one of the few games I've played that has ever frustrated me to the point of eliciting a vocalization like "are you kidding me?"  The main problem is that even tapping an arrow key for a fraction of a second will cause your character to go flying across the screen.  This may be my fault for playing on a keyboard instead of an xbox controller, but come on, guys, this isn't the XBLA, this is the DigiPen Game Gallery, a website that people access using computers.  Computers have keyboards.  Know your audience!

Anyway, the aforementioned problem might not me too horrible if the levels weren't designed for very precise platforming, but between the jumping physics and the lack of friction on the already too-small surfaces, there are maybe 2 or 3 magical pixels that you can land on for any given platform that won't result in your demise.

This game does have its perks, of course.  The animation is framerate-tastic, the sound effects are satisfying, and the particles you emit while magnetizing yourself are joys to behold.  Some elements of the visual design were sloppy, like the fact that the spiked walls are just rectangles with a filled in black squiggly pattern, which becomes really apparent when they slap them in front of red backgrounds.

All-in-all, this game is a good start, but it's too frustrating for me to recommend.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay slippery.

Links

Actually Correct Usage of the Word "Flux:" https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25892