Ruin

This is another game geared toward the multiplayer crowd, so I don't have much to say about it....Brace yourselves for disappointment, folks.

While nothing to gawk at, the visuals are competently done.  It's immediately apparent what all the objects are and there's a fair use of bright and happiness-inducing colors.  The attack effects are another story.  The left-click laser is an utter disaster of particle effects that, when fired from multiple players at multiple angles, clogs up the screen like nobody's business.  It gets worse when you add to that the fact that you always shoot a little bit lower than the targeting reticule would have you believe; and by the way, that was an almost acceptable problem in Claustrophere when the attack moves so slowly that the reticule is basically there for decoration anyway, but in Ruin, the laser is an instantaneous attack with no travel time, so the reticule is actually important.

And on the topic of the two basic attacks, what the heck does the right-click bomb even do?  All that seems to happen when I use it is that it shines in the air for a second before disappearing.  That's the main problem with this game; it doesn't convey when things happen well enough.  It took me way longer than it should've to figure out whether I was playing team deathmatch or free-for-all.  The addition of some hit sparks would've helped, as would've a death animation, like a little explosion or something.

Other than that, the game is fine and I gather it would bring a good laugh to a group of friends who played it.  I wish I had more pointed praise than that, but there's nothing in the game that's done especially well, it's all just slightly above average.  Give it a shot if you're into shooting things, especially if you have a bunch of PCs on the same LAN and you can organize a quick game with your friends and/or family.

Links
Robot Murder: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1412

RS-6

I got a bit worried when this game touted its "five insanely difficult levels," because games that are "insanely difficult" tend to have that become their most memorable, if not only, defining characteristic.  What do you remember about Battletoads or Ikaruga, for example?  Wait a minute...Ikaruga...oh, no...not again...

So yeah.  You all know the drill by now, so I don't feel the need to tell you that I've grown a bit tired of bullet hell games centered around changing colors to not die.  Whatever, though, as long as the mechanics hold up, this game is fine by me.

I'm glad to say that "insanely difficult" ended up not being the game's only defining characteristic.  In fact, it's hardly a characteristic at all.  I only played the first level, so it's possible they were just trying to wean me onto the more ball-crunching levels with baby's first bullet hell, but the only difficult part about it was the boss fight, which I dare say was nigh impossible, so there goes the notion of a difficulty curve.

You know what bothers me most, though?  The boss didn't need to be as infuriating as it was.  The attacks follow a near perfect pattern, being just unpredictable enough to keep you on your toes, but not so much to the point where it becomes random.  I actually had a lot of fun with the boss fight until I realized what gave it the name "insanely difficult."  It seems one of the developers added a few extra '0's to the boss's health, because the bastard simply does not die.  I shot at the thing constantly for five minutes and I was only able to destroy one of its many segments.  Its possible I was just doing it wrong, but how complex can a bullet hell boss be to kill?  I shot at literally everything it had for as long as I could.  I'm not saying I should've beaten the boss no problem, but I should've at least come close.  I wasn't just screwing around, I was trying.  I was making a lot of mistakes, yeah, but not enough to warrant killing only 4% of the boss.

"lazy" is not a word I like to throw around (especially not to a dev team that includes pictures of themselves at computers, captioned 'hard at work,' which was a nice tough).  "Lazy" is a soul-crusher of a word that declares that not only did  your project fail, but it failed because you didn't love it enough.  It's a cruel word to use and one that I've made people my mortal enemies for using on me, but I have to be honest and say that simply giving the boss more health than Sardinia if it went to CrossFit is a cheap and...*gulp*...I'm sorry...lazy way of increasing the difficulty.

This game didn't need to be "insanely difficult."  It could have been a really fun, if simplistic, shoot 'em up, but it tried to be something its not.  This game was a pleasant, unathletic kid who occasionally dabbled in Magic the Gathering, but snubbed the nerdy crew to go hang out with the jocks, but the jocks ended up just giving him wedgies and calling him names.  Or, if that analogy's a bit too obtuse for you, here's an overview of the game as a whole:  It looks good, feels good and sounds good, but artificial difficulty is its downfall.

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

Links
Letter, Letter, Hyphen, Number: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=521

Rouger

My cousin: "Shitty graphics, good plot"
Me: "What was the plot?"
My Cousin: "Killing people."
Me: "Ah."
My Cousin: "All the birds looked sad, though."

Welp, that's basically Rouger in a nutshell.  I have no idea why it was called Rouger, when even the name suggested for the main character is "Falconator" or something...My cousin and I ended up dubbing him "Shuffles McGee" because of his hilarious walk cycle.

Anyway, Rouger is a top-down, Realm of the Mad God-esque killfest with no real direction to speak of.  You have 3 basic attacks: melee, magic, and arrows.  You use these attacks to kill stuff.  That's it.  That's the game.  But hey, as long as the killing is fun, who am I to judge, right?

And the killing is fun...especially when you kill your white-feathered allies desperately searching the woods for their sister...MWAHAHA.  After you've killed a certain number of your friends...I mean enemies who threaten the fabric of society and...yeah, your friends...you get to upgrade your strength, dexterity, intelligence and luck.  My prior experience with RPGs lead me to take an educated guess as to what these all do, but to the inexperienced player, a bit more conveyance would be nice.

Some enemies drop equipment that you can use, but each item only has one stat to it.  For example, a dagger and a sword will be identifiable only by one having +12 attack and another having +11, so this mechanic is pretty brainless, as all you're ever doing is swapping out certain equipment for objectively better equipment.

All-in-all, it's a good time-killer if you don't think about it too much.  Nothing about this game will wow you, for better or for worse.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay avian.

Links
Ca-caw! You die: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26663

Rorrim

I feel kind of bad releasing this review the way it is.  I know full well that I didn't give Rorrim the time it deserved.  For personal reasons, I didn't get the chance to start it up until about half an hour before time of writing.  While the average game on this list usually warrants no more than 20 minutes of play, Rorrim is clearly leagues above its counterparts.

And thus, the gushing begins.  Remember earlier when I was saying that visual quality simply can;t be measured by the amount of polygons on the screen?  I said that the 3D art has to exhibit solid aesthetic sense, and Rorrim's art pulls that off beautifully.  Even after the somewhat shaky expository paragraphs borrowed from the textbook on poor interactive storytelling, the level design conveys the setting perfectly, and the music is just the icing on the cake. It puts you in just the right mood to go out and win yourself some royal lovin'

Everything about the aesthetic is well done.  The characters and levels are well stylized, the color variety is stunning, the sound direction is flawless...oh man and I didn't even start talking about how the game feels yet...well to be honest it feels like any good game would...BUT THAT'S THE POINT.  It feels good.  Every death seems like your fault and every success seems like your own personal triumph.

Alright, with that out of the way, let's dig into the mechanics a bit.  You are armed with an enchantment staff and a bunch of mirrors strewn about the level.  By casting magic into the mirrors at different angles, you can materialize objects, make them bigger or smaller, make yourself bigger or smaller, and pretty much anything else you need to clear the treacherous levels of Nowhere Castle.  Sound confusing?  Well think outside the box, Luddite!  The reason it sounds so scary is because it's new and different.  This is what it sounds like to be unique and original.  Besides, it's not an easy mechanic to convey in words, as evidenced by the game's only-moderately-helpful text instructions; but those instructions are completely unnecessary because the mechanics convey themselves so well.

Now, I've seen poorly designed 3D levels before...in fact, I'll be blunt: most of the first-person 3D games on this list have been pretty poorly designed, but hey, designing levels is hard...like really hard.  I can respect that.  Rorrim takes that benefit of the doubt and hands it back to me after having stamped it thoroughly into the ground.  The levels are fantastically designed, each stage making you think before testing your skills; it's never frustrating and it's never overly simplified.  The difficulty curve is spot on.

Now, if this review just sounded like 4 paragraphs of incessant praise, that's because it is.  Look, I've gone on record saying that praise is useless unless juxtaposed with criticism (which, by the way, is why I mentioned the sub-par introduction), but as I said, I really didn't get enough time with Rorrim to start hating it yet, so before I go, I'm just going to share my ragequit story before giving it a very, VERY well deserved seal of approval.

The short version of the story is that I fell through the floor once and entered the negative zone where I was forced to restart the level and lose my progress thus far.  Come to think, that's the long version of the story, too.  Then I got tired and decided to call it a night.

So yeah.  That's all I got for now.  Check this game out, guys.  It's well worth your time.  Until next time, stay lovestruck.

Links
Whoa, Whim!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26617

Ronin Duck

The first thing that grabbed my attention about this game is that it claims to be inspired by "Classic 3D action-adventure games like The Legend of Zelda," Which leaves me thinking "which one?" Sure they all have the same general control setup, but they vary so greatly in their design that it's impossible to take all of the major elements from all of the 3D Zeldas and put them into one game.  Even just the two N64 games are so diverse in their basic design that claiming to be inspired by both of them already makes the game smell of lack of direction...I'm reading too much into it, of course, but at least I didn't go with my first instinct, which was to say that The Legend of Zelda is a top-down 2D action adventure game and surely they are referring to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Okay, tangent over.  Let's talk about Ronin Duck.

Let me make this idea fully known to any future developers, DigiPen and otherwise, who plan to make a 3D game: your job is NOT, I repeat, NOT over when you design a really cool looking 3D model for your character.  It is NOT okay to then slap this really cool looking character into a succession of monochrome, boxy, lifeless rooms.  That's not juxtaposition; it's just inconsistency.  The titular character's model looks almost professionally done (not by today's standards, mind you, but not too far behind), but everything else in the game looks lifeless and...well...boring.

Now, the unique selling mechanic is actually pretty interesting.  By left clicking, you enter "zen mode," wherein you can draw across the screen, highlighting different enemies or platforms that Ronin will then leap toward and swing his bamboo blade at.  It's cool at first, but it really does seem like it should be an unlockable special move rather than the main method of attack.  Maybe by making Ronin's only attack so ridiculously overpowered they were trying to hide the fact that no enemy, not even the final boss, can hurt you.  At least I don't think they can.

At first, I thought this mechanic was going to let me determine the angle of my swing, kind of like in Skyward Sword.  Then I got to thinking, "why haven't I ever seen a PC game that tries a mechanic like this? The mouse was made for this kind of work!"  I've heard Penumbra Overture and Elder Scrolls Arena try something like that, but I've never played either of those...oh yeah, speaking of Skyward Sword, what happened to that Zelda inspiration you were talking about, Ronin?  Did you just kinda forget that the main idea explored in those games is exploration or that they always make sure to give you some sort of context and direct goal?  These things are important, you know.  You can't just name your character "Ronin" and say "See? Being directionless enforces the narrative," because in order for that to work, you need a narrative to enforce.

So yeah, what we have in Ronin Duck is a tech demo for a game with really cool looking character and a fun if overpowered attack.  It still has a lot of bugs to iron out, mechanics to expand upon and challenge to...well...have, before I'm ready to call it a game.

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

Links
Quack Slice Dead: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8726

Roger Fastman

This game fancies itself a "reverse bullet hell," which intrigued me because the fun of a bullet hell is that you are vastly outmatched by your adversaries, yet you get to overcome all odds and take down things a million times your size, so what would the reverse be?  You crushing a relatively tiny spaceship with one shot to nobody's surprise?  When the game also touts its "automatic running and automatic shooting," I'm left genuinely puzzled as to where the creators of this game expected to generate challenge.

Well, after playing the first level, I think I get it: "reverse bullet hell" is sort of a misnomer.  Sure, there are bullets flying out of you at an alarming rate, reducing almost every enemy in your path to potato salad, but such things happen in Jetpack Joyride and Super C but I'd hardly classify those as "reverse bullet hell." what this game is, really, is a freerunning game.

In the first level, I don't think anything can kill you.  All that happens if an enemy hits you or you run into a spikey wall is that your speed decreases.  And you know what?  I love that idea!  A game like this that bases itself almost completely off speed and flow needs nothing more than for a player's mistake to result in the loss of speed and flow.  The player learns their lesson, yet they don't have to perform the same sequence of tasks over and over again.  There's still challenge, but the challenge is not in whether or not you'll beat the level, it's in how quickly and with how many points you'll do it.  That structure provides a constant stream of fun and oodles of replay value.

But then...the next two levels happen.  At first, it's nothing too harmful.  There's a giant robot T-Rex following you, and if he catches up to you, you're toast.  While I wasn't a fan of this addition, I see what they were trying to do.  After all, it adds more incentive to go fast, which is what the game is all about.  But then, in the third level, there's tons of stuff that can instakill you.  Sometimes the giant robot spider following you will shoot a death beam across the top of the screen, forcing you to not jump for a few seconds, which is more of a frustration than a genuine challenge.  Most annoyingly of all, there are certain gaps in the floor that kill you if you fall into them.  I'm going at like 300mph, game! How do you expect me to predict whether or not I'll fall into a gap that's completely offscreen at the time of my jump?

Oh well.  All-in-all, the game is still very fun.  It's pleasing in every sense.  The art is original and creative, the sounds meld together beautifully, and the gameplay is real adrenaline-pumping action.  This one gets my seal of approval.  Give it a go.

Links
Gotta Go Fast: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24650

Rocket Doll

You know, I like a game that doesn't overstay its welcome, but there's a fine line between concise and anemic.  Rocket Doll has a grand total of 2 levels, each not lasting more than 5 minutes.  I've always held to the notion that a game can be as short as it takes to explore its mechanics fully without dwelling on them, but if it only takes you 10 minutes then maybe you simply don't have enough mechanics to explore.  In the case of Rocket Doll, I can think only of two: rocket jumping and hitting targets to lower walls...Jeez, when you look at it that way, 10 minutes seems kinda generous!

So yeah, the game loses points straightaway because of its length, but as long as those 10 minutes were fun, the game will still get a pass by me.  So, were they?  Well...kinda.  I have the suspicion that the only reason those 10 minutes were fun was because I was throwing splodey rockets everywhere, because everything else about the game, while not too terrible, was pretty sub-par, which is a word I love using because it makes me sound like I'm sampling Merlot.

Anyway, the visual design would be impressive if this game were made in 2002, but that was more than a decade ago.  You may think this sounds hypocritical for a guy who praises the N64 era as the greatest in video game history, but even games like Deus Ex, whose graphics are terribly dated, had some sense of visual consistency.  Even without the white text at the start of a new level, I could immediately tell if I was in Hong Kong or Paris or what have you.  In Rocket Doll, I had no idea where the hell I was.  I knew I was probably somewhere underground because I was surrounded by dirt, but then there were green and yellow metal platforms and green force fields and what the hell is going on?

Besides, even games with horrible 3D art (like System Shock 2) still held my attention because of all the little things.  I don't care that the characters faces look like paper masks because that's not what it takes to truly immerse.  In Rocket Doll, what happened to the footstep sounds or the character grunts?

Well, there is some attention to detail.  It is a little charming to see a splotch of soot where your rocket landed, but that's about it.

All-in-all, it's a sort of fun romp but it's not a game I would praise for its design elements.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay splodey.

Links
Do a Docket Roll: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26699