Sometimes you forget to blog...When you forget to blog, it's usually because some other things in your life are driving you crazy. Don't worry, I'm not going to fish for sympathy. I'm in the same position as every other high scholar out there, I get it. Just do try and understand that the mood I'm in as of late is definitely not conducive to writing, so I'm just going to give you the bare essentials of these three games today.
Tradewind is probably the best example on this entire list of "good foundation, poor execution." The entire game is built around the movement mechanics; basically, you hold the left mouse button down to rocket in the direction you're pointing. When you get it down, it's insanely fun to zip around this Bioshock Infinite-esque world like a peregrine falcon on speed.
The way the game chooses to put those mechanics to use, however, is lackluster. To be fair, the game does its best to keep the segments varied, but pretty much only the last mission doesn't seem out of place. Otherwise, you're pushing cabbages, fetching sandwiches, or literally rescuing cats from trees. Maybe that was a deliberate attempt to say "yeah, these missions are about as dull as you can get, but you're still having fun, so that must say a lot about the mechanics, eh?"
In short, this is a game I would love to see expanded on, because I think I could have had a lot more fun with it if I had any more motivation than "well this is fun" to keep playing. Maybe that sounds nonsensical, but still. Play the game for yourself. You'll see what I mean; it's very well crafted but shows a lot of potential for expansion. Not improvement, so much...expansion.
Short note on Tribe Tactics before I begin actually reviewing it: this game is very similar to Steamalot: Epoch's Journey, a game made by Indie developer Risen Phoenix Studios, who you should all totally check out on the facebooks. I was planning on reviewing Steamalot once it game out (I had the privilege of playing an early build at New York Comic Con last month), as well as their debut title Go Go Galago, but they're not DigiPen games, so I'll probably have to get around to them sometime in early 2014. Before you accuse, no I was not paid by Risen Phoenix to say this. I simply saw them at Comic Con and think they deserve lots more attention, and reviewing such a similar game to the one they're working on now presented me an ideal opportunity to help that happen.
Anyway, onto the review...
Tribe Tactics is a multiplayer card-based digital board game. Whoa...wrap your head around that one for a second. The way you win is by either killing you opponent's general or by taking out his/her two stationery crystals. The general can spawn warriors as well as effect cards and if I explain it any further it's going to get really confusing really fast. This is the hallmark of a well designed game, I think; the mechanics are confusing enough to be difficult to explain in words, but if you just play the game, you'll know exactly how to play it.
Since this is a multiplayer game, I was only able to pit myself against my own wit, which doesn't make for a very interesting battle. I can only assume that playing against someone else is fun. It seems like it would be, though. The game looks good, sounds good, and feels good, so what could go wrong? Check this out if you need some way to entertain both you and a friend at your next debate tournament or similar event.
Finally, Trick Shot Golf. All I can really say about it is...it's golf. You've got your standard holes: the straight shot, the troll curve, the sadistic ocean with patches of dry land...The game plays like any other golf game you'd find in the shadiest corner of your local pool hall. I assume the main uniqueness of the game stems from "fantasy mode," but my game crashed whenever I tried to load it.
I do have one major criticism of this game, though: the music. One question: Who on god's green earth thought it would be a good idea to put THIS much base in a soundtrack. It hurts! I mean that literally. This game is physically painful to play because of the ridiculous amount of base in the background. I feel like my intestines are being dissolved or something...
All-in-all, we've got three strong titles today. Maybe I'm only being lenient because I recently started programming again (This time in C++), so I have a whole new appreciation for how hellish getting a game to work can be, but I had fun with these games, especially the first two, since they didn't make my ears bleed. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay resonant.
Links:
My Cabbages!!!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25893
Chess without the Chess: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26911
Golf: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=536
Monday, November 4, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Toons n Tactics (kinda) and Trade Tides
My goodness there have been a lot of broken links lately...I guess there's not much I can do other than review the ones that work, right? Sorry, Toons n Tactics
It's okay, though, because Trade Tides filled me with enough anger for like 3 reviews. My first thought when playing this was "boy, this loading screen sure is taking a while." My second thought was "come on, why does this list have to have so many RTS games...and why do they all have to be so terrible at conveying the game's controls?!" So then I clicked the menu button and was immediately greeted by a loading screen.
...WHAT?!
Are you serious? The game needs to go through a loading screen just to bring up the in-game menu?! And then, guess what happened when I clicked "how to play." go on, guess! Have you guessed? Another loading screen! And another one appears when you finally learn the controls (oh, and believe me, I'll get to those in a second), so that makes THREE SEPARATE LOADING SCREENS, none of them especially quick, that you have to sit through just to learn how to play the game! How the hell do you get a game this wrong? I can understand making poor choices when programming a game, or trying new ideas that don't end up working, but THIS?! WHAT IS THIS?!
Oh, but it's my fault for not picking up on the controls, isn't it? Nobody forced me to open up the menu, right? Well guess how the (pretty much) only function in the game is performed? You have to left click on your castle, and then RIGHT CLICK on a surrounding neighborhood to link the two. WELKRJWWHAT?!
How on God's green Earth does that make any sense? Why would you switch up the buttons in the middle of performing a command? Left clicking on both the castle and the town does nothing, so why the hell did anybody think it was a good idea to require the player to first left click and then right click?
And once you've done that...well, you wait until time runs out. No, I'm not kidding. The objective of the game is to link all your territories and then "hold out for 5 minutes." Now, let me go on record saying that the "don't die until x time passes" game mechanic is very rarely pulled off well. I can think of maybe one game that did it right, and it's kind of a stretch (the game is Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and if you played it, you know what scene I'm talking about, and you know how big a stretch it is). Regardless, though, I don't think anyone would deny that one thing you need to make that game mechanic even remotely successful is some sort of threat. In Trade Tides, every now and again some pirates will appear on the screen, but they are so few and far between that by the time the next batch appears, you have enough money to basically flood the map with depth charges. Add onto that the fact that you can quick-plant charges by right clicking wherever you want them to go (ie- right on top of the pirate ships), and you've essentially been given a god hand that makes quick work of anything that might try to stand in your way.
I can only recommend this game to the kind of person who is addicted to winning, because I've never played an easier game that actually claims to have a challenge. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay seaworthy.
Links
Nothing Works!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25906
Trade Tirade: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24661
It's okay, though, because Trade Tides filled me with enough anger for like 3 reviews. My first thought when playing this was "boy, this loading screen sure is taking a while." My second thought was "come on, why does this list have to have so many RTS games...and why do they all have to be so terrible at conveying the game's controls?!" So then I clicked the menu button and was immediately greeted by a loading screen.
...WHAT?!
Are you serious? The game needs to go through a loading screen just to bring up the in-game menu?! And then, guess what happened when I clicked "how to play." go on, guess! Have you guessed? Another loading screen! And another one appears when you finally learn the controls (oh, and believe me, I'll get to those in a second), so that makes THREE SEPARATE LOADING SCREENS, none of them especially quick, that you have to sit through just to learn how to play the game! How the hell do you get a game this wrong? I can understand making poor choices when programming a game, or trying new ideas that don't end up working, but THIS?! WHAT IS THIS?!
Oh, but it's my fault for not picking up on the controls, isn't it? Nobody forced me to open up the menu, right? Well guess how the (pretty much) only function in the game is performed? You have to left click on your castle, and then RIGHT CLICK on a surrounding neighborhood to link the two. WELKRJWWHAT?!
How on God's green Earth does that make any sense? Why would you switch up the buttons in the middle of performing a command? Left clicking on both the castle and the town does nothing, so why the hell did anybody think it was a good idea to require the player to first left click and then right click?
And once you've done that...well, you wait until time runs out. No, I'm not kidding. The objective of the game is to link all your territories and then "hold out for 5 minutes." Now, let me go on record saying that the "don't die until x time passes" game mechanic is very rarely pulled off well. I can think of maybe one game that did it right, and it's kind of a stretch (the game is Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and if you played it, you know what scene I'm talking about, and you know how big a stretch it is). Regardless, though, I don't think anyone would deny that one thing you need to make that game mechanic even remotely successful is some sort of threat. In Trade Tides, every now and again some pirates will appear on the screen, but they are so few and far between that by the time the next batch appears, you have enough money to basically flood the map with depth charges. Add onto that the fact that you can quick-plant charges by right clicking wherever you want them to go (ie- right on top of the pirate ships), and you've essentially been given a god hand that makes quick work of anything that might try to stand in your way.
I can only recommend this game to the kind of person who is addicted to winning, because I've never played an easier game that actually claims to have a challenge. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay seaworthy.
Links
Nothing Works!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25906
Trade Tirade: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24661
Friday, November 1, 2013
THUGS, Titanium Snail (kinda), and Toblo
For all 0.25 of you who may be wondering whether the whole "skip a day, come back the next day with triple the power" thing is going to become routine for me, don't worry. I'm only doing it again this week because THUGS took me a little while to figure out. It's not that the game was too long or too hard to understand, it's just that it's not a game that lets you alt+tab out of it for a second without the whole thing breaking, so I needed to find a quiet hour or so where I could play the game without fear of anyone contacting me on the Facebook machine, which I didn't have yesterday. Yeah, I know I could have just signed out, but whatever. This is what we're going with this week.
So for a game that took as long as it did for me to be comfortable writing a review about it, THUGS has probably inspired the shortest review in me yet. All I can really say about it is: "It's Risk." Ever played Risk? You know, the board game? Well it's the same thing, cept this time with cute little graphics of street thugs beating the crap out of one another whenever there's a dispute for territory.
This is where I kind of have to take a step back and let you decide whether or not you want to play this game, because Risk is one of those games that everyone else seemed to love that I just couldn't stand. Since you guys all probably know about Risk, all I can really do to inform you is to point out the objectively worse choices THUGS made that Risk didn't. Really, there's only 1.
In Risk, it is always very clear how powerful your opponents are in any given area. You can tell which territories have how many soldiers and of which color. Here, anything you don't control is just colored black with a big question mark, so you have no idea which areas you need to defend and which areas are vulnerable for attack, meaning this game is even more of a damn dice roll than the combat mechanics that made me hate Risk so much.
As you have probably extrapolated from the titles of my posts by now, Titanium Snail didn't work for me. Sorry...
And that just leaves Toblo, one of the most charming games I've ever laid eyes on. DigiPen seems really good at making charming games, don't they? It's certainly a breath of fresh air from the industry standard, where every title must be hard boiled lest it suffer a commercial demise.
But the aesthetic isn't all that I liked about Toblo. The gameplay was pretty dang fun, too. It controls like a standard third person shooter CTF game, but instead of using guns to dispatch your enemies, you have to pick up blocks and throw them. You can hold up to 15 blocks at a time, and the world itself is made out of these blocks, so picking up ammo is a destructive action in and of itself. You start out in this beautiful LEGO utopia and then in the span of just a few minutes you tear it down with your bare adorable hands. Knocking out enemies with part of the environment conjures that glorious gravity gun feel that made HL2: Deathmatch so enjoyable, and holy hot damn when you get hit, you really feel it. Your character goes soaring and the impact is met with some of the punchiest sound effects I've ever heard.
The only real pitfalls this game falls into are ones that I've never seen a CTF game avoid. Eventually, especially in a singleplayer match where the AI is literally mathematically programmed to be equal in skill, you're going to reach this limbo where neither team makes any progress for a while, which sort of makes the whole game stale, so it would have been nice to see some alternate game modes than just CTF and Sandbox (which is utterly useless, by the way). Still, though, a game shouldn't really be criticized for what it doesn't have, so I'm still willing to give this one my seal of approval, if for no other reason than it was able to make me giggle like a child on an otherwise very gloomy day. Good Job on this one.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay happy
Links
Risk-ey business: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=552
Opps it dun werk: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=497
I gahtchu!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=465
So for a game that took as long as it did for me to be comfortable writing a review about it, THUGS has probably inspired the shortest review in me yet. All I can really say about it is: "It's Risk." Ever played Risk? You know, the board game? Well it's the same thing, cept this time with cute little graphics of street thugs beating the crap out of one another whenever there's a dispute for territory.
This is where I kind of have to take a step back and let you decide whether or not you want to play this game, because Risk is one of those games that everyone else seemed to love that I just couldn't stand. Since you guys all probably know about Risk, all I can really do to inform you is to point out the objectively worse choices THUGS made that Risk didn't. Really, there's only 1.
In Risk, it is always very clear how powerful your opponents are in any given area. You can tell which territories have how many soldiers and of which color. Here, anything you don't control is just colored black with a big question mark, so you have no idea which areas you need to defend and which areas are vulnerable for attack, meaning this game is even more of a damn dice roll than the combat mechanics that made me hate Risk so much.
As you have probably extrapolated from the titles of my posts by now, Titanium Snail didn't work for me. Sorry...
And that just leaves Toblo, one of the most charming games I've ever laid eyes on. DigiPen seems really good at making charming games, don't they? It's certainly a breath of fresh air from the industry standard, where every title must be hard boiled lest it suffer a commercial demise.
But the aesthetic isn't all that I liked about Toblo. The gameplay was pretty dang fun, too. It controls like a standard third person shooter CTF game, but instead of using guns to dispatch your enemies, you have to pick up blocks and throw them. You can hold up to 15 blocks at a time, and the world itself is made out of these blocks, so picking up ammo is a destructive action in and of itself. You start out in this beautiful LEGO utopia and then in the span of just a few minutes you tear it down with your bare adorable hands. Knocking out enemies with part of the environment conjures that glorious gravity gun feel that made HL2: Deathmatch so enjoyable, and holy hot damn when you get hit, you really feel it. Your character goes soaring and the impact is met with some of the punchiest sound effects I've ever heard.
The only real pitfalls this game falls into are ones that I've never seen a CTF game avoid. Eventually, especially in a singleplayer match where the AI is literally mathematically programmed to be equal in skill, you're going to reach this limbo where neither team makes any progress for a while, which sort of makes the whole game stale, so it would have been nice to see some alternate game modes than just CTF and Sandbox (which is utterly useless, by the way). Still, though, a game shouldn't really be criticized for what it doesn't have, so I'm still willing to give this one my seal of approval, if for no other reason than it was able to make me giggle like a child on an otherwise very gloomy day. Good Job on this one.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay happy
Links
Risk-ey business: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=552
Opps it dun werk: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=497
I gahtchu!: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=465
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Thelema
Thelema is one of those "big game, small package" deals. Just a bit over 7MB of disk space, and it contains a world so massive in scale that I couldn't trek through all of it in the 10 minutes for which I played.
Here's the basic rundown: the game is some weird mix of a platformer and an omnidirectional shooter. The gameplay, no doubt, resembles the latter, but the level design resembles the former. I'm actually not sure how I feel about this. The level design doesn't seem to affect the gameplay in any way, and it lead to a few fun moments when I would pretend to "Ninja Gaiden" off the walls by just pressing the left and right directional buttons, so I guess it was clever. Good work.
The gameplay is driven by the weapon upgrades that you can get by clearing grueling successions of enemies without dying. When you die, you are respawned at the beginning of the game, but you keep your weapon upgrades. I only played long enough to get one of these upgrades, the glacier, which was a huge step up from my starting fireball and...well...that's kind of what I don't like about it. Once I got it, I had no reason to ever use the fireball. The game would have been much more engaging had the weapon powerups offered slightly different playstyles, rather than just a numerical damage bonus and increased number of projectiles per click. Extra Credits did an awesome piece on this (yeah, it's been a while since I mentioned them, hasn't it?). Click the link below and check it out. It's one of my favorite episodes.
Anyways, Thelema is fun and competently designed, but I will say that it takes a bit of getting used to. For the first couple minutes of play, you're going to think this is nothing any amateur couldn't scrape together with a basic knowledge of C++, but stick with it a little longer and the game starts to show its true colors. If this game had included a save feature, I might even be inclined to play it some more. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay antigravitational.
Links
Magic Space Man: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=518
Extra Credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I
Here's the basic rundown: the game is some weird mix of a platformer and an omnidirectional shooter. The gameplay, no doubt, resembles the latter, but the level design resembles the former. I'm actually not sure how I feel about this. The level design doesn't seem to affect the gameplay in any way, and it lead to a few fun moments when I would pretend to "Ninja Gaiden" off the walls by just pressing the left and right directional buttons, so I guess it was clever. Good work.
The gameplay is driven by the weapon upgrades that you can get by clearing grueling successions of enemies without dying. When you die, you are respawned at the beginning of the game, but you keep your weapon upgrades. I only played long enough to get one of these upgrades, the glacier, which was a huge step up from my starting fireball and...well...that's kind of what I don't like about it. Once I got it, I had no reason to ever use the fireball. The game would have been much more engaging had the weapon powerups offered slightly different playstyles, rather than just a numerical damage bonus and increased number of projectiles per click. Extra Credits did an awesome piece on this (yeah, it's been a while since I mentioned them, hasn't it?). Click the link below and check it out. It's one of my favorite episodes.
Anyways, Thelema is fun and competently designed, but I will say that it takes a bit of getting used to. For the first couple minutes of play, you're going to think this is nothing any amateur couldn't scrape together with a basic knowledge of C++, but stick with it a little longer and the game starts to show its true colors. If this game had included a save feature, I might even be inclined to play it some more. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay antigravitational.
Links
Magic Space Man: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=518
Extra Credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The White Wall (kinda)
Oh what a momentous occasion this is. With this review, I start my journey upon the tenth and final page of the DigiPen Game Gallery. Of course, that's what I WOULD be saying if they hadn't added 15 games to the library just as I was catching up to my schedule...
No matter. The 11th page only has 5 games on it, so I'm still as excited as I would be if it truly were the last page. Without further ado, let's get this show on the road.
And how do we start off this milestone in the year 2013? With a broken game, of course! Outstanding. The White Wall simply failed to download.
Under normal circumstances, I would review another game in the name of preserving the blog's integrity. However, certain circumstances (an inordinate amount of schoolwork) are leading me to seize this opportunity to pocket an extra hour or so. If I finish my work early, I'll post again today. Knowing me, though, that's a longshot...
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26672
No matter. The 11th page only has 5 games on it, so I'm still as excited as I would be if it truly were the last page. Without further ado, let's get this show on the road.
And how do we start off this milestone in the year 2013? With a broken game, of course! Outstanding. The White Wall simply failed to download.
Under normal circumstances, I would review another game in the name of preserving the blog's integrity. However, certain circumstances (an inordinate amount of schoolwork) are leading me to seize this opportunity to pocket an extra hour or so. If I finish my work early, I'll post again today. Knowing me, though, that's a longshot...
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26672
Monday, October 28, 2013
The Shaman Engines and The Ward
Oh no, Dean forgot to blog yesterday. What ever shall we do? Oh noooooooooo
Anyway, The Shaman Engines starts up with a splash screen featuring bright whitish yellow contrasting against the black background, which is welcomingly similar to that of Dark Souls (wow, Dean is still playing Dark Souls? That game must be really good. Maybe I should support From Software and buy such a wonderful product...okay I'm done with that now).
So I start up the game and immediately, without so much as a "ready, go!" I am assaulted from all sides by giant rocket-slinging robots. I must say that this is one of the few games on this list to ever make me vocalize. It's up to you to decide whether you want to play a game that, in the first few seconds, will make you go "oh Jesus oh man oh God oh ding dang darn it!" Personally, I love this merciless style of opening the game. It's hilarious and effective. Granted, the controls didn't differ very much (read, "at all") from standard FPS controls, but it didn't take me long to learn the most efficient strategies when giant bipedal war bots are constantly throwing explodey stuff in my direction.
If there is beauty to be found in this game, which I think there is, it is to be found in its elegant simplicity. No fancy AI programming to make your enemies hide behind walls or look at fish or whatever. No unnecessary plot or stealth, just pure adrenaline-fueled robot 'sploding action. The game is fairly challenging and damn empowering to play. The sprint makes you rocket forward at the speed of sound, and the jetpack can quickly fling you to the perfect vantage point, but all of these features are well-balanced. The jetpack, for example, will drain your fuel and leave you a sitting duck to tank damage for a few seconds if you're not careful.
The flaws of this game are not flaws that make it any less fun. I already touched upon the AI, which, I'll be honest, is a bag of crystalized stupid. The enemies don't know how to do anything but rush you and shoot at your immediate position. I'm not saying a circle strafe will leave them 100% defenseless, but I will say that they're not much of a match for a seasoned veteran of Goldeneye. It's not really a problem, though, because there are enough enemies on the screen to maintain a challenge and give you enough fun things to shoot at. There also seem to be a few things that were added just for the sake of adding them. For example, the game flirts with a platforming section for about half a second as if just to say "look, I made a platform section." It's worth noting that I quit before I beat level 3, so maybe there's a good explanation for this, but it seemed frivolous to me.
Again, none of these things make the game any less fun to play, so the final verdict is that this one is worth your time. Check it out!
The Ward is what happens when you mix the gameplay of A Flipping Good Time with the narrative style Oniro and glaze it with Primordial's visual aesthetic. Let me break that down for you. The Ward is a platformer that centers around the ever popular gravity manipulation mechanic. Imagine VVVVVV but you're allowed to jump first.
The platforming is decent, but nothing special, and certainly can get frustrating at times. This game needs something to keep the player invested. The developers realized this and threw in narrative in the form of writing on the walls (like in Erebus. Man, I'm batting a thousand with the references today...) I pieced together something about me being dead and wanting to see my girlfriend again, but I ragequit before I could learn any more. See, the game committed the unforgivable sin of killing me because I rubbed up against the side of a spike. That was enough for me.
To review: The Shaman Engines is a shooter that rivals Fight Zone, and you should totally try out, while The Ward probably has a lot of payoff if you're willing to put up with a lot of frustration, which I frankly wasn't. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay dead.
Links
Robot Souls: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18571
Consciousness after Death: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24364
Anyway, The Shaman Engines starts up with a splash screen featuring bright whitish yellow contrasting against the black background, which is welcomingly similar to that of Dark Souls (wow, Dean is still playing Dark Souls? That game must be really good. Maybe I should support From Software and buy such a wonderful product...okay I'm done with that now).
So I start up the game and immediately, without so much as a "ready, go!" I am assaulted from all sides by giant rocket-slinging robots. I must say that this is one of the few games on this list to ever make me vocalize. It's up to you to decide whether you want to play a game that, in the first few seconds, will make you go "oh Jesus oh man oh God oh ding dang darn it!" Personally, I love this merciless style of opening the game. It's hilarious and effective. Granted, the controls didn't differ very much (read, "at all") from standard FPS controls, but it didn't take me long to learn the most efficient strategies when giant bipedal war bots are constantly throwing explodey stuff in my direction.
If there is beauty to be found in this game, which I think there is, it is to be found in its elegant simplicity. No fancy AI programming to make your enemies hide behind walls or look at fish or whatever. No unnecessary plot or stealth, just pure adrenaline-fueled robot 'sploding action. The game is fairly challenging and damn empowering to play. The sprint makes you rocket forward at the speed of sound, and the jetpack can quickly fling you to the perfect vantage point, but all of these features are well-balanced. The jetpack, for example, will drain your fuel and leave you a sitting duck to tank damage for a few seconds if you're not careful.
The flaws of this game are not flaws that make it any less fun. I already touched upon the AI, which, I'll be honest, is a bag of crystalized stupid. The enemies don't know how to do anything but rush you and shoot at your immediate position. I'm not saying a circle strafe will leave them 100% defenseless, but I will say that they're not much of a match for a seasoned veteran of Goldeneye. It's not really a problem, though, because there are enough enemies on the screen to maintain a challenge and give you enough fun things to shoot at. There also seem to be a few things that were added just for the sake of adding them. For example, the game flirts with a platforming section for about half a second as if just to say "look, I made a platform section." It's worth noting that I quit before I beat level 3, so maybe there's a good explanation for this, but it seemed frivolous to me.
Again, none of these things make the game any less fun to play, so the final verdict is that this one is worth your time. Check it out!
The Ward is what happens when you mix the gameplay of A Flipping Good Time with the narrative style Oniro and glaze it with Primordial's visual aesthetic. Let me break that down for you. The Ward is a platformer that centers around the ever popular gravity manipulation mechanic. Imagine VVVVVV but you're allowed to jump first.
The platforming is decent, but nothing special, and certainly can get frustrating at times. This game needs something to keep the player invested. The developers realized this and threw in narrative in the form of writing on the walls (like in Erebus. Man, I'm batting a thousand with the references today...) I pieced together something about me being dead and wanting to see my girlfriend again, but I ragequit before I could learn any more. See, the game committed the unforgivable sin of killing me because I rubbed up against the side of a spike. That was enough for me.
To review: The Shaman Engines is a shooter that rivals Fight Zone, and you should totally try out, while The Ward probably has a lot of payoff if you're willing to put up with a lot of frustration, which I frankly wasn't. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay dead.
Links
Robot Souls: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18571
Consciousness after Death: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24364
Saturday, October 26, 2013
The Lift (sorta) and The Root of Life
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
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
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