Saturday, November 9, 2013
a brief hiatus
I'll keep this short, since it's nothing you haven't heard before. I just got through one of the most stressful school weeks of my life and I have a lot of work to do over the weekend; I'd also like some time to decompress. So, I'm taking the day off. I'll return on Monday.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Truth
Truth started off promisingly enough with a menu screen that played a melancholic single piano note when I moused over one of its options, setting me up for one of them 2D side-scrolling poetic experience, or as I like to call em, Braid-em-ups. Sounds good enough, right?
Well then I started playing, and the first thing I noticed was that the framerate was god awful. The game looks great when it's still, but the movement is choppy, and your eyes are going to need to get used to it...that's putting it as politely as possible.
When I said the game looks great when it's still, though, I wasn't exaggerating. The visual style is actually very impressive. But, of course, the visual style is only truly good when it complements the gameplay. I'll be blunt: the visual style that truly complements Truth's gameplay would be something along these lines:
The first level was riddled with invisible walls, and it only got worse from there. Mechanics were unexplained, sprites stayed when they should have moved, the only cutscene I experienced was a schizophrenic mess...
I'm not going to call this game bad. That would be inaccurate. The game isn't really bad as much as it is "unfinished." If I were a teacher and a student handed this to me, I wouldn't fail it, I would hand it back to the student and say "give it back to me when it's done."
Games are tricky because they can look passable even when they aren't finished. There are plenty of examples out there, but Sonic '06 is probably the most famous. This kind of thing doesn't really happen to such a great extent in other forms of media? I mean, think of how this blog would look if I
Well then I started playing, and the first thing I noticed was that the framerate was god awful. The game looks great when it's still, but the movement is choppy, and your eyes are going to need to get used to it...that's putting it as politely as possible.
When I said the game looks great when it's still, though, I wasn't exaggerating. The visual style is actually very impressive. But, of course, the visual style is only truly good when it complements the gameplay. I'll be blunt: the visual style that truly complements Truth's gameplay would be something along these lines:
The first level was riddled with invisible walls, and it only got worse from there. Mechanics were unexplained, sprites stayed when they should have moved, the only cutscene I experienced was a schizophrenic mess...
I'm not going to call this game bad. That would be inaccurate. The game isn't really bad as much as it is "unfinished." If I were a teacher and a student handed this to me, I wouldn't fail it, I would hand it back to the student and say "give it back to me when it's done."
Games are tricky because they can look passable even when they aren't finished. There are plenty of examples out there, but Sonic '06 is probably the most famous. This kind of thing doesn't really happen to such a great extent in other forms of media? I mean, think of how this blog would look if I
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Trifflin Slamtastrophe (kinda) and TROP
Again with the not real exe? *sigh*
Well at least I can talk about TROP. I'm assuming this stands for "Tetris...Righteously...um...Oppressing...Pandas?" What I'm getting at is that this game is like Tetris. But at the same time, it's totally not. Imagine Tetris and Donkey Kong drunkenly making out on a love seat. Your job is to, as soon as you get that image out of your head, ascend to the top of the level, get a key, and go to the next level, but there are no platforms for you to initially jump on, so you have to place Tertis blocks in such a way that you can climb on them before you get eaten by a lava.
One thing was made clear within the first few minutes of playing: This is a game that likes to push my buttons. The first thing that happened in level 1 was that I built a wall between me and a shiny collectible. I climbed that wall and then dropped down to get the shiny, only to be greeted by a lava death pit that totally wasn't there before. Then, after that, the game snarkily displays, "Too Hard? Problem?"
As much as this may come as a surprise to any of you who have seen me gripe vehemently about minor frustrations in the past, I'm actually not opposed to a game getting under my skin. the occasional "na na na na na you can't get me" can actually provide an incentive to keep playing, just to prove the snide SOB wrong. It's a dangerous tightrope to walk, but I think TROP pulls it off relatively well.
The graphics, sound, level design (or lack thereof), etc are all kind of underwhelming, but the concept is unique and very fun to play with. The moving lava thing puts just enough pressure on you to keep the game challenging. If you're into retro-style and experimental games, hit this one up. I had fun with it and I bet you will too.
Links
Trifle of Shlomichel: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=607
Trip Trap Trup: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25989
Well at least I can talk about TROP. I'm assuming this stands for "Tetris...Righteously...um...Oppressing...Pandas?" What I'm getting at is that this game is like Tetris. But at the same time, it's totally not. Imagine Tetris and Donkey Kong drunkenly making out on a love seat. Your job is to, as soon as you get that image out of your head, ascend to the top of the level, get a key, and go to the next level, but there are no platforms for you to initially jump on, so you have to place Tertis blocks in such a way that you can climb on them before you get eaten by a lava.
One thing was made clear within the first few minutes of playing: This is a game that likes to push my buttons. The first thing that happened in level 1 was that I built a wall between me and a shiny collectible. I climbed that wall and then dropped down to get the shiny, only to be greeted by a lava death pit that totally wasn't there before. Then, after that, the game snarkily displays, "Too Hard? Problem?"
As much as this may come as a surprise to any of you who have seen me gripe vehemently about minor frustrations in the past, I'm actually not opposed to a game getting under my skin. the occasional "na na na na na you can't get me" can actually provide an incentive to keep playing, just to prove the snide SOB wrong. It's a dangerous tightrope to walk, but I think TROP pulls it off relatively well.
The graphics, sound, level design (or lack thereof), etc are all kind of underwhelming, but the concept is unique and very fun to play with. The moving lava thing puts just enough pressure on you to keep the game challenging. If you're into retro-style and experimental games, hit this one up. I had fun with it and I bet you will too.
Links
Trifle of Shlomichel: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=607
Trip Trap Trup: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25989
Monday, November 4, 2013
Tradewind, Tribe Tactics and Trick Shot Golf
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
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
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
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