Fate

The first thing that struck me about this game is that it was made by Andrew Nack.  The very same Andrew Nack who made Ethereal, a game that I found enjoyable but unfortunately had to compare to bLight, which had a bigger team behind it (meaning more than one person), due to the massive similarities in the playstyles of the two games.  I'm not sure what else Mr. Nack did in his sophomore year, but creating two fully functional games all my yourself in the span of one schoolyear is definitely enough to earn my respect.  That said, let's see what Fate can do.

This game is about bunnies.  You must save the bunnies from drowning by getting rid of the coral obstructing their paths.  Be careful, though, as the journey to the surface is a treacherous one.  You are ranked by how many bunnies you manage to save, though if you get tired of trying to figure out a level and have already saved enough bunnies to move on, you can murder the rest of the fluffy little guys with the click of a button.  Uh, hey...Watership Down called...

From a gameplay perspective, this is a solid puzzle game.  It's not too long, has a reasonable difficulty curve, intuitive mechanics, etc etc.  It's clear this Nack guy knows what he's doing.  It Fate an incredibly engaging experience? no.  Does it show potential to revolutionize the gaming medium any time soon?  no.  I don't think that's what this game was about.  This game seems like an opportunity for a lone developer-in-training to show off his skills in programming and art direction, and in that case, it succeeds.

I did a bit of research and it turns out Andrew Nack has a grand total of 6 projects under his belt.  You can bet I'm going to review them in sort of their own separate category, because my theory is that they are all attempts to push the skills of the individual rather than attempts to further the medium as a whole.  And you know what?  I respect that.  Something hits close to home about a guy who deliberately chooses to engage himself with difficult and time consuming projects as a test of his own will before he can think about moving into really big projects (did I mention this is a blog?)

Well, if my theory is correct and all 6 of Mr. Nack's games show off this level of mastery in different sectors of game design and art direction, as Fate and Ethereal differed, then I'll be really excited to witness Mr. Nack's work in the future.

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

Links
Glub: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26416

Fat Boy Mint

These past few days, I've put on a little weight.  My girlfriend is a girl scout, so needless to say, I've been stocking up on tagalongs lately.  Plus, my mother is Italian, so she's under the impression that she needs to fatten me up.  Even in my chubby splendor, however, not even I can hold a candle to the protagonist of this game.

Alright, time to cut the cutesy introduction.  Let's get into the review.

I love this game.  I would go so far as to call it one of the most fun 2D platformers I've ever played.  It's not #1, mind you.  Super Castlevania IV takes that place in my book, but still, I'd say it's top 10.

The visual style is comical and pleasant.  The characters are lovable, the world is colorful, and it's just an all-around joy to look at.

The level design is nigh flawless (except for the last level), and the designers really seemed to have a firm grasp on what the mechanics of the game entail.  Speaking of which...

The principle mechanic is what really sells the game for me.  You can create mini black holes with the mouse button in order to get to point A to point B as efficiently as possible.  This mechanic is fun, engaging, and intuitive.  This is the kind of idea that people should build games off.  Think of the mechanics first, then create a story and universe around them.

For all my praise, there are two things about this game that I don't like.  The first is the sound direction.  I have no problem with the music, but there are these little mushroom guys that charge at you and yell "jeronimo" in a really high pitched voice.  Only think is, your black holes upset their paths, and every time this happens, they yell again.  Trust me, this gets really annoying really fast.  The second problem I have is the design of the final level.  What happened?  Up until then there were no cheap deaths whatsoever, but the last level is just a glorified game of Simon Says with a lot of bells and whistles.

Oh well.  I still love this game and have no problem giving it my seal of approval.

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

Links
Big Boned Breath-freshener: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25998

Fast Racer

This "not real exe" business is starting to intrigue me.  Why would DigiPen even host a completely dead link, let alone this many?

Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=595

F4RM

Yeah this was pretty much the worst experience of my life...

Ok, I don't want to be rude to the people who worked hard on this game, but it was just...so unfulfilling.

First off, pretty much the second after the tutorial ended, I lost and had to start all over.  I did everything they told me to do, but I still failed very quickly.  This isn't the kind of unforgivingly challenging game that justifies such a design trait, either.  It should be a relaxing experience given the aesthetic they were working with.

Nothing about this game is engaging.  Everything is told to you in text dumps, and...ugh, I can't even formulate complete sentences.

You know what?  I'm ending the review here.  Stay away from F4RM.

Links
why: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26140

Eye on Earth

You know what I love about games?  They're totally eco-friendly.  Nobody has to chop down trees to create the lines of code that will one day become a video game.  If only there were a game that celebrated this completely relevant and totally legitimate reason to love the video gaming medium.  Well fear not, readers, because Eye on Earth does that and pretty much nothing else.

Eye on Earth is an RTS game with the only enemy being time.  You are tasked with maximizing the energy-to-pollution ratio of two different parts of the world.  You are given only a short time to do this, so you must work quickly and efficiently.

The graphical style is alright, I guess.  Everything looks exactly like what it's supposed to, which is more than I can say for some games *cough* Empyrean Contrata *cough*

Actually, let's stick with the comparison to Empyrean Contrata.  The two games go about conveying the mechanics of the game from vastly different angles.  If you've read my Empyrean Contrata review, you know how much I loathe that game's "five-minute-text-dump" style of tutorial.  Eye on Earth ambitiously does the exact opposite of that and throws the player directly into the game with no instruction whatsoever.  I've always said that this is exactly what a game should be able to do.  All things considered, Eye on Earth does a fairly good job of it.  I say "fairly" because I've played the game four times and I still don't quite know how to optimally utilize all of the game's mechanics.  I know that the big buildings and power plants are there for a reason, but I get the best results by just spamming trees everywhere.

I think the big take-away from Eye on Earth is that it is possible to let the player figure out the mechanics for himself or herself with no written instruction provided the basic mechanics of the game support player inquiry.  Eye on Earth does a good job of that.  It's short playtime and only slightly crowded GUI never deterred me from toying around with the buttons on my keyboard until I figured out how to play.

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

Links

Save the whales: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=403

*sniff*

I was out literally all day.  There was no possibility I was getting a review out today.  Many apologies...I promise I'll do 2 tomorrow...er, rather...later today...

Sorry guys :/ I still love you though

Explosive Dawn

Ok so I just got home (11:34PM at time of writing) and realized I didn't blog today so oops.  Time for a lightning round.

Part of me is thankful that this game has the same problem that Constellations had.  The menu screen looks great, but it's the only feature in the game, apparently.  I click the buttons and nothing happens.

Well yay.  Guess I get to sleep tonight after all.  Until next time, stay explosive

Links
not a single explosion ever: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24655