Potawatomi (kinda) and Primordial

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

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

Now, let's talk Primordial.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polaris

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polar Flux

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

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

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

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

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

Links

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

Stuff I played at my grandma's house

Well, turns out there was way more stuff to do at my grandma's house than I planned for, so I didn't get to play as many games as I had hoped.  Plus, I had a party to go to after work today, wherein I got hit in the eyes, making looking at the computer screen not quite painful enough for me to take the night off but just painful enough to make this experience very annoying for me.  So, now you have a post that's anemic and overly grumpy.  Enjoy:

Photon Bunny

Well the first thing I noticed was that this game had the courtesy to start me out in windowed mode so that I can talk to my friends or browse the internet while I play.  Of course I would play the game that does that while I was in the middle of nowhere with no internet access.  Much like the Dial-up I would have had to use to surf the web from where I was, the pace of this game is sooo sloooow.  They try to fix that with a new mechanic early on, but I'm going to talk about all the things I noticed beforehand first.

-black platforms against dark purple backgrounds.  Why, god, why.

-pixel art.  nuff said.

-useless tutorials are useless.  The game conveys instructions just fine, so the tutorials pretty much just get in the way.

-then they use a “dark room flashlight” mechanic on top of the already hard-to-see platforms. The devs are drugs.

And then we are introduced to the light dash.  It only helps the slowness of the game so much due to the cooldown time, which is just long enough to be annoying. Also, you can go through little hoops to increase the duration of your light dash, but there's no sound cue or anything.  Game feel? What’s that?

It was only after I took note of all these minor frustrations that I asked myself tyhwhen does this game get even the slightest bit hard? Nothing about the design makes you think; levels are linear yet somehow still annoyingly roundabout.

All in all, just a forgettable platformer.  Granted, I didn't play it to completion and it seemed to introduce new mechanics rather steadily, but it didn't hold my attention long enough to introduce anything too intense, so I'm going to go ahead and say give this one a miss.

Pixelcraft

this is the part where I started to get too distracted by my grandma's pool table to write anything meaningful. I could expand upon the bullet points I wrote, but I think I'll just leave you with what I wrote, and then add in a concluding statement.

-interesting premise.  Keeps tower defense not excruciatingly boring.

-decent conveyance even without how to play tutorials

-what is going on with the graphic design?

-lots of things to consider (angle, etc)

-difficulty curve is a bit steep.  I quit within 5 minutes.

This was simply not a game to play under my conditions.  It requires boredom, patience, and free time.  If you have all of these and like fast-paced strategy type tower defense games, give it a shot.  If not, hold off.

Pixi

When I played this, I had only one bullet point to myself:

-just wing it, I guess.

 Of course I'm not going to leave it at that, but the reason I didnt write anything meaningful down is because Pixi is a really unique game.  It's not fantastic, but it's interesting.  I'm just going to give a quick summary and then a very quick review:

There are Pixis in bubbles.  You click the bubble to free the Pixis.  You then click and drag the Pixis to Boxi that are trying to steal your stars.  Each Boxi has a weak point and if you miss it, you're going to lose a lot of Pixi really fast.

The game is innovative and stylish enough to warrant a play from anyone curious, but the game simply didn't feel good enough to hold my interest for very long.  Something about its playstyle just makes it seem like the game plays itself and what you do is largely meaningless.

Plight of the Penguins

from here on, I wrote nothing and played each game for about a minute before deciding to put them down.  Plight of the Penguins at least feels damn amazing with explosions going off everywhere, but I really wish there was a jump feature rather than just needing to throw a grenade at your feet.  The game is challenging and has terrific feel, but just didn't have much substance.  I think if you just look at it for what it is, a much more fun and exciting yet less intelligent alternative to Minesweeper (and by that I just mean a game to play when you're bored and want to kill a few minutes; the two games actually have nothing in common), you'll enjoy it just fine.

Pocket Park

this one, on the other hand, I don't think anyone can enjoy.  When you do finally figure out how to control the damn game, you'll find it to be a constantly frustrating puzzle game that just leaves you yelling at the computer.  Essentially, you have to flick marbles into a goal ring, but your opponent (the CPU) can knock your marbles right out of the goal ring, and they well if you hesitate for more than a millisecond.  It's like trying to play shuffleboard with an elderly person.  It just feels like an exercise in futility.  It's so frustating, in fact, that in this particular scenario, the elderly person also has a gatling gun that shoots an unlimited supply of pucks toward your own.

and that's all I was able to do in this 4-day span.  Yeah, I fell a little behind schedule, but hopefully I'll make it up soon, one way or another.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay productive.

PS- I totally forgot that I tried to play Pirates of Oceaneus as well, but that was one of them not real exe thingies.  

Links

Bunny: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25876

Pirates: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26013

Pixels: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26014

A Thousand Mini Navis: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26000

'Guins with Nades: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26700

Just Play Marbles: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=463

Phobia

eh...nothing much to say about this one.

I think this game's only real selling point is that it looks pretty as hell. Everything is stylized really well, but poor optimization and weird graphical glitches keep it from getting the gold star in even its strongest department.

The basic gist of the game is that you are a little night demon (which is what my Physics teacher calls his dog) whose goal it is to scare every last person in town.  In order to scare them properly, you must creep up behind them before delivering the big "boo!" You can lure people into auspicious positions by dropping candy or money, but other than that, you're just a purple bat-creature who sounds like a dying cat.

Candy is used to lure kids, whereas money is used to lure adults.  It's a cute little detail, but whether you drop candy or money is completely random, so all this adds to the game is the fact that sometimes you'll end up with no choice but to drop a stack of candies with a dollar bill on top.  Luckily, you have an unlimited supply of candy, or this would've been really frustrating.

The game as a whole is just kind of dull.  The "proper" scares that you need to accomplish in order to progress trigger cutscenes that hang around just long enough to be annoying.  In addition, the dead zones created by lampposts are not very well distinguished, meaning falling into an inescapable death trap is way too easy.

All in all, this is a cute looking game that needed a lot of polish before it was ready to be called playable, and a lot more design brainstorming before it was ready to be called fun.

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

Links
meow of terror: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8727

expectations going forward

so tomorrow should be a regular blog day, but I'm spending Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at my Grandmother's house, which has a grant total of 0 internets.  Don't worry, though.  I'll still be playing and reviewing.  You just won't be able to see them until Friday, when I post all of them at once.  So yeah, expect that...

PhaseShift

Hmm...a 2D, top-down space shooter featuring two worlds to shift through...Apparently the guys at DigiPen love them some Ikaruga

Alright, well this game isn't quite the same as Ikaruga.  Instead of your ship shifting colors to suit its environment, in PhaseShift, you use wormholes to travel between two different colored dimensions.  Most of this game's problems come from a mishandling of the concept, not a mishandling of design elements.  So let me talk about design first before I activate whine mode.

The game, especially the stills used in menus and whatnot, look gorgeous.  Rachael Downing, the lead artist for the game, has some real talent; and apparently she knows it because her name appears twice on the game's description page...wait a minute, everyone's name appears twice...what?

The game feels decent enough.  When you get hit, you hear that classic electric-y burn-y noise that's just begging to be accompanied by a rumbling controller.  You do move rather slowly, but your movement speed is just quick enough to be able to dodge enemy fire efficiently, so that's not the problem.  I think the problem is that since there are 2 worlds on the screen at all times, only one of which you are in, you're always going to be limited to a very narrow area, meaning even when the game doesn't decide to earn its name as a "bullet hell," You're going to feel very confined.

Which of course brings me to this whole "swap worlds with wormholes thing."  First, let me say that I do really like this idea.  The two worlds are varied enough in design to make the game's nonexistent narrative rather interesting.  One world features mechanical enemy starships while the other features organic lifeforms. It's a joy to behold, but is it worth all the frustrations this concept brings?

First off, let's talk about the wormholes.  In games like Ikarguga, you're able to swap between polarities at any time.  in PhaseShift, you have to wait for a wormhole to come by.  I don't see the point of this; it just seems like an unnecessary invitation for frustration.

Also, there's no reward for going through a wormhole.  Each world typically has the same amount of enemies and firepower at any given time, so the only differences between the worlds are the visual style, the music playing in the background, and the firing patterns of the enemies.   The visual style's novelty wears off in like 2 seconds, and while it never stops being fun to look at, it's hardly enough to influence your decision on which world to stay in.  After all, this is a bullet hell.  You don't have time to appreciate the aesthetics and you certainly don't have time to analyze your enemies' firing patterns, especially on the screen that you're not in.  So, you're probably going to end up staying in the world with the best background music, making the entire mechanic pretty much pointless.

I'm guessing someone noticed this while this game was being playtested and that the ensuing conversation went something like this:
"Guys, we need to influence the player to switch worlds every now and again, otherwise the entire game is just a shoot 'em up that only uses half the screen."
"Alright, how about rewarding the player with points every time they use a wormhole?"
"Good start, but points are kind of arbitrary.  Why don't we give them a powerup for every three wormholes they use?"
"Excellent idea, so should I get rid of the powerups that we hid inside the enemies?"
...and it was all going perfectly well until...
"Guys, guys, what are you thinking?  Don't you know that punishment is a more powerful incentive than reward?"
"Um...well, yeah, but-"
"The player doesn't deserve more poewrups, he or she should be punished for not playing our game the way we want"
"But doesn't that seem a little-"
"Here's how we do it.  Every so often, completely at random, a big "warning" will flash in front of the screen, followed by an undodgeable insta-kill attack that the player has to use wormholes to escape."
"That doesn't sound fun at all"
"Well it's the way I want it, so either program it in or I'll upload that embarrassing video of you to Youtube."

And lo, a good game was ruined.  Luckily for me, I already have embarrassing videos on Youtube, so my shame is totally gone and I feel free to criticize this game for the misguided project that it is.  It's not a bad game by any means, but the flaws are tough to overlook.

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

Links
Shifts Don't Phase Me: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24649

P.S- If you want to see that embarrassing video of me, you'll just have to find it on your own :P