Game review: Isoball X1

Isoball X1 is a level pack for the Isoball game series created by Candyflame Games. Isoball X1, like the others in its series is a puzzle game where the player is required to build the solution from the available blocks that will allow the ball to arrive at and enter the goal.

Summary of analysis
Hopefully unnecessary tutorial elements, very challenging gameplay experience, easily-understandable interface primarily mouse-driven control scheme, simple and effective graphics scheme, decent music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game demonstrates new blocks in an animation around the point that those blocks first come into play. There's also a similar tutorial animation for the game's basic concept. While the animations can be replayed when they first occur, there appears to be no way to review them later (or at all if the player skips them).

Gameplay experience
There's appears to be a quick escalation of challenge in Isoball X1, whether this was the intention of the game's design or a result of the assumption that players will have experience with the other Isoball games is difficult to determine. In either case, the number of levels combined with the difficulty curve is most likely to result in a hardcore style of play.

An achievement system exists to aid in motivation or rewards of players inclined towards such pursuits.

Interface & Controls
The game's interface consists of the play area, a few menu options, and the tile selection frame. While there are keyboard shortcuts for the tile selections, most players will probably opt for mouse-only controls as the keyboard shortcuts have no notation on the tile selection frame.

Graphics
Yet another game that shows more emphasis on the gameplay design and challenge than on flashy graphics covering up flaws. Isoball X1's graphic scheme gets the point across quite well using basic shapes in an isometric environment.

Music & Sound
There's plenty of sound effects, mostly interface-related, that aid a player in knowing that an action has been performed in addition to level start and finish effects. In addition, the game features a catchy, easy-listening background music (which may require the player to toggle music off then back on to start it).

Commentary
As a primarily casual style player with abundant time constraints, Isoball X1 was a significant investment of time just to play enough to be able to blog about. Thankfully, it managed to remember level progress so I could see more than the first six levels over the course of two days time. There other three Isoball games featured a level scoring system that I'm honestly glad to see removed from this particular title in the series, but I'm certain would be of great appeal to many differently-minded players.

Game review: Fast Racing League (Wii, Demo)

Fast Racing League is a WiiWare action, racing game by Shin'en Multimedia. Like most racing games, the premise is to arrive at the end of circuit goal three times ideally faster than the opposition.

Summary of analysis
Awkward but decent new player experience, disappointing gameplay experience, multiple control scheme choices, nice graphics albeit overdeveloped in my opinion, well-accomplished background music and sound effects.

Tutorial/New player experience
While adequate, it seems a bit clumsy to have a text window tutorial pop up in the course of piloting a high-speed vehicle, especially from a third-person point of view. Thankfully, there's very few controls and concepts that need to be taught in the game.

Gameplay experience
In a word, aggravating. I'm imagining that the designers at Shin'en Multimedia either missed the concept of a demo, the concept of player rewards, or they actually enjoy cock-teasing a player and think it's a great way to encourage a player to buy the full version. I say the prior sentence because while the game has a demo level to play through, they pull the opportunity to finish it in the last second or two, leaving the player with a "Buy our game" splash screen and no amount of success for their efforts.

But I digress (bitterly), the game featured a mechanic called phasing, which allowed players to swap between black or white color-schemes in order to exploit speed-boosting track features in addition to building up boost energy. The features are track, ceiling, and ramp pads (unless more are introduced outside the demo) with the first two boosting speed (the ceiling one pulling the player onto itself temporarily) and the ramp pad essentially appears to be a phase or die opportunity on the demo track.

Interface & Controls
There's a choice of three control schemes for the game: WiiMote alone, WiiMote with Nunchuk attachment, or Wii Classic Controler. Controller choice basically is a matter of taste or self-imposed difficulty modification. WiiMote operates on a steering-wheel tilt concept, it and the Classic Controller utilize a three-button control scheme (accelerate, phase, boost), the WiiMote with Nunchuk utilizes a two-button scheme (accelerate and phase) with boost functionality changed into shaking the WiiMote.

Graphics
Judging from the test level and the game's official site gallery, there's a lot of well-developed backgrounds. I cannot imagine this being a point of design focus given that there's effectively no time to enjoy it in the course of a race. By comparison, the tracks are decent and the vehicles are passable. They even took the time to put in particle effects of pieces of track tearing off upon vehicular collisions especially every ramp landing.

Music & Sound
The background music was well-accomplished and the sound effects were engaging, kind of forgettable but probably the best accomplished piece of the whole game.

Commentary
Overall, it's a mediocre game that has the distinguishing feature of being a good concept and, from what I can tell, well-debugged. I'm a bit surprised with the extremely high accolades the game cites in its reviews section, but can easily accept them from a stand-alone point of view. There's also the chance that the full game is a lot better than its very disappointing demo, especially in consideration of how much of the game is kept out of the demo's gameplay experience. Final evaluation: promising gamble.

Game review: Mushroom Madness 3

Mushroom Mandess 3 is an action game by Silen Games. The (usual) player objectives is to protect mushroom patches from various critters through a variety of traps and weaponry.

Summary of analysis
Good new player experience, abundant gameplay modes with mostly good gameplay experience, mouse or mouse and keyboard controls on a mildly-burdened interface, mixed bag graphics, very good music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
There's a tutorial section available in the main menu and elements of it appear in the objectives screens of the game's adventure mode. Aside from being a bit rushed to learn the basics in the action, the game has a well-accomplished new player experience.

Gameplay experience
The game features nine gameplay modes, allowing players to improve specific skillsets or indulge in their favorite style of play. Each of the levels also features optional objectives, offering replayability and challenging the player to improve in order to maximize rewards (used mostly to upgrade character skills).

Interface & Controls
Primarily mouse-controlled with keyboard hotkeys that may be opted for instead of clicking on interface buttons. The secondary weapons' interface buttons are helpful for someone that wants to focus on using only the mouse, though I found it to be cluttering the game's interface.

Graphics
Cartoon-style graphics are featured in the game. The choice of graphics creates both a semi-comical detachment at the same time as being potentially guilting having to beat up the cute critters.

Music & Sound
The game has a selection of relaxing background musics, an interesting choice given the fast-paced gameplay. There's also a good selection of sound effects.

Commentary
A definite continuation of improvement over the previous two titles. If anything, the game is getting complex enough that it could either go console/handheld or start splitting up into a number of offshot titles of itself due to the various gameplay modes being nearly enough to be a stand alone game each.

Game review: Enemy 585

Enemy 585 is a puzzle-platformer game by Nitrome.The player's role is as a movable platform, helping to guide the last remaining henchman safely through levels.

Summary of analysis
Interesting but somewhat ineffective new player experience, challenging gameplay experience with potential replayability for optional objectives, simple and effective interface and controls, appeasing graphics, satisfying background music and sounds.

Tutorial/New player experience
There are a number of tutorial elements that will help the player master new skills in order to progress, though they're easily missed given that they're pop-up dialogue boxes that occur during active gameplay. Thankfully, it's easy enough to figure out the basics of the game through trial and error.

Gameplay experience
Reflexes and spatial reasoning are the most important things in progressing within the game. The player's block character has various shapes that will need to be manipulated in order to pursue completion of levels as well as the optional objectives or coins or time scores.

Interface & Controls
Keyboard directional controls and space bar rotation control scheme. There are tracking interface elements in addition to the level completion summary window, but nothing particularly distracting during gameplay moments.

Graphics
The game features an interesting graphical style that's fun, even though it's a little difficult to empathize with Enemy 585 given a complete lack of emotive capaqcity, though the platform will show moments of it when bearing the weight of the henchman.

Music & Sound
There's background musics reminiscent of Nintendo Entertainment System era video games, both well done and nostalgic for those old enough to have played on the system. The sound effects are also quite effectively accomplished in aiding the player experience.

Commentary
It's interesting to see a less directly controlled game design. The player has to compete with the challenges present in the environment and the automated movement scheme of the important objective in order to progress and pursue objectives. I would be ecstatic to see more user reviews and be able to study the specific player demographic appeal of this manner of game in detail.

Game review: Monst

Monst is a point and click adventure game by BeGamer.com.The player's objective is to bring the people out into the open somehow and then scare them.

Summary of analysis
Two-words define the tutorial element: use mouse, simple and disappointing gameplay, mouse controls external links interface, graphics that seem to indicate the game's target audience, decent background music and sound effects.

Tutorial/New player experience
There's very little to learning how to play the game. Click on objects in the game's environment, every level's going to have its own mini-objectives and likely a few decoy objects that do nothing to aid progression.

Gameplay experience
There's very little challenge to this game, just clicking randomly a player is likely to eventually figure out how to accomplish every level's objectives. Personally, I felt it was lacking in entertainment value, but perhaps there is an audience more receptive to the game's themes and gameplay difficulty.

Interface & Controls
Completely mouse-driven control scheme, almost non-existent user-interface.

Graphics
Judging from the game's graphics, I'd say the game is most likely meant for a much younger audience. The characters are virtually caricatures and there is an overarching cartoon-style theme.

Music & Sound
The background music is okay and there are plenty of entertaining sound effects.

Commentary
It's always a little difficult to go about reviewing games which seem to be designed for a very different target audience than oneself. Possibly the best way to go about such a thing is to have access to someone that fits the game's demographic, watch them play it and ask them a few simple questions about their gameplay experience later. Trying to get into an alternate mind-set is another way to attempt to give an audience-fair review, but it is still likely to be merely an interpretation from one's point of view.
Had I to guess, I'd estimate the game's appeal would be best with an audience pre-grade school based on the complexity of the games that my nephews and nieces are playing at slightly older ages than my guess. But then again, perhaps there's also an appeal with a much different mindset than my own and one should never underestimate the value of a low difficulty game after stressful days.

Gaming theory: Set interval reward mechanics

Set interval is a player reward mechanic that regularly rewards a player upon reaching a specified interval (such as completion of a task). The reward itself may be randomized but the player has the assurance that when the interval is reached during gameplay, they will be rewarded.

Cons
Set interval systems require significant planning and programming/implementation to balance gameplay and progression
As complexity of game increases, the amount of work going into planning said systems increases, sometimes exponentially  (More below)
May be simpler to let players choose rewards rather than automating rewards

Pros
Often an ideal choice for progression systems (if progression systems are universally equal for all player options)
Consistency of rewards to efforts reinforces player expectations
Easier to plan escalating challenges with due to higher consistency of gameplay milestones

Commentary
Example of increase: game starts out with two player options - classes each with unique tools to aid their efforts; as a third option (class) is added a set interval reward system would ideally need to create a reward set specific to that option to adequately reward the player rather than giving them a chance at rewards useful to them which are tacked onto the rewards set of the other options.

Definitely less exciting than random interval reward systems, but set interval's strength is in long term planning and use. Set interval establishes reliable rates and is a staple of complex and/or lengthy duration games.

Gaming theory: Random interval reward mechanics

Random interval (or often: Random drop) is a player reward mechanic commonly used in games. From board games utilizing shuffled cards or similar elements to the complex arrays of digital games, random interval is used to simulate spontaneous occurrences of rewards in order to add to the excitement of player efforts in the interim of gameplay.

Like many a term in gaming, it is difficult to cite an accurate source or precise definition across platforms, genres, or gaming sub-cultures for its "random drop" alternate name. I'd suggest the term came into being from the nature of the rewards and the most frequent appearance methods of these rewards; being occasional and often difficult to rationally tie to their sources with appeaing in the gaming world on the 'persons' of defeated foes or their immediate area as if 'dropped' from possession.

Cons
Can fail to be desirable by players with specific goals or those whose characters cannot effectively use the reward
Rarity of specific rewards becomes artificially greater as the list of alternate rewards increases
Often requires inventory management and liquidation efforts in order to make rewards useful
May trigger impulse control issues similar to gambling due to player market demands, wider range of reward values, and inconsistency of rewards to player efforts

Pros
Incredibly easy to design, program/implement, and expand upon
Can be a very effective means to promote player-ran/player-participant in-game markets
Excitement factor of more desirable rewards can aid in extending play duration

Commentary
Random interval rewards have a number of other instances aside of the more apparent; likely any time that there is a chance of variation in instance rewards for player efforts, they are interacting with a random interval mechanic. Some random interval systems also have a randomized chance of rewarding the player either due to sharing rewards with cooperative players or by adding a null reward option.

Random interval reward systems should very rarely (if ever) be used for progression systems as they will force players out of comparable or competitive capacity at no fault of their own efforts.

One way to think about random interval is that it's a simplified mechanic that tries to remove consideration of player specific goals and needs and offers a single system that rewards players approximately equal values of rewards for approximately equal efforts.

Game review: Waterfalls 3

Waterfalls 3 is a physics-puzzle game primarily utilizing particle effects and made by MoonMana.To get through the levels, the player must use the available redirection nodes to fill the goals with the corresponding particles.

Summary of analysis
Quick new player experience, enjoyable gameplay experience, mouse-controlled game with bare minimum interface, highly visually appealing, risky choice in background music.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game has very little in tutorial elements, leaving a new player to figure out the puzzles through experimentation. Given the nature of Waterfalls 3 as a puzzle game in addition to the gameplay, it's likely this was a good idea as walking players through each level with hints may strip away too much.

Gameplay experience
In my experience with the game, there was a rather low amount of difficulty in progressing the levels at least until the higher ones, where I needed a lengthy amount of time to start reconditioning the skills I'd learned in the lower levels in order to have the particles redirected in less expected ways and combine the efforts of multiple nodes in less direct solutions, including one where I played hot potato with the nodes in order to get the solution.
I will definitely say that Waterfalls 3 was fun and worth the try, my one regret being the limited availability of levels to play.

Interface & Controls
Mouse-only control scheme with very minimal interface.

Graphics
Simple and reasonably descriptive nodes with vibrant particle effects. While easily described, it hardly does credit to the visual appeal of the game's graphics.

Music & Sound
Throughout gameplay there was a relaxing background music featuring a singer. This began to lose its appeal over time as music with words is extremely hard to effectively loop without starting to become a nuisance. As I happened to like the style, I was able to listen to it a lot longer than I expect those with differing tastes in music would.

Commentary
All three of the games in the series share most of the same mechanics, making them easy extensions of one another. I recommend starting with Waterfalls 3 as it's seems to have the lowest difficulty curve due to having had the most time for level design to be refined.

Game review: Realm of the Mad God

Realm of the Mad God is an fast-paced action game and self-described MMO (presumably Massively Multiplayer Online game). Realm of the Mad God is by Wild Shadow Studios. The player's objective is to slaughter the infinite hordes of Oryx in an attempt to 'call out' the game's end boss and then slay them.

Summary of analysis
Underdeveloped new player experience, gameplay experience lacking in depth and of debatable entertainment value, keyboard and mouse controls and bulky interface, basic and effective graphics, barely adequate music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game's tutorial elements are outlined with the writing on the wall floor of the tutorial level. While learning to play the game seems easy, cautiously remind yourself that it's intended to be an MMO and that the tutorial level is a pale representation of the rest of the game. After completing the basic lessons, a new player is dropped into an open game world with at least hundreds of players, pointed to a random 'quest creature' and forced to rush to meet objectives before someone else randomly gets it first. But refrain from worrying, there will always be another random objective to chase after should one fail to reach it in time.

Gameplay experience
If you've come to grind in an anarchic collective, kudos on your choice of game. If you've come for anything else... expect disappointment and confusion. Though there may appear to be an economic system in the game, the game currency is only there for non-essential items or account upgrades (in other words, don't bother picking something up unless your character can and will use it).
The game has a guest account system, meaning that a player doesn't need to go to the trouble of registering for an account if they just want to try the game out, the game also seems to randomly assign a character class to guest account players and the rest are unlockable through gameplay.


Interface & Controls
The game's interface takes up about a third of the screen but is probably going to be ignored more than half of the time playing the game. There's also a few menu screens but little reason to reference those outside of learning the hotkeys or changing controls or options. The game's control scheme utilizes both mouse and keyboard controls.
There's also a chat system, though I'd be hesitant to call that a good feature.

Graphics
The game utilizes sprite graphics which can become confusing in highly player-populated areas but will have a very low system demand.

Music & Sound
To the designer's credit, they skimped on background music making the game's file size manageable for flash, so bring your own unless you can stand a tedius grind on the ears to go with like gameplay. The sound effects are okay, much better than the music.

Commentary
Having played a lot of MMOs, Realm of the Mad God appears to be more an attempt at satirizing the genre rather than a legitimate attempt at good game design. While I'll give them points for the attempt of launching an MMO in flash, it's painful to watch the way the game 'works'. There's overabundant player clutter, an overly complicated inventory and class systems, I'd say it's easy to get lost, but the game lacks direction and appears to be ninety-seven percent grind. While there is a replay value, it's more grinding in a barely different character class trying to unlock yet more grind.

Game review: Swift Turn 2

Swift Turn 2 is an action-puzzle hybrid game by Andriy Vinchkovskiy with art, sound, and music by Volodymyr Dzitsiuk. The objective of the game is to collect all the stars in each level and then reach the level's goal.

Summary of analysis
Originally jarring but later good new player experience, passable gameplay experience, directional-only main game controls with alternates during mini-games, effective graphics, mediocre music.

Tutorial/New player experience
With one notable exception, the game's tutorial elements help the player through newly-introduced elements of gameplay. The exception is that the player is left to guess at the basic controls on the first level of the game. Aside from one glaring error, the new player experience of the game is well-accomplished.

Gameplay experience
Swift Turn 2 has it's ups and downs (pun unintended). At times the controls felt sluggish, likely due to the game's physics resisting changes in motion. Unlike many puzzle games I've played, this one seemed to discourage analyzing a level and encouraged jumping right into the action and adapting or restarting. A number of levels relied on a sort of play and pray mentality where launching the character into the unknown was the only way to progress and probably having to restart with the knowledge of where the landing point is afterwards.

Interface & Controls
Keyboard arrow keys or wasd control scheme with choice of hotkeys or mouse for menu selections. There are a few mini-games scattered that rely on slightly different control schemes such as space bar only or drag and drop mouse action.

Graphics
Simple and consistent art style, with a few animated objects including the player character (an anthropomorphized cube). One thing to watch out for is spiked surfaces, they're sometimes really small but no less deadly spikes.

Music & Sound
The game's background music, while nice to listen to, seems a bit out of place in this game. It's somewhat relaxed whereas the game is largely action-oriented. The game's sounds on the other hand do their job much more effectively than the music.

Commentary
This game might have been better made had there been a larger team. Having one person programming and handling level designing is a frequent route to needlessly hard levels. The mini-games also seemed a bit out of place as they functioned dramatically-different from the rest of the levels. had they been implemented as an extra feature rather than being part of the regular level progression, it's likely they would be less unusual.

Game review: Zombie Goes Up

Zombie Goes Up is a casual, action game produced by Neutronized. The programming and artwork is by Glonathan Pesaresi and music by Sserrac. The player's objective is to get the zombie up to the surface, navigating around obstacles and opposition.

Summary of analysis
Quick learning curve which parallels steep difficulty curve, decent if occasionally unforgiving gameplay, minimal interface and simple keyboard controls, cartoon-style graphics, interesting and amusing sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
With only four in-game controls, it's a fairly quick learning curve to master the basics. As new elements of the game are introduced, the player will be passing by the tutorial elements in the form of underground signs. Be careful about getting confident, as the gameplay difficulty increases just as quickly as the new elements are introduced.

Gameplay experience
After the first few levels, it gets frustrating trying to dodge between obstacles, thankfully there appears to be an infinite lives mechanic at play. Nonetheless, there are quite a lot of times when the game's safe path is tightrope-thin.

Interface & Controls
The interface consists of a progress bar, score, and game menu controls (pause and mute functions). The gameplay controls are just the four arrow keys.

Graphics
Cartoon-style zombie and creatures alongside similarly-styled world objects and animated interactive objects. The graphics definitely help the casual appeal and it's always nice to see Halloween-themed games abstain from the blood and gore tedium.

Music & Sound
Zombie Goes Up has an interesting background music that seems equal parts light-hearted and dramatic tension. The sound effects certainly go along with the graphics with plenty of boings, pops, and tiny explosions.

Commentary
It's a well-made game and decent way to fill a little time. I'd say that after the first few levels, the game's bound to lose appeal to a casual gamer audience but due to the time commitment by that point, it's already starting to tread into hardcore gamer style anyway.

Gaming theory: Grinding

Grinding is the terminology in gaming that's often applied to elements of tedious, repetitive tasks the player may (in some cases, often) need to accomplish in order to maintain a minimal degree of character power level or character skill competency according to the challenges they're expected to face.
Grinding does have a degree of subjectivity to it depending on the particular tastes, expectations, and how a specific player defines what is fun in a game. In my own case, for example, I often consider nearly all combat elements to be grinding unless it directly affects the outcome of a game's storyline yet I often enjoy the  logistics and industry elements of a number of games which a lot of my friends simply cannot stand.

Cons
Unnecessary padding of game duration (though many times considered a pro, especially in subscription-model Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs)
Lacking entertainment value (subjective)
Emphasizes and reinforces character skill over player skill (more in commentary section below)

Pros
Aids development of reflexive player patterns (quicker player response times for common strategies)
Emphasizes and reinforces character skill over player skill (again, more in commentary section)
May be used to establish a period of learning strategies, features, etcetera with repetition of new elements

Commentary
There is both good and bad that can be said about a game that focuses more on character skill. To its benefit is how it allows for a slightly more fair playing field for casual or less experienced players, something that many MMOs will need to thrive due to their reliance on a much wider player-base. It is also a heavily criticized element of gameplay, for the same reasons, by hardcore players who often feel lacking challenge from games that implement grinding systems and which essentially handicaps development and implementation of more advanced strategies.
An important thing to keep in mind about grinding is that it tends to be more rewarding when considered as a rate equation (rewards over time) rather than a work equation (rewards over effort). This means that low-end efforts tend to pay off a lot better than high-end efforts due to lower chance of failure and a steadier but less impressive income of rewards. These sorts of efforts support the practices known as item or gold farming (randomized reward game elements have a higher output with higher numbers of  weaker opposition defeated than fewer but higher quality opposition) and is sometimes why the practice of grinding is called xp farming.

Game review: Piggy Wiggy

Piggy Wiggy is a physics puzzle game developed by Anton Kosechkin with graphics by mAx and music by Sergei Stern. According to the credits, it was made using the Box 2D engine. The goal in the levels of Piggy Wiggy is to help the pigs reach acorns through creating and breaking tethers as well as manipulating objects.

Summary of analysis
Hands-on new player experience, short and fun gameplay experience, mouse or mouse+keyboard control scheme with minimal non-gameplay interface, cutesy graphics, appealing music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
There's only a few skills a player will need to learn in order to make it through the game and they're effectively introduced mostly through one-time only interface elements. This game gives the player these hints and lets them watch what occurs in order to teach them how to play.

Gameplay experience
Piggy Wiggy is a short and amusing game, there's a low degree of difficulty, making for a pleasant diversion.There's a slight amount of replay value for those wanting to get a higher score.

Interface & Controls
The game is mostly mouse-controlled with a few keyboard hotkeys available if desired. The game's interface holds a few menu controls and the mouse variant to the keyboard hotkeys.

Graphics
Cute, cartoonish piggies! They have idle animations in addition to interactive animations such as collecting the acorns and, unfortunately, crying should they get lonely or in pain.

Music & Sound
There's a single, upbeat background track throughout gameplay that effectively supports the game's theme. In addition, there's some pleasant and amusing sound effects to go along with the animations.

Commentary
Piggy Wiggy seems to effectively accomplish what it set out to do, be a fun game without being a major time commitment to either player or developer.
I was surprised to see that although the game's developer has a lot of titles under their belt that they've yet to establish a personal-professional site. By now, I'd imagine that they've got enough experience to showcase their accomplishments and even pursue a career with many of the established studios.

Game review: Lab of the Dead

Lab of the Dead is a strategy game sponsored by Newgrounds. It was programmed by Evil-Dog, features the artwork of SickDeathFiend and music by Symphony of Specters and Evil-Dog. The game's premise is to perform research on zombies, meaning the player will be testing the effects of various objects upon the living dead. Fair warning, the game is considered mature audiences only, likely due to subject matter and gritty content.

Summary of analysis
Comprehensive and well-accomplished new player experience, interesting but over-padded gameplay experience, complex menu-driven interface, decent graphics which lose their appeal over time, competently-accomplished music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
Lab of the Dead features a relatively comprehensive amount of tutorial elements, every object has its own data which can eventually be brought up for review and hints and the game keeps track of a lot of stats for the player. Given the premise of the game, it's actually very appropriate to let the player discover how to do things through trial and error.

Gameplay experience
Most of the early gameplay flows very quickly and manages to be interesting, but this diminishes almost as fast as it begins with a dawning realization that the game is a multiple hour commitment to be able to see all the game's features and content. I'm going to give it to you straight, the game involves a lot of task grinding which becomes exponential as more features are introduced. Thankfully, newly-discovered reactions and achievements help take some edge out of the research point farming by rewarding the player more than the actions normally would. But the game relies far, far more on character skill than player skill and it pads its length with wait times while "researching".

Interface & Controls
As a mouse-controlled, menu-driven game, there's a lot of interface to handle. Luckily, elements of the interface are introduced over the course of play and there's very few ways that the player can accidentally screw up their gameplay experience (one discovered so far by me is lack of a save game feature, which may be site specific to where I'd first tried my hand at it).

Graphics
I'm a bit torn in opinion on the game's graphics. On one hand, there's a good deal of detail and work put into this game. On the other hand, the game's duration gives a player the chance to see where corners were cut and templates were applied. For someone with experience in the industry, it's likely to be obvious, quickly, where elements were recycled. Still, those first-time discoveries of reactions are made a bit more rewarding by the monotony of the grinding (at least when they're significantly different from the usual animations).

Music & Sound
The background music seemed minimal in part due to being a much lower volume level than sound effects and also due to a lot of gameplay time spent without any music playing, leaving the player in an almost eerie, sterile quiet. Whatever the case may have been with the design, it seems a decent choice of avoiding annoyance factor of hearing cyclical music over the course of multiple hours. Sound effects are a mix of interactive occurrence, ambient zombie sounds, and interface sound effects. Some of the interface sound effects seem a bit overly dramatic with sharp-sudden effects accompanying "neutral" reactions.

Commentary
While an interesting gameplay experience, there's way too little emphasis on player skill to this title. The game really just plays itself with suggestions from the player. For the most part, this seems to be a seasonal title that likely started out as being just for fun but wound up being overly-complicated and ultimately wasteful design. That's not to say that it isn't a well put together piece, but that the gameplay experience is unlikely to be able to support the sheer mass of the game's features. There's a diminishing appeal to players over time and Lab of the Dead's gameplay length outlives the length of appeal.

Game review: Halloween Shooter

I'm certain there's a lot of games titled "Halloween Shooter", this one was released in October 2011 by Gameshot.org and Bored.com. The premise is simply to launch halloween-themed characters into their matching goals.

Summary of analysis
Lacking though possibly unnecessary tutorial elements, decent gameplay, mostly mouse-based controls with an awkward interface, appealing graphics, calm/casual music and amusing sound effects.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game is easy to play but relies a lot on trial and error and the absolute minimum of tutorial elements (i.e. it will tell the player about switching characters and point out their specific goal points).

Gameplay experience
It is an okay diversion, nothing really great however. The game's level design leaves a lot to be desired, especially when trying to fight physics and work around very awkward corners. To its credit, it's cutesy and extremely laid back gameplay.

Interface & Controls
Mostly mouse-driven control scheme with some keyboard hotkeys. The interface is occasionally problematic, especially with how often it's going to get accidentally interacted with in the course of trying to make awkward shots.

Graphics
The cartoon-style graphics are definitely the best element of the game, with rag doll character animation adding to the absurdity through their flailing around and slumping over after shots.

Music & Sound
Second to the graphics is the music and sound of the game. There's a subtle background music during the levels that's theme appropriate. The character sound effects are also amusing to listen to.

Commentary
There's little to say about this title, it had a lot going for it and a few notable issues. Probably the one thing that best aids it is being a short and simple game. Too many games go overboard with features, complex systems, and trying to appeal to far too wide an audience. If a game can manage to be fun, that's the most important thing.

Game review: The Honeymoon is Over

The Honeymoon is Over is an 'escape the room' puzzle game from TimeFall. Like other games in its sub-genre, the premise is to figure out how to escape from a locked room or series of rooms.

Summary of analysis
No tutorial elements leading to a grating new player experience, mediocre gameplay experience, mouse-driven controls and minimal interface, moderately-appealing graphics, and pleasant/relaxing choice of background music.

Tutorial/New player experience
One day I'll see a game in this genre with tutorial elements... today, however, maintains the status quo. The new player experience is, in all honesty, terrible. The Honeymoon is Over, like many titles in the escape games style dumps the player with no explanation and questionable sequence logic straight into the gameplay leaving them to figure out everything through trial and error. Thankfully, most escape games, this instance included, are short.

Gameplay experience
The game's title also serves as a somewhat apt description of the gameplay experience. It's all hard work and optional reward, with the player having to figure out the developer's particular sense of logic through brute-force random effort. Sadly, there appears to be an incomplete features in the game, the phone and magazine combination, which only adds to the confusion when the player puts forth the efforts to no visible benefit.
In no way could I blame someone for looking up a walkthrough for a game such as this, it can make the difference between fifteen minutes and two hours.
There is also no replay value to the game as there is only one solution and a single, disappointing ending.

Interface & Controls
The game has a completely mouse-driven control scheme. The gameplay interface consists of an inventory bar and darkening edges which show movement between screens. There's a couple of zoom-in on object windows that feature an option to reverse the orientation of the objects in order to pursue objectives, however, these lack any icon or cues that signify the possibility.

Graphics
The game's graphics are decent, though the towel really looks more like a throw pillow. There's also no real way to tell apart interactive objects and non-interactive objects without clicking on them, leaving a player to click on every single object in the rooms *cough* multiple times *cough*. To its merit, everything appears to have been drawn in a single artistic style, adding to the level of professionalism and avoiding the jarring effects that can occur with haphazardly-gathered clip art.

Music & Sound
The background music fits the theme of a vacation/honeymoon getaway, creating a more relaxed mood than one may expect from the situation of being trapped. I personally find it to be an interesting choice of trying to reinforce the casual style of gameplay that the theme contrasts.

Commentary
I imagine that there's a sizable audience for escape games out there, players that enjoy the abstract and often convoluted sense of logic. Sadly, I've yet to see a single game in the whole sub-genre that manages good game design principles.
As a game design attempt, escape games are incredibly easy to put together but doing so with quality manages to be an almost holy grail of its style of gameplay. An internal hint system really would need to be available and well-built to keep things flowing. Next, the game needs to avoid relying on external knowledge or skills (I've actually seen one escape game that had a sudoku puzzle embedded, but never explained it). A helpful interface/graphics scheme that actually helps the player avoid clicking everything repeatedly would really cut down on wasted play time. Music and sound can be used to set the mood but is unnecessary.

Game review: Tiny Squad

Tiny Squad is a tactical/strategy game by Ilia Karpenko. The game features a level approach similar to many online puzzle games but relies on tactical/strategy mechanics for gameplay. For each level, the player is assigned a number of points to build their "tiny squad" in order to defeat the opponents.

Summary of analysis
Significantly lacking new player experience, passable gameplay, adequate interface on controls, cutesy graphics, mediocre music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
Tiny Squad's new player experience is woefully lacking. A player is effectively left to figure the game out through trial and error with minimal tutorial or help elements to aid them. There are a lot of possible strategies that could be employed, but none are offered to the player to help them learn and even basic tactics such as positioning are left up to the player's discovery.

Gameplay experience
Overall, the gameplay experience is passable, but definitely nothing to acclaim. Compared to other titles in similar genre, Tiny Squad is barely a notable mention. On its own merit, it's okay but is bound to serve a much better purpose in being a learning practice rather than adding to a designer's resume.

Interface & Controls
The game's interface is largely unimportant to gameplay and could be implemented from the main menu, there's also a set of buttons to determine actions speed that seems more for personal amusement than necessary utility. Character specific elements of the game's interface, by contrast, are absolutely vital and would probably benefit from being less cluttered on the field of gameplay. The entirely mouse-driven controls scheme functions decently, especially with ranged effects, but tends to be unfortunately accident-prone when it comes to tactical movement applications.

Graphics
Probably the best element of the game is the its cute miniature characters. The character and effect graphics help keep many of the other issues from bogging down gameplay. Unfortunately, the menu/title screens shows much more emotive characters than will be seen during the course of play.

Music & Sound
There's only a few background musics, which are okay to listen to for a few levels, but which kind of lose appeal quickly. Sound effects used in the game do a decent job, though they could stand more variety when it comes to different themes of opposition.

Commentary
Games live and die by the new player experience and skipping such completely is going to cripple a game's chances. Even short games need to introduce a player to the concepts of play and a poor-quality help section is still better than dumping a player into the action without a clue of what they're doing. This, more than anything else hurt Tiny Squad.
From the information I could track down, this appears to be the developer's first attempt at a published game and the quality of Tiny Squad effectively backs this perception. Were I to recommend anything to them, it would be to study more of their competition as well as volunteered, constructive criticism. There's no shame in copying mechanics from successful titles and a game designer really should be very well experienced in both the genre of the title they're working on in addition to a wide breadth of titles (both good and bad) in general.
For independent game designers/developers/etc, some of the best titles are those that innovate, often blending together elements across genres while adhering to player expectations (as developed by popular titles) is what gets them mention in the industry.

Game review: Bejeweled 3

Bejeweled 3 is another iteration of the very popular puzzle game series made by PopCap. The game's basic premise has been taken even further than the previous titles and spin-offs and Bejeweled 3 is almost an entire package of games rather than one.
Various game modes present different goals for achieving victory, making it possible to continually feel like the player is playing something new.

Summary of analysis
Expertly accomplished tutorial elements but slightly rushed new player experience, varied gameplay experience, adequate interface and simple controls, graphics pushing limitations of the franchise, decent music with mostly good sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
In addition to the introductory/objectives windows prior to game play, Bejeweled 3 also offers hover-over context help throughout gameplay, thereby offering a constant tutorial elements and reminders of objectives throughout the play experience. One minor issue with the new player experience is that it never really teaches the player so much as lets them learn it on their own during the course of gameplay, not a large isssue as most players will probably have tried one of the many other Bejeweled games but for truly new players to the franchise, it's likely to feel a little fast. Thankfully, the game's basic mechanics are quickly learned anyhow.

Gameplay experience
I think Bejeweled is definitely blurring the lines between casual and hardcore style games. While some of the modes and sub-modes were slow-paced and forgiving, others were outright frustrating and only achievable through random gem drops being favorable. This has been a trouble throughout the franchise's history as the random nature of the game update event can easily catch the player in no-win scenarios.
Greatly to the game's credit, however, is the fact that there's enough to keep a player busy and offer a fairly lengthy replay value to itself.

Interface & Controls
While there's a pretty contingent interface through the many modes, it's probably better to just focus on the objectives and ignore it, especially in the timed modes. The control scheme is as it's always been, click first gem, click switching gem and let the game do the rest of the work.

Graphics
There's very little room for improvement or change in the graphics of Bejeweled, as it's always been colorful gems on a playing field with backgrounds and interface (at least, to the best of my knowledge). While animated objects can help and special effects can be engaging, there's only so much that really should be done before it's just a step too far, as a few modes managed to prove in the transitional scenes. Being removed from gameplay by short pauses is often more infuriating than relieving, making the loss screens akin to being taunted while the more comprehensive victory screens (which were longer) actually accomplishing of that reminder that it's just a game and to take a break every now and then.

Music & Sound
The music was decently used, managing pacing throughout.adequately. Most of the sound effects were expected and welcome, with the exception of the announcer who just grated on my nerves every time he spoke.

Commentary
I think they should be offering this title's various modes as separately purchasable in addition to the whole package. A number of the modes really contrast in their play experience with the others, which is likely to appeal to some of the game's audience rather than all. But they're managing to do a lot to really make the game worth its price tag if paying for the whole thing. Overall, PopCap has kept to their usual level of quality and accomplished a slightly new spin on a title that's kept them going a long time.

Game review: One and One Story

One and One Story is a puzzle platformer game with an interesting premise. Through the course of play, it narrates stages in a romantic relationship via the game's mechanics. One and One Story was designed and programmed by Mattia "MaTX" Traverse, with art by Gabriele Bonis and music by David Carney.

Summary of analysis
Well-implemented tutorial elements, excellent gameplay experience, minimal controls scheme and recessive interface elements, effective graphical implementation, and evocative music.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game featured a very effective new player experience, having tutorial elements seeded throughout the entire course of the game as thoughts of the characters and mechanics being hinted at through the narrative elements.

Gameplay experience
One and One Story manages to accomplish one of the ideal game designs, short and sweet. The game had enough gameplay duration to showcase its creators' talents and was enjoyable from start to finish without contributing that feeling of dragging out gameplay.
The changing mechanics was particularly exciting as it offered new challenges but kept to the overarching theme as well as illustrating an effective lesson on the nature of relationships. They even managed to recycle a number of levels into feeling new due to the changes.
There is also a bonus mode that can be played in a number of ways: coordinated single-player or two-player cooperative, possibly even one character at a time for those that aren't feeling up to the challenge.

Interface & Controls
The game's interface is rather unlikely to see use as there's really only menu, mute, restart, help, and skip buttons. In addition, the interface elements are unobtrusive and tend to fade into the background while focusing on the gameplay. The controls are fully explained in the first level, it's adapting to the mechanics of the levels that presents the game's challenges.

Graphics
Simple, silhouette characters and environment with more colorful objects indicating interactive elements, all on dynamic backgrounds. An effective choice as it lets the player personalize the experience if they're so inclined and saves the designers or writers from having to offer more detailed explanation of the characters.

Music & Sound
A soft and seemingly longing-toned background music flows throughout the duration of play, bolstering the premise and themes effectively. There's also sound effects that work well with the actions and events of gameplay.

Commentary
An overall good game which also manages to teach a lesson about the real world makes One and One Story a game that I applaud. It's far too common to see games created without much thought or consideration to the lessons they potentially teach the player and regrettably common to see games that ignore their affect completely, so when I get to experience games such as this, it is an oasis of excellent game design that makes all the lesser titles worth bearing.

Game review: Kit and the Octopod

Kit and the Octopod is an action-adventure flash game by Jay Armstrong Games. The game's premise is that the "Bad Mood Bear" has kidnapped the beau of the octopod and the player takes on the role of Kit, a helpful, random individual who decided to befriend the octopod.

Summary of analysis
Simple new player experience, amusing though occasionally jarring gameplay experience, simple control scheme and virtually ignorable interface, glaring contrast of graphical elements, decent music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game's new player experience is easily accomplished through pop-up background elements which are placed at contextual points in the first few levels and indicate which controls to use to progress. The wall jump mechanic seems to have either been redesigned or an overcomplicated variation as a bit of experimentation revealed an easier method of accomplishing the same goal.

Gameplay experience
Judging from the game's graphics and introductory cut scenes, one of which featured a cephalopod participating in the bro-fist of friendship, I had come to expect a light-hearted romp through a countryside... but it was veiling some dark humor and grit. Upon encountering the first enemy opposition, I wound up knocking out a soldier by tossing a barrel at them, the second, however, I fought using Kit's wrench and was shocked to see blood spurting off of them and taken aback when they exploded into gore. I soon gained a preference for eliminating opposition by means other than the wrench to try and avoid further jarring moments.
Aside from the elements of gore and some occasional reminders of how a level can be designed to entrap a player with optional objectives, the game was largely fun and amusing. There's even a mild degree of replay value by getting to play as a pirate after the first time beating the game, but the parrot trades off offensive utility completely for free-range exploration (pretty much only good for getting coins that would result in suicide normally).

Interface & Controls
Minimal interface elements which can almost all be ignored in the course of play and a similar control scheme. If the game had the ability to customize the control scheme , I'd think it would do a lot better as many players are accustomed to a significantly differing layout from other games (wasd movement) and may occasionally wind up paying for it when trying to adjust to this game's control scheme.

Graphics
The game's graphics is where the jarring element of gameplay comes in. The player character is a very happy and friendly individual and the whole game is rendered in a cartoon style graphical theme, yet the blood and gore elements contrast heavily with what the player is likely to come to expect in the first minutes of gameplay. Falling down a bottomless pit or knocking an opponent out follow the lines of slapstick well-enough, but the sharp death traps and exploding character gore put dampen what could have easily been a fully humorous game. To put it another way, there are more ways to accomplish an active opposition element than to incorporate character to character violence and when a game sets a player's expectations up for betrayal, it's going to have a negative affect on how fun it is.

Music & Sound
For the standard duration of gameplay, the background music keeps the mood of the action-style pacing and the sound effects go along to the game's events proficiently.

Commentary
I can imagine that there is a certain sort of personality that would appreciate this game's dark humor far better than I. Along the lines of one lesson during my college education was to limit the attempted scope of player appeal and this game does just that. The lacking replay value was a disappointing feature to see, but there is a certain fan appeal to following a meme and under the right circumstances is a reward unto itself.

Game review: Bastion (Demo)

Bastion is a smash-'em up style action roleplaying game by Supergiant Games. Unlike many games hailing themselves a part of the roleplaying genre, Bastion prominently features a narrative story where the player character's actions have the most significant impact on the world and the story.

Summary of analysis
Mixed delight/disappointment new player experience, mostly positive gameplay experience which is likely to be improved by playing on primary release platform, adequately accomplished interface and control scheme that really emphasizes a reason to play it on Xbox rather than PC, graphically appealing style that comes to life in the moment, excellent music & sound (especially the third-person narrator element).

Tutorial/New player experience
The new player experience of Bastion is an equal helping of discovering a delightful innovation and unfortunate disorientation. Right from the beginning, the player gets to experience having a fully-voiced narrator guide them along and give them hints. Unfortunately, they're left to learn the controls without ever being taught and often amidst a hostile environment or opposition. Note: this may have been a particular failing of the demo version. In any case, I cautiously respect the way Supergiant Games chose to try and keep the theme of discovery even though it impacts upon tutorial elements of the gameplay.

Gameplay experience
As a disclaimer, I strictly recommend playing the Xbox version instead of the PC, as the gameplay revealed that to be the target platform with the PC version being a notably buggy after thought. Aside from development focus, the gameplay experience was largely entertaining and flowed nicely; there was clearly a lot of thought in the level design with the player being able to have a good idea of current obstacles and dangers due to the third-person narrator present at all times. One particularly amusing point was my first time falling off the world and the narrator playing it off as a joke they were telling instead of what really happened; sadly, later accidents of that nature felt more like being unjustly scolded as I'd never been doing it on purpose.

Interface & Controls
The interface elements, while on hand since starting are learned much like everything else: in the moment and experimental trial and error. Thankfully, some of the elements first become active in contextual pair with learning some of the game's mechanics. The control scheme is why I recommend only ever playing the Xbox version, as being told to hit trigger buttons on a keyboard and mouse scheme is an infuriating and counter-productive issue that really only gets resolved by having to pause and bring up the controls section of the menu. In addition, having to play a 3/4 perspective game when directional keys are running tangent to the entire layout scheme means having to make a lot of over correcting and more than a little accidental occurrences of falling off the world and additional risk of death by key locking..

Graphics
A lot of work went into the game's particular style and themes through the graphics of Bastion. All the active and passive elements blend together to create an appealing experience that greatly aids a desire to explore the game world. As the player progresses through a level and explores optional side-paths, the world literally comes into view, rising out of the infinite expanse beneath the player and arranging itself emphasizing that feel of a narrated story coming into being as it's been described to an audience.

Music & Sound
Bastion's background music helps evoke the game's exploration and survival themes, but it is (pun warning) instrumental as back up to the game's narrator. As mentioned a number of times by this point, the game's fully-voiced narration is a key element of gameplay and is a masterful attempt of innovation. Even with all the detracting points I encountered in the demo, I'd still recommend playing this game just for the narrated story. The game has a number of triggered nodes that push the narration as the player progresses and also reacts to the player's actions during the course of play.

Commentary
I sincerely hope to have an opportunity to play through the full Xbox version of the game one day but I have no intention of putting myself through the PC experience of Bastion again. It should be applauded any time a game attempts to innovate. When they succeed in contributing to an enjoyable experience and help lend those new elements into the standard, the game studio should be making news in the industry with both player and developer communities alike. As noted in the game's official site, this is the company's first game, lending even more weight to the arguments of why the big studios should be looking to independent studios for hints on how to do things rather than gambling on the ever diminishing appeal of series sequels.
This adds yet another name to my list of companies to keep an eye on in hopes of seeing what they'll accomplish in the future.

Game review: Alter Ego

Alter Ego is a browser-based life simulation game by Choose Multiple LLC; originally written by Peter Favaro Ph.D. and published in 1986 on the Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Apple II, and Macintosh platforms.
The game's premise is simple enough: 'What if you had an opportunity to live life again.' Unfolding from birth and progressing through events and opportunities over the span of this new life, how the player chooses to live this virtual second life is what this game explores and illustrates.

Summary of analysis
Internet browsing knowledge-reliant new player experience, engaging and immersive gameplay that goes so far as to try and maintain situational plausibility and sociological expectations, mouse-controlled gameplay and easily-navigated interface, text and icons graphics, no music or sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
The new player experience of Alter Ego is largely implied as it flows through an interaction-enabled Javascript web-page. Most anyone capable of finding the game on the web will be probably be able to play the game. Though I feel that tutorial elements would've still been welcome, it's likely that without an experienced game designer the game would've suffered for it due to the level of attempted player immersion of game events and overall casual theme.

Gameplay experience
There's two routes for a player to go from my own experiences and that of some friends: either log into the game using google accounts in order to walk away and return at your leisure or prepare for a four to eight hour block of a game that really immerses you in it to the best of its ability. Alter Ego definitely has a lot of replay value due to its premise and that nearly every game event is optional. In fact, no age section gives enough turns to fully explore all of the events available, driving curious players to see what they missed out on and weigh their choices and sacrifices.
From what I've observed, it even tries its best to simulate social differences between genders to some degree by having a number of events change perspective or be unique to the experience. On a related note of simulated integrity, there are times when a set of selections determines outcome such as mood and action/inaction and certain combinations are locked out due to lack of plausibility (i.e. deciding to show up to a fight at school with a mood of unaffected by being called out).

Interface & Controls
As a browser-based, Javascripted game, the mouse is the whole of the control scheme and was an unsurprising design decision. The game has a simple and quickly-learned interface of going between choice windows and narrative text windows.
While certainly unnecessary (given it steps out of immersion) the game provides a stat window that is viewable from the main choices window, but given that the information it provides is akin to an internalized self-evaluation, it's doing a lot when it is considered necessary to a player.

Graphics
The game is comprised mostly of text and iconography, I honestly only recall one picture in the game's entirety. If I had the resources to, I'd love to invest into making a full graphics evolution, particularly one that would randomize features, ethnicity, and explore sociological differences in those experiences as it could make for a powerful serious genre game and help foster understanding at the same time as enticing players to seek out and learn from diversity.

Music & Sound
The game lacks music and sound, but I doubt it suffers for it. Alongside wishing to see a full graphics version, getting to see this remade or inspiring a similar title that is fully voice-acted and sound-rich would be a beautiful thing.

Commentary
I feel that I should note here that the reason I've had such long sessions of playing this game was because of how fun I found it to be, I've rarely felt any desire to skip ahead even though it's always an available option. This is a game that I've recommended to everyone I know and would definitely recommend it to more. For anyone wondering if I could possibly push my wish list for this game in the future further than already noted above: yes, I can, I've contemplated the possibility of an Alter Ego MMO and talked myself down from it knowing that it would be an epic undertaking and most-likely commercially (if not technologically) non-viable.
P.S. (No, Second Life doesn't count as it lacks both game-style motivation and sociological integrity/plausibility.)

Game review: The Cat and the Coup

The Cat and the Coup is a narratively-focused serious genre (Edutainment) game by Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad (click for full credits hosted on the game's site). Available for Windows and Mac PC systems as well as being hosted and distributed via Steam.
The game's premise has the player taking the role of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh's cat who, during the course of being a playful feline, leads the ghost of Mossadegh through an abridged history of noted significant moments of his life strung together in a Wonderland-style series of rooms.

Summary of analysis
Simple and effective tutorial elements, admirably accomplished gameplay, minimal interface and easily-learned control scheme, graphics that escape my ability to adequately describe, and effective sound.

Tutorial/New player experience
The tutorial elements of the game are summed up in the space of about twenty seconds in the pre-launch screen. Move the cat around and swipe at objects in order to keep the narrative moving along. There are also hints on where to go that pop up to aid the player, keeping the game from making one of the big mistakes in game design: entrapping a player at no fault of their own.

Gameplay experience
Unlike purely entertainment games, the Cat and the Coup serves to intrigue the player into wanting to learn more, one of the goals of the growing genres of serious games and Educational-Entertainment (short-form: Edutainment) games. I'd very much have to say that it accomplishes this goal admirably through a combination of the abridged event texts and, what seemed to me at least, the unconventional graphics. In my opinion, and possibly others, one of the best ways to get people drawn into a desire to learn is to engage them to interact and to trigger curiosity like a reflex.

Interface & Controls
Fully keyboard-driven controls movement and interaction. There are user-interface elements in the way of a hints system, but nothing that overtly screams, "Hey, you're playing a game."

Graphics
Give it a play for yourself, it only takes about fifteen minutes, whereas me attempting to quantify a description of the game's graphics would take about an hour or two to find words for illustrating it properly and maybe a quarter of that to thoroughly read through. The best I can do to simplify it is that it compares to descriptions of animistic spirit journeys that I've read about.

Music & Sound
The music wonderfully compliments the gameplay and the sound effects are implemented well. There's little else I can say about this element due to the length of the game really only requiring so much in audio resources.

Commentary
There are only two points that I can really call detraction: a heavy memory requirement (cited 2GB of RAM) and that I had to rely on external resources to seek out and read through a detailed source of the story that the Cat and the Coup effectively acts as a short documentary  of events. To be fair, though, I tend to seek out secondary and often tertiary sources of information habitually anyway.
I'm always glad to see both attempts and innovation in the genre of serious games, especially as more of public education goes voluntary and interactive. I'd urge anyone interested in similar topics to take the time to give this game their own analysis and to follow-up in learning more, especially in verifying presented information (in more than just the media of serious games, too).

Game review: Depths of Peril (Demo)

Depths of Peril is a ambitious action-adventure game combining elements of hack and slash action, roleplaying-style character equipment and stat management, tower defense game's home outpost with defenses, factional real-time strategy, and a rich backstory narrative all with an explorable world. Depths of Peril was developed by Soldak Entertainment and is available to run on Windows and Mac PC platforms.

Summary of analysis
Poorly implemented new player experience, fast-paced and challenging gameplay with hordes of monsters, the lurking threat of factional warfare but the most frightening element is the narrative elements, complicated but rewarding interface and controls, well-detailed graphics with minor obstacles of object distinction, mediocre music with mostly satisfying sound effects.

Tutorial/New player experience
I imagine that the one thing that got me through this part of the game was an abundance of comparable game experience, the new player experience was bordering on painful.
After creating a character I was dropped into the game without a clue about the controls and considerable curiosity about what I was supposed to do first. Within the first ten minutes of gameplay, I was over my head with a long line of tutorial help windows waiting for my attention and in need of industrial machinery to deal with all the walls of text I was expected to read through. If you're new to this style of game, I recommend its competition first, they'll ease a player into the game much better than Depths of Peril does.
I can understand that there's a lot to teach the player as there's a lot to manage in the game and quite a bit of mechanics and interactions that they'll need to learn (kind of quickly, too, lest they fall behind the opposition), but more succinct explanations and walking a player through things is an art, not a chore list.

Gameplay experience
After getting the hang of everything, things ran much more smoothly, though the feeling of having to outrace impending doom never went away. Personally, I love being able to multi-task in a hardcore style game and managing a constant flow of quests, preparing for invasion from opposing forces, managing a main character and companion, and slaughtering hordes of monsters in exploration really let this game shine after the grueling new player experience. This game appears to be designed to keep a player going, unrelentingly, so keep an alarm handy if you have any upcoming plans while playing.
Probably the major detractor to ongoing gameplay are the tomes, which are an interesting read and show that the designers really wanted to draw players into the game's world, they're just cumbersome and out of place given the game's pacing and themes. If they could have implemented a telling of these narratives through high-level or epic quests in which the player character is transported back to participate in the events depicted, I would applaud the narrative, but they wound up being the most dreaded usable item a player would come across (whatever you do, don't right click the tomes... just stuff them in the bookshelf for their bonuses) and did more to break immersion than was really tolerable.

Interface & Controls
Complex interface relying on a sizable number of windows to manage (thankfully some of them pause gameplay while active). Primarily mouse-driven controls with abundant, and life-saving, keyboard hotkeys. It takes a significant investment of time to master the gameplay and the interface interactions, but it pays off exponentially with ongoing gameplay and especially in higher difficulty levels.

Graphics
2.5D top-down, angled, third-person perspective with moderately detailed character, object, and environment artwork. While certainly more visually appealing to a seriously-themed game, the interactive elements' graphics have a tendency to blend in with the non-interactive elements causing the targeting system to be an unnecessarily high level of nuisance (in fact, there's a whole keyboard hotkey just to highlight objects that can be picked up and it's probably going to be used more than any other). But even without the distraction-prone environment elements, a mouse-based targeting system in third-person perspective is clumsy at best. Thankfully, death by camera-angle or targeting system never became an issue (so far).

Music & Sound
I think there was background music, but between the rapid pace of gameplay and the sound effects, it may as well have been turned off for all I ever noticed it. The implementation of sound was quite a lot more satisfying, save that damnable knocking of factional management that honestly tempted me to embrace savage massacre of my in-game neighbors.

Commentary
Diablo-esque and it shows; the interface, controls, quite a lot of mechanics, and even some bits of narrative and premise illustrate a high likeliness of inspiration by the works of Blizzard Entertainment. There were also a number of moments where I felt the need to pause and question a few of the game's elements, such as a factionally-divided tribe of barbarians which somehow valued hefty (though abridged) tomes of lore in a hostile environment nearly pouring in on them from all sides. It was also a bit jarring to see the most-used currency was actually a coin-based economy as opposed to the frequently cited crystals of the tutorial and help windows.
To the game's credit, it was mostly well put together and it excels as a hardcore-style game by how it manages to keep a player engaged with only moments of downtime to give the player breathing and strategy time, eventually aiding in the desired player skill development rather than letting inventory management and spreadsheet-planning to detract from the pace.

Game Review: The Kingdom of Loathing

The Kingdom of Loathing is an online roleplaying game by Asymmetric Publications. At time of this blogging, it is listed as being in open beta.
The game's premise appears very much to just have fun and do a little adventuring in a unique land.

Summary of analysis
Effective new player experience, a fresh take on roleplaying genre gameplay through its presentation to the player, semi-complex but well-implemented interface with mostly mouse-driven controls, surprisingly well-chosen graphics, no sound or music.

Tutorial/New player experience
While at heart the game comes across as significantly less than serious, there's actually quite a bit of mechanics going on behind the scenes and like many roleplaying games a lot to teach to a new player. Thankfully, the overarching theme and succinct tutorial system keeps things rolling along nicely and even though I've had to pause to get through a bout of laughter, it's a welcome slow down.

Gameplay experience
For a run down in detail of gameplay elements, I recommend the Kingdom of Loathing Wiki.
Definitely a one of a kind experience, from fighting off laughter to fighting absurdities, it's fully embraced the roleplaying game meme of random encounters. The game adheres to a lot of the genre conventions: random encounters and level grinding, stat management, inventory systems, etc but it was still somehow refreshing to play through due to the colorful descriptions and comical interpretation of pretty much everything.

Interface & Controls
Like many roleplaying games, there's numerous interface elements to interact with and I'm grateful to see them introduced as they're being placed on the interface (with some exceptions). The mouse appears to be the sole means of controls in the game, at least from what I've found from playing so far though I expect from my research that the keyboard becomes important once a player gets into the social elements of the game.

Graphics
Stick-figure style characters, objects, and environment. Though many games would have a hard time pulling this one off, I think KoL actually benefits its themes and the overall gameplay experience having gone this route.

Music & Sound
No sound or music at the time of this blogging, though I'd love to see it implemented one day when it's in full release.

Commentary
I expected from creating a character that I'd be in for quite a lot of puns and some occasional campiness. Just a few actions in and I realized I was going to be needing a week's rations, a tent, some flint and steel, fifty feet of rope, and a standard issue ten foot pole (actually 11') because this was going to be an adventure into the heart of camp. It's obvious that the developers meant for everyone involved to have fun with the game including themselves and should be credited for taking a job and making it enjoyable (seen far too many game developers that try to discourage others from the industry and barely enjoy what they do).
I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this game as they've managed to be innovative without the need of a multi-million dollar budget and provide players with recreation through silliness in a well-structured set of mechanics.

Game Review: Fault Line

Fault Line is probably the first game in a long time I'd played where I had become obsessed with trying to figure out how to reverse engineer its mechanics. It's an Action-Puzzle style flash game which leans more into hardcore play style (especially in later levels), but still has casual appeal.
As indicated in the credits, the art is by Stefan Åhlin, it's programmed by Chris Burt-Brown, with music by Dave Cowen, and is part of the Nitrome games network.

The game's goal is to bring its protagonist through dynamic environments akin to mazes via manipulation of space.

Summary of analysis
Minimal interactions/mechanics to teach the player, resulting in a quick and in the action tutorial, excellent mix of challenging puzzles and learning how to use the mechanics creatively but lacking replay value, well accomplished music and sound, and uncluttered/non-distracting interface with largely accommodating and simple controls.

Tutorial/New player experience
By the end of the first level, all the game's interactions have been shown to the player, the challenge from that point forward is learning how to use them to solve the various levels ahead.

Gameplay experience
With experimentation and creative logic, I'd have to say that the game is at just the right mix of challenge and learning that really makes a puzzle game shine. The game also forgoes narrating a story and lets the player's own imagination wander if they're so inclined to find a premise that ties together the events of the game.
Levels are timed and scored, but outside of playing the game with an attitude of testing the limits of the mechanics, there's fairly little motivation behind replaying them except to get a few more points.

Interface & Controls
A minimal interface lets the player focus better on the tasks at hand. The most notable part of the interface and controls is the mouse-driven detachable hands of the character, which pull together special node points in the environment, thereby bending the level's space in order to create pathways, avoid or destroy obstacles, navigate the maze, and even have a little fun distorting objects. Character movement consists of keyboard keys for moving left, right, and jumping (with some accommodation of multiple layouts).

Graphics
Sprite-art character and objects/environment with a futuristic style. No character death, relying on a rewinding time to most recent checkpoint mechanic when hazardous conditions are met (including bending the environment into a collapse on the character).

Music & Sound
Unlike a lot of futuristic-style games, the music was neither fast-paced, nor annoyingly repetitive (at least by my tastes and standards). The music and sound evoked a sense of mystery, possibly being meant to entice a player to keep pressing to finish every challenge.

Commentary
As stated earlier, this game has left my designer tendencies working overtime theorizing possible methods of implementing similar mechanics. From incredibly well-written object-draw programming tied together with an adaptive surfaces interpretation to interchangeable level maps to more complicated object-merging interactive systems, this game was engaging as a player and inspirational as a game designer. Also, Fault Line is a testament to breaking away from convention and trying to innovate by making the level itself the focus instead of the character or the character's movements.
Finally, it never hurts to take a mechanic and show how it can be iteratively used to exponential degrees.

Game Review: Rich Mine 2

Rich Mine 2 is a physics-based puzzle game published in Flash and is a casual player-style game.
As is stated in the game's credits, it was programmed by Buagaga, with level design by Dmitry Obrazcov, art by Maxim Yurchenko, music by Statilko Nikolay, and which uses the Box2D physics engine.
The game's objectives are (primary) to help Mr. Gnome collect jewels and (secondary) to gather coins and avoid or eliminate enemies, who would break the jewels.

Summary of analysis
Good new player experience, simple mechanics with score and optional objectives, non-clutter interface with mouse-based control scheme, appropriate music and sound.

Tutorial/New player experienceA good balance of teaching the basic concepts while jumping right into the action and letting the player learn on their own rather than spelling out how to do everything. With a little trial and error, the game's skill set is easily developed.

Gameplay Experience
As a scored game with optional objectives, it has an encouraging replay value, whether a player is trying to improve their skills or beat their prior score. It also features a submit score function which is bound to appeal to more competitive players. While it technically lacks an stated achievement system, the three-star level objectives can fill this role for those looking to prove themselves by completing all optional objectives. For anyone interested in such, the game is linked to a video walkthrough. Finally, the game manages a background auto-save feature, ideal for casual players or anyone with time constraints.

Interface & Controls
A small number of user-interface elements, some self-explanatory text others easily interpreted icons, and a cursor in the shape of scissors effectively illustrates everything a player has as options for interaction. While there are a few handy keyboard controls, nearly all controls are mouse-driven.

Graphics
The game features: cartoon-style cute characters, no blood/gore, dynamic objects, and is very colorful. All these elements contribute to a wider player audience appeal and a seeming attitude of 'just have fun.' Getting to see Mr. Gnome dance gleefully upon each level's completion is a welcome reward, possibly more than the score summary.

Music & Sound
The music is upbeat and relaxed, furthering the 'for fun' feel. Sound effects are timely and as expected.

Commentary
A definite improvement over Rich Mine, choosing to simplify mechanics and teach the concepts during gameplay rather than a menu-driven help. Plus having to only manage one asset and letting the game's mechanics do the work for the player is a credit to the casual themes as there's a lot less guess-work.
It's always a good idea to try and meet player expectations and customize all elements of the experience into a single goal. Also, there is a lot of benefit to having a dedicated level designer in the project who can help plan and test things without having a comprehensive knowledge of the underlying mechanics.
Also, having the player learn as they play and having optional goals are signatures of good game design principles.