Five is a puzzle-style flash game I'd found hosted on Armor Games. The game's objective is for the player to unlock all the rooms and reach the end goal within five minutes.
Summary of analysis
Whole game = new player experience, mildly frustrating gameplay experience,
Tutorial/New player experience
The game assumes the player to know the basic movement keys, always a risky choice, but thankfully explains (albeit briefly) the map rearrangement mechanics. By the time a player's mastered layout and rearrangement, chances are they've completed the game, meaning that the entire game is effectively a new player experience.
Gameplay experience
There's a mildly aggravating element of trial and error involved in the game due to how picky it is about lining up certain rooms, rather than simplifying the entry/exit points there are a number of rooms that look like they will connect but, for some never explained reason, result in false-positive dead ends. I'd found that the easiest solution to this is to just put an arbitrary hallway between the two (it usually worked).
Interface & Controls
Both mouse and keyboard are required, keyboard for movement and entering/exiting map layout, mouse to change room layouts.
Navigating the rooms is largely interface-free, except for the music toggle and the timer, the map layout section is pure interface.
Graphics
Silhouetted characters and room architecture populate this game with moving backgrounds helping to create a sense of a 'living' environment. Given the game's themes, the graphics are one of the best decisions the creator made in designing the game. The focus is kept on the gameplay and the graphics help emphasize the mood.
Music & Sound
Five's background music is the other great design decisions, featuring what seems to be an originally-composed song that evokes the puzzle element of gameplay, I'd say it helps to motivate the player into figuring out what is going on in the game's story.
Commentary
Short, relatively simple, interesting concept, the game is a decent play. I'd say that aside from the layout quirkiness, the biggest detraction is trying to include a narrative story, but I've no intention to fault the game for its inclusion. As with anything included in commentary sections, these are matters of comparison and consideration rather than critique or evaluation of a game's elements.
Showing posts with label Casual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Casual. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Thursday, November 17, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, October 31, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, October 21, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, October 17, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, October 7, 2011
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.)
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.)
Thursday, October 6, 2011
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).
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).
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, September 30, 2011
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.
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.
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