A Developer-type Look at Five Games (There Will Be Blog)

Here we are again, reviewing games.
This should be a bit different though. I normally will review a game as if I were a player, not as if I were a designer. In these reviews, I will make an attempt at reviewing the design aspects of the game, rather than how good it made me feel to play it. (Or bad, thanks Dungeon Siege III)

That being said, let's take a look at these little indie games I took a look at, shall we?

1 : dys4ia (Playable Here)

Dys4ia is a wonderful game designed to tell the experiences of the designer in their transition in life using hormones to become the gender they identify as. The game has lots of short and brief mini-game-esque segues as it tells the tale of anguish, depression and often uncomfortable points before things can get better.

The title!

From a design standpoint, this game does an excellent job at conveying the confusion and frustration of the author as it is played through, with each "stage" within the story potentially being much different than its previous one. Each small level shows a small dynamic of the whole story, and each one also has a completely different control scheme generally than the previous part. One moment it may be a pong-esque minigame, the next it may be a game where you are trying to catch falling objects or any other variety of basic gameplay dynamics. It was a very creative and engaging design to the game to keep the player guessing at what they would be doing next.

Pong-type gameplay mechanic in action.

This game had an excellent message and voice behind it. The narrative structure was well done and fit into each miniature piece of the game in a sort of organized chaos that showed the player the turmoil of feelings the designer faced when going through their transition with hormones. Very few games convey any such message, and I believe this is a very unique and important aspect of this game that sets it apart from most others.

2 : I Want To Be The Guy (Playable Here)

I Want To Be The Guy is quite an interesting game. A lot of players find this game very infuriating, yet they keep playing it. Games that have this dynamic are very interesting on account that they are not catering exactly to making the experience enjoyable for a player. But, the game does manage to hook players into enjoying it in their own way. 

The beginning...

I would classify this game as a challenge game. The player, you, is put through a very unforgiving set of deadly traps and other extravaganza, and within the very first seconds of the game, you are most likely being brutally smashed into bits. Like so:

The bits you get smashed into.

3. Planetoid 2 (Playable Here)

Planetoid is a delightful empire-expanding game. At first I was a bit daunted by a few of the control inconsistencies in it. But the game has a lot of dynamics to it that are interesting. The game revolves around you starting as a race, and with your few little adorable square cubes, you must expand across the solar system.

My guys fraternizing with our neighbors, the aliens.

Some of the controls are a bit wonky, but the gameplay itself is enjoyable in a sort of passive or abnegation-based form of relaxation. You kind of just observe your little squares managing themselves, and occasionally you'll build some things to help them expand, then send them on their merry little expeditions to planets.

The act of building new planets and interacting with the aliens you may encounter can be an interesting little cultural experience. While the game itself can take some time to heat up in terms of the speed of play, it can provide a good shutoff valve for your brain while you just watch the little people go about their business.

Overall, I liked the conquest and exploration aspect of planetoid a lot, though there could be a bit more explanation of what certain objects in the game do.

4. Canabalt (Playable Here)

I had no idea what I was coming in to when I started Canabalt up for the first time. I had heard nothing of it ever. What I found was very surprising. Canabalt is essentially a racing game, except it's just you, and you're trying to outrun lord knows what (we'll assume world-destroying machines). However, what ever you may be running from isn't much of a threat, the real threat is you are a mortal, normal human aside from your ability to run inhumanly fast for long distances without so much as a sip of water.

Normally, that would all be well and good right?

Splat.

Wrong. The problem with running absurdly fast as a regular person, is you will literally collide with something, and then decimate yourself from the impact. Or in the majority of my early playtests through this game, running and jumping too high, hitting a wall instead of the convenient glass window I was supposed to crash through, and then falling to my death.

Crashing through windows, always satisfying.

This game is great fun, and the design choices for it are very interesting. Not many games have such a small palette of colors, the monochrome tone of this gives an atmosphere of a melancholic or apocalyptic scene. Also, as your character is running, you often will see large creatures or machinations in the background wreaking havoc on the city, as well as planes flying down and crashing. 

What ever is happening to the world, you have to escape somehow. It's great that just the atmosphere alone in the game urges the player to hurry, and to get away faster.

This is a fantastic game, and the atmosphere in it really helps the narration of the goal to the player.

5. You Have to Burn the Rope (Playable Here)

I think this game confused me the first time I played it. The game conveys itself very well. By "conveys" I mean "tells you exactly what to do." The obviousness of the game itself is almost humorous. But what really takes the cake about this game is that you are serenaded with this catchy little tune at the end when you beat it. I'll let you see that for yourself when you beat it.

I have to what?

From playing so many games that incorporate the concepts of lies, intrigue and/or espionage, this game left me very suspicious for quite a while. I spent a good deal of time in the game being absolutely stupid. I didn't follow the orders. I didn't burn the rope. I didn't win the game.

Eventually, I had to give in and try, nothing else was working. My weapons, as they said, were powerless.

Fine, I'll try the torch...

So I gave in, and now I'm here trying to burn this rope. The controls were simple to grasp, and pretty much every button was the standard attack button. I think one of the parts that amused me the most about this game was that I was thinking about how many other boss fights I've been through that had this same mechanic, but it just wasn't vocalized as much.

Think about it, a lot of boss battles in games involve some obscure way of dealing with them. In some Metroid bosses you have to aim at weak spots, I get it. Bosses like the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls require you to only go to certain weak zones and break the parts, the rest of the boss isn't kill-able by your skill alone. This kind of drove an idea home in my mind after a while. Why do we make final bosses like this? Why do we make it so they have to be fought a special way to be defeated? We can't use the skills we learned through the game to fight them? Why not?

This doesn't apply to all games. But the games that they do apply to are numerous in quantity. You may want to consider it next time you're making a boss for a game.

So there you have it! There's the five games I look a glimpse at and did my best to play through. They were excellent, and I can't really say I didn't like any of them. They were all great.

If you've played a strange game that you think illustrates something important, leave its name (and a link to where to get it, if you want to be helpful) in a comment. If you like, explain what thought-provoking element it has within it, as well.

Til' next time.