Choiceless Play
What a strange experience. Yo! Noid 2 is a 3d platform, each level takes you to strange new locations and simply asks you to get to the end. However, this basic mechanical framework is wrapped in a strange setting.
The first thing to know is that Yo! Noid 2 is not an official sequel to the original game. This was made by a small team during a game jam hosted by waypoint.
This game is a solidly made game. The levels are difficult and challenging. The worlds are varied and interesting. The gameplay is consistently produced. The story in entrancing.
Despite all this I only had an okay time. My problem might be entirely self made, as the developers recommend a controller and I used the keyboard. It’s very hard to get the feel for a platformer such as this via playing with controls it wasn’t intended for. I wonder if it’s fair to rate a game based on these circumstances.
The game had an interesting glitch system made. Where the edges of certain aspects of the game were exposed for creating a discord in the players mind. To make it seem as though everything isn’t okay in kanas. I always enjoy these sort of experiences, where you start looking over your shoulder to look for where the game breaks down.
God damn, the music was phenomenal. Good work who ever made that shit.
I really wish the atmosphere was a little bit more consistent throughout. The game has a bit of an issue following through with a particular way that it wants to make the player feel. Which is fine, but as a personal thing I enjoy a bit more consistency in terms of how the world is built to feel. For example, the hub area is desolate and lonely, parts of the game are weird and strange, but for the most part its very much light fun platforming which is fine as a contrast, but I think the lighter parts over shadow the darker parts and break the spell a little for me.
Play this game with a controller 7/10
Yet another influential game for me. This is a short little game and I really recommend playing it totally blind. I will be spoiling it for the sake of talking about it so go enjoy it if you are so inclined before reading on!
This is a game that helped me realize that you can put messages in small packages that are impactful to me purely through gameplay. I was having a hard time struggling with trying to make pure little experiences that have something to say and I had to laugh at how effortless this game seemed to pull it off.
Simply this game is a pretty straightforward action affair, by initial appearances. You kill and kill and kill and the whoops! Alien mama is super nice and escorts you back to your ship. Nothing complicated but who knows how you’ll feel about the context your actions have been placed in.
Unfortunately, theres nothing mechanically interesting about this game but that’s not the point. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
Overall, a short simple game with heart. Nothing too crazy about it, just well constructed. 6/10
Songbird is a pretty straightforward game, but that isn’t a knock on it in any sense. It’s a well done, well executed fun little musical romp. This game has two main states, one is a platfomer, one is a rhythm section. Both of these sections, individually, are well done.
The platforming sections feel nice, the movement is pretty spot on for what its going for because traversal never seemed to be something I thought about. I just did it. There are also minor puzzles that exist throughout this world which I thought were quite charming. Basically you can sing anywhere you go, and through song you help various creatures.
The rhythm section is also quite well done, maybe slightly too simple for my tastes but thats a personal issue rather than an issue with the execution of it. Basically it’s a call back sort of system, where the game plays what you have to do before you do it immediately after. I always kinda take issue with this because I feel just a tad too led by the nose, but again thats just me.
One thing I don’t know exactly where I land on with this game is how the game switches in between the two systems. Basically as you platform around, you come to these sections where the game switches to the rhythm section. It’s fine, but I think my issue is how it feels like a situation where things you should have experience throughout the game could have been ramped up in musical complexity in these situations. However, due to the absolute division of the gameplay types, each game has to both teach and ramp their complexity completely separately.
The art in this game is lovely. Well done, and I don’t have much to say about it. However, I think me not having much to say is also points to something I just thought of as I was writing that. Something I appreciate is having a bit of challenge in art, where just something feels a little bit stylized in a certain personal way. This game doesn’t feel like it has it, which is fine but it just feels a little flat because of it.
It’s fine, nothing that blew me away but still fairly enjoyable. 6/10
The great divide is a great setting powered by the bitsy engine, however one particular issue I have with this game brings it down for me as an experience.
In a nut shell, the world has been divided into two sides because of a catastrophic event the player is not privy to. As you go through the game world you see the effects that such an act of god has on the world and its inhabitants. This was interesting enough, to go through and see the reactions of each of the people in the world.
However, my main issue with this game stands with the transitions. When trying to go to a new room with bits, the author has the ability to place down spaces that will activate a new room or screen or what-have-you. This game, there’s generally only one of these spaces per side of the screen which led to me trying every space along the sides of the screen to find the one that would let me progress. I would have prefered playing with the spaces being along the entire side but that's just my personal taste.
I really did like the story, I just felt like saying that again.
This was a wonderful first game! A simple change would bump this game up in quality but this is my opinion as it stands now 4/10
Choiceless Play
More abstract topics! Someone today talked about adding multiple endings to a linear game because players like choice.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a little while. The more I delve into the nature of play and games, the more interesting it gets to try and understand. I don’t think play is ever really a concrete thing that can be tied down under any one description or definition but I do believe the are aspects to the nature of it that can be understood, while not actually understanding the thing itself.
So today what I want to discover is whether play is done with conscious choice or whether it is as choiceness as the falling rain. The reason this came up in my mind was because I was playing Nuclear throne recently (which I will be writing about soon, I’m thinking of changing the format to this but the new format requires me to scan some note book drawing or for whatever but I’m digressing) and I started thinking about the idea of choice in playing. The reason for this is because, as anyone who's played an action game will know, the game requires split second decisions to an always evolving situation. When to move forward or when to retreat, which enemies to prioritize, should I grab that weapon or rely on my weaker weapon to thin out the crowd, etc.
However, what I’m curious about is where those choices come from. Yes, certainly I am able to consider and understand my choice available to me. What interests me is the fact that I only think about the choice I’ve made after the fact of me making it. For example, I can go left or right but when I choose either direction, the thought of my choice is an articulation of what I already know I’ve chosen, not the decision itself which comes before the thought.
In fact, if this idea can be extrapolated to any choice ever made in any game, high speed or otherwise. Which makes me come to the conclusion that playfulness is not a conscious activity. At least not in the sense that consciousness has 100% say. We can certainly be considerate and debate our choices we make in games. For example, strategy games or games that can be min-maxed can be seen to have an optimal path and out choices aren’t made out of what I’ve described above but rather the conclusion we come to when considering all the facts. But again, this isn’t a choice made purely on the part of the player, the reality of the best choice is apparent in the game from the very beginning and only needs to be discovered, not chosen.
So from this, it is my understanding now that play in games is not a series of choices made consciously by the player. Rather play is pure instinctual, pure self expression that is then broken down by thought to be analyzed and understood rationally. However, that rationality can never get to the root of play due to the fact it is always after, always a step late, play.
This is purely my own view on the subject, if another point of view exists please, I would like to know.
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