It's okay to not finish every game you play
Picasso made, reportedly, over 50,000 pieces throughout his life. Most of those we will never see, but the results of such a herculean body of work can be seen in his most praised art pieces. Nothing good comes easy, and that can be seen in Andrews newest game. Both the good and the bad of that phrase.
The thing that stands out in this game is the art, it shows a lot of the progress this developer has made over the years. (I’ve been following his work for a long time) The model work in this game is sharp. I think part of that could be attributed to some of the lighting and effect work done in the engine but it’s still very striking in a way I wasn’t expecting. Having the animations being as smooth as they are definitely can be attributed to how the model work was received. The atmosphere was also interesting. Vague, I wasn’t feeling any particular feeling, but I also haven’t seen this sort of setting in a game before which is something I always enjoy.
Unfortunately, this game had a big issue The camera sensitivity and zoom. I’ve had this problem before and maybe that’s where its from, but the camera was wild for me. Spinning at a slight movement of the mouse, which made controls unwieldy. This might have been fixed either with a sensitivity adjuster or a zoomed out camera, but as it is, I had to fight with the controls to do what I wanted.
BUUUUUT I had an extra mouse that I never used because it was too insensitive. After plugging that in, almost every single problem I had vanished. The game was manageable and felt good to control the bird. To swoop down and pick up a bookworm was satisfying and I enjoyed it more than any other experience of the game.
However, this game still suffers from a lack of variation in goals. The game became repetitive very quickly due to the straightforward nature of what was asked of me. The first couple times, the gameplay was refreshing, but without the game itself evolving it becomes mechanical.
This game is a good showcase of what practice does for a designers skills. The gameplay and art here are wonderful and show experience up the wazzoo, but a lack of variation in goals or situations hold the game back 6/10
This was a very straightforward exercise in design. The game is a platform where you shouldn’t touch ANYTHING except the ground. The controls were fine and I never had any problems besides being on corners. I figured the developer used a circle for platform collision so you tend to slide off if your character is standing on a corner. What can you do, I’ve done that.
The main gimmick about this game is that every time you reach the end of the screen, a new part of the game appears to the player. So that everything gets smaller and smaller and smaller. This is fine, but I don’t really think it adds much so I don’t really have much to say about it.
I think some of the checkpoint placements were a little mean, but that’s just me. I restarted a few times trying to get to checkpoint, which made me almost give up on a checkpoint which defeats the purpose a little bit I think.
This game was a wonderful platformer, but for me, the level design held it back from being more than it is. 4/10
Tempres is fucking cool to the max. It’s as minimal as minimal games get. You have this abstract, mysterious bar of lines that don’t seem to do anything except when you click. hmmm. Curious.
You click more.
What happens.
You click more, maybe this is why this is happening. Hmm, nope. Doesn't make sense.
You give up, or you don’t.
You click more.
I wonder.
Oh. This is working.
OH. THIS IS WORKING.
I Get it.
Shit. Im going to play again.
Tempres Impres. Wouldn’t change a thing. 9/10
I love me some good ol’ puzzles, I like me some good thematic marriages, I like me a challenge, I like perfectly suited art. This game has all of that.
Path of the Rabbit is a game where you have a little rabbit you want to keep alive to the end of the game. You do that by having the rabbit drink water. You also want to make the rabbit fight to get stronger to be able to defeat the boss of the game, you do that by fighting. You regain health by walking around.
Those rules all combine to create some truly compelling gameplay. The spacial reasoning this game evokes is so wonderful that I had to play this game for days on end, over and over just to get my fix. The main reason behind that is due to the fact that the game gives you just enough information with the panels it gives you that any loss can be almost entirely attributed to an error on the part of the player.
One thing that irked me was that the game liked to draw out fail states. Not a huge issue but just a bit of an annoyance.
This was a pretty well done game 8/10
You don’t need to get to the end of games
Something that I hear people say all the time is “I can’t move on till I finish this game” or “There’s so many games that I NEED to finish, only 20 more hours to go” or anything along those lines. Basically, people complaining or expressing that they are unable to fully complete the game. The following won’t undermine people who like achievements of 100% completing games, but rather I hope to encompass that in the general topic.
What I want to talk about is why I personally don’t feel the need to do that. Why I can spend 20 bucks on a game, play it for 20 minutes and never pick it up again, satisfied.
This way of playing games comes from one main ideology : That I see goals as the context, rather than the point, of the game. That the point of a game is the various experiences you feel each moment playing the game that come from your relationship to the context you find yourself in.
A game can have a bunch of rules, like a puzzle game for example. Mechanics that are just littered about, which have no real point. However, given the goal of completing a puzzle, everything suddenly takes on a certain context. You struggle against this in order to attain your goal, using the mechanics in service to that goal.
Notice that the goal gives meaning to the various elements in the game, but also needs various elements to exist at all. This makes me believe that the goal itself is not the meaning, just another element to make a game sing.
This way of thinking about the end point of games changes the direction of what I’ve tried to pay attention to. The goal becomes a pillar to direct ones actions, but the attention starts to lie in what the game makes you feel each moment you play it. There no longer becomes a need to strive towards the goal thinking that’s what the game is about. Even if you end up finish a game or 100% completing the game, the goal itself becomes equal in the river of experiences felt. It may feel amazing, yes, but still equal.
This is why I don’t finish a lot of games. I also get distracted easily so theres that.
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