Feb
19

Review: Bottoms Up for Winterbottom

by on

Just like Billy Pilgrim of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, P.B. Winterbottom has come unstuck in time.  Only instead of an easy-going everyman optometrist, Mr. Winterbottom (the titular character of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom by The Odd Gentlemen) is a top-hat wearing, spatted man known mostly for his voracious love of pie.  To wit, he uses this newfound ability to collect and devour said confection at every opportunity by recording his actions and utilizing temporal clones of himself to further his gastronomic ends.

Visual

The art style of Winterbottom is very much a joy.  In general, I don’t enjoy pre-rendered 3d models used in a 2d context because they look sterile and the animations are very mechanical.  But the fact the 3d is very often abstract and mixed with hand drawn assets, with some good filters like the general desaturation and the film effect turn it around.  The backgrounds are fairly detailed and animated bringing a nice feeling of life.  The game is helped also, by the interstitial drawings coupled with rhyming couplets to read, which are the main method of pushing forward the story.  These drawings are done in a fabulous style which I can’t help but compare to Gabe of Penny-Arcade (in the best possible way!).

One bit that did annoy me, however, was the Winterbottom animations themselves, which use a side view for general motion, but a front view for floating with the umbrella.  I love the look of the slow-falling Winterbottom, but if you’re going to use a 3d model like that, I would have preferred to see a bit of interstitial animation between the two states.

Audio

The bulk of the notable audio in Winterbottom is no doubt the music.  From its atmospheric menu theme of grumbling horns, to it’s themes of wonderment all done in a fantastic style reminiscent of what you would hear accompanying a silent film.  I particularly enjoy the usage of the Westminster Chimes as a motif to push further on the notion of time.

The rest of the gameplay sounds are fairly incidental, though fitting.  There are of course sounds for pie collecting, smacking another Winterbottom with a broom and the “poof” noise of a disappearing clone.  The projector sound when recording a clone, accompanied by a visual of film frames rewinding, is also a nice cue to help you know what you are doing.

Gameplay

Behind the rest of Winterbottom’s treats, however, the game mechanics taste the sweetest.  As with a lot of the modern crop of the indie scene, Winterbottom takes a singular game mechanic and explores it from many angles over the course of the game.  The basic premise is of a collect-a-thon with the twist of being able to record actions and replay them on a loop.  This idea is then further modified by requiring pies to be collected in a specific order, allowing pies to only be collected by time clones, or making pie collection only possible when followed by a spotlight.  The time recording part is also played with by limiting the number of active time clones, and eventually swapped out in favor of requiring recording to begin at portals positioned in the level.  These portal clones can then only interact with other portal clones or sometimes considered to be evil, bringing death to Winterbottom on contact.

There were a few points of contention for me, however.  The mechanical changes are all fairly interesting and play well, but I couldn’t help but find it a bit jarring to suddenly go from being able to record whenever I wanted, to having to record starting at a portal, using a different button on the gamepad no less.  Some puzzles also involved two different solution methods that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with.  First, some puzzles require you to use a clone and Winterbottom to simultaneously whack each other to fly in opposite directions.  This feat is a bit hit-or-miss in that the window of opportunity for pulling it off is a bit on the small side.  You generally have to set up a clone performing the “whack” on repeat and inch yourself in hoping to hit it back at the exact time it swings.  Swing too late and you fly back by yourself and have to get back into position, sometimes even having to reset the other pieces of the puzzle.  Swing too soon and the clone flies alone, requiring you to record a new one, since being hit puts a clone into “confused” mode where it stops replaying.  Secondly, a few different puzzles utilize the fact that a clone will instantaneously jump back to its original position at the beginning of its playback loop, thus making this fact a requirement in reaching some time sensitive pies that are across the screen.  While I can see how this emerged from the workings of the playback mechanic, I’m not sure I totally agree with its usage, as these are the puzzles that managed to stump me the longest until I figured out exactly what it was asking me to do.

Trailer

Summary

Overall, P.B. Winterbottom was an enjoyable, if generally short, experience.  I played through the entire game in a matter of a few hours.  But for 800 Itchy-and-Scratchy-Moneys it’s a fun diversion, and the extra bonus levels will probably keep you pie-hunting for a good bit of time longer.  In short, if you’re a puzzle fan with a knack for thinking across a temporal dimension:  The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a definite buy.

2 Replies
Feb
16

Review: Kaleidoscope

by on

The world is in peril and has been drained of all its colors! Its denizens have abandoned all hope and staged an exodus of Biblical proportions leaving their once beautiful home behind. As Tint, the protagonist in developer Morsel’s Kaleidoscope, you have choosen to remain behind to aid in the recovery of all the lost colors of the world and to stop the problem at its source!

Gameplay

Kaleidoscope is an adventure platformer with many of the usual staples of the genre. You jump on enemies to return them to their docile state by coloring them , use platforms sprinkled through the levels to get to your objectives, collect objects scattered across the stages,  and do a fantastic little dance once those objectives are achieved. In addition to these normal mechanics there are also included a shield, a slow fall, and a speed boost. Each of these basic mechanics go into finding your way safely through the levels by allowing you to deflect projectiles or make great leaps or slow y our decent through a maze of spikes.

There is not a signifigantly high degree of difficulty in the game, which works well for it, allowing you to go through and really take in the environments. The extremely generous check point system often puts you within just a few obstacles of where you just expired with no load time whatsoever. This makes it a very low frustration game and is greatly appreciated since I’m anti-frustration.

The only real issues within the gameplay of Kaleidoscope that I encountered were some strange physics when on horizontally moving platforms. Jumping from these platforms seems to cause a  an excessive loss of  momentum and this lateral force seemed to be somewhat applied to your character even while just walking on it. That said, it wasn’t game breaking and was just a “that doesn’t feel quite right” moment as if you had just picked up a glass that you thought was full but wasn’t.

Audio Visual

This is the category that brings home the bacon for Kaleidoscope. The game is an absolute treat to look at. Each level starts out in gray scale and as Tint progresses through the level and collects little colored balls of pigment the environment slowly begins to regain its color. Collecting a few blues fills in sky and a few greens fills in the leaves so on and so forth until the world is this bright vibrant color orgy.

The levels themselves each have a stylistic motif. One level has smooth elegant lines and bright pastel swirls adorning the tree branches. While another level has a distinctive pixel cubist look that makes you think of the pixel art days of old. Another level yet is in stark contrast to all the others comprised of dark silhouettes with lanterns lit up in different colors hanging from the trees throughout the levels. It feels like you have just played through an artists exhibition.

The creature designs are all very simple and endearing, in this case less was more when it came to their detail. Tint himself appears to be a black cherry like shape with two spindly legs dangling about and two little white dots for eyes. It just all works for this game.

The soundtrack for Kaleidoscope is just as impressive as the visuals and is great on every level. They’ve got the full soundtrack available as a torrent here. (Big thanks to Anosou the music dude for dropping the link and cluing us in on the wonderfully dynamic nature of the Kaleidoscope soundscape!)

Summary

While the game is a little short, in the neighborhood of just a few hours for initial run through, it is easily worth the asking price of three dollars on the Xbox Indie Marketplace. I rate this one a buy with no reservations at all, but if you are still having trust issues because I didn’t explicitly tell you NOT to buy “Fish Listening to Radio” then just go check out the free trial and fall in love for yourself.

6 Replies
Feb
15

Review: Rotor’Scope

by on

One part Adventure, two parts Puzzle, and a dash of “the Doctor” just about sums up Rotor’scope’s most basic constituent parts. But there is more to developer Nivel21‘s latest game. It weighs in with 150 puzzles, facebook integration, and comes complete with a puzzle building engine to allow players to create and share puzzles.

Gameplay

At it’s heart Rotor’scope is a puzzle game with an adventure wrapped around it. The game specializes in spacial puzzles with a vast array of various puzzle elements that add to the complexity of the basic puzzle design. At the most fundamental level, you are given a few colored block which, once aligned in a row of three or more disappear. The game then adds to this system with blocks with slightly differing behavior, such as wild card blocks or blocks that switch colors with adjacent squares. To move the squares, you manipulate the playing field’s orientation by rotating it clockwise, counter-clockwise, or a vertical flip. The puzzle selection is managed by using a “world map” like top down view of the mansion the game takes place in and as puzzles are solved more rooms and puzzles are unlocked.

The gameplay itself is functional and is adequate for a puzzle game. The puzzles themselves range from simply finishing them in one move to requiring dozens of resets and retries. I like to think I am a person at least one standard deviation away from average intelligence, but some of these puzzles had me seriously questioning in which direction I was deviating. In one situation I spent what seemed like hours trying to crack a puzzle that was required for progression in the game. Fortunately it was very near the end and was eventually accomplished solidifying my title as Puzzle Lord Victorious.

Story

You follow the story of Julie as she has just recently acquired an old dilapidated mansion previously owned by Professor Rotherbaum and is intent on repurposing it as a hotel. Upon her initial investigation of the mansion, she stumbles upon a device that later is identified as the Rotor’scope. This device allows Julie to unlock various mechanisms around the house and in some cases even repair them. As she works her way through the various rooms she finds a strange man locked in one of them. He introduces himself as Traveler and gives Julie the run down on whats been happening. Oddly enough, I suppose for the purpose of moving the story along, Julie opts not to fry him with a  taser and joins  the adventure to locate the missing Professor Rotherbaum.

Being the huge Doctor Who fan that I am, I found the story rather enjoyable. The similarities between the two are unmistakable with story line parallels and character dynamic equivalents. The character Traveler is quirky, gives the impression of intelligence, and has a sorted relationship with time. Meanwhile Julie appears to be thrilled with  the prospects of adventure and makes the best angry/pouty face ever.  In fact, I often found myself put off by the having to go solve another puzzle to get more story and dialog. This actually became my biggest caveat with the game. Perhaps as a result of poor pacing with regard to at times solving several puzzles in a row before getting any interesting interaction.

Audio Visual

My significant personal bias may, once again, show through in the visuals portion of this section. This is because the game itself has a very Steampunk / H.G. Wells look to it with period clothing and lots of brass gears and cogs. You find yourself approaching the point of feeling a bit hit over the head with this during the animated sequence leading up to each of the puzzles. In the scene you see an animated mechanical door open as it depicts the Rotor’scope system. It plays this every single time you enter the puzzle system and plays a particularly annoying musical bit with all the gears crunching and whirling. Fortunately the sequence is capable of being skipped and, believe me, you learn which button does that quickly. Don’t get me wrong though, that really is the only negative within this category, the mansions art is fine and the character designs, while stylized, are very nice with great detail given to the expressions to really communicate the tone the dialogue should take on.

Within the game there are puzzles that sometimes aren’t necessary for purposes of progression. It is in these cases the game typically rewards your efforts with a bit of art. The artwork is pretty great and for once I actually found myself interested enough to flip through them. The picture above is one of these pieces of art, featuring the time machine “AnyThree”.

The audio of the game is adequate and serves its purpose in a way that doesn’t typically detract from the rest of the game. The music is normally very relaxing and doesn’t grind your gears as the hours count up. The only real audio annoyance is during the animated sequence I already complained about previously. My main audio complaint for it was that it seemed a bit louder than I would have liked it to have been.

Summary

So lets recap here, Rotor’scope has an infinite number of puzzles, a decent story influenced by some of our favorite sci-fi shows, and some pretty decent art worthy of its own merit. It hits the cash register at 400 Microsoft Points on the XBox Indie Marketplace and that feels about right. This isn’t really your typical indie title, it is made by people I would describe as industry professionals and feels pretty polished. That said check out the demo for sure, if you are a fan of the aforementioned influences I would encourage a buy with just a little whiff of reservation.

Leave a reply
Feb
11

Review: Miner Dig Deep

by on

An enchanting game, Miner Dig Deep is indie in every sense of the word. Created by three brothers, James, Brendan, and Will Ribaux, on a small budget and managed to come together in just three months while each of them had some time away from their academic and professional responsibilities. It is the confluence of all of these development characteristics that I always imagine and relish when I think of a true Indie game and their development, real people having creative ideas unhindered by the plight that is development by board that takes place at most large publisher funded developers.

But that’s enough corporate bashing for one post, lets talk about Miner Dig Deep. As the name implies, this XBox Indie Marketplace game literally is a game in which you are a miner who ventures deep within the earth to exploit its riches. As you acquire more riches and wealth, you’ll be able to procure items to aid your descent, similarly the deeper you go the more valuable the minerals are. Sounds simple right? Not so fast.

Gameplay

As you may expect from a game based on the exceptionally safe career path of a professional miner, the ground is anything but ready to yield its mineral wealth to the likes of you. Boulders, cave ins, and cavernous voids are all too ready to render you immobile and in need of rescue. These obstacles appear to be procedurally drawn throughout the map and can only be seen in advance with the lantern. The lantern itself runs on kerosene and runs out gradually diminishing your range until you are mining blind and must return to the surface where a refill may be acquired. This mechanic creates the necessary sense of urgency to encourage the utilization of the elevators as well as tool and lantern upgrades. In addition to the minerals within the ground there are also unique items, for example a set of blue prints to create a new mining pick and a teleportation gate, no doubt left their by ancient mining aliens, that will quickly get you back to the surface for selling and restocking.

Look and Feel

The visuals of the game are very simplistic and use bright bold colors that give it a warm and welcoming feel. The colors of the surface in contrast the the darker subterranean areas make you happy to see the bright blue skies and the subtly swaying trees. The miners character design also feels just right with his big helmet and oversized pick and drill. The controls themselves are fairly simple with a button to jump, dig, and access the inventory. The movements are equally simplified in that the character is able to traverse irregular surfaces with relative ease, as such surfaces are quite common as you may imagine.

Audio

As far as audio goes, their isn’t a whole lot to say. It works well for the games design and feels right with nothing too complicated. It also did well to avoid any unnecessary irritation somehow, It may just be that the sounds are just understated enough that they don’t really get to you. The reason I point this out is do to the repetitiousness of the actions  performed such as swinging your mining pick.

Summary

Miner Dig Deep is 80 Microsoft Fun Bucks on the Indie Marketplace, that’s a buck folks. You will easily get several hours of play out of it due to its style of gameplay allowing for multitudes of ways to build a mine and progress to its various depths. The game functions well and is a great pick up and play title. And if your mind is still not made up it has a game demo available as well so give it a try. I give this one a Buy without reservation.

Leave a reply
Feb
8

Review: Arkedo Series – 03 PIXEL!

by on

Pixel! is the latest installment in the series of games created by indie game developer  Arkedo Studio, who’s past titles include Jump!, Swap!, Big Bang Mini, and Nervous Brickdown. This time around they take on the challenge of shedding some light on why cats nap all the time. Here’s a hint, it’s because they are mad platforming fools.

Gameplay

The gameplay element of Pixel! is very straightforward. You play the roll of a cat who goes out for the night, in your typical cat way, and has an epic adventure. It is a traditional platformer in every sense of the word, progressing through the game by jumping on or roaring at enemies and make progressively more precarious leaps of faith as you venture through the six stages. Within each stage are numerous signs that give you helpful hints and humerus captions.

Another major element of gameplay that is used as a progression element, are small puzzle squares. Once inspector mode is activated by pulling the left trigger, you direct the giant magnifying glass over boxes of interest and enter into a puzzle mini-game of sorts. The rewards of completion vary from health restoration to mechanisms that aid in your completion of stages.

In all the gameplay feels fine. The progression of difficulty is a bit of a roller coaster. The first couple stages are pretty easy. Once you get to the Sky stage, things start to get much more complicated. One of the elements in particular that felt like it took too many failed attempts was the areas that involved leaping from ladder to ladder. I don’t even want to talk about how many times I have listened to the death musical bit. Fortunately there are infinite lives and benefits from very intelligently placed check points.

Audeo Visual

The visuals are a stylized two tone pixel art that is rather charming and works well for this particular game. Though to be fair, I have no idea what half of the monsters actually were that I was jumping on. That all being said it works, and doesn’t detract from the gameplay in any way.

Audio seemed pretty good, it was high quality and matched the stylized pixel feel of the game. As previously mentioned I could do without hearing the death tune ever again, but I suspect that is my fault for sucking.

Summary

Pixel! is available now on the XBox Indie Marketplace priced by top voodoo economists at 240 Tricky Dick Fun Bills. The game is well worth its $3 price tag, however I think there are some better values out there in Miner Dig Deep and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 which both clock in at a third of the price.

1 Reply
Feb
6

Review: Chime

by on

A puzzle game with a musical element, Chime is reminiscent of Lumines but feels a lot like flOw. With its sublime techno tracks, provided by some noteworthy artists, Chime is basically audio visual cannabis.  Developed by Zoë Mode and published by Valcon Games, it is  currently available on XBox Live for 400 Microsoft Points and, per usual, has a timed playable trial.

Gameplay

Chime itself handles as you would expect of a genre that has had three decades to perfect. The controls are solid and intuitive. Simply position your block with the left stick, rotate it with either the shoulder buttons or the right stick, and drop it with the “A” button or by pressing the right stick.

The game seems intentionally devoid of the opportunity for failure and elects to focus more on allowing the player to simply cut loose and be creative. The blocks themselves, when placed, will trigger small notes to be sounded as the bar sweeps across the screen. Once the blocks combine to form rectangles of three by three squares or more they become “quads” and then are triggered as special rhythmic or vocal bits depending on their size. These quads can be continually expanded as long as they are kept alive by adding blocks to them before the sweeping bar finalizes their size. Once the quads are finalized they become part of the completed area of the map and cam be played on again to complete new quads. There is an element of scoring and time limits, however, once you are really grooving along all of these things seem to sort of melt away.

With regard to modes, the game has two Free Play and Timed. The modes are exactly as they sound, Free mode lets you play until you have 100% coverage of a map and Timed lets you play until the clock runs out. Both modes are necessary for 100% achievements.

Audio Visual

As you may expect the audio is quite good, seeing as how the music is the primary objective of the game. It is pretty lean on actual tracks unfortunately featuring only 5 sets. I say sets, rather than songs, mainly because the structure of the music is ultimately defined by you and your block placements.

    Artists

  • Philip Glass, Brazil
  • Moby, Ooh Yeah
  • Paul Hartnoll, For Silence
  • Markus Schulz, Spilled Cranberries
  • Fred Deakin, Disco Ghosts

The visuals are simplistic, easy on the eyes, and fit the mood of the game nicely. The only real complaint I have within this particular facet of the game relates to a fairly infrequent occurrence. There are occasions when you are struggling to get that last block placed as the sweeping bar gets close and can sometimes cause a bit too much bloom to really get the job done resulting in stunted quad growth.

Summary

Chime is a great “mellow out” low key game that allows you to stretch your creative muscles without leaving the couch. It rings in at a palatable five real people dollars and as a puzzle game it has a good deal of replay value. The availability of a demo really takes the guess work out of this one, the game is exactly what the demo gives you a taste of, so check it out.

2 Replies
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10