Score: 9

"I'm impressed"

submission: Closure.

date: January 24, 2009

This is one of those games that dances on the border of art and game. Now the last game that was heavily stylized was Armed with Wings that was a visually stunning game but was clunky and became a real chore to play. THIS game on the other hand managed to leap that pitfall, no let me rephrase that, it gracefully double-somersaulted over that pitfall and give it the bird mid-jump.
This game is great and I was doubled over with glee that someone finally managed to have an interesting and artistic style and not sacrifice fun gameplay for it.

For all that praise you may be wondering why I didn't rate it a 10, (though you got the full 5 votes). I tend to rate harshly for one, but I also ran into a few un-fun walls while I was skipping my way down the main street of good-gameville.

Maybe I missed it but there didn't seem to be any obvious way to mute the music. This isn't a complaint against the music, mind you, I thought the music was catchy, dark, appropriate and set the perfect mood. Did I mention I LOVE it when game makers bother to transition music to what the player does in the game? Love it. But you seem to have forgotten that you, my friend, made a puzzle game. My head eventually wrapped itself around all the puzzles in the game but there were two puzzles in particular that really had me stumped for a while. The longer I spent with each puzzle, the more the music looped. The sound track is pretty darn samey through the entire game actually and it eventually starts to drone and get annoying. Placing orbs on the pedestals could have used its on sound effect too. But I suppose I'm nit picking.

Another issue was the platforming. Now I know you must've spent a crazy amount of time fine tuning what you can stand on and what you can't and it really shows... Still, sometimes it's just plain not obvious what counts as a platform you can land on and what you can't. And timing the jumps when you're going down a hill is very trying. You can hit the jump button while appearing to be standing on a hill but actually be momentarily falling down it. Of course you're holding the directional key so you'll make the jump so I often found myself running like an idiot right off the edge while furiously tapping the 'up' key. I wouldn't fault it if it didn't appear in a few of the puzzle solutions... but maybe that was my inelegant solutions.

I hesitate to knock the color scheme of a game that obviously chose the color scheme for a reason... but I have to say I got tired of the black and white. The last thing I want to mention in terms of that dead point are the occasional slowdowns. Now you did a pretty good job of keeping the processing speed stable but I did run into one or two spots where my frame rate started huffing. It wouldn't be enough to cost you a point... if it weren't for the other minor flaws I mentioned. Actually none of them are particularly hair-pulling by themselves but combined was a bit of a fracture on the fun scale.

Given all that, this was still one of the best games I've played and I've played quite a few. The style was dark and interesting. The game play was polished and had only minor hiccups. The puzzles were difficult enough to keep the player interested without boring him... and the soundtrack was appropriate and pleasing to the ear for the first 30 loops. Overall, this is a fantastic game and you should be proud. Thank you for submitting it here where I can give it one of oh so rare Good Reviews.

One note though, I didn't figure out the gender of the main character until the end of the game... I can't help but wonder if that was intentional or a graphic hiccup. Guess I'll never know.

Score: 6

"Again?"

submission: Armed with Wings 2

date: December 22, 2008

I see you ignored the advice I gave you in my last review and put in platforming sections.

And once again, the akward controls and the poor collision detection made most of the platforming sections nothing more than an exersize in frustration.

Once again I plead. Do not sacrifice good, fluent gameplay for style. You made a BEAUTIFUL game. The style could not have been better and the artwork was fantastic, but for goodness sakes your platforming sections were just *awful*. It broke the flow of the game completely and ruined the experience. Again.

Score: 4

"Why would someone pay for this?"

submission: Swords and Sandals 3:Solo

date: October 3, 2008

The swords and sandals series has long been characterized by blocky, half-naked characters, ludicrously expensive items, heavily random combat and being utterly full of itself.

The first game of the series was highlighted by an impossible difficulty curve and the second was pretty much the same thing with exploiting the combat system apparently the only way to win. A lot of potential was totally wasted and it ended up being repetitive and unfair to the player.
Even the crusader game was marked by random chance quickly screwing the player over and a battle system that was awkward and stacked against the player should any random event punish said player (which it did).

Like in the second game, I came into THIS one impressed by the character customization and shaking my head at the lack of a tutorial again. Apparently, the user is supposed to have played everything else and remembered how to use the combat system perfectly from the previous titles. So my first game was highlighted by buying a sword, going naked into the arena and having my 'very easy' opponent hit me with a single charge for 20 health and instantly slay me. Clearly the game intended for me to have slightly more stamina so I made a new character, bulked up a bit and poked my first two opponents to death before the third fight froze my browser and crashed it while I was missing with 'normal' attacks that did no more damage than a quick one.

As I sat there, watching my browser die and reloading the game, I wondered why it was I was playing a game that is glitchy, random and forces me to play a naked guy because armor is so unbearably expensive. I realized that while this game may shine in character customization, it lacks fun. There's nothing particularly interesting about walking up and poking your enemy to death. And if you play a melee character that is ALL you will do... And when the game revolves entirely around the combat system kicking you in the shins and not allowing you to clothe yourself and quickly outclassing you both in style and power... It stops being fun really quickly.

To think you want someone to pay for this stuns me.

Maybe it's just me, but the combat feels clunky and repetitive and making the entire game revolve around it just seems like a bad choice. I really tried to have fun but being inferior in stats and armor in almost every fight makes everything seem futile and there's no way to really come back from losing... The whole game feels like a giant death spiral where fun goes to die. I'm tired of this series. I won't be attempting the fourth installment.