A Few Comments on Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

March 18th, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MaK-shoqU

The colon in Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is significant. The purpose of a colon is to separate “two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first”*. In this case, “Spider” is the gameplay, being a spider catching insects in your web and “The Secret of Bryce Manor” is the narrative, the spider’s exploration of the manor, which occurs through the gameplay. The colon then can be considered as a representation of the harmony between the two elements.

As said, you play the role of a spider who creates webs to catch insects. This is done by touching the spider to plant silk onto a surface and swiping to send the spider leaping to another surface, where the thread connects, making a line. When several lines make an enclosed space, a cobweb is formed. Cobwebs catch any insects that pass by. By touching the screen, the spider will walk to the touched location, either along the cobweb or along the edge of the environment. The spider eats any of the insects caught in its web when it touches them. The player progresses to the next part of the manor after they’ve cleared all the insects in a level.

The core game loop involves:

1 – Exploring the area and identifying the movement patterns of the insects (observation, knowledge).

2 – Determining where the paths of the insects intersect (deductive reasoning, knowledge) so that the player can catch as many insects as possible in the one web.

3 – Determining how to make the web (spatial reasoning, knowledge). Doing it well requires the player consider how they can cover the most area with as few strands as possible.

4 – Making the web (finger sensitivity and direction, dexterity).

Observations

Catching several insects in the one web increases the score multiplier. Hidden areas contain caches of insects and nuggets of narrative insight. The player gets a higher score by using less silk. These three aspects give the player the opportunity to scale the difficulty in a variety of ways.
The insect counter shown after completing a level informs the player of whether or not they accessed the secret area(s). This acts as a sly prompt for the player to scale the difficulty.
Each level has a silk limit which encourages considered play.
The wasps, dragonflies, and butterflies really mixup the standard gameplay loop by forcing the player to line up jumps and consider light sources.
Variation is achieved by: adding new insects and mixing up the combinations (some of which make for highly engaging spatial reasoning), adding and combining different types of surfaces, decreasing the number of available surfaces, mixing up the arrangement of surfaces (modifying the available space), and spreading the surfaces further apart so that the player has to consider the length of the silk (nuance). If the silk is too long, the spider can’t form a strand.
The flicking motion that makes the spider jump feels fantastic. The faster the flick, the faster the jump.
If the player knocks a bee hive and fails to catch one of the bees that fly out, they’ll have to reset the level if they want to get a 100% completion rate. The hard punishment of the player losing progress adds a tension to the game.

–

Repair

I don’t have many complaints for this game, it’s a pretty smooth experience, but one thing that really bugs me is the positioning of wasps in some of the levels with no ceiling. In one of the levels set on a clothes line, the spider must jump up to attack a wasp which is off-screen. This, however, is tremendously tricky as the only available surfaces are to the sides of the level and they aren’t very high. Furthermore, when the spider jumps up underneath a wasp, it will float upwards. This can all amount to frustration as you slowly drive the wasp out of your reach and must restart the level.

*According to the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Additional Reading

Tiger Style Interview – Touch Arcade

A Few Comments on The Legendary Starfy

March 13th, 2013

The Legendary Starfy is the first game in the TOSE-developed, Nintendo-published series of the same name to be published in the west. The games have been around in Japan since 2002, debuting on the GameBoy Advance. The game’s cuteness and the franchise’s former status as a Japan-only hole in Nintendo’s western offering captured my initial interest. After completing the game a few weeks ago, here are my thoughts:

Young Audience Appeal

Cute characters, colourful visuals, and easy gameplay, The Legend of Starfy seems like a great game for kids, with the customisation options and secret treasure (random praise) likely to appeal more specifically to young girls. The dialogue, however, is layered on thick and full of uber clique speak. There’s no way that a 7-year-old is going to understand much of what’s being said.

Mechanics

Starfy has three types of mechanics: traversal, jumps, and attacks. They’re all fairly balanced and unique. The game balances the mechanics so that the player can choose between: swimming and star spinning, gliding and falling, and walking and dashing, ie. two sets of game speeds. The mechanics have some dynamics and nuance, but not a lot. Examples include:

All jumps and glide are affected by gravity.
Dash (Starfy’s run) has a slight skid (momentum).
Star Spin (Starfy’s attack) runs on an invisible cool down, spin too much and Starfy becomes dizzy. The player can also steer Starfy as he attacks.

The transformations primarily allow Starfy to activate specific level elements: they don’t add any new wrinkles to the gameplay. They also lack the nuance and dynamics of Starfy’s regular move set.

In some levels, certain areas are only accessible when playing as Starly, using her exclusive abilities, but the only way the player can play as Starly is if they have a friend to link up with. Since these areas hold treasures, they only way to 100% complete the game is to have a friend who also has a DS and a copy of the game.

The choice of game speed via the mechanics, optional treasures spread throughout levels, and ability to rack up more stars by comboing up enemy attacks allows the player to scale the difficulty.

Level Design

Each world is based around a game idea. For example, changing water levels or swimming in the air through bubbles. The individual game ideas aren’t very interesting, there’s little variation to them, they’re stretched too thin, and are never combined to create deeper, more engaging gameplay concepts. In a Mario game, one of Starfy’s game ideas would be enough for a level. In the Legend of Starfy, they make up seven or eight. To continue this comparison, Starfy’s levels tend to dawdle back and forth between the world’s game idea and unrelated distractions, while Mario’s levels are unified around the one concept. Where each arrangement of level elements in a Mario game offers a newer, increasingly more elaborate take on the game idea (variation), in The Legendary Starfy, each level only offers one or two arrangements based around the game idea, and the variation between each is slight. As a result of all these factors, Starfy’s world lacks a cohesive narrative of gameplay.

Not only are the levels not optimised for gameplay, they’re also far too open. Most of the player’s time is spent holding a button as they wait for Starfy to swim from one point to another. The game is just brimming with excess waiting to be trimmed out, some of which includes whole levels. Take level 8-6 as an example. I can’t believe they didn’t cut this. A rock, paper, scissors boss battle near the end of the game is an equally disastrous example of padding.

I want to thank Chic Pixel for helping me gather my thoughts on this game.

Posted in Game Discussion | Comments (0)
Tags: starfy, the legendary starfy

Storytelling Techniques in Judith (Terry Cavanagh)

March 10th, 2013

Judith is a short narrative game by Terry Cavanagh, the guy who did VVVVV and Super Hexagon. You should play it. Only takes 25-30 minutes. Here are some of the ways narrative is delivered in this game:

The text dialogue sets the context for the interactive sequences. It’s brief and well written, so it’s never intrusive.
The length of the secret passage creates dead space (where the player can only wait as the avatar moves forward) and thereby anticipation.
Repeated structures develop simple routines which the player finishes more quickly the more times they complete them. This builds into a climax, adding to the tension as the various revelations unfold. For Judith, the routine is leaving the bedroom, opening the secret passage, and unlocking the next door. For Jeff, this is going to the next room.
Music is used to set the mood, such as the piano notes at the beginning of each sequence and the prisoner’s cries.
Judith always begins her part next to the bed. This, along with the dialogue with her husband, creates a sense of time.
The hardest part of the game, uncovering the secret passage, is also the biggest revelation. So there’s a nice harmony there between difficulty and narrative.
Forcing the player to leave the secret passage without first prompting them to return the knife or necklace simulates Judith’s uncertainty.
Control is taken away from the player when Judith runs into the woods. This simulates the character’s fear of her husband and inability to do anything but run away.
In Judith’s final sequence, the passage door is left open for her (as her husband mentioned in the preluding dialogue). This small difference from the repeated structure asserts a feeling of unease.

If you’re interested, Don’t Look Back, Hero’s Adventure, and American Dream are also great little games that’ll only take a few minutes.

There’s a few good comments made by Jason Rohrer here.

Posted in Game Discussion | Comments (1)
Tags: judith, terry cavanagh

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »