Super Gravelyn Bros are back in the marketplace with a game more fitting their name – a platformer. I like these guys, they’ve done a world of good for the XBL Indie Games community. I haven’t had much luck in liking their games, though.
When it comes to games, the motto I live and judge by is “eschew obfuscation”, which has got me labeled a bombast in past, but is simply a concise way of saying what, in gaming, amounts to “don’t f@#$ with the player”. If you over-complicate what could (and always should) be a simple control scheme to add challenge, you’re f@#$ing with the player. If you have an impassable enemy show up that cannot be defeated without an item the player couldn’t know he needed until that enemy showed up, you’re f@#$ing with the player. And if you make a flip-screen platformer where most of the challenge is derived from the player not knowing he’s about to die until the next screen draws in, you’re just f@#$ing with the player.
I like minimalist gaming. I like the graphics of Pixel Man. I like the precise and concise controls. I like the simple and well-defined play elements. But playing the game just feels like going through the motions. It brings no joy, and relies on cheap misdirection to add challenge. And with infinite lives, you’ll burn through the 30 levels so quickly you may feel a twinge of regret over that 80 Points you just spent.
I did.
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We’ll get you guys one of these days.
It was an experiment for sure, and it seems like we are definitely going to be learning some things from this one. Hopefully our next game can live up to the XNPlay standards.
At least I can hope.
This is one of the best platform engines I’ve seen on the service next to Johnny Platform.
Some folks could learn a lot from it
I plan to do some postmortem stuff and some code sharing, so hopefully others can learn from it.
I bought it. And really enjoyed it. Although I breezed through it pretty quick, and there isn’t really any re-play value, was deffo worth a punt at 80pts.
Thanks. Glad you didn’t feel it was 80 pts mis-spent.
The demo doesn’t really tantalize you with “Look how this game could get interesting. Don’t you want to buy the full thing to find out what we have in store for you?”. All the demo levels, right through the end, are incredibly dull.
I had the same takeaway. I get the backwards appeal of simple graphics, but to end the demo after several really tame levels made me suspicious of how much more there would be. It was a, “Humph, okay then I guess I am done.”
[...] http://www.xnplay.co.uk/2009/09/21/pixel-man/ http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/26686 http://gamesjournal.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/demo-nday/ http://twitter.com/Kush3/statuses/4642633936 [...]