TheWanderingShadow's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pull the Wire]

It can be a little *too* difficult to distinguish the wires in the later levels, and it would have been nice to see a few different groups of people surrounding the bomb defuser, but it's an interesting idea pulled off pretty well within the time constraints.

JokerDenFromMR responds:

I wanted to make different people but had not time.

[Ode To Pixel Days]

It is a well written, well designed game. I can say I was touched by the story and enjoyed the clever way it was implemented with the shrinking mechanic. However, I'm not so ready with my praises.

The game falls under the same category as Braid and Dys4ia, in that it does not give the player a chance to easily experience the emotions of the story for themselves. Instead, the story is spoonfed to them through narration. The player has to either personally relate with the story or have a strong sense of empathy to really be affected by the story. It is arguably more important for the game mechanics to reflect or inspire the emotions that the plot intends to evoke, and I just don't really feel like this game did it too well. The final puzzle and confrontation was the worst case of this. The gameplay during that level was just jarring and didn't mesh with the powerful themes that the game was throwing at me while I played through it.

It is possible to have your game tell a story through gameplay instead of words (Limbo didn't need words, did it?), and I feel that is often more effective. There can be a balance between the two (The Company of Myself did this well, especially in one moment), where the gameplay fully reflects the narration, and I see a bit of it here. But it's done a little ham-handedly most of the time, such as Hans stomping on his own "ugliness", and the other times the puzzles don't really correspond to the story.

Let me reiterate, I enjoyed this game. The puzzles are well designed, the writing is clever and humorous at the right times, and I genuinely liked the story. But the the narration is so present and the game so linear, that I feel this leans a more towards interactive story than an actual game.

I hope my review doesn't offend, and I hope you continue making games in the future! :)

talhakaya responds:

thank you for your very thoughtful comment. I can easily say that I agree, sadly. I'm trying to find better ways of incorporating the story to gameplay for my future games. I'm not really fine with the puzzles in this game, it still feels like forced challenges to me, not very much to do with story at all. I've tried my best to actually give some meanings to the puzzles through narration, yet it's not enough.

I don't think Limbo had a proper story, it was too vague for my taste, even though it's a fantastic game. It just didn't need a proper story to back the game. Like QUBE. If you want a proper story told without words, look out for the upcoming game, Monochroma. Although it's early to tell, I think they will do it well.

Company of Myself did storytelling perfectly. Hotline Miami did pretty good. I hope I'll do it good one day, I'm definitely working on it. Thanks a lot for the very kind comment, glad you enjoyed the game :)

[Crossing the Pit]

Pity...

All he wanted was to cross a pit! >.<

PuffballsUnited responds:

Poor guy...

[Breaking the Bank]

Hmmm...

How DID he tie the bag from the inside?

Anyways, It's a great animation/game. Both this and "Escaping the Prison" were hilarious ways to waste some time.

PuffballsUnited responds:

The world will never know.