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jed81's XKCD The Game (PC)

[March 3, 2009 11:36:30 PM]

xkcd the game: session 1

When the game first loaded, I was impressed with the story and how it mimicked the actual xkcd.com cartoons. It was a lighthearted and humorous way to open a game. The game levels and characters were drawn to mimick the actual xkcd cartoons as well, which was appealing to me. The game itself was split up into 4 mini-games that the player must play through to beat the game.
After the initial loading and story, the game starts with a level that requires the player to shoot down 10 targets and answer a question correctly after shooting down the targets. I quickly realized that playing this on a laptop with a mousepad was a very bad idea. The targetting reticule was a little too unresponsive when playing on a mousepad. I also found that there was some delay from the time you pressed the left mouse button down to the time that the event actually registers. I also noticed that you had to be in the exact middle of the target for it to register as a hit. This may have been a design choice though. These factors made it somewhat frustrating to try to play this stage. After failing a few times due to playing on a mouse pad and the unresponsive targetting reticule, I was finally able to finish this stage. After figuring out how to use the mouse pad to play the game, it was a pretty fun level overall.
The next stage required the player to race the main enemy on "Tronbikes." This stage was somewhat fun at first and the controls were a little more responsive. This minigame had multiple races that the player must win before moving on to the next minigame. After winning the first race, I was still having fun. However, after this, I became very frustrated. When starting the second race, my tronbike somehow got stuck in between a spider that slows you down and the grass that slows you down. So after trying to unposition my bike for 5 minutes, I was forced to reset the game. This
made me somewhat upset because I really didn't want to go back through the first minigame to get back to where I was. However, I swallowed my pride and moved forward and restarted the game. When I reached the racing stage for the second time, I realized that no matter how bad you were losing, you actually couldn't lose (unless you managed to get stuck in between the spider and the grass like I did). However, if you managed to not get stuck between the grass and spiders, this stage was also really fun to play.
The third stage was a lot different from the previous 2 stages. It was a 2D side scrolling action stage where the player must swordfight with various enemies. This stage was pretty humorous to say the least. From having to fight guys on bikes to velociraptors, and using only a sword to do so made it pretty funny. Also, I never thought I'd say this, but this stage was straightforward and very easy and I praise it for that after playing the 2 previous stages. The controls were simple and the objective was simple: make it to the end of the stage. Overall, it was my favorite stage so far.
The final stage of the game was a tower defense game, which are always fun and this was no exception. As before, the enemies (spiders, sporks, and raptors) made it fun to play and very humorous. It followed the same controls as any other tower defense game, just drag and drop your objects in the paths, so they were intuitive. I really enjoyed playing this level as much as the swordfighting level.
Overall, this was a pretty fun game, but it had its frustrating moments. However, I enjoyed playing through it and would recommend it to anyone wanting a quick laugh and fun short game. The only thing I would change about the game are the responsiveness of the controls of the first level as mentioned before as well as taking out the ability to get lodged between the spider and the grass and having to reset the game. The parallels between the xkcd comic and the game were a nice touch to help keep the player involved in the story. The cut scene comics were also a good addition that
kept me interested in the game.

xkcd the game: session 2

Once again, the game is a lighthearted, fun, short game and remained this way for the second time playing it. On this playing session, I tried to examine some other elements of the game and ignore the elements that I found frustrating during the previous session.
The game was innovative in that it took 4 minigames and tied them all together with the central story. I also noticed that the game used the cutscenes in an attempt to create some sort of conflict to keep the player interested. I found that the cutscenes added to the humor and made it more interesting, which I think was the point. At times, the game got sort of repetative, but that wasn't a serious problem since it is meant to be a one or two playing session game.
There were only a couple of things that I would change about the game. The first being to tweak the responsiveness of the targetting reticule in the first stage so that you could hit more accurately. The second thing that I would change would be to remove the glitch in the second stage that I mentioned in the previous gamelog (getting stuck between the spider and grass). Also, I would allow the player to lose on the second stage. The third and fourth stages could have been some what longer, but they were still really fun. Even with the glitches in the first and second stages, they were fun as well.
In conclusion, I think this was a pretty good game that was put together really well. As I have previously stated, I would reccomend this game to anyone who was looking to kill a few minutes and would like to have a quick laugh while doing so.