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jp's The Muppets Movie Adventures (VITA)

[June 22, 2017 10:17:10 AM]

This was sort of a "palate cleanser" - I was looking for something that wasn't about military dudes shooting things in a dark sci-fi future. As a palate cleanser it really worked!

I appreciated the brevity of the game as well as it's variety (within a theme). The Muppets are making movies and the game has 5 levels, each featuring a different character, each making a different movie (theme/setting/etc.).

The game is short enough that I finished it in 4 hours (or so?) over two days and, while I really didn't like the first level (Kermit and pirates), the remaining four where much better. And, curiously, demonstrated some nuance in character control and mechanics for platform games. I felt that each of the 5 characters (well, Kermit twice) controlled a little differently - both in their movement as well as jumping and the variation in these controls led to different play experiences. Such that I hated the first level, really enjoyed the 2nd and 5th, and felt the 3rd and 4th were ok. It got me thinking of a design/analysis exercise game that could showcase these sorts of things? (ala Steve Swink's game feel which I think are no longer available?)

Anyways...the main variations (in terms of gameplay) were: single/double-jump, with/without shooting, and...nothing else really!

The game is also an interesting example of the little things that make a big difference in the overall experience. Little things...but they all go to that design polish..for example:

a. When you die you get a black screen with a message (a movie "director" making a comment and then asking to go back to "action"). There's three messages, and they're cute and fun. But, you get tired of them really quickly, can't skip them and it makes the re-start process annoying. I have no idea if they're being used to hide the loading, but still...

b. The end credits trigger when you defeat the last boss on the 5th level. You can't skip them and they're REALLY , REALLY, long. (btw, the game was developed by a Spanish team, yay! using Unity...)

c. The loading bar progresses very un-uniformly, so you feel like it gets stuck on some parts. Once it's done, the screen goes to black for a few seconds and you wonder if the whole game crashed...

d. When you turn, the character often takes a step forward - I died a lot from this, and the controls felt imprecise as a result

e. Some dangerous objects were really hard to see (rakes on the floor in the cowboy level (3))

f. There was an area in level 4 (vampire castle) where there are steps going down...but you can't go down because you die (drop off). Who puts steps going down when you're not supposed to go down?

g. You're supposed to collect stars and objects in the game, but the game deliberately forces you to play each level twice to get them all. They're not hidden away, really. They're just not available until you're on the 2nd play through (they might be faded out, or behind a locked door). The idea is fine, it's just the execution felt a bit cheap.

To be fair there's also quite a few examples of neat little good design that I appreciated (including a few uses of touch controls). Overall, glad I played it - helped me think about good game design - glad it was short. And on to the next game!