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Thursday 6 March, 2008
GAMEPLAY:
The second time around, I tried out Normal mode a bit (Twin Stick and Double Play modes would have been awkward with just the keyboard). I found Normal mode a lot more difficult because you have to be facing in the direction you shoot, and if you want to turn, you have to stop shooting for a little while. Also, my keyboard control is still kind of shaky.
After that I went back to Mouse mode. I had several games that were about par for the course, but on the last game I played before writing this, I did much better. I had realised that since shooting in Mouse mode is easy, the important part where most of my attention needs to be is controlling the boat. With that in mind, I got past the first boss without losing a life, and breezed through waves of enemies before my game finally ended a little after the second boss (which I hadn't previously beaten).
That last game, I definitely experienced flow. I think this had to do with the fast, but not uniform, pace - there are often small breathers in between groups of enemies, and easy groups mixed in with the hard ones. Another thing is that the controls are pretty intuitive. Also, as I previously mentioned, as one keeps playing, the game gradually gets harder. Some aspects also seem to be randomized, so that while there isn't a lot of intellectual work involved, it never gets completely mindless. Rather, in order to play well, you really need to focus. So far no two games have been the same.
I had a blast playing this game, though it was very intense and I was often unable to play more than two or three games in a row. After that last game, I was shaking, so I just sat back and watched the replay.
DESIGN:
Rather than making the game set in stone, the designer allowed many things to change from game to game, including the difficulty - gradually one starts to see new kinds of missiles with different movement patterns, as well as bigger or more ships that weren't there the first time through. This has the effect of making the game very replayable, and of preventing players from memorizing how to get through a given section of the gameworld.
Another thing is the movement. Rather than scrolling continuously, the screen scrolls as the player move forward/up (but not back/down). The player can move in two dimensions within the boundaries of the screen as well, and the ship turns as they do so. If the player does no move up the screen, the enemies begin to descend to meet them, and it's also possible for the small enemy ships to push the player around. The movement confines the player to the intended goals of the game.
The graphics on this game are also very interesting. They look very flat at first glance - overlapping green or blue squares for land and sea, solid-colored ships and missiles with outlines around them - but there's some use of perspective, so that some structures look different depending on their position relative to the camera.
About the only thing I would change about the game would be to increase the contrast - it's sometimes a little hard to tell what's going on. I might also recolor the player's ship - it's only a little bigger and a little differently colored than some of the enemy missiles, so sometimes I find myself getting distracted and getting in trouble.
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