Dull Demos

As mentioned in the previous blogpost, Fabular was an enjoyable demo.  There were, however, a bunch of other demos I tried out along with that one.  Regrettably, they were not much fun to play.  Even so, I do want to share my thoughts on four of them here. 

SIGNALIS is a game that I wrote about awhile back.  At the time I was critical of the game for appearing very derivative.  Certainly, there are some attempts at stylistic flourish such as the stairs leading into an underground complex...but after playing the demo I still can't help feeling that I've seen most of this before.  The interior environments look very similar to the ones in the film "Alien" and the enemies are basically copied from Silent Hill.  Heck, there's even a radio that makes weird noises.  Granted, all this would be fine by me if the gameplay were good.  Unfortunately, foes are very bullet spongy and there really isn't any visual feedback (like in Dead Space or Mark of Kri) to indicate the effectiveness of your attacks.  Also, I'm not really sure what the point is of having first-person scenes in which the only thing the player can do is tap the button to move forward.

Conscript is another game that suffers from enemies that soak up bullets.  Set in World War I, players take the role of a French soldier stationed along the trenches of the western front.  It's an interesting setting, but the combat is more comical than intense.  German troops are tough and often attack using melee weapons such as entrenching tools.  Since the player quickly acquires a bold action rifle, the fights result in something that goes like this: 

1. Aim
2. Shoot
3. Run away 
4. Reload
5. Run away again
6. Back to step one

All that's missing is some Yakety Sax music. It's clunky despite some attempts to mix things up with exploding barrels.  At one point I brought ammo to a fellow machine gun crew, but they didn't actually help out.  Eventually, I ran out of rifle rounds and had to switch to my bayonet...which pretty much utilized the same five steps as listed above.  On the plus side, I did like that defeated enemies would sometimes writhe on the ground incapacitated rather than simply die outright.  It seemed like an appropriate fit for the horror aspects of the game.

Ghost Song is the game that has sat on my Steam whish list page the longest.  Having finally played the demo though, I can't say it was worth the wait.  It's basically a Metroid clone, but differentiates itself by having some light RPG elements.  My biggest gripe with the demo is a lack of mouse support, particularly when it comes to aiming.  I guess they wanted players to use a controller.  Hotkeys were another issue since they were not remappable, and in some cases not listed in the options menu (despite being mentioned in the tutorial).  At one point, I forgot which key it was to heal and was forced to simple press keyboard buttons at random until I chanced upon it.  Conversely, I did remember an option to switch between weapon types using the "F" and "G" keys...but didn't seem to work.  That may have been due to some kind of misunderstanding on my part.  Regardless, the interface is a bit rough.

Land Above Sea Below is, as far as I can gather, supposed to be one of those relaxing hexagonal puzzle games like Dorfromantik or Spring Falls.  The soft music and idyllic visuals definitely try to set a relaxing mood.  There's also no timer so the player can proceed at their leisure.  In direct contrast to that though is the game's central mechanic.  As the player places tiles, the surrounding water level rises.  The only way to prevent this aquatic doom is to place similarly themed tiles adjacent to each other.  This will raise their height.  However, new titles cannot be placed over submerged ones.  Worse still, if the player's starting tile gets flooded then it is game over.  Perhaps the developers were trying to create a meta-commentary about humanity's generally laissez fare attitude toward global warming and rising sea levels?  Regardless, the game seems to be actively working against itself, by having these two mutually exclusive elements active at the same time. 

Overall, I feel bad writing this.  I am well aware that these games are made by indie devs who have very little to work with in terms of resources, and as such should managed my expectations accordingly.  Still, I sincerely hope that they give their games a second pass in terms of design, before considering them ready for launch.  With some changes to systems any or all of these four demos could have been spectacular.  As is though they were hampered by some questionable mechanics.