This was a tough entry for me. For one, I wasn’t able to put as much time into each game as I typically do, but — second — this was the weakest batch of games I’ve come across yet. Oh, E, why do you treat me so?
My sources included the Indie Game Database and some recommendations (thanks, James DeRosa and Daniel Feit!). OK, let’s get rolling.
E:
Eternal Daughter (PC, free) 2002
I was looking forward to Eternal Daughter; it has a cute — dare I say adorable — art style and the lead is a young girl (different than the norm and it reminded me of Pan’s Labyrinth). Plus, it’s an adventure-platformer, a genre I love, and it opens with a melodic score that nicely sets the mood.
But whereas this game should be about wonderment and exploration, it never reaches those heights. Part of this was due to a few technical problems I encountered. For one, the control style felt off. It uses the arrow, Shift, and Control keys (or a gamepad, which I didn’t have). Perhaps when this game was created in 2002, this was a standard style, but it never felt intuitive to me, and I couldn’t find any remapping options.
In addition to the somewhat clumsy controls, a sound glitch would occasionally cause my game to crawl, and I’d have to exit and restart the game to have it run well again.
As for the game itself, again I was met with constant impediments. Making progress from just one save point to the next was difficult enough, as they are rare and inconveniently located, and even the earliest enemies seemed overpowered.
The frustrations persisted: At one point I fought a miniboss to reach to the following screen to talk to a key character — common enough. But then when I exited that screen back to the previous one, the miniboss reappeared, and this time I was trapped behind him in a tiny area that made it tough to hit him without getting hurt myself.
And so it went as I hit bottleneck after bottleneck, putting in far too much effort as enemies took me out or I tried to figure out never-quite-clear-enough objectives. It made for one of the rare times this stubborn gamer had to quit far sooner than I’d have liked.
In fact, this is a time that, as I played an indie game, I really appreciated what a QA team can bring to a project. It’s obvious the game was created with a lot of care in regard to its world and characters, but the rest of the game fought to steer me away.
Eversion (PC, free)
Up next is a platformer that didn’t do much for me. Its hook is your eversion power, which changes the world from a bright, happy place to a land of desolation and is your key to progressing.
If your path is blocked by trees, for example, you’ll use the power to change them to withered plants you can easily pass. The challenge comes from figuring out just where to use this power. It won’t always be immediately next to or above the obstacle, leading you to some backtracking and trial and error.
As a gimmick, it works just fine, but as a whole, the game feels too simple. Hell, even the simple act of hitting a block to release a gem — the platformer staple — feels underwhelming.
Elements (PC, Mac, browser, free)
I spent the least time with Elements, but it was my favorite of the week. It’s like PSN’s Flow, but less psychedelic, as you travel up and down among floors from a top-down perspective. It also takes some elements from Arkanoid, as the ball you control breaks through bricks as you hunt for exits. But more than either of those games, Elements is puzzle/maze-based.
I don’t love the controls. The game starts with the ball bouncing among the barriers, and you use the mouse to freeze the action and redirect it. Problem is, it doesn’t point the arrow in the direction of your mouse; rather, it aims in whichever way the ball was facing, and then you spin the level around it. I’d find it a lot more intuitive for you to point where you want the ball to go with the mouse to begin with so I’m not left with frozen action so often.
Otherwise, it’s fun trying to crack this game. Elements gets some personality in the form of feedback text at the bottom of the screen. At first, it’s encouraging, saying, “You’re doing great!” But work down a few levels, and it then strats putting doubt in your mind: “Did you choose correctly, or are you heading back up?”
After that, it’s a lot of exploring and trying to wrap your head around the problem in front of you, in addition to the levels you can see below you in the distance.
And that’s it for this week. If you have any suggestions for future games, leave them in the comments below. If you’d like to read a previous entry, simply hit the appropriate link: