Gameplay
How fun/engaging/challenging the game's mechanics are and how well they support the intended experience.
- The web swing mechanic is very satisfying to use, making good use of momentum conservation to let the player build speed over consecutive swings.
- Likewise, reversing gravity is a novel solution to letting the player walk on all kinds of surfaces, with the mechanics for handling slight angle changes and curved surfaces working well.
- There is clearly some form of dynamic checkpoint system that tries to respawn the player where they were instead of only preset locations. It works very well and does a lot to reduce frustration when you fail a tall jump, by resetting back to the top.
- There is very limited guidance or traditional gameplay structure beyond collecting the data items, and the experience is more of a tech demo/sandbox than an ordinary game.
- The two “challenge rooms” with lasers do a good job exploring challenge and mechanical potential in constrained environments.
- The open city similarly allows the player to explore movement and momentum with collectibles clearly out of normal jump reach.
- There are a lot of non-obvious mechanical opportunities, and even after 20 minutes of gameplay I was still figuring out new potential solutions. Seeing data items far above the city kept me thinking about what part of my toolset I was not using fully, to be able to get there.
- The ability to keep gravity reversed gave me some extreme mobility once I figured out I could fall horizontally across the city that way. Both flying straight up to hard to reach data and also across the city using a web swing right at the end to convert my fall speed into huge jumps. (I’m not sure if this use was intended, but it was fun and effective.)
Presentation
Quality of the visuals, audio and general juiciness.
- The bot itself has a good art style, supported by the really nice physics-based disassembly when killed.
- Similarly, the bot has a very impressive and satisfying degree of dynamic movement animation on its legs that really lift the visuals.
- Some dynamic stepping sounds every time a leg is placed would also be a great way to draw attention to the walking animations.
- As it stands, the world is a grey-box and doesn’t have much to comment on yet.
Experience
How well any intended emotions, themes, narrative, atmosphere, or fantasy are conveyed.
- There’s an ultra short description on the itch page giving a context for the game and nothing inside the game itself, but if a narrative isn’t really important to the game I think it’s acceptable to simply not have one at all.
- According to that description, it’s a utopian city but I don’t really get that sense from the current greybox.
- Even just looping some background music could do a lot to communicate a theme and set the atmosphere.
Cohesion
How well the gameplay, presentation, and experience support each other.
- Viewing this game as a developer sandbox for exploring mechanics and technical solutions, it’s quite impressive. As a full game experience, it’s lacking a lot especially in terms of helping new players learn.
- Most players are not willing to sit down and figure out how to play a game through trial and error, though for players who do enjoy that experience, like me, Spyder is quite a fun game for simply posing a challenge and asking the player to figure it out.
- I managed to find 11/12 data.