itch.io

The co-op gameplay of Bird Flight is unlike any other game I have seen in this class and adds fun competition to this type of game. Throughout the class, we have focused on making solo experiences for a fellow classmate to enjoy. This game, however, takes this concept and adds another player to the experience. Though a single player can’t play this game effectively, playing this game with another player adds a lot of fun to the mix. There are many fighting games that people play in modern days such as smash bros, and this gives me vibes such as that when playing this game against my roommate. Since we play smash all the time, I thought this would be right up our alley to try out, so I pulled my roommates into this game, and we found out who was really the best at games (it was me btw). I think the art style and animations of the birds add a lot of personality to the birds and the environment we’re subjected to in this world. It feels like these birds are battling for survival on a far away planet. When damaged, the birds have unique animations that show off the personality of each of them. Their distinct colors and designs also set them apart rather than just being the same thing but a different color. Having the ability to choose which bird you think it the best looking or best represents your personality is a big factor when playing a competitive game such as this. Aesthetics matter a lot more when you are going against someone you know, so it added to the friendly competition between me and my roommate when playing this game. Additionally, keeping track of lives at the top of the screen is very helpful when deciding how risky to play for the win. When I am at a large advantage, I tend to take more risky plays to win the round, which would not happen if there was no score displayed on screen or a goal that I am trying to accomplish during play. The atmosphere of the game is set far away from home, which adds a sense of urgency to win this fight. If I don’t win, my body will be stuck on a far away planet where my possible family can’t find me. However, if I win, I will be able to hopefully find a way home and go back to where I’m from. By having the fight take place in space on a desolate planet, it seems like the perfect place for a fight in game, but also sets the atmosphere outside of the game. Though the birds are similar, I found myself connecting more with the bird I picked rather than the one my opponent chose, which makes sense since there’s more of a connection with my personal bird. The art in this game is amazing, so if it’s custom that’s extremely impressive. I love competitive multiplayer games such as this, so this was a perfect game for me to play with my roommate. 

The Piano Sitter introduces gameplay that unique to any other game I have ever played by combining typing with playing the piano. Music was a huge part of my childhood, so this game really appealed to me. I used to love playing piano and guitar at my grandparent’s house with my siblings and cousins alongside me. We would listen to songs and try to look up how to play them on the piano and guitar, so playing this game brought me back to my childhood in that sense. I have never played a game like this, where you must play an instrument a certain way to not wake a child. Though there are games like guitar hero and rock band, where you must play an instrument well enough to not fail, there was no central story you were going through. Though the story is small-scale, it still gives a connection between what you’re doing as the player and how it impacts the larger world that the game takes place in. However, what makes this extremely personal and enjoyable for me is by connecting typing with playing the piano. I am majoring in computer science, so I am good at typing. By connecting a personal love of mine to my future career, this game links two things I love together and helps establish an emotional connection for me. I found the game to be super cool, since it sounded like original music that the creator used in the game. I would love to be able to create original music, but I don’t think I would be able to do a good enough job to impress myself after it’s created. Not only was playing the piano by typing a lot of fun, but the music itself was also impressive custom music. It was relaxing to be able to just sit down, type, and listen to good relaxing music. Since the premise of the game is to not wake up the child, you must make sure the music is soothing and that you do a good job playing the tunes on your keyboard so that he doesn’t wake up. This enforced the player to make sure they’re playing the music correctly and so it sounds soothing when playing the game. I don’t find a ton of games where I’m able to relax the entire time, but this game was a lot of fun to just sit down with and experience. The gameplay is simple, and I enjoy that aspect of it. Having the rules explained at the beginning of the game is also helpful when playing the game. The first time I played it, I found myself confused after skipping the instruction screen, but I didn’t think I would need it cause most games in this class are simple. Once I became confused and reloaded the window and read the instructions and everything made complete sense afterwards. Overall, this game was really enjoyable, and I think it’s a perfect game to play when you just want to relax and listen to some soothing music.

Star Wonderer gives the player an extreme sense of discovery, which is fun to explore using this tool. Though bitsy is a relatively simplistic tool to use for game creation, it allows for many ways to discover a huge world in many small tiles. In this game, for example, it allows the player to travel from earth to the moon, then to space and beyond. Starting on earth, I am only able to say on the first layer of ground. When you get to the stairs in the first room, you can climb up the stairs and onto the rocket. It’s a very small detail but being able to only traverse upward on the screen when in the staircase is cool to interact with. It is also realistic that you are not able to traverse into the sky randomly, so I like how this game keeps everything realistic with detail. Once you get to the moon, this is where a small detail starts to add a lot. On earth, you are only able to stay on the first layer of ground, but on the moon, you can go up one extra block. This implies that you’re able to traverse more vertical on the moon compared to Earth, which is exactly how the real-world works. I think having this extra layer of realism in a tool such as bitsy adds a lot to how the player perceives the world, and that continues throughout the rest of the game. Once you travel further into space, you’re able to travel anywhere you want to on the screen. This makes complete sense realistically, since there are no forces acting on you on space, so you’re able to travel anywhere you want to. This also add a sense of exploration beyond just the Earth and allows the player to explore space as well. This sense of discovery starts even on the first screen of the game. When you see the spaceship, you know where this game is heading, and it starts of feeling of excitement and anticipation within you as a player as you are ready to see what the creator of this game thinks space is like. Though it’s not extremely realistic, it’s neat to see how the designer creates different aspect of space and how bare it really could be up there. Once you’re in space and can explore the whole screen, it’s realistic, but also terrifying, since you are truly alone in a space as big as forever essentially. After going too deep into space, you start to get lost. The player seems to start hallucinating as he further ascends into the darkness and nothingness of space. This is scary, since this is entirely possible in space, but then they’re somehow saved and brought back to earth as the story ends. This seems to be an intended infinite loop, like roguelikes of today, where the player travels into space to explore the unknown but gets lost and comes back home. The story aspect of this game remains interesting to me.

Coin runner uses unique gravity mechanics that, though subtle, have the potential to add depth to the game. This game is a game that allows the player to get new scores each attempt they play. There is no high score kept on screen, but I know intrinsically what my high score is at the time of each attempt. At the beginning of each attempt of the game, a combination of bombs and coins are thrown up from the bottom of the screen with various velocities. It can be tough to play this game on a laptop, since this game requires precise movements from the mouse. However, I played on my laptop, and I didn’t find it too tough for me personally. I also have a two in one laptop, so I found out that I could use my fingers to collect the coins on the screen while avoiding bombs. However, this is not how the game was meant to be played, so I stuck to playing with a mouse with the trackpad during play. None of the other games I played for this final project group had implemented gravity, but it fits this game perfectly. This game reminds me a lot of fruit ninja, which throws a combination of fruit and bombs from the bottom of the screen. I really enjoyed playing this game, as it reminded me a lot of my childhood and playing this game from many years ago, but it adds the twist of collecting coins instead of slicing fruit. In addition to having a score, there are a couple other mechanics that are unique to games that are like this one. For starters, when destroying bombs instead of collecting coins, you lose score rather than a life. I found this change refreshing, as it allowed me to play much longer than I would have otherwise. Also, there are 5 lives instead of just three which many games of this type of implement. To lose lives, you must accidently let coins fall to the bottom of the screen rather than the combination of destroying bombs and letting coins fall to the bottom of the screen. Although this simplified the game, I found it refreshing to be able to last much longer than I would have originally if this were the case. I think adding simplicity to games of this type allows it to distinguish itself compared to games such as fruit ninja. There was still a lot of difficulty within this game, but the added simplicity of the extra lives made me enjoy this game much more and not get frustrated at all during play. Bombs do remove a lot of score though, so it’s much harder to get a high score. Personally, I would rather have a longer play time where my score may be lower than have a game where I die much faster. The joy of playing for a longer period of time allows me to focus more on the game rather than the frustrating aspects of it when losing. 

Coconut Bounce has a very fun and exciting gameplay loop that kept me playing multiple times. One of the first aspects of this game that caught my attention was having a high score to work towards. After each death, you can start over by the simple press of a button to attempt getting a new high score. This type of gameplay seems old when compared to newer story-based game, but I found it very entertaining. I found self-motivation within me to continue playing to get a new high score, and at one point wanted to hit 20 points as a personal goal but was very hard to do. Being able to see high scores from round to round kept me motivated to do better on the next run, even though the current run may not have gone as intended. Though it’s a simple concept to add to a game of this nature, the high score kept me playing much longer than I would have otherwise. Another aspect of the game that caught my attention was the animation of the coins. I have worked with this tool in the past and even on my final project, but I didn’t even think about having object animating like the coins did in this game. Although another small detail, I didn’t expect to see it and it was a nice touch to add to the gameplay. Speaking of gameplay, I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with this type of gameplay. Typically, I am in control of the object I must use to avoid objects or control, but in this game, you control a coconut that is used to control the ball that must not get hurt or die. This is also how you score by obtaining coins during the game. This was unique, since I expected to control the ball itself rather than an object which controls how it interacts with the world it’s placed in. This unique gameplay kept me engaged for a much longer time than anticipated, which made me enjoy the game more and more as I kept playing. Although it was unique, at first it was extremely frustrating to play like this. Since I had less control of the object with the lifeforce in this game, I was extremely annoyed when I failed or lost the level. I had to drop this game after losing multiple times in a row at first, but quickly came back and realized how this game is supposed to be played rather than comparing it to how I expected it to be played. This game taught me to take games as they are rather than what I want it to be. Instead of avoiding playing this game cause it’s not what I’m used to, I stuck with it and began to discover why it’s so much different and special compared to other games that are like this. I am glad that I stuck with this game, cause it was a lot of fun and the loop kept me entertained with it’s simplistic additions to a known formula.

This game does a great job conveying a purpose of exploration throughout the gameplay. As a background for playing the game, there is even an animation to show some personality for some of the characters before jumping into the game. This animation adds a lot to the game before going in and playing since we’re able to connect with the characters much more during gameplay. It acts as somewhat of a cutscene before heading into the gameplay. I love cutscenes in games I play today, so this was a pleasant surprise before heading into the world to explore. Once places into the game, I felt like I could explore anywhere in the workshop. Being able to immediately go between three different screens gave me a sense of exploration and freedom that I didn’t think I could have in such a simple game tool. On top of the exploration of the room, there were many items and locations I was able to interact with and get a feel for the tone of the workshop. A lot of the text displayed when interacting with different objects was extremely unique and helped me dive deeper into the world, I was placed in. Playing as a robot that the workshop master created fit the experience of the game well, since I felt a sense of belonging and importance throughout my time in the game. Once you start interacting with the world is when it really starts to open. There is a specific order that you’re supposed to interact with the items in the world, but it doesn’t truly feel like it at all. Whenever you interact with an object, it hints to you that you must do before being able to properly deal with the issue of that item not being able to be used. This means you are free to explore and use the knowledge gained while exploring to think about how to beat the game as you go. As you explore and complete different item quests, more parts of the world open to interact with and explore the different dialogue. When different items become interactable, the workshop owner also has different dialogue options and even begins to create new robots for the player to interact with and overcome new obstacles. Using new NPCs that are like the player character to overcome new obstacles helps the world feel more open to explore. It’s like unlocking new abilities in games that allow the player to traverse to new areas of the world. The flow of interacting with new items and using those items to discover new areas of the map was addicting and kept me playing until the very end of the game. I was invested in the characters and the story of the robots and workshop owner throughout the entire game time. Though bitsy seems like a simple tool on the surface, this game dives deep into its systems and artistic design. Exploration plays a huge role in this game, which kept me invested and excited to explore and interact with various parts of the world during gameplay. 

Prompt 1: This game is very difficult, especially on a laptop. What makes me unsure of victory is a combination of the random spawning of balls with different speeds and inability to block while moving. This combination allows me to be vulnerable immediately after a block to a ball that’s going extremely fast randomly around the arena. I think there’s a learning curve to this game, but I was unable to get much better after a short time playing it. I think learning the timing of the block and good positions to be inside of the arena are two of the ways I could improve at the game. These factors may also correlate with a good strategy to get good at this game, but I was unable to find a good strategy after playing it for a short number of rounds. Since the movement of the dodgeballs is random, it’s also difficult to guess the moves of the enemies. The varying speeds also makes it hard to time the blocking correctly, but I could see a possible strategy being a location where the layer can constantly block and accumulate a high score. There isn’t much intrinsic tension in this game unless I am on the verge of getting a new high score. There is one source of extra complexity I found – playing on a laptop. It’s hard to click in the track pad while also controlling the player with the arrow keys, so this immediately puts the player at a disadvantage compared to playing on a desktop PC.

Prompt 2: The game clearly wants the player to lose due to all the different moving pieces push the player and other pieces the player must avoid. The combination of being pushed around and trying to avoid small red objects makes it clear that the designer wants the player to lose. Additionally, the player is very small and hard to keep track of. The color of the player character blends in well with all the different moving pieces that are on screen, so I found myself losing track of myself often as well. The game doesn’t anticipate the player’s moves, but there are so many moving pieces that the player is confused and unable to keep track of what to expect in the upcoming future of the game. There are no enemies per say, but there are moving red blocks that “kill” the player. They don’t come off as enemies, rather lose conditions because they don’t seem like they’re out to get the player. The interaction of the enemies in the world is completely random. The enemies are concrete objects that seems to want to find me as a player because I have such a hard time avoiding them. Nothing in the game wants to help the layer, besides maybe the large collision blocks, since they also block the red blocks from the player. However, these blocks also push the player around and possibly put them in a vulnerable position. The level does not have a solid path or any other bonuses to help the player, so they are just left to find how to interact and dodge different parts of each game they play.

Prompt 2: In this game, the role I play is a lost girl who is trying to get out of the sewers after falling into them. However, these are not any normal sewers, since there are evil men trying to stop my player from escaping the sewers. Those evil men serve an additional role in the game, but also, there is another helpful player who notices the main character fall into the pit. His role is to guide the player out of the sewers and give tips for how to do it. This leads to the main conflict between the player and those evil dudes who are stopping the player from leaving the sewers. Between these enemies and platforming between different platforms, escaping the sewers is not easy. The core mechanic of this game is the platforming, as the player is not able to defeat the monsters. There aren’t any resources the player needs to obtain, but they do use the resource of knowledge given from the guy who sees you fall. The rules of the game are to try to escape upwards out of the sewers, but you cannot fall to the bottom of the screen, or you die. Also, you cannot run into enemies, otherwise you die. Though this is all clearly a game, I think this can be elaborated further into a real-world system such as wondering the night as a female. There are many routes they must take to avoid scary men and must also stay in the light to feel safe, which could be represented using the platforms the player must jump between.

Prompt 1: Though there isn’t a lot of space in this game, I think it is all organized extremely well. The space is always filled with new and old obstacles or sprites. There are many holes in the ground which the player must avoid, or they must start over from the beginning of the game. There are also creatures and spikes that take up space as obstacles the player should avoid. I was unable to take damage from the creatures, which may or may not be intended. There is contrast between the background and player/obstacles that make it clear to us which objects are important during play. The player character truly stands out from the background with either costume they have. Entrances and exits are where they’re expected to be for a side scrolling game. Entrances are at the left side of the screen and exits are at the right side of the screen. Additionally, there are trigger zones at the bottom of pits and on obstacles as well, which make sense as a platformer. Rather than using wide and narrow paths, this game uses wide and narrow platforms for the player to place themselves on. The first area of the game introduces basic controls since there are not any real obstacles. The second area, however, has many varying size platforms the player must jump between. The space itself is discrete in size but feels continuous at the player goes from screen to screen performing different actions and platforming new obstacles. There are also lessons learned from previous screens that carry onto the next ones.

Prompt 5: This game is meant to play relatively slow. This is emphasized with the single word passages that we must click. There is some auto advancing, but it has a purpose and moves slowly as well. The clicking gives the player a second to breath before moving to the next part of the game. There is a lot of tension with certain odd events that take place during play. There aren’t many times where I have the option to choose what options there are to click, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When the player is given an option to choose multiple paths, it feels much more meaningful. The words we click on are mostly actions the player takes or noises the player hears. As the protagonist of the game, it feels like I am clicking the words that attract my attention while playing the game. The story is fleshed out with other passages, but none that catch my attention like the noises or actions of the player. Many times, there are only a couple words highlighted, and it’s usually at the end of the passage. However, this means while reading the rest of the passage, I don’t lose focus on what’s important to the overall story. Typically, there is only one word highlighted, but this changed throughout the story quite a bit. The one-word highlighted parts are what catch my attention as the player. Clicking in this game is comparable to when characters in horror movies look behind a door they know something scary or bad is going to be in. 

Prompt 2: The player has options on many of the different passages. The whole premise of this game is to choose to either feed or not feed different animals while the player is out on a walk in the woods. This seems like a simple and harmless concept until the player chooses incorrectly to either feed or avoid feeding a certain animal. This player may die in certain scenarios, which makes each decision to feed or not feed an animal extremely important. With the simple pattern this game uses at first, it’s very easy to predict where the outcome of each screen takes the player. You feed or pass by one animal after the other until a certain screen comes up that may or may not kill the player based on previous choices they have made in the run. Once getting to the ending sequence, the story unfolds in a unique way, leaving the player with no idea where the next passage will take them. Though most likely not intentional, yes, I am able to go back to where I came from using the back arrow near the top left of the screen. I believe I saw this arrow while debugging, so I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be in the final product. However, I believe having this back arrow makes the game play much better, since I don’t have to start over from scratch when I want to play again with different dispersing of my food. The overall story is simple at first – the player must choose what animals to feed and pass by to survive the walk in the woods. After passing this simple beginning sequence, the player is then taken to a fourth wall-breaking series of events making me think about my decisions throughout the game.

Prompt 4: At the beginning of the game, I just tried to draw right away to see what would happen – nothing happened. After selecting brush, I again tried to draw, and nothing happened. I selected a color to draw with, and my creativity started to flow. However, I was uncertain what each tool would do and how they would interact with the buttons on the screen. However, the option that surprised me the most were the + and – buttons. At first, I was on the “dots” option, and nothing seemed to change when drawing them; however, once I started using the brush, I was shocked at what happened. I did not expect the brush size to continuously grow, but it was a lot of fun to play with! The visual feedback was the most helpful feedback to me as the player as to what each button did on the screen. At first, I tried to create an expanding rainbow ball, but I didn’t realize how big the brush was going to get, so my entire canvas was filled with a solid rainbow color. I then had to change over to a brush of a different color, to set my background back to the color I wanted it to be. I wouldn’t say there were any physical skills involved with made the outcome uncertain, rather the tools themselves caught me off guard and I didn’t realize what was going to happen. There wasn’t much randomization, only with the dots brush, but I didn’t know how to control the color there, so that could be hidden from the player on purpose. Other than that, after playing the game for a bit, I was able to figure everything out. 

Prompt 2: Though it’s very simple, something I want to be able to do is clear the workspace. In the game, I can clear the screen by drawing with a white line tool, but it doesn’t have the same affect to me as to just be able to start over from scratch. What was stopping me was the absence of a clear button/option on the screen. I would say the tools given to me as a player did have some limitations. I was unable to change the size of the line I could draw with. In past experiences, I was able to change the size of the line tool to a large size and color to white as a “clear” option, but this was not an option in this game. I think adding a clearing option would be easy to add. In the game I created using P5.js, I added a clearing functionality easily. I wish I could have the feeling of freshness and clarity while playing this game. A clearing option would allow me to have these feelings when starting from a black canvas after finishing my thoughts in a design. I think a reason the creator wouldn’t want a player to clear the screen is to allow the player to build continuously on their design. Though, it makes it hard for the player to learn the tools and experiment before committing to a design they want to make. Maybe this is part of the creator’s vision for their game, so that would make sense. I don’t think adding a clearing option would be destructive or mess with any organization from the game. It seems like a simple and normal thing to add to a game of this type. 

Prompt 3: The two rules/goals that I enjoy the interaction between are the climbing and box-pushing mechanics. This interaction provokes mostly satisfaction when I play this game. Being able to combine the movement of the boxes with climbing feels like it gives the player many options for completing and exploring the level. This interaction isn’t too robust however, since I was only able to climb the box once in my experience. This is most likely a bug in the game, since I believe the player should be able to climb the object multiple times rather than just once. This combination of mechanics exists throughout the entire game but is only shown to the player in the final two level of the game, but this interaction made me want to go back and play the game again to see if it worked in previous levels as well. I was also interested if I could find new areas in the game while going back to the previous levels. I think this interaction could be used with climbing stacked boxes when pushing a single box up to them. This mechanic could be used to give a larger area to explore and climb around if presented to the player. I think this interaction would persist even if some of the rules were changed slightly, but also, I think it would have to because it feels so satisfying for the player. I think what I enjoy about this mechanic, is that it just makes sense in a normal world. 

Prompt 4: The first thing I tried in the game was to move around with the arrow keys. Other than that, I tried to go out of bounds and obtain the item that looked different from the rest of the tiles. However, I was unable to go out of bounds, which was to be expected. Once I grabbed the donut, I passed that level. The single level that stood out to me was the final level where my controls affected multiple snakes in the level. This level also had multiple boxes that I was able to move as the snake. I took multiple attempts to complete the final level, since it was difficult to keep track of what all of the snakes did when I moved around. After failing multiple times, I took some time to think and plan out how to beat the final level. Thinking about the intermediary steps I had to take throughout the level helped me focus on completing the game. There was one trouble spot where I failed the level multiple times, where I ended up pushing a box in the way of the path and blocked the exit. After blocking the donuts, I attempted to back up and think about a way to beat the level before starting over. On this level in particular, there were multiple ways to get to the final few steps, but the last couple steps were only able to be completed in one way. Overall, I only spent maybe 2 minutes on the final level. It was challenging, but I was able to overcome the challenge after taking some time to plan out my approach.

Prompt 3: The rooms in Turtle Adventure Game 1 are unique compared to how other games I’ve played for this class. Rather than there being an obvious exit routes, they are hidden behind collecting different items throughout the room the player is in. This is told to the player by different NPCs in that room. Once all of the items are collected, then the NPC tells the player where the location of the exit is. There is no animated transition between rooms, but I think this adds to the sense of puzzle and disjointedness of the game. I see the disjointedness as a positive, as it feels like a maze/puzzle that the player must solve to continue to a new challenge. This room transitions feel like a continuation of time. For all I know as a player, the room layout could move me across vast distances, though it makes sense that they are connected in a close space. I think because the rooms are close in proximity but locked off from each other makes it feel like they’re across vast distances. The rooms are constructed in a very linear plot. For this style of game, it makes sense that they would be constructed this way, since the game is a collectathon. You can go back to past rooms, but there is no reason to do so after collecting all the items. Being able to interact with all the fish and creatures helps everything fit together even though the rooms are different in the goals you’re trying to achieve. 

Prompt 5: Traversing throughout the game deep feels very important to the player. Because it feels like the movement is slow and fragmented, it makes the player feel alone and stranded. This feeling is important to create the eerie and alone tone of the game. The game starts out very bright and vibrant, but quickly changes once random creatures are seen within the depths of the water. Because I didn’t know what those creatures were, I felt scared going forward. However, I wouldn’t feel this tone at all if I were to choose the other ending of the game. This adds to the amount of control the player has when traversing this game. The player has the option to move around the entire screen, so they have a sense of exploration when going through each part of the infested sea. If the player doesn’t take the “light” ending and continues deeper into the water, there are some creatures the player can interact with as well. I think with the ability to explore by swimming and interact with many different objects, the player has many different options to play. I attempted to leave the game from the platform I came in on, and I was not able to until I collected 6 orbs. I also tried moving up a room on the far sides of the screen, and I was unable to. I thought this would be possible because the upcoming room was the same size and layout. Otherwise, this game gives many unique options for interacting with the environment and objects within it.