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Gravity flip tests the player's timing at flipping the gravity of an alien creature in order to lead it into a goal. The main verb of this game is flipping gravity. The controls of the game are fairly simple and WASD are used in order to move the alien in the corresponding direction. What makes the game unique is how the platforms are not safe areas for the player to land on but are things to avoid. The gravity constantly accelerating the player leads to uncomfortably high speeds where careful timing is needed to make it through small entrances. This is unique from other puzzle games of simply having to navigate through hazards using movement. The movement in gravity flip is very distinct as the feeling of gravity is communicated to the player by the use of acceleration without any further input. However, changing the direction of gravity resets all momentum that the alien is under, which gives the alien the limitation of only being able to move in straight lines. The game’s 5 puzzles are set in increasing order of difficulty and require careful planning of what straight lines the player must take in order to reach the goal. Planning the straight lines is not enough on its own as the player can quickly lose control of how fast the alien is going and mess up the timing of a gravity flip. The player’s control over their own speed is also tested in order to not crash into the platforms. Another way of proceeding through levels is by using fast gravity flips in order to not gain too much speed in any direction. The “jittery” movement created by this is fairly slow and easy to control but must be used carefully as the designer has placed tight openings that jitter moving would crash you into. The 5th level especially punishes jittery movement and I feel like more levels would be a great addition to this game. I tried to avoid using the jittery movement and focused on improving the timing of my gravity flips. Proceeding to another level feels very satisfying as the puzzles are challenging. The gravity flips themselves felt slightly empty/unresponsive for the core mechanic of the game and maybe could have been accompanied by some sound effect or particle effects/animation to signify that a flip in gravity has occurred. It is a minor thing but I feel it could greatly improve the feel of navigating through a level. The main interplay in Gravity Flip is how the alien’s momentum is shifted and what new lines the alien can travel from each position it is in. The player is constantly engaged by the increasing difficulty of puzzles. The first levels are simple in order for the player to get accustomed to how fast the alien moves and the later levels test this skill. The game is a unique concept and I can see it being exceptionally addictive with more levels and more types of hazards. 

The fun but competitive nature of Bird Fight makes for an addictive experience to play with a friend. While most games made for the class have been single player, the designer chooses to make a game that is borderline unplayable for a solo player. The game however becomes truly itself when introducing the multiplayer aspect to it. The game is designed around having two players face off and the rules are fairly simple for anyone to pick up. Like many one on one fighting games, Bird Fight constantly tests both player’s skill at movement. The gravity requires players to constantly flap their wings to not be an easy target to hit on the ground. The choice to not have each round “reset” the timer of the game is great as it leads to constant action. Aiming in the game is exceptionally difficult as it involves the player controlling their movement as well as reading the other player’s movement as the projectiles have travel time to account for. There is constant interplay between the movement and shooting as they directly lead to the other being required. Movement is required to line up your own shots while also being required to dodge the other player’s shots. On the other hand, moving makes aiming harder for the player themselves which is a tradeoff. The limit on 8 bullets being on the screen shows careful consideration from the designer. With no limit on projectiles, the game would become a two player bullet hell game which strays away from the skill based one on one that the designer intends. The lack of “cover” on the map leads to an interesting mechanic where players are forced to keep moving. The pace of the game is essentially dictated by the skill of the players as people who become more accustomed to the movement and projectile speed of the game can play more aggressively. We did not touch on competitive balance too much during our semester and I think the designer avoids this issue by creating two identical birds. While there exists an optimal strategy that puts the opposing player, I did not put effort into finding it and was more focused on learning the movement of the game. The bird sprites and background are aesthetically pleasing and while the focus of the game is not its story, the implied backstory of why the birds are fighting is a nice touch. There is also constant feedback for every player action. The movement feels fluid with the animation of the wings flying. The animation for birds being hit is also a reward and constantly pushes the player to hit their opponent. The scoreboard UI is very simple and it adds more info for the players to track. Tracking both player’s health point levels while keeping track of movement adds more skill expression to the game. The game has a lot of interplay as various factors have to be taken into account to make a good decision for the player. Tracking both player’s positionings, health bars, and number of shots fired leads to a fun competitive 1v1 game to play with a friend. 

Star Wanderer is a game that pushes the limits of Bitsy to give the player the sense of exploration and discovery. The story is fairly linear and it is intended for the player to follow the path given to them by the text interactions in the game. However due to the freedom of movement combined with the interactions in the game specifically saying “venture” rather than a verb like “go”, the player feels like they are exploring. The main verb to associate with the game would be exploring. The changing color palettes in the game are used to create the feeling of each room being set in a different part of space. The color choice to represent the moon as well as purple for deep space draws in players to the immersion. The transition from the earth, to the moon, into deeper space is done using the changing color palette and this is somewhere I see bitsy as a tool limiting the designer’s creativity. Space exploration as a theme is very enjoyable and the game fully explores the theme. The rooms in bitsy are accessed by going upwards which further adds to the feeling of the player going further and further away from Earth and humanity. Venturing into the black hole has a sense of uncertainty as even humans in real life do not know what exactly happens when going beyond the event horizon. I was drawn in by the warped visuals of being inside the black hole and every movement had the feeling of wandering further into the unknown. The stars in the background slowly receding away is a way of signaling to the player that they are going further and further away from the known universe. This is fairly realistic to what scientists expect to happen as the light from the universe ends up all being behind you as you fall into the universe. This touch of realism in the game adds a lot of depth and is a great detail to be appreciated by players who enjoy space exploration. Most space exploration games leave the player feeling small and Star Wanderer is no exception to this. The lack of other humans in the game leaves the player wondering why they are on this mission. On my second playthrough, I started to question the source of the messages to venture further. The game leaves a lot of the story up to the player’s imagination and it fits perfectly for a simple game like this. Telling a complete story is one way to make a story based game but some of the most memorable games and books involve the player’s imagination. The game’s uncertainty goes away after the first few playthroughs and my only feedback would be that adding some branching or player choice would lead to an experience that offers more replayability. The linear experience is very comforting in a sense that everyone who has played the game has felt the same emotions. I think this was the intent of the designer and it shares their passion towards space. 

The core verb in Asteroid Collector is movement. The player’s goal is to collect asteroids and movement is required to do so. As movement is not instant in the game and is rather magnetic towards cursor position, timing is needed in order to cross paths with asteroids. The asteroids move in various paths as the player moves and when the player successfully moves into an asteroid, it is collected with the UI at the top of the screen showing how much time has elapsed as well as how many remaining asteroids are to be collected. The player uses this info in order to decide which of the next asteroids they want to go for. The asteroids have set paths of motion that are overwhelming for the player to look at all at the same time. However, focusing on one specific asteroid, it is easy to calculate its path and move to collect it. The game also has a timer that is constantly going up, so while it is technically possible to slowly go to the center of each asteroid’s path and wait to collect them, the player is incentivized to speed up and find optimal lines to travel on. The “danger” in the game does not result in failure, but rather loss in time which can be seen as the measure of scoring in this game. While many speedruns of common games can have set paths and inputs to memorize, it is much harder to do so in Asteroid Collector due to the timings of various asteroids moving.

The challenge in starwar lies in carefully managing your own movement while avoiding the incoming asteroids. The game tries to make you lose by sending a large amount of asteroids in varying directions all over the screen. Contact with any of the asteroids is an instant game over but they can be destroyed by shooting at them. The motivation of the enemies is slightly unknown as the asteroids are not specifically targeting the player but are following their own path. The difficulty of the game comes from the sheer number of asteroids and calculating their trajectories while maintaining control over your spaceship. Having to rotate with A and D takes significant focus as part of your brain needs to control which way to shoot while the other parts of your brain are scrambling to move your mouse away from the nearest asteroids. The enemy asteroids also vary in size and the small ones are difficult to aim at but pretty easy to avoid with movement. The larger asteroids on the other hand take up valuable screen space and are more worth taking the time to rotate and shoot at. There is nothing in the game that really wants to help you and the helping designer here only relates to the thwarting designer in the sense that the freedom of movement and shooting given to the player is sufficient for survival. The difficulty of the game comes from not having a linear path and each retry of the game will also have different pathing required for the player to survive.

Prompt 3: The formatting of the starting passage is pleasing to the eyes and is clearly laid out. The top half is exposition/storytelling and the bottom separated by horizontal lines is where the player’s choice of skill points lies. After picking the initial skill points, the bottom half is faded out and lies as a gentle reminder of what the player picked. The various skill points use unique colors and it makes it easy to get used to the starting skill points system when restarting life to try for a different ending. The points total is a light pink, happiness is yellow, intelligence is yellow, and family situation is green. The font used is minimalistic and offers a very “clean” or “set” idea that the story is determined by the player’s choices. The faded out text with the used up skill points persists across the choices and is a reminder to the player on how they really started out. This helps remind them of how their initial choices contributed to the situation but also helps with another aspect. As the game is meant to be replayed with life being restarted, a reminder to the player of what to choose differently is useful and makes replayability of the game seamless. The game’s story revolves around the theme of choosing between hard work, intelligence, and love/family and involves compromising something. The overall design choices behind the formatting of the text is very interesting as it makes very meaningful choices in life feel very simple and helps detach from the consequences of the choices.

Prompt 2: The passages in this game are organized in a way that would feel natural for a player who is in the maze. The player has options when the maze comes to a clearing or when there is a fork in the path. The player also has options whether to interact with certain things such as whether to go towards the sound of crying or whether to run away. The choices here are significant as they can lead to drastically different outcomes or endings. In some cases, the maze loops and in other cases you are forced to turn back. The links are mysteriously vague on what lies ahead and adds to the halloween theme of the game. The only link that is somewhat predictable is the sound of crying instantly being associated with the witch from Left 4 Dead with my brain telling me to run away from it. My assumption was correct as interacting with the crying leads to the bad ending of the game. Apart from this link, the links overall feel like a true maze where making decisions would be entirely luck based. I would describe the overall story’s shape as a maze with multiple branching paths that sometimes connect back together. The shape connects very well to the theme of the game as the player themself feel like they are in a maze and are making the choices themselves. Many choices lead to more confusing options being laid before them and add to the immersion into the maze.

Prompt 2: I think one thing I wanted to do but couldn’t was make smaller triangles. I wanted to make a silly face with triangular shaped eyes and ended up using the regular brush tool and manually drawing a triangle out. The triangle tool itself starts rather large and is limited in its usefulness outside of large pattern art. The triangle tool with its large size and using different colors does lead to some visually pleasing patterns. The easy workaround is to draw triangles manually using the brush tool. I think it would be a slightly complicated fix to make the triangle tool responsive and feel natural. It would require storing the previous two mouse clicked positions and also would need a way to “cancel” the triangle after picking 1 or 2 points. The fix would act somewhat as a 2 click line tool except with an extra step of keeping track of whether the player has clicked zero, one , two or 3 times and cycling that count. Similar to meevans’ comment, I do not really think there is a reason to not have smaller triangles in this game. I think smaller triangles from the triangle tool would simplify the process and make it easier for the player. The tools given actually do not have limitations as the brush tool technically lets the player free hand anything they could think of drawing. I don’t think smaller triangles would be destructive to the game and on the contrary I think it would make having elliptical and triangular structures much better looking.

Prompt 3: The first thing I tried to do after reading the flashing lights warning was immediately click on the corners button to see what it did. What made me feel like I was playing was how the different brushes when used together could essentially make interesting images. After learning how to use the three brushes, my small goal was to create a pattern of colors using brown in the corners, the red and blue reticles along with the main focus being the color changing circle brush. I did not really spend time trying to break it other than by rapidly clicking my mouse to see how fast the corner brush would update color. As the reticle brush changed between red and blue colors, my immediate thought process was to see how to use those two colors to draw something interesting using the reticles as a shape. I started out with just abstract shapes but ended up with an interesting flashing image with a clear left and right side when I finished up and used the corner brush for animation. I still don’t think I had a story when I played the game and was more just playing along like an open world exploration game wondering what things would look like if I tried to draw a line in a specific way using a certain brush. The game having different brush options as well as the color changing circle brush gives many options to support play with or without a goal in mind.

I think Duomir has a great example of how two very simple rules interact with each other. The rules of pushing and pulling which usually do not interact have a complex system in this game due to the player controlling two separate objects at the same time. The interaction of the two rules at the same time invokes a feeling of surprise for me personally. I was surprised when I started hitting arrow keys and two different objects moved and also surprised when the objects pushed and pulled the boxes. The interaction is a core part of the game and is used in every level. I think the interaction would be different if either pushing or pulling was modified. If pushing or pulling as core concepts were changed I think the interaction would cease to exist. The interaction in that sense is fragile as it only really makes sense when thinking about pushing and pulling. The interaction to me is existing as it just genuinely confuses my brain. Taking care of two moving objects that are doing different things is challenging and this interaction of rules contributes heavily to the challenge of the game. Other uses for the interaction I can think of would be if both moving objects somehow pushed and pulled the same object. The interaction I would say is visually beautiful. The way two objects move with a press of a button in the same direction while the boxes close to them move in opposite directions has a sense of balance that is visually appealing.

Solving the first level of the game first started with me figuring out the rules and goal of the game. My first instinct was to move the cursor into the plus shaped slot it fits into as it just looked right. After realizing that it was part of the puzzle but not all of it, I moved towards the boxes to see what would happen. I realized that the boxes could be pushed and started moving them around to see what would happen. After seeing the boxes overlap with the tiles they seemed to fit on, I realized one of my boxes was stuck in a corner and I didn’t know how to push it out. Moving around near it made me discover another essential rule, boxes could be pulled. When the boxes could be pushed and pulled onto the “target” tiles I then tried to move my cursor into the plus shaped slot and then understood the goal of the game. The intermediate progress steps I discovered were how things seemed to “fit” in place. The game does not obviously show the goal of the game but rather hints at it using the colors. I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time trying to fix a box being stuck in a corner before I discovered the ability to pull the box. I thought another solution would be if the black boxes could be pushed or pulled into the enveloping outlined boxes. Upon realizing that the black small boxes do not move, I realized only one solution existed.

The game uses rooms in a very interesting way. Multiple arrows point the player towards coins and the exit but the message that greed is not good is reiterated. The game uses both arrows as well as a distinct pattern for the exit tiles. The exits are clearly marked for the players in the starting rooms and in the ending room it becomes quickly obvious that the player is trapped in the maze. The rooms all have one way exits which leads the game’s story in a linear fashion as intended by the designer. I believe the game could have also had multiple areas and ways to go between the rooms and it would have fit the theme. The game being linear fits the design choice of the dialogue about greed being different each time. The transitions between rooms is rather mysterious in maise. Since you get teleported to a new area, it is impossible to tell where the new room is and whether time has passed or not. This mysterious transition adds to the feeling of confusion that is created when the arrows point in the direction where coins are present but the conflicting messages about greed show up. The game’s ending leading to failure makes you feel trapped in a confusingly large space as this maze seems to be large. The starting message about staying away from corn is oddly threatening as the game’s room design attracts players towards the corn and coins and would be an interesting thing to analyze as part of text or dialogue.

A lot of effort has been put into the various sprites in the game as well as the player. The player has a simple walking animation that helps contrast an otherwise still environment. A great detail is how the left sprite is shown crushed after the walls close in. The background tiles as well as the walls closing in are very simply designed and the focus is on the rising tension of not being able to find the key. The first item being picked up is drawn in a way where it is possible to think it is the key but ends up being a rock. A significant amount of effort has been put into the end room in the game. The sun is animated, and the tree is very detailed. The grass swaying with the wind has a very peaceful feeling to the ending. The tree trunk is composed of many different tiles together and it follows a different style compared to the minimalistic style of the walls and background of the previous rooms. I think the limitations of bitsy’s rooms being the same size is one that the designer fights with in this piece. On one hand it shows the first sprite being crushed outside the walls but on the other hand the room itself shrinking with the walls would have been a cool experience. Another place where the designer is fighting with bitsy’s limitations is in the color limitation. Several tiles are limited by the 3 color limitation that bitsy has.