Maybe another player adds to the value?

11-10-12 09:16 AM

Singelli is Offline

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| ID: 686589 | 796 Words

Singelli

Level: 161

POSTS: 1367/8698
POST EXP: 1189395
LVL EXP: 53047923
CP: 67331.7
VIZ: 3147678

Likes: 0 Dislikes: 0

OVERALL RATING: 2/10

As a home brew, this game is a little harder to rate than others. It lacks many of the features a developed game might have, and it's exclusively designed for two players. Thus, don't bother with this game unless you've found a partner in Netplay.

In this game, you control a blue or red sprite which can be moved in the four cardinal directions. The goal is to get the 'ball' into the goal opposing your own while dodging the efforts of your partner. Since I had no partner, the game had absolutely no value to me as a lone player. Thus, I -tried- my best to give it some leeway and considered how I think the game would play if I had someone to play it with.

GRAPHICS: 2/10
I was probably a little more generous here than I should have been. The game isn't terribly unsightly as it is completely boring. There's a green field, a few white rectangles forming a border, on generic white square which represents the ball, and two equally as generic sprites.

The sprites cannot travel diagonally, and simply flip over if you move left. They have no moving parts, and lack detail. In fact, there's no detail in the entire game at all. However, I believe someone created this game as learner; in other words, they simply were trying to create 'a game' without being bogged down with graphics and details.

The one area in which I really can't afford any leeway is in level variety. Once a player scores five points, a new field loads that has a few obstacles for players to work around. However, there are only three such fields (including the empty field), and the obstacles are simple.

SOUND: 1/10
Guess what? There is not a single sound in this game. I guess it's better than having annoying sounds, however....

ADDICTIVENESS: 2/10
I tried to rate this category by imagining how fun it would be with a partner. This game had a vague 'Foosball' feel to me... minus the fact that there is absolutely no other opposition aside from the second player. I imagine I'd enjoy playing this game with someone for a little while, but it'd quickly get old. Sheer competitiveness might drive me forward long enough to get ahead, but the lack of varying play fields would cause competitiveness to lose its edge. Only taunting or trash talking your opponent might keep the little fun in the game.

STORY: 1/10
Again, this is something the game lacks. There is no story. You control a player which tries to score goals.

DEPTH: 1/10
I can't offer any leeway in this area either. If there were randomly generated obstacles, I would have been more impressed. Even the fact that this game can be played almost indefinitely doesn't make me excited. (And in all honestly, the game could only be played until a player reaches 999,999 points, since this the point counter only has six digits. But who would stick with it that long!?)

DIFFICULTY: 3/10
Obviously, this game would only be as difficult as your partner makes it. Therefore, it's a bit hard to rate this game for the level of challenge it might offer. I did notice that the controls leave something to be desired, however, which is why I gave the difficulty a rating of 3.

The 'ball' is very responsive to any touch by the sprites, moving in the direction of your sprite as long as you are touching it. This means that you might have to relocate your sprite around the ball if you want to switch the direction you are pushing it in. And to do this means you must travel backwards a bit until you aren't attached to the ball. However, I noticed that certain places on the sprite seem to more permanently connect to the ball. For example, if your sprite catches the ball between his feet, the ball will travel with the sprite even if you attempt to move backwards away from it. The ball then 'disconnects' seemingly randomly.

The same was true of the opponent's sprite when I touched it, but I don't know what would happen if someone else was controlling it. Every time I touched the blue sprite, I could easily 'push' it around in the same way I could push the ball around. This makes me wonder how the two sprites respond to touch when both have a player operating them.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this game for lone playing of course. I'm not even sure I could recommend it as a 2 player game either. Simplicity has its charm of course, but this game has a 'project' feel to it and the amusement wouldn't last for most, I'm sure.