Tag: puzzle

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Game Ramblings #34 – Goodbye! BoxBoy!

Info on the first two titles from Nintendo

  • Genre: Puzzle/Platformer
  • Platform: 3DS (eShop)

So ya, technically speaking this isn’t out in the US yet.  However, that fancy triple pack is out in Japan, so I had to jump at it.  The TL;DR on this series is that you play a Box…Boy that is able to spawn chains of blocks connected to his body.  You use these chains to traverse puzzle-based levels, with each world tending to be built around a series of levels with one new core mechanic.  While the gameplay of this third title is still built around that core, HAL Labs has again managed to bring a lot of new mechanics in to give another 20+ worlds of damn good puzzle solving.

If there’s one core theme that this game was built on, I’d say it was motion.  Sure, the core box chain puzzles from the first two games are there, but a lot of the new mechanics are all based around exploiting motion in some way.  Just a few of the many examples of some of the smart ways they used motion:

  • Forced movement through the use of conveyors, moving platforms, velocity-adding volumes, and water meant that timing became a lot more important puzzle-solving mechanic than just setting up chains of blocks.
  • The inclusion of things like explosives allowed for some fantastic puzzles based around blocks falls.
  • AI-based levels added secondary characters into the mix.  In particular, there were a number of escort levels that were actually fun (I’m being serious here).  There were some smart decisions in the use of AI, in particular the fact that the AI will not move forward if its path is dangerous.  It simply waits for you to makes things safe for it.
  • Gravity-based mechanics also came through a lot, with some really smart levels based around reversal of gravity, as well as levels based on weight through scales.

Each of the first 15 or so worlds tended to have one new mechanic in it.  The last 10 or so worlds and challenge worlds are where things really got interesting.  The final handful of worlds did a great job of taking the individual mechanics, and mixing them into multi-mechanic levels that test both a late night sleep deprived brain, as well as my patience in a lot of areas.  That said, this is some of the best puzzle-platform gameplay that the 3DS has seen.  Of particular note, the challenge worlds offer some mischievous changes, such as not being able to jump, or not being able to fall more than 1 block’s height.

There’s really not much to say here if you’ve played either of the first two titles in the series.  The core of the game is the same, and the new mechanics are fantastic.  If you’ve got a Japanese 3DS, it’s definitely worth picking up the triple pack if you’re a collector.  Otherwise, until this gets to the US, 3DS owners have another great title to look forward to.

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Game Ramblings #4 – Thoughts on Pokemon F2P Experiments

So this is going to be a two parter covering both of the free to play Pokemon titles Nintendo has released for the 3DS, Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World.  Both are curious small titles, and I think they are an interesting early look into what Nintendo’s long term mobile plans could possibly look like.

Pokemon Shuffle

More Info From Nintendo

Info:

  • Genre: Puzzle RPG

Progress:

  • 95 Pokemon
  • Handful of Mega Evolutions
  • Handful of daily/special events

Similar Titles

The first of the free to play titles is a pretty standard pick-3 puzzle game, with the added twist that you battle to catch Pokemon, and can gain XP to level up the Pokemon you are using in battle.

In general this was a good time waster.  I could go in, spend 15 minutes running through my available stamina, and go back to whatever else I was doing.  The core game is solid, and has enough Pokemon features to feel like it’s well integrated into the overall rule set established in the RPG titles.

What I Like

The type strength/weakness system from the main line series is represented here.  While this may seem like an obvious addition, it does have some fun ramifications in terms of how you build out the squad of Pokemon for each battle.  In addition, because there is a pre-battle party optimize feature, you can get in and out of battle with a generally good set of Pokemon without spending a ton of time in menus.

In addition, the variety of Pokemon was astounding.  The in-game Pokedex lists 233 capturable Pokemon at this time, and special events have been showing off some fun rare Pokemon from time to time.  It results in allowing you to really build out a strong squad from any number of your favorites from past games.

What I Don’t Like

The catching system feels super arbitrary.  Every Pokemon has base odds of being caught, then bonus catch odds based on how many turns remained in the battle upon victory.  The majority of Pokemon typically end up in the 70-90% catch rate range, but the stronger Pokemon are locked behind often < 5% base odds with low per-turn bonuses, making repeated battles a chore in these cases.  This is exacerbated by the fact that Great Balls are extremely expensive in terms of the in-game currency, as well as them only doubling catch chance, making the gold cost often not worth the risk.

 

Pokemon Rumble World

More Info From Nintendo

Info:

  • Genre: Brawler

Progress:

  • 116 Captured Pokemon
  • 9 Balloons
  • Account Level 19

Similar Titles

This one is a continuation of the Pokemon Rumble series.  The basic gameplay is similar to top-down twin stick shooters, with some simplifications.  Combat can either be automatic upon contact with enemies, or triggered via A/B attacks.  Upon defeating an enemy, there is a random chance that they will drop as a capturable Pokemon that can be added to your roster.  As your account levels up, the Pokemon in all areas progressively grow stronger, giving you consistent progress and good excuses to go back to old areas to capture stronger versions of already captured Pokemon.

In general, while I did enjoy this title, it is extremely simple.  It is essentially a 5 minute play and forget title to pick up while you have a few free minutes.  The variety of Pokemon is again really strong, but the F2P mechanic blocking progress is more aggressive than in Shuffle, to some extent to the game’s detriment.

 

So, what does this all mean for Nintendo?  A while back they announced their entry into the mobile market going into 2016, and these feel like their first experiments in that style.  Both games have very similar monetization efforts, with progress blocked via some sort of stamina mechanic, a soft gold currency earned in game, and a hard diamond currency earned through microtransactions.

Shuffle’s stamina mechanic is more typical, with one heart per battle, and hearts earned back over time.  Rumble uses a slightly different mechanic.  Balloons can be purchased that transport you to various areas for battling/capturing.  The balloons then go on cooldown, with progressively longer cooldowns based on how expensive the balloons were to purchase.  In general, this simply forces me to replay old content more often, which doesn’t really feel that good.  However, it does push me more towards purchasing into diamonds, which is good for the typical purchasing path.

Overall both of these titles feel like they would be appropriate entries into the mobile market for Nintendo.  They’re solid quick play titles, have simple but engaging mechanics, and are already setup with the typical monetization scheme that the highest grossing titles typically use.  Looking a year from now, I wouldn’t be that shocked to see both of these as the first of the  Nintendo mobile titles being released as part of their latest market experiment.

 

 

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Game Ramblings #2 – Thoughts on Box Boy!

More Information from Nintendo

Info:

  • Genre:Puzzle/Platformer
  • Platform: 3DS eShop

Progress:

  • Main path and roughly half of known post-game content
  • Give or take 4-6 hours of play

Box Boy! is a fairly clever puzzle platformer.  It has relatively simple core mechanics of spawning trails of boxes, but adds a lot of world-based mechanics to add significant depth to the core gameplay loop.  I’ve seen 22 worlds of 6-8 levels, plus another couple of sets of time attack and score attack levels, so there’s a lot of content to be had.  Though there feels like a lot of fluff content early on, the game overall was easily worth playing, and for its current $5 price has a lot of value.

What I Like

The core gameplay is extremely simple.  The main character can spawn a chain of boxes, limited to a different max per-level, which can then be used to traverse puzzle sections.  However, this is expanded upon with significant in-world mechanics.  These can range from things directly related to the character, such as using box patterns to pull the character through the world, or more direct actions like gravity manipulation, portaling (including conservation of momentum like Portal itself!), some Lemmings-inspired NPC leading, and more.  Each of the first 16 worlds introduces a new core mechanic, culminating in a story-ending world and a set of post-game worlds that combine the mechanics into the tougher puzzle set of the game.

Each world also cleverly introduces the mechanics to avoid hand-holding tutorials.  The first level of each worlds is typically a very simplified level featuring only the new mechanic for the world.  Subsequent levels then ramp up the difficulty bit  by bit.  In doing so, the player naturally learns how mechanics work without having to slog through text tutorials.

What I’m Indifferent To

Each level contains a crown or set of crowns that can be collected to earn bonus currency for purchase of in-game items.  The items include outfits for the character, hint books, background music, and some extra score and time attack levels.  However, outside of the extra levels, the rest of the items feel largely unnecessary, and don’t act as a good completionist carrot.  The main benefit I’ve found to collecting the crowns at all is that they often require more advanced mechanics to collect, which helps for solving later content.

What I Don’t Like

Outside of the last world and post-game content, this game is incredibly easy.  The first 16 worlds are essentially teaching the various mechanics on their own, before being combined for the end-game.  Though this does lead to a deep knowledge of the individual mechanics, it feels unnecessarily long to get to the combined mechanic puzzles. Fewer levels in early worlds or earlier combination of mechanics would have benefited the progression curve, which in its shipped state feels very padded with fluff content.