Extreme Evolution is an expressive platformer adventure; movement is your power: transform, drive, run, split, tumble, and launch yourself. Discover new forms and evolve as you explore this organic underworld open world.
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The phantasmagoric orb. Having your retinas fucked while performing basic platforming tasks. Guaranteed to force you to re-examine your relationship with photosensitivity
Yume "Marble Blast Ultra" Nikki
Marble Blast Ultra gameplay, Yume Nikki approach to progression, but all the items are different marble types. The presentation is interesting, however I didn't play long enough to see if it had anything to say. I might come back to this one day, but most likely not.
Marble Blast Ultra gameplay, Yume Nikki approach to progression, but all the items are different marble types. The presentation is interesting, however I didn't play long enough to see if it had anything to say. I might come back to this one day, but most likely not.
Pretty cool idea for a platformer, I'm a big fan of the, for lack of better word, "Yume Nikki" kind of game formatting, with you collecting items that give you new abilities which in turn help you get access to different trippy rooms. In these rooms you can discover more items that give you more abilities which can help you reach more rooms, so on so forth. It's a fun formula! Crazy visuals, obviously, but what you see is what you get and oh man, do you get.
3/5
3/5
Whats funny about this game is that presentation aside, its fairly straightforward mechanically. Its a level based 3d platformer based on alternating forms with different traversal powers to reach the next objective or set of upgrades to your max stamina(or mana or genes or whatever).
I found it to be quite engrossing, even getting some of that "tetris effect" after finishing it, lying in bed with an image of a toy ball rolling up a series of 'oil slick as seen through a kaleidoscope'-ass platforms. If I were to coin a stupid genre name for it it would be a "cheese-em-up" because it hits that primal urge in every attempt to go out of bounds or exploit a physics bug to cheese an annoying puzzle in a more conventional action game. Not all the levels or powers are winners of course, but finally getting up a big tower by some stupid scheme or walking along a line of pixels to reach a nee power through what feels like an "unintended" route; well it feels great. Thankfully I was home alone so no one could hear me cackling maniacally like a supervillain after my victory.
With all that being said, its a hard game to recommend, given that I think that the art direction will kill you if you have any sort of photosensitivity or history of epilepsy, but also that the game's appeal is quite specific.
But you know, thats kinda why its good. More games should be made to cater to a specific idea or urge rather than try to please everyone with the broadest possible sensibilities. Extreme Evolution kind of starts to lose steam after a certain point towards the climax cause you end up unlocking a few OP powers that just invalidate everything else and make the climax more of a formality, but thankfully the weirdness of the story had me interested enough to make it to the end? (I havent gotten all of the endings, but I think I got the "important ones"). Its one of those games where thematically and mechanically it feels like any kind of detail feels like a spoiler, given its intention seems to be to piece something for yourself in both cases, so I wont go too much into it. I will say however, that I was sold on the game when the first level of all was called "birth" and involved you as an "egg" rolling down a big tube to essentially be born.
As for the story, its like that scene at the end of 2001 : a space odyssey but for an entire game, idk what the fuck is going on beyond some vague ideas and interpretations about what it means, Id probably need to replay through the whole thing with a team or archaeologists to make heads or tails of it, but then I am kinda dumb so idk.
A pleasant surprise to be sure, a nice change of pace that has some interesting ideas in design
Edit : Got all the endings, including the canon ending, pretty cool
I found it to be quite engrossing, even getting some of that "tetris effect" after finishing it, lying in bed with an image of a toy ball rolling up a series of 'oil slick as seen through a kaleidoscope'-ass platforms. If I were to coin a stupid genre name for it it would be a "cheese-em-up" because it hits that primal urge in every attempt to go out of bounds or exploit a physics bug to cheese an annoying puzzle in a more conventional action game. Not all the levels or powers are winners of course, but finally getting up a big tower by some stupid scheme or walking along a line of pixels to reach a nee power through what feels like an "unintended" route; well it feels great. Thankfully I was home alone so no one could hear me cackling maniacally like a supervillain after my victory.
With all that being said, its a hard game to recommend, given that I think that the art direction will kill you if you have any sort of photosensitivity or history of epilepsy, but also that the game's appeal is quite specific.
But you know, thats kinda why its good. More games should be made to cater to a specific idea or urge rather than try to please everyone with the broadest possible sensibilities. Extreme Evolution kind of starts to lose steam after a certain point towards the climax cause you end up unlocking a few OP powers that just invalidate everything else and make the climax more of a formality, but thankfully the weirdness of the story had me interested enough to make it to the end? (I havent gotten all of the endings, but I think I got the "important ones"). Its one of those games where thematically and mechanically it feels like any kind of detail feels like a spoiler, given its intention seems to be to piece something for yourself in both cases, so I wont go too much into it. I will say however, that I was sold on the game when the first level of all was called "birth" and involved you as an "egg" rolling down a big tube to essentially be born.
As for the story, its like that scene at the end of 2001 : a space odyssey but for an entire game, idk what the fuck is going on beyond some vague ideas and interpretations about what it means, Id probably need to replay through the whole thing with a team or archaeologists to make heads or tails of it, but then I am kinda dumb so idk.
A pleasant surprise to be sure, a nice change of pace that has some interesting ideas in design
Edit : Got all the endings, including the canon ending, pretty cool
Hard to describe.
At its most material, it's a form-shifting platformer where you can swap forms at any time, allowing you to chain form swaps to do funny movement combos. Some stuff is self-explanatory - Tine attract you to magnets, Car is low to the ground and fast, Bomp is a bouncy ball - and some stuff is so odd that its utility has to be experienced - Polyp allows you to phase through walls by altering your center of mass, Pray disappears blocks which slowly reappear. In addition, there's several common rules that lead to some clever puzzle solution, like geometry backfaces being immaterial but not their fronts. You'll have to return to some levels later when you have the right forms to attempt them.
Married to this is a surrealist psychedelic aesthetic that is definitely unplayable to anyone with photosensitive epilepsy and which is more than a little disorienting. As a friend described it, "game looks like my graphics card is dying."
And... it's also very emotionally affective. To reduce this game to its most mechanical elements is to do it a disservice, although not much of one since the platforming challenges are very clever. Lovely music and surprisingly smart pacing/writing that caught me off guard. Most games I play don't/can't surprise me either mechanically or emotionally, and this game has done both. Maybe I've just experienced so many games in my time playing that straightforward "dad loses daughter" stuff can't touch my heart where this can. I dunno.
Definitely a game for the discerning player who is looking for something very different from the pack. Hits the mark for me. Love it.
At its most material, it's a form-shifting platformer where you can swap forms at any time, allowing you to chain form swaps to do funny movement combos. Some stuff is self-explanatory - Tine attract you to magnets, Car is low to the ground and fast, Bomp is a bouncy ball - and some stuff is so odd that its utility has to be experienced - Polyp allows you to phase through walls by altering your center of mass, Pray disappears blocks which slowly reappear. In addition, there's several common rules that lead to some clever puzzle solution, like geometry backfaces being immaterial but not their fronts. You'll have to return to some levels later when you have the right forms to attempt them.
Married to this is a surrealist psychedelic aesthetic that is definitely unplayable to anyone with photosensitive epilepsy and which is more than a little disorienting. As a friend described it, "game looks like my graphics card is dying."
And... it's also very emotionally affective. To reduce this game to its most mechanical elements is to do it a disservice, although not much of one since the platforming challenges are very clever. Lovely music and surprisingly smart pacing/writing that caught me off guard. Most games I play don't/can't surprise me either mechanically or emotionally, and this game has done both. Maybe I've just experienced so many games in my time playing that straightforward "dad loses daughter" stuff can't touch my heart where this can. I dunno.
Definitely a game for the discerning player who is looking for something very different from the pack. Hits the mark for me. Love it.