Devil World is now available on Nintendo’s Switch Online service, I’ve finally checked out Shigeru Miyamoto’s answer to the Maze genre.
Tamagon is a green dragon infiltrating the Devil World, to advance through stages Tamagon must collect all of the dots in each stage while avoiding walking monsters, however he’s not defenceless - collecting crosses give Tamagon the power to blow fire at foes.
The catch is, the screen moves! On top of the screen is The Devil who is instructing demons to use pulley’s to literally move the screen to the left, right, down and up. This creates an additional layer of complexity, you’re simultaneously juggling the navigation of foes, collection dots and power-ups as well as avoiding being squished against a moving border.
However, this also means you can be left needlessly waiting for the screen to move the direction necessary to collect the final dots. There are also a few Bonus screens that involve collecting Bibles and placing them into a Cross.
It’s easy to see why this was passed on for localisation from Nintendo of America with the religious imagery and themes.
I also think it would have been difficult competing with an already established household name. It’s easy to sell buyers on Tennis, Soccer, Baseball and Donkey Kong. Hard to say, here’s our own PAC-Man.
PAC-Man is a much more immediate maze game that is easy to play but difficult to master, has a simple risk/reward system but has enemy AI and a maze to memorise.
Devil’s World while good, may have a few too many levels of complication in its design.
Tamagon is a green dragon infiltrating the Devil World, to advance through stages Tamagon must collect all of the dots in each stage while avoiding walking monsters, however he’s not defenceless - collecting crosses give Tamagon the power to blow fire at foes.
The catch is, the screen moves! On top of the screen is The Devil who is instructing demons to use pulley’s to literally move the screen to the left, right, down and up. This creates an additional layer of complexity, you’re simultaneously juggling the navigation of foes, collection dots and power-ups as well as avoiding being squished against a moving border.
However, this also means you can be left needlessly waiting for the screen to move the direction necessary to collect the final dots. There are also a few Bonus screens that involve collecting Bibles and placing them into a Cross.
It’s easy to see why this was passed on for localisation from Nintendo of America with the religious imagery and themes.
I also think it would have been difficult competing with an already established household name. It’s easy to sell buyers on Tennis, Soccer, Baseball and Donkey Kong. Hard to say, here’s our own PAC-Man.
PAC-Man is a much more immediate maze game that is easy to play but difficult to master, has a simple risk/reward system but has enemy AI and a maze to memorise.
Devil’s World while good, may have a few too many levels of complication in its design.