Playing Neon White casually when I have several friends who consistently rank in the top 50 players in the world is very strange. My personal impressions are clouded more than a little by the secondhand excitement of watching someone grind out better and better times, cheering for them when they overtake their rival, laughing as they look at the excellent names on the leaderboard. I love Neon White the milieu and I've seen up close and personal why someone would adore this game.
I don't adore this game.
There were moments when I thought I might. In the early-middle chapters, the game achieved a graceful balance of complexity and precision that had me excited. The levels were bite-sized without being simple, the weapons were cleverly placed to introduce possibility without breaking the game, and I found myself improving my route run after run until I found something close to the best possible (even if my execution could never measure up to my friends').
But this joy was short-lived. New weapons were introduced that ran against the grain of the game, doubling down on onerous precision and execution requirements in a game that by its nature has plenty of both already. Optimal routing started requiring me to comb the screen for pixel-perfect shots, or (as I actually did for the last chapter) simply look them up online.
Even in its failures, there's a compellingly homemade quality about Neon White. It has such an excellent core idea that it's easy to forgive the various flawed design elements. And although Ben Esposito is a veteran game designer, this project requires a different kind of design than anything he's published previously, with crucial elements of play unfolding from tiny decisions—how many frames should this take? how much ammunition should that have? how will this type of gun inform the level design inform the player's experience?
I spent the latter third of this game waiting impatiently for it to either end or get better, so I doubt I'll pick it up again even if DLC drops. But I'm glad it exists, and I'm glad I played it through, if only so I'll have the context to fully appreciate watching my friends shave milliseconds off their personal bests.
I don't adore this game.
There were moments when I thought I might. In the early-middle chapters, the game achieved a graceful balance of complexity and precision that had me excited. The levels were bite-sized without being simple, the weapons were cleverly placed to introduce possibility without breaking the game, and I found myself improving my route run after run until I found something close to the best possible (even if my execution could never measure up to my friends').
But this joy was short-lived. New weapons were introduced that ran against the grain of the game, doubling down on onerous precision and execution requirements in a game that by its nature has plenty of both already. Optimal routing started requiring me to comb the screen for pixel-perfect shots, or (as I actually did for the last chapter) simply look them up online.
Even in its failures, there's a compellingly homemade quality about Neon White. It has such an excellent core idea that it's easy to forgive the various flawed design elements. And although Ben Esposito is a veteran game designer, this project requires a different kind of design than anything he's published previously, with crucial elements of play unfolding from tiny decisions—how many frames should this take? how much ammunition should that have? how will this type of gun inform the level design inform the player's experience?
I spent the latter third of this game waiting impatiently for it to either end or get better, so I doubt I'll pick it up again even if DLC drops. But I'm glad it exists, and I'm glad I played it through, if only so I'll have the context to fully appreciate watching my friends shave milliseconds off their personal bests.