I’ve taken a few minutes here and there in the past few days to play Star Guard by Vacuum Flowers, after being introduced to it by my partner Mike via twitter. It just got frontpaged on TIGSource. Here’s an excerpt where Xander mentions his one qualm about the game:
Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences.
One of my favorite things about the game is Xander’s problem – i.e. it’s not a big deal at all when you die. To me, that made dying in the game fun in itself. I reveled in the fact that I could carelessly blast forward with glee, knowing that if I would die, I’d come back to the same spot in a matter of a couple seconds.
The character design is amazing, considering they’re expressed in just a few pixels. The player has a surprising amount of life through the animations, and the Zomboid and charging rhino characters have a very distinctive personality.
Also, the game’s sound design is superb. I’m not saying that just because it’s created with SFXR, but because the sound choices made within that 8-bit limitation were very tasteful. Jumping is noticable, yet not obnoxious. The explosions are just right, the lava sounds are charming, and timer-based platforms give you a perfect feeling of urgency before they blow up.
The character design, sound design, and effects combine to form a polished feel from an otherwise minimal, low-budget aesthetic. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to take the same perspective on art direction. Vacuum Flowers has nailed it and made it look easy.
The story is presented in a minimal and pleasing way. As the image above suggests, it is simply displayed in the background of the level. There’s rarely more than 12 words to read. And the level design usually suggests what the words of the story are trying to express. It works so well that I’m sure we’ll see more of that in the future.
It’s an excellent game all around, with solid tuning to the platforming. I just wish I could get to the 8th and 9th level since there’s a random level-loading bug with the OS X version.
