Posts Tagged ‘Dare’

Another game based on colours, this time from Team Noobeez. This one is deceptively simple. You control a ball in an abstract, minimalist environment. You can make the ball accelerate, bounce, or stick by collecting colour blocks around the game. Your goal is simple: you just have to accumulate as many points as you can while making your way through the level. You get points for everything - climbing up a wall, clearing a checkpoint, even falling to your doom in style.

The Tron-like classic quality of this game is key: it’s fun, addictive, and very playable.  Sometimes simple is best.

Colour Scheme is just one of the many game prototypes you can try at the Dare to be Digital Protoplay showcase event.

It’s a classic tale. Girl eats mushroom (or cake, or whatever it was), girl gets shrunk. Except in this game by The Butterflyers, it’s a boy who gets shrunk, and must rescue his uncle from the evil shrinking clutches of a scientist-wizard dude. Shrunk! is a fun puzzle game where you control the proportions of the world around you. There was something very satisfying about being able to shrink things at will. The power! The control!  My poor post-lunch brain had a bit of trouble with this one, but I would happily return to it to complete the game and zap the evil dude’s brain with a green laser. Who doesn’t love a green laser?

While visually the designers didn’t take any risks, the game is nicely lit, elegant in its design, with a strong and coherent brand identity. Watch out for these guys!

Shrunk! is just one of the many game prototypes you can try at the Dare to be Digital Protoplay showcase event.

No animator can resist the lure of a Wacom Cintiq. So shiny, so flat, so tactile - you can draw straight onto the high resolution screen. The ones at Pixel Pirates’ stand drew me in like a bee to honey. They were the perfect vehicle for a game in which you paint objects and props to alter their physical attributes. Want to remove a blocking stone? Paint it blue to make it levitate. Need a bit of bounce in your step? Paint some yellow onto the road and your characters will soon be leaping over the next obstacle.

With an intuitive interface, the ability to design how your character looks, and some fun touches (who doesn’t love a llama?), this game has immediate appeal.

Colour Coded is just one of the many game prototypes you can try at the Dare to be Digital Protoplay showcase event.

Have you ever had that feeling of being stuck in a terrible dream? This unsettling feeling is the inspiration behind Trouble Maker’s Dare to be Digital entry. Tom is stuck in a maze-like dreamworld, and must explore both this sweet dreams and nightmares in order to escape. It’s part puzzle, part action as Tom tries to keep out of the way of monsters in his quest to reconstitute a magical clock.

With 4 artists on the team, a lot of attention was spent on the environments, props, and atmosphere of the game. The mechanics were simple enough, but I found myself increasingly confused and frustrated by the layout of the world. Even with the patient guidance of the student who was demonstrating the game, I found myself lost and unable to complete the first task. An original idea, but perhaps not one for the casual gamer!

Tom’s Odd Dreamworld is just one of the many game prototypes you can try at the Dare to be Digital Protoplay showcase event.