Borkachev on 11 January 2008
Most people thought there was something unique about it because most people didn't know about the groundwork that has been done before it.
It's unique to a lot of people just due to their own ignorance. To many people the I-pod was unique despite the fact that MP3 players had been around forever. Most people had no idea that portable MP3 players existed.
It's unique to a lot of people just due to their own ignorance. To many people the I-pod was unique despite the fact that MP3 players had been around forever. Most people had no idea that portable MP3 players existed.
Nonsense. The level creation/customization aspects have been done before to a certain extent (though I don't know if they've been done in a platformer), but the art style, the cooperative elements, the heavy use of the environment, the physics-driven gameplay, these are all unique -- or certainly unique in this combination. No game is made 100% out of things we haven't seen before.
It's complicated by design, at this point in development it seems complicated to make the characters get to an area, and especially if you're playing with someone who isn't quite 'capable' it will become very, very frustrating. I became very frustrated just by watching the game being played by the Sony reps because they weren't very good at playing the game.
The complication is in the 2d but 3d blocks (you move backwards to get onto the other blocks) that complicates things and will turn 'new' gamers off playing the game.
It's the difference between design philosophies on Wii and PS3 in general. If Nintendo made this game they would try and do it with two buttons. Reports about the controls for this game involve both analogue sticks and most of the face buttons (during character and level creation etc).
The complication is in the 2d but 3d blocks (you move backwards to get onto the other blocks) that complicates things and will turn 'new' gamers off playing the game.
It's the difference between design philosophies on Wii and PS3 in general. If Nintendo made this game they would try and do it with two buttons. Reports about the controls for this game involve both analogue sticks and most of the face buttons (during character and level creation etc).
The devs weren't having trouble because it was complicated to get to an area, they were having trouble because it was hard (or maybe because they were nervous). Big difference. It may be hard to jump onto a tiny platform, but it certainly isn't complicated.
I don't know what kind of low-functioning institutionalized casual gamers you've been playing with, but I'm pretty sure that anyone over the age of 7 will be able to pick this game up in a couple minutes. The game defines accessibility: everything looks like real-world objects, and the obstacles all follow the mechanical, physical principles that we observe every day in real life. Nothing here is arbitrary the way it usually is in video games. There's no floating question mark blocks or freaky turtle-bird monsters ("I stomp on the turtle, pick up his shell, and kick it at the block? Why the christ do I do that?"), there's just wheels and balls and levers and gears. If someone can't figure out how to progress in this game, it's because they're not smart enough, not because they aren't familiar enough with games.
As for the controls, the full use of the button layout comes in, as you said, during level creation and emotes. In other words, it's completely optional. As far as we know, to just play the game, all you need to do is move, jump and grab. Two buttons, just like you said Nintendo would do.
The multi-layered 2D environments might be a slight hitch, but to me so far they look just like the backgrounds in Mario, where you jump up and land on a surface behind you.
