brim4brim

Just bought this game off Steam and decided to write a quick review for it. This game involves controlling a robot with the keyboard and mouse in a 2D world. The world contains physics which allow you to move many objects around the environment with a grabbling gun that the robot has. The robot also has a gun that can shoot enemies. This gun features auto-lock so once you are in range and hover over an enemy it will lock on and you can jump around without having to reaim. The autolock works through ledges but you can't shoot or be shot through the ledges. I found the controls to be spot one. One nice feature is you can move the mouse to the edge of the screen to see ahead which allows you to view enemies that are coming up before they get in range to attack you. I was playing with a laptop touchpad so this feature made the game playable and any time I found myself on a ledge having to aim, the results weren't good. Probably would have much more success if I was just a mouse and was in the same situation. The requirements for the game do seem high but as stated by the developer on Steam forums, the physics require some optimisation. While we are talking about the gamer, I read a review of this game that states he left Lucasarts to make this game as an Indie developer and I must agree with that review, this developer has made a good career move. This game deserves to succeed and is more complete than a lot of indie games on Steam. The only flaw I have found is a lack of options to change graphical quality in game or full screen but the game ran fine on my laptop except when I paused when the menu had an odd behavior where the mouse movement became jittery. I would think it is due to how the menu is displayed with the game in background requiring too many resources and this laptop is on the exact minimum requirements to get a good gameplay experience. For your reference, this laptops is a core duo 1.6GHZ with 2GB or ram and Intel integrated graphics. Moving from level to level uses a quirky space ship flying which you control to the next level by using the mose and keyboard. This seems a little unrequired but adds to the quirkiness of the game and does make use of the physics for gravity on the levels as you fly around them. The developer has also stated that Mac and Linux versions are coming which is good trend among indie games on Steam of Mac and Linux support which considering some of these games are niche is a good thing. I can't say this game is niche though. I would imagine many, even most gamers would enjoy this game particularly if you like games that are a bit different. There is a demo available on Steam to try. I gave the game a 9/10 here, one mark deducted for lack of graphical options, other people on Steam forums also state it doesn't support controllers but the controls are very well implemented for Keyboard and Mouse so you probably won't need your gamepad for this game. The developer stated rightly that the game doesn't lend itself to controllers as the mouse movement requires precise movements which don't really lend themselves to controllers so I have not detucted a mark for it but something to keep in mind if you like playing games that way.