Rocket to the Paper Moon

So in my last post I mentioned only two genres that environments have lead game-play, but I forgot another one which is Platformers. Paper Moon is a web app game using Unity. It is a time trial platform game where the player's aim is to rack up as much points as possible by collecting fruit, time bonuses and finishing the game in a fast time.

The main game-play comes from the player controlling both the character and environment to advance through the game. There is not really any story so the player is just focusing on the levels, and pushing the focus on to the environment even more.

The basics behind the game-play are you move the environment between the foreground and the background to cross sections of the levels, kill or block enemies and reach different paths to the end. What this does is make the player the sole reason for failure in getting a decent score in the game.

If the player fails its their fault.

Some of the ways to get through the levels are quite well hidden in the background and foreground and some times you don't realise the other ways you can do things. For instance, in the first level there is a set of stars hanging in the sky all the way through. However, further on in the level they can be used to reach another section of the level but its hard to notice without seeing them move if you can use them.

I like what this game does psychologically to the player. The way it makes you feel when you make yourself fail. It gets bloody annoying! I'm not sure if this is a bad thing though. Will have a look into it a little more might ask a couple of people how it makes them feel. I think it could be a thing that could put people off coming back to a game or carrying on with it if this style of game-play was used in a larger game.