Blips: Musically Inclined

Source: FRACT OSC isn’t a synthesizer or a game. It’s both
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

I reviewed FRACT OSC for Kill Screen this week, which is a first-person exploration/puzzle game that also leads you through the basics of producing music with a synthesizer. The "game" part is sort of a combination of TRON, Metroid, and Myst where each puzzle you solve, unlocks a new component of your synthesizer studio. That you can go into the studio and record music that kind of sounds like the beginnings of Kraftwerk sketches is pretty cool in it's own right, but I loved that the puzzles drew inspiration from the step-sequencer as well. FRACT's not perfect, but it's definitely worth checking out, particularly if you're adept at these kinds of puzzle experiences. While there's a learning curve to the studio portion, the exploration component offers little guidance, and thus is more attuned to players who are already adept with this sort of gameplay.

For full disclosure, the developers granted reviewers access to a walkthrough video of many of the game's puzzles, and I referenced it on a handful of occasions, either as a time-saver or because I was genuinely stuck and on a deadline. As I mention in the review, there's a certain irony to the diametrically opposed learning curves of the studio and puzzle sections. So, while I enjoy a good heady puzzle game, I think some of the visual language of FRACT could stand to communicate certain interactive points a bit more deliberately or perhaps other aspects of the world could be a bit more playful. Surely I can get some kind of synth to emerge by waving the cursor over a pillar of neon. Alas, there's always Proteus for that.

Blips: Fall Fling

Source: Untold Riches: An Analysis Of Portal's Level Design
Author: Hamish Todd
Site: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Portal's a pretty smartly designed game. I played it for the first time a few months ago, and was impressed by inventive physics-based puzzles. Portal has proven to be a tremendously influential game in terms of environmental storytelling and making your standard block-pushing minigame even more boring that it already was. There's just something kind of amazing about staring into a portal you've created and seeing an entire area, just waiting to be stepped into. It has a similar appeal to mirrored surfaces in games; offering moments where you can see your character and the world around you from a different perspective than the one offered by the game's camera.

Now, the article by Hamish Todd that I wanted to share is all about Portal's physics –specifically the "fling" technique. The picture above illustrates what flinging is all about. Basically, you set up a situation where you jump from a height through a portal on the ground, only to emerge from a wall portal with he forward momentum gained from your quick descent. The result is that you are flung forward through space. The fling ends up becoming one of Portal's core conceits, sometimes asking that you rotate or shoot a new portal in midair to change trajectory. It seems so simple, yet it hadn't really been done before –not like this anyway.

In his article, Todd walks through a number of different puzzle rooms from Portal and some of the extended challenges, showing how many different ways the fling was implemented (some great illustrative GIFs in there too). The fling was a naturally occurring phenomenon in the game engine before it became central to Portal's gameplay, as if it was something to be discovered. This reminds me of how Devil May Cry's air juggling mechanic was born out of an Onimusha glitch where enemies weren't falling to the ground after being launched above you. It's a philosophy of looking at something that happens unexpectedly and embracing it for what it is. How refreshing.