popping out
+++ I like the style of everything. Has a cool, crisp feel. Clouds are specially pretty.
- Penguins are cross-eyed.
-- Hittests can feel unfair. After last time, I realised that I need to get them to hit the nose exactly as they cross that horizontal line. It's understandable, but still feels odd and overly exacting when the penguins pass through the nose from the side.
---- Often, missing a penguin or losing a life felt unavoidable as penguins fell near-simultaneously or icicles fell at the same position as a penguin.
---- No feeling of risk or any surprises. 3 different bounce-patterns and icicles just aren't enough. 30 'lives' too many. And we should be reminded of how many we can kill somehow.
----- Early levels involve a long 'wait' in between each 'touch' we need to make.
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Played this when it was released. Got to 16. Seeing it still in the portal, I was intrigued to see whether it actually got any better.
The last level did seem to have some challenge. But despite so many losses, I still won. Most losses were due to my increasing apathy or lack of concentration, around 10 felt forced upon me.
This, to me, just seems like a far worse version of that 'Fire Escape' G+W. There, partially due to the technical limitations, we never felt 'cheated' by any timing or collision detection issues. However, the high number of folk popping out and the lower number of lives ensured faster, more frantic, gameplay.
This just seemed boring.