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Blawks

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BLAWKS is a cube- and color-based platformer.
The Goal? Simple. Work your way through multiple simplistic, yet tricky levels, while avoiding spikes and obstacles in your path and killing the enemies standing in your way by jumping onto them or throwing your tomahawk at them.


The current best for a full run is 2:20min. Or so they say!


The game is also available for Android on Google Play: http://goo.gl/JjDUXU

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You get props for the level of features available in this game. Mute options, varying types of controls, graphic scales, etc. - it's really nice to see games that let you get some customization in.

As for the gameplay, though? This may be a hard game, but most of that frankly comes from the lacking controls. You've got some decent concepts in here - I in particular like the mechanic of having to collect your tomohawks once thrown, rather than giving us an infinite supply - but honestly, these controls just suck.

In the first place, the "jump" function is incredibly irritating - you get credit for letting us toggle it, but forcing us to use space as the jump key by default when we're also juggling a mouse control is irritating. Also, making it so that only "w" or "up" works for jumping at any given time can be annoying - I doubt I'm the only right-hander who likes to use the arrow keys and switch to WASD only when she needs to break out the mouse.

Aside from that, though, the character handles spectacularly badly. Not only is the movement painfully slow, though - it's incredibly slippery and unresponsive. My character bounces and stumbles and stutters, such that I often run into bullets without realizing it because I'm too busy trying to get this guy to actually jump through a gap. I should not have to try twenty times to land on a block that's three times as wide as my character because she keeps slipping off it or not maneuvering quickly enough to land on it despite being right next to it. It's not uniquely difficult enough to be a source of entertainment in and of itself (such as Surgeon Simulator or QWOP), but it's too glitchy to make the rest of the game enjoyable. I suppose "carefully wrangling keys while your character dances around like a drunken puppet in molasses" is technically related to skill, but honestly, it's the type of "challenge" that's hollow. With more reasonable controls, this game would be pretty mediocre, challenge-wise, with level design that's not particularly inventive and takes no real puzzle-solving to complete. Compare to more masterful games like "Give Up," which has fantastic controls but a lot of bullets and relies on careful timing, or the infamous "I Wanna Be the Guy," which requires not only careful timing and movement but a bit of puzzle-solving to boot, and it's pretty clear that this game falls short. Combined with music that requires a mute button, sound effects that could only be controlled by the "music" slider but weren't muted with the music for some reason, a lack of any real pause feature (as the menu just resets my progress) and tomahawks that just ignored my clicks half the time, fun was not had.

2/5

PeterKr responds:

Thanks a lot for giving and honest opinion and a sincere review with the issues you're having rather than just saying "this is good/bad" because frankly, those reviews aren't helpful to developers at all except for being (de-)motivational.

I will take the issues you noted into account and try to change the game accordingly. Especially when it comes to the controls I have to admit that there is a lot of space for improval, I've noticed that myself as well. Once I've taken care of these problems (and I will do so in the near future) I'd be happy to invite you to re-play the game and listen to your opinion once more.

Loved it man, pretty original ... :D great work

Surprisingly fun although its a bit hard to crush on enemies.

Amazing game, must play it. Very addicting and really good when bored or need something to do.

Credits & Info

Views
1,764
Faves:
2
Votes
4
Score
3.88 / 5.00

Uploaded
Jul 28, 2014
5:52 PM EDT