@CodeAlpaca Blandus review
Art 5.5/10: Right off the bat I’m just going to say, pokemon yellow, red, and blue mixed with earthbound vibes. If you aren’t familiar here is the main player character of blandus:
Here is the player character from Pokemon red, yellow, and blue:
And here is the player character (ness) from earthbound:
This is great! And honestly very charming and adds to the game experience. I wish I could give it a higher score because of how much I like it, but to keep it fair I’ll give it a normal score that I think I would give if I didn’t know about those games.
How well the game fits the style 9/10: This is probably blandus’s biggest strength. The sprites match perfectly with the style of game! Certain sprites and animations can use some polishing, but overall this is the highlight of the game and what it does best.
Gameplay 3.5/10: simple top down wasd story based explorer game. Towns that really remind me of the older pokemon games. And some pretty creative side missions. Not much point to it yet from what I can tell, but you can buy from the shop
I am extremely poor >.<
This is where the side quest that I found came in, all I had to do was cover up some holes in the backyard and ta-da! 25 smackeroonies
Little things like these brought up the grade from a 1.5 to a 3.5, and with more content added down the road this score can definitely go up.
Gameplay overview:
(I love the snarky comments around in the game)
Enjoyment 4.6/10: I can really tell that world design, and player experience were huge priorities in the making of this game. It’s great and I really appreciate that! The bland (pun intended) controls and overall gameplay do take away from the enjoyment of the game by quite a bit, but the world itself, the dialog and the characters really felt well made. Great job!
Difficulty 0/10: other than me struggling to find where I’m supposed to take lily there isn’t much difficulty at all.
Story 2/10: so far it feels random, like my older brother handed me the controller to a game I’ve never played before but he’s already played the first 5 levels. You start off the game right away and it doesn’t feel like the beginning, it feels like I’m already at the middle of the game.
Sound design 2/10: good choice for music ambiance from the flowlab sounds, but other than that and turning around (nice animation by the way) there isn’t much sound.
Title 4/10: It somewhat fits, but the only real connection it has to the game is the name of the starting town.
Originality 2/10: the reason I’m rating it so low isn’t because of the story, but more of everything else. The music, pixel art (as mentioned earlier), and world that you explore feels like a fanmade pokemon/earthbound rom hack.
Game feel 4/10: it feels good enough, its not too clunky and not too quick. It’s pretty close to being a perfect middleground if you ask me.
Creativity 5.7/10: pretty good, other than the obvious similarities to other well known games it feels pretty new and creative. You took a lot of freedom with designing your own world, and it did work out.
Overall 4.23/10: I was pretty bias on some of the scoring, so it rounded up a liitle higher than I think it should be, but the numbers don’t lie. I’d say if I had to put all of my personal feelings aside and rate it as a game it would be more of a 2.43/10. This is still very very good with how small the game is so far, so please don’t take that as an insult! Keep my suggestions in mind, and I’d love to review your game again once it’s done!
Reward: The ramshackle badge of approval
(credit to huckleberry for the sprite)