I can’t say I’m a fan of the whole Stauf-ian notion of kids’ souls stuck in toys and the menacing aspects of the theme of the game, but Devil’s Tuning Fork looks like it could be a very interesting game to play with. The core notions of sound being translated into vision, obscured game terrain and player control over visibility make for some pretty cool visuals, and likely, some fun gaming.
Indie games can be awesome sometimes. Just ask the Rampant Coyote. Or Psychochild. Or 2D Boy.
Not knowing what’s in front of you did invoke a genuine feeling of dread, but the game tends to rely on floating platforms a bit too much, enticing the player to spam the sound to stay on the platforms.
I was afraid of that. The floating platforms looked like the weakest part of the game. Thanks for chiming in, Hirvox! I haven’t had time to try the game yet.
I tried it, but couldn’t play it long. The sound mechanic is very bad design because it is disorienting due to the havoc it plays with your spatial sense as well as the pulsing lights.
It’s also unneccessary. You could make the environments visible and use the pulse just to reveal hidden things. Not being able to see anything at all to the basic gameplay except confusing the player.
This is the first game though where I think it makes a lot of sense to have an epilepsy warning.
Perhaps this is a better game for exploring the notion of a game world that the player has to explore the very geometry of:
http://www.psfk.com/2008/10/the-unfinished-swan-a-black-and-white-video-game.html
Either way, I like the idea of making the player an active participant in making the world known, rather than just displaying all of it. Maybe that’s a bad idea at heart, but it’s something that I like to see explored to see if there’s anything useful there.
I wonder if a flashlight version might be better, to keep from the epileptic strobing and give more context than the splats or sound waves provide.
I don’t think the idea is bad at all, just the implementation. I might also be a minority of people who get affected by this, and many may be perfectly okay. I’m a little vulnerable to disorientation in games, especially if they don’t have enough visual cues.