So Once Upon A Time

Review by demonxz95 on Monday, November 21st 2016
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Click to play StoryBoard

StoryBoard is a game created by cyangaming

... in this fantasy world, lived many creatures called "Sploderians" (splode-air-ee-ins) in which they made all of these magical games, some of the them are of really good quality, and some of them aren't and are quite trash. Here in this exclusive installment finds Demonxz95 playing a game made by CyanGaming (also known as Cian009 or GuezzWafflez), called "StoryBoard".


Review

So, by looking at the thumbnail, we see a title screen, which is actually the first level of the game. This makes the thumbnail almost seem like the cover of the game if it were a real video game sold at a real game store. It follows this mysterious black character (no racism, since he actually is black) with a similar art design to Limbo. That however is where the similarities to Limbo end. The thumbnail is very well crafted in my opinion. It features our main character and without telling absolutely everything, it shows us what the main gameplay objects are.


Going back to the art design, it's very simple. We see a green background (changing colors every 2 levels from green, to blue, to fuchsia, to orange) with these white boxes inside, and these white boxes are where you move and it's where they contain the unique gameplay elements that make the game. It's not extremely complicated and doesn't count millions of small graphics and effects the game has to render. Such omissions seem intentional as it honestly fits the feel of the game as well the name "StoryBoard". Hearing that may make you think of a comic book, and the white boxes may further reinforce that thought.


If we go into the actual game, your main gimmick is travelling across these different white boxes within the game by going into a... door? teleporter? Whatever those rectangles are supposed to be, you go in them, then a black dot within the colored area unlocks and allows you do drag along to reach other areas of the level. This is something that I haven't seen anyone do before (even in a similar manner), so those are definitely some points given and deserved. Of course, there are gameplay elements like switches, which unlock locked areas, springs which bounce you up to higher places, and boxes which you push around. This is definitely a puzzle game. You have to try to think ahead and plan out future moves accordingly because if you make a mistake, you will most likely be stuck and need to restart the level. What's interesting is that you actually can't jump in this game, which adds to puzzle solving and thinking immensely. In any game where you walk around the area, lacking the ability to jump makes you have to think long and hard about how you are going to plan everywhere you go.


The only really difficult section of the game is the end, but other than that, the game isn't too difficult at all. Which is good because there is a continuous, gentle incline in difficulty throughout the whole game that is honestly well done. Part of why the difficulty curve is gentle is because most of the levels in this game are pretty short. Not that that's a bad thing, just pointing that out. Part of a problem with a lot of featured games is that they tend to be quite difficult and cater mostly to the elite gamers on this site which make up an extremely small fraction of the site. The difficulty of this game however, can cater to a wider audience of Sploderians.


So far, everything in this review sounds positive. While yes, this is a very good game, there is a complaint for me to make. That would be that some of the stuff isn't as obvious as it seems. Particularly the objects that look like ladders. I didn't know they were teleporters until I walked into one. Also, the springs with locks on them, at first seemed like they needed to be activated to work, but quickly found out, nope.


Pros and Cons

Pros

Not too difficult

Good gameplay

Original and well executed concept

Cheerful art style.

Cons

Some objects are not obvious what they do at first glance.


Conclusion

This overall is a really nice game from CyanGaming who is very skilled with the PPG. It's simple, yet compelling to play and I think you should try it out for yourself.