[#7] Frustrating, But Rewarding

Physics Ball is a game created by 8bit8bit

Hey all, I'm back with my 7th review, in fact the first one in nearly two years. So forgive me if this review is a little rusty.

Introduction

The game I'll be reviewing is named 'Physics Ball', created by a user known as 8bit8bit, but the user has gone through many transitions and is most known by 'firepinch' or 'toxicwolf107'. He has one feature to his name, but a shooter rather than a PPG like Physics Ball.

The Game Summed Up

Physics Ball is a game in which you control a ball and must collect all the coins in the arena, all while dodging enemies and trying not to fall off. It employs particular physics aspects such as friction, climbing, etc. which makes it unlike most standard prefab-based PPG games.

Thumbnail

The thumbnail suggested that this was another one of the simple physics games involving basic shapes navigating the playfield to collect the objectives (coins in this case). I came into the game expecting it to be similar to the vast array of other simplicity-based games. I assumed the game would be decent, but not great seeing as though it uses a recycled concept.

Game-Play

Like I mentioned earlier, the game revolves around a straightforward concept - use the arrow keys to jump across platforms and collect coins, but don't touch the enemies. It certainly was not a new idea, I have seen it many many times in the past presented in various different ways. This game was slightly different though due to the mechanics being more 'realistic' in a way. There were no double jumps, gravity was far more prevalent, the ball would bounce more often like a normal ball would, among many others. At times this did seem like a good execution, for example you could utilize the friction to climb up walls rather than exploiting the unrealistic double-jump, and this also allowed you to cling to walls to prevent yourself from falling into the abyss below the playfield.

The game did not have an intro or outro which was very refreshing, and instead it went straight to the point. There were 6 levels to the game, which is okay, but the levels themselves were not complex which made them very short. However 8bit8bit made up for this with the difficulty.

While the extent of the enemies was low, it was difficult as times to navigate without clipping them or straight up crashing into them. But the mechanics of the game were the main cause for this, and not necessarily in a good way. The jumping was quite sloppy in which the jumps themselves were short and didn't allow for very good flexibility in direction, and ricochets were more damaging than they should have been. One slight bump of a wall would send you hurling into the evil red squares, which was an instant game over. I estimated that I lost perhaps within 10 seconds due to this. You also cannot jump while in the bouncing process, which slowed things down greatly and also made jumping very tedious and frustrating as it was difficult to control. Coins were placed well however, so it wasn't too hard or too easy to get some of the coins, as there was almost always something that could stop you, whether that was an enemy, falling out the map or the coins being in a difficult place to reach.

8bit8bit did a good job of keeping the difficulty consistent. The levels all ascended in difficulty, except for the last level, which featured one single coin that was very easy to obtain.

I felt the game was too short despite the difficulty. Levels were just too simple, and there weren't enough levels. That being said, it did take me 9 minutes to complete the game, but that's simply down to my gaming abilities. Some users were able to finish in just a couple minutes. I would've liked to see more content, whether that be using the scrolling playfield, adding more levels, or both.

Design

The design of this game was plain and simple. It was okay, but not great. It was perhaps too simple. There could've been graphics, objects could've been coloured differently so that they stand out more, background could have more detail, but it wasn't as though the game was horrible to look at, it was sufficient. One thing I didn't like with what was in the game were some of the ways the blocks were presented. You could clearly see the lines separating different shapes, which made the game look rushed and unclean. This could be easily solved by using the multi-shape tool. It may not have made a huge difference but it would have certainly help improve the design.

As for the level design itself, I think 8bitbit did a good job at this. The placements allowed for a consistently increasing difficulty throughout the game, but as mentioned before it was, at times, not enough. The first level had no means of losing the game, which was a shame because it would've been nice for the game to start off fairly high to kick things off, rather than with an impossible-to-lose tutorial-esque filler.

One small problem I noticed was the elevator on level 4. The upper part of the elevator was a solid block that you had to jump up onto, rendering the elevator useless. I don't know if this was intentional or not but it was certainly annoying.

So while the design had its issues, there were noticeable positives. But as always, the scores will have to wait until the end of the review.

Addictiveness

I found this game incredibly frustrating to play. This was mainly due to the slightly buggy mechanics, but I found myself making the same easily-avoidable mistakes throughout my first playthrough of the game. However each loss added to my thirst to win the game. There were times where I really wanted to give up and move on, but I persisted as I knew it was a game that could be beaten. It was a good feeling to finally finish the game in 9:42 (which is the slowest time at the time this review is being written).

While the game was addicting this does not excuse the fact that the game was ~really~ frustrating. A game can still be addicting to play without being difficult and awkward to play. I think the frustration would be better off coming from a more advanced difficulty system, rather than the fact that the ball was difficult to control which lead to me losing at parts I really shouldn't have. But that being said, I can see myself playing this game again to beat that low time.

Ratings!

We've reached the end of the main review and I applaud anybody who managed to read that wall of text. But let's assess the game in numbers! But before that...

Pros

- Addicting

- Acceptable design

- Consistent difficulty

- Decent execution

Cons

- Quite buggy

- Design was a little sloppy

- Too short, not enough content

- Fairly unoriginal

Final Scores

Overall Score

...

...

Physics Ball receives a score of

Nice one!

Final Thoughs

While there were flaws to the game, I had fun playing it, and I suggest you take a look at the game yourself. I wouldn't consider this feature worthy, it's just too simple and the mechanics weren't too clean, plus the game was nothing new. If 8bit8bit managed to clean the game up ie. spend some more time on design, fix some of the bugs and make the game longer, perhaps it would reach EGD standards, but I don't think it's something that is good enough to be featured.

Thanks for reading.