An Exhibition In The Sahara Gone Wild!

Eclipse is a game created by egnite

Game: Eclipse

Maker: Egnite

Genre: Platformer

Prethoughts

Egnite is a superb game maker when it comes to the Platformer Creator. Egnite’s use of puzzles is outstanding, and has a very unique way of displaying his true art. He demonstrates a great use of complexity in his games. If you don’t already know, I would consider Egnite to be my favorite game maker on Sploder, because of his talent of getting players to stay locked in his games. In this section, I’ll also talk about the thumbnail. The thumbnail shows great placement, but looks rather unorganized and sloppy. The thumbnail however is not the only factor of whether or not a game is categorized as “good” or “bad.” Let’s get to the main aspects of the game, to tell if it is good or bad.

Gameplay

The game play of Eclipse was substantial, and never made the player stop. The use of puzzles and traps were well used, and relatively challenging. The exploring space was a little small, due to tight spaces, and direct directions. What I mean by this, is the fact that players must go one direction and it is exceptionally difficult to get lost in the map. Eclipse took fun to an all new level; the use of puzzles and the size were the main aspects of the game play. Lots of games are small to medium sized puzzle games, but this game was about the size of a huge adventure type game. Take a look at the radar and you’ll see; lots of tiles and hazards. Although this game was based solely on puzzles, the traps would kill you. Surprisingly, the difficulty was a nine instead of a ten because of younger player’s lack of ability to understand the concepts of the puzzles (not saying all younger players can’t figure out puzzles).

Puzzles and Traps

In my opinion puzzles are the best parts of Platformer games, and that’s exactly what Egnite put in Eclipse. The puzzles were amazingly placed, and are unavoidable. I loved the overall design of the puzzles because if the player made a mistake, most likely they won’t be able to beat the game. Although I would have to say the puzzles were somewhat easy but improved later on in the game. One of the well designed puzzles is the orange switch puzzle. I am not going to spoil the puzzle, so all I will say is you need to somehow deactivate the orange switch to clear the way so you can walk through and get the blue key, and so on. Some of the next puzzles are relatively simple if you know what you’re doing. I’ve experienced Platformer games for two years, so my point-of-view is different than others although I’m not the best at beating them; I know my ways around some puzzles, and what I’ve seen in Eclipse are some of the best puzzles I’ve seen since Youngcaliman’s games and Jackjoshseb’s games. The puzzles were some of the best aspects of Eclipse. The traps on the other hand were not as good as the puzzles, but were decent. Some of the traps, players can easily maneuver themselves out of; but yet again there were still some very ingenious traps for instance the ones with the cIosers and you had to do a certain something to get past them. The traps were definitely not the best parts of the games however were still pretty good and might result in a relatively high score.

Placement

Placement is a HUGE factor to tell whether or not a game is categorized as “Bad”, “Normal”, “Feature worthy”, or “Epic Game List worthy.” The placement in Eclipse was phenomenal, and couldn’t be much better than that. The placement of tiles, and back tiles were perfectly placed and took some time to do. Egnite’s efforts reflected on how good this game turned out, and let’s just say Eclipse is in my top five. The placement of enemies was decent, and the reason why there weren’t many enemies is because this game is based solely on puzzles and traps. The placement of the puzzles were awesome, they were everywhere! Players would encounter the deadly wrath of the puzzles just about every step they took. The variation factor was great; Egnite placed different tiles based on where the player was at. The placement of Eclipse was amazing; the score will reflect how I feel about it.

Scenery

Scenery is not a huge pet-peeve of mine, I honestly do not mind for scenery, however many players do. The scenery in Eclipse was great, because he didn’t put scenery everywhere but when he did the quality was intermediate quality. Egnite put background pieces all underground with occasional torches, and put background pieces in what looks like empty doorways above ground. The torches looked nice even though they weren’t needed due to the fact the game is in 8bit, because they gave a nice feeling to the players and made the game look a little bit more realistic. Since scenery isn’t a huge factor to me, the rating will be worth half the value as normal ratings would be, but still be an out-of-five rating.

Pros

-Puzzles & Traps

-Game play

-Unique

Cons

I couldn’t find any.

Neutral

Scenery

Traps

Ratings

Creativity: 4.5/5; I felt Egnite did a great job in Eclipse, and thought well outside the box.

Scenery: 3/5; I felt Egnite did a good job at placing down background tiles, and torches but could have been better.

Gameplay: 4/5; Egnite did a great job improving player’s experiences in Eclipse, minor improvements can be done.

Puzzles: 5/5; Egnite did an amazing job at making up the puzzles, and amazing complexity was shown throughout Eclipse.

Traps: 3/5; Egnite did a decent job at making the traps and placing them, but moderate improvements can be made.

Addictiveness: 4.8/5; I don’t know about everyone else, but I couldn’t stop playing this game!

Overall: 4.1/5; Amazing effort was put into this game, and very small improvements can be made although I love the way it is now, great job Egnite!

Feature Worthy?

I would have to say yes, this game absolutely deserved the feature. The combination of puzzles, traps, and overall creativeness was stunning. In conclusion, Eclipse was a great piece of work, and I cannot wait to see more work from Egnite.