Surely A Blank Mind Didn't Create This Game

Blank Mind is a game created by mat7772

Game: Blank Mind

Maker: Mat7772

Genre: Platformer

Prethoughts

Mat7772 is well known for his innovation of backtracking introduced by YoungCaliman; using items more than once with more than one life and backtracking to collect items after the player’s death or so. I really admire the way Mat7772 executes his Puzzle Platformers because not only does he innovate backtracking without being tedious, but he either innovates puzzles by extending them or he’ll create all new puzzles that were never seen before or have never been imagined before. Mat7772 is an inspiration for all Puzzle Platformer makers and may one day knock out a grand slam and head for the Epic Games Library, but let’s talk about one of his twenty-eight features: Blank Mind.

Review

The gameplay was pretty nice featuring puzzles that either hasn’t been seen before or they’re in a unique place that hasn’t been done much before. Nice and smooth playing not to mention; it’s so fluent and fast that even a slow computer can handle it! There are some doors and items to start out with showing that action hasn’t been added in the beginning and it isn’t a difficult puzzle to start out with. I really like this style because you can actually dive deep into the game (whether you’re playing it right or not) and enjoy it instead of getting stuck so early that you might as well throw out a one star rating and be on your way. There were some downfalls though being that sometimes a puzzle wouldn’t work if you have a slower computer (not that there would be too much lag, but that tiny bit that could alter the puzzle) then a grenade wouldn’t come out right or a bat wouldn’t move correctly. Of course sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s not too big of a deal; the vast majority of the puzzles worked just fine.

Placement is the key in any game as everyone obviously knows, and Mat7772 went to work with the placement. The placement of puzzles and powerups in my “blank” mind was probably the best aspects in the placement category has he spread out the puzzles in a well breathing manner, and the powerups were used so closely together, but yet had completely different meanings and use times. Mat7772 didn’t add one too many barrel or didn’t leave out a barrel when it came to a puzzle, and that goes for all of the puzzles. He made everything flow so smoothly and made sure lag wouldn’t occur too harshly in a game worth the length, although there were well under a thousand objects placed in the game (estimation of course). The overall tile placement wasn’t bad at all either because of first off: everything’s possible to go through, and no shortcuts were present throughout the duration of Blank Mind. Amazing execution was shown in this game; awesome job indeed.

Mat7772 put some thought and effort into not only the production of new puzzles, but on how the puzzles were to be executed. Blank Mind featured new ways to use the grenade that hasn’t been seen before, and this really impressed me as to how he figured it out. His idea of backtracking also innovated the puzzles because you’ll have to launch an item, die, and go back to use it again. I really admire the use of backtracking regarding the puzzle execution; awesome way to extend the blank mind of the player. Usually in Puzzle Platformers, glitching is heavily relied on to boost a puzzle (for example you’ll have to throw out two grenades and let one blow the other one down, or you’ll have to place a wheel by a one-way door and let it glitch through the blocks below), but Mat7772 at times added knowledge to this glitching. Common sense really helped out the player later on in the game, and I must say that this was the way to go regarding puzzles; well done.

To add that extra spice regarding difficulty into the game, traps are usually placed to either make the player dodge a trap to avoid death, or to force upon pain for the player to helplessly collect health packets in order to withstand more traps. In my opinion, this isn’t the case for more puzzle-based games as they can ruin the tone of the game because of the amount of time given to solve the puzzle isn’t exactly there if you’re standing over a trap. Taking note of the beliefs above, I feel that the amount of traps Mat7772 placed were the right amount. He only added a few (may have only been one or so) traps so A: you won’t lose the game because you pressed the up key, and B: you’ll have time to solve the puzzle while you’re by one since they’re fairly new puzzles, and they can’t be used as common sense tools too quickly. In my opinion, Mat7772 did a stellar job with the amount of traps and the quality of the traps placed in the game; the tone and feel of the game were not at all mismatched during the duration of this game because of the traps; good job.

Regarding the title (Blank Mind) you shouldn’t expect the scenery to profound such scenes such as beautiful forests or creepy caves, it’s going to feature such scenery as blank space symbolizing the “Blank Mind”. Mat7772 did an awesome job with the scenery by reflecting upon the title in a correct manner and especially not overdoing the use of backtiles, statues, etc. The way Mat7772 executed the feel of the game was simple; he created smooth tile structure with the correct scenery, made action more of an African lottery, and played a soundtrack that reflects upon the soothing feel of the game. I admire the way Mat7772 laid Blank Mind out, and I see almost no way of improving regarding the scenery and music choice aspects; outstanding job sir.

Pros

Puzzles and their placement

Traps and their placement

Overall placement

Flow of the game

Scenery

Neutral

There were absolutely no neutral aspects.

Cons

There were absolutely no cons.

Ratings

Gameplay: 4.5/5 – The idea of Blank Mind was an awesome idea indeed, and it absolutely worked out correctly.

Scenery: 4.5/5 – The scenery was correctly placed as it followed the title correctly.

Traps: 4/5 – Traps weren’t a necessity in Blank Mind due to the focus regarding the puzzles; however, a trap could’ve been added later in the game to heat up the game a bit (didn’t kill the game though since it’d be hard to execute that properly).

Puzzles: 5/5 – The puzzles that Mat7772 placed included new sequences and ideal thought to be used.

Overall: 4.5/5 – The flow of this game really promoted its success; awesome game.

Conclusion

Upon the detailed examination of this game, I have realized how tremendous the Platformer creator can be and how well it can be utilized. Although Blank Mind wasn’t perfect, it still shows the innovation of backtracking to the extreme and how fun puzzle games can be. The big question is for everyone is: Is Blank Mind worthy of a feature? Yes, Blank Mind is absolutely worthy of a feature because of how well everything was executed and how original the gameplay and puzzles were, thus creating the reason why I featured this game. Good work Mat7772, and I hope you rise you your highest potential and knock out a game in the Epic Games Library!