▲ Recommended
1 hrs
You are... Two robots who look very similar to Eve from the movie "Wall-E" and the tripod turrets from the game "Portal" as they work together in order to navigate abstract puzzles by stepping onto pressure plates in order for one of them to access an "exit" pressure plate in GOBOTIX DUO, an isometric 3D abstract puzzle platformer from LUDOS GAMES.
Co-operative games where players help one another, rather than compete with each other, have been around for so long now that they're old enough to drink alcohol, get married, own property & have kids that are probably in their early teens themselves. And while the graphics and storylines for the games inevitably change with each iteration, the core gameplay remains the same: Each player controls a character that can only perform certain actions that the other players can't. The environment (the 'puzzle') that they are in requires that the players cooperate with one another in a certain sequence of actions in order for the players to escape or 'solve' the puzzle.
In GOBOTIX DUO, there are two characters in the game that are suspiciously modeled after some rather famous robots of yesteryear. There's a blue-eyed, rather squat-looking robot that might be the direct descendant of the character "Eve" from the movie "Wall-E." This robot is paired with an orange-eyed, tall & thin robot that is quite derivative of the turret tripods from the game franchise "Portal." Whether these two characters are a winking homage to these two famous designs or not is beside the point; Perhaps the company that created the game, LUDOS GAMES, is playing a game themselves by seeing how closely they can mirror these designs before they're slapped with a cease-and-desist order by the Walt Disney Company and Valve, respectively.
The game itself is separated into levels and the base game that I reviewed had 25 levels. The store page states that additional levels may be added onto the game in the future. There is a 'save game' feature in which, after you solve a level, the game saves that progress. Therefore, if a level is too challenging or if you've got other priorities to deal with, you can stop and pick up the game where you left off, albeit at the beginning of the level. Within a level, you can reset your progress back to the default start of the level if you mess things up.
The game is portrayed in 3D and at an isometric angle. There are controls where you can manipulate the camera on all three axis of movement: left, right, up down, forwards and backwards. You will need to manipulate the camera for later levels but the controls are simple enough in order to learn and master.
There are various gameplay mechanics that experienced gamers (especially those who have played first-person puzzlers and abstract puzzlers) should have seen by now. Your characters can step onto floor pressure plates and these plates act as triggers for various other actions to occur, such as raising or lowering sections of a floor or deactivating a force field of one kind or another. There are large boxes (or cubes, sound familiar, Portal fans?) that the characters may pick up and drop elsewhere, such as on the ground or on pressure plates in lieu of a character standing on them. There are fans that can blow cubes in various directions and force fields that forbit cubes or characters from passing through them. In the end, a specific character needs to step onto a glowing pressure plate in order to end the level and proceed to the next one. This exit plate glows a specific color in accordance to the character needed to step onto it.
The overall visual aesthetic harkens back to the same used in the game series "Portal," with surveillance cameras that track the characters and introductory back-lit panels that are reminiscent of the introductory panels in the test levels of "Portal 1." Even the accentual colors of the two robots, blue and orange, are the same colors as the portals in the game series "Portal."
But how does the game play? Well, it plays the same way that a graham cracker tastes: Not bad but not extraordinarily awesome, either. The problem with the game being so conservative by using very well-known gameplay mechanics and visuals is that it lacks an unique charm or spin to the genre that it is in. Certainly, it will attract players with its familiar visuals but the whole point of creating a game is to give the players something new that they haven't seen before and possibly address an underserved market. For instance, there are several first-person shooters out there but how many of them are themed for the American Wild West or the trenches of World War I? I understand the argument for appealing to a wide audience but, as the saying goes, no one pines for walking down an airport hallway, either. If you have the talent to create a game, you also have the talent to pick an art and visual style that can at least be arguably different enough to be unique.
The game ramps the difficulty up slowly but, by around level ten, most players will know that the game has stopped handing them tutorial-styled levels. There are new mechanics introduced every few levels and these are fairly intuitive, such as fans that can blow cubes across floors or timed pressure plates that can be stepped off and still retain their action (such as lowering a floor) for a few moments before the action is reverted.
There is no story to speak of which, by itself, is not a bad thing. However, having a compelling story can sometimes compensate for less-than-compelling gameplay. Quake 1's story could be written on the back of a business card but didn't need it because a lot of people were too distracted by the at-the-time innovative graphics and the gameplay mechanics that it provided. Half-Life 1, another first-person shooter, used environmental storytelling to such a high degree that, despite some rather well-worn first-person shooter gameplay mechanics, most people felt compelled (myself being one of them) to see what was around the next corner. In GOBOTIX DUO's case, perhaps a little story might work wonders as players plod through some rather abstract puzzle levels. I know that there was a tiny bit of environmental storytelling on some of the levels (such as a robot dangling precariously on the underside of one level and an unused pressure plate at the bottom of the level in another) but, in this case, a lot more might be necessary.
The music and sound effects were adequate enough and, to be fair, I tend to turn the music off on games that force me to concentrate. From what I did hear, it certainly sounded fine enough.
There were no technical problems with the game; The game never crashed while I played it and there were no technical glitches during gameplay that I could remember.
Overall, despite some misgivings concerning presentation and lack of unique gameplay mechanics, I am recommending this game. I am recommending the game mainly because it is free, there were no technical glitches and it is fairly lightweight in size; A bit over 200 MBs for a fully 3D platform puzzler experience. In this day and age, that's not-too-shabby for what you get (amirite, Spores of Fortune?). Also, it's non-violent by nature which is an advantage for some parents who monitor what their kids play.
However, a recommendation isn't a full-throated endorsement of the game, either. I'd deeply encourage the developers to find their own unique visual style rather than 'paying homage' to others. Also, try to find some gameplay mechanics that are unique or, at the least, not as well-used. A story also wouldn't hurt as that would distract from the gameplay mechanics that a lot of players have seen before. Finally, this is another puzzle game that does not come with its own level editor; A level editor may not help build an audience but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
Co-operative games where players help one another, rather than compete with each other, have been around for so long now that they're old enough to drink alcohol, get married, own property & have kids that are probably in their early teens themselves. And while the graphics and storylines for the games inevitably change with each iteration, the core gameplay remains the same: Each player controls a character that can only perform certain actions that the other players can't. The environment (the 'puzzle') that they are in requires that the players cooperate with one another in a certain sequence of actions in order for the players to escape or 'solve' the puzzle.
In GOBOTIX DUO, there are two characters in the game that are suspiciously modeled after some rather famous robots of yesteryear. There's a blue-eyed, rather squat-looking robot that might be the direct descendant of the character "Eve" from the movie "Wall-E." This robot is paired with an orange-eyed, tall & thin robot that is quite derivative of the turret tripods from the game franchise "Portal." Whether these two characters are a winking homage to these two famous designs or not is beside the point; Perhaps the company that created the game, LUDOS GAMES, is playing a game themselves by seeing how closely they can mirror these designs before they're slapped with a cease-and-desist order by the Walt Disney Company and Valve, respectively.
The game itself is separated into levels and the base game that I reviewed had 25 levels. The store page states that additional levels may be added onto the game in the future. There is a 'save game' feature in which, after you solve a level, the game saves that progress. Therefore, if a level is too challenging or if you've got other priorities to deal with, you can stop and pick up the game where you left off, albeit at the beginning of the level. Within a level, you can reset your progress back to the default start of the level if you mess things up.
The game is portrayed in 3D and at an isometric angle. There are controls where you can manipulate the camera on all three axis of movement: left, right, up down, forwards and backwards. You will need to manipulate the camera for later levels but the controls are simple enough in order to learn and master.
There are various gameplay mechanics that experienced gamers (especially those who have played first-person puzzlers and abstract puzzlers) should have seen by now. Your characters can step onto floor pressure plates and these plates act as triggers for various other actions to occur, such as raising or lowering sections of a floor or deactivating a force field of one kind or another. There are large boxes (or cubes, sound familiar, Portal fans?) that the characters may pick up and drop elsewhere, such as on the ground or on pressure plates in lieu of a character standing on them. There are fans that can blow cubes in various directions and force fields that forbit cubes or characters from passing through them. In the end, a specific character needs to step onto a glowing pressure plate in order to end the level and proceed to the next one. This exit plate glows a specific color in accordance to the character needed to step onto it.
The overall visual aesthetic harkens back to the same used in the game series "Portal," with surveillance cameras that track the characters and introductory back-lit panels that are reminiscent of the introductory panels in the test levels of "Portal 1." Even the accentual colors of the two robots, blue and orange, are the same colors as the portals in the game series "Portal."
But how does the game play? Well, it plays the same way that a graham cracker tastes: Not bad but not extraordinarily awesome, either. The problem with the game being so conservative by using very well-known gameplay mechanics and visuals is that it lacks an unique charm or spin to the genre that it is in. Certainly, it will attract players with its familiar visuals but the whole point of creating a game is to give the players something new that they haven't seen before and possibly address an underserved market. For instance, there are several first-person shooters out there but how many of them are themed for the American Wild West or the trenches of World War I? I understand the argument for appealing to a wide audience but, as the saying goes, no one pines for walking down an airport hallway, either. If you have the talent to create a game, you also have the talent to pick an art and visual style that can at least be arguably different enough to be unique.
The game ramps the difficulty up slowly but, by around level ten, most players will know that the game has stopped handing them tutorial-styled levels. There are new mechanics introduced every few levels and these are fairly intuitive, such as fans that can blow cubes across floors or timed pressure plates that can be stepped off and still retain their action (such as lowering a floor) for a few moments before the action is reverted.
There is no story to speak of which, by itself, is not a bad thing. However, having a compelling story can sometimes compensate for less-than-compelling gameplay. Quake 1's story could be written on the back of a business card but didn't need it because a lot of people were too distracted by the at-the-time innovative graphics and the gameplay mechanics that it provided. Half-Life 1, another first-person shooter, used environmental storytelling to such a high degree that, despite some rather well-worn first-person shooter gameplay mechanics, most people felt compelled (myself being one of them) to see what was around the next corner. In GOBOTIX DUO's case, perhaps a little story might work wonders as players plod through some rather abstract puzzle levels. I know that there was a tiny bit of environmental storytelling on some of the levels (such as a robot dangling precariously on the underside of one level and an unused pressure plate at the bottom of the level in another) but, in this case, a lot more might be necessary.
The music and sound effects were adequate enough and, to be fair, I tend to turn the music off on games that force me to concentrate. From what I did hear, it certainly sounded fine enough.
There were no technical problems with the game; The game never crashed while I played it and there were no technical glitches during gameplay that I could remember.
Overall, despite some misgivings concerning presentation and lack of unique gameplay mechanics, I am recommending this game. I am recommending the game mainly because it is free, there were no technical glitches and it is fairly lightweight in size; A bit over 200 MBs for a fully 3D platform puzzler experience. In this day and age, that's not-too-shabby for what you get (amirite, Spores of Fortune?). Also, it's non-violent by nature which is an advantage for some parents who monitor what their kids play.
However, a recommendation isn't a full-throated endorsement of the game, either. I'd deeply encourage the developers to find their own unique visual style rather than 'paying homage' to others. Also, try to find some gameplay mechanics that are unique or, at the least, not as well-used. A story also wouldn't hurt as that would distract from the gameplay mechanics that a lot of players have seen before. Finally, this is another puzzle game that does not come with its own level editor; A level editor may not help build an audience but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
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