Black Hole a game developed by rhellik on the Ouya, it's an arcade dual-stick space shooter, inspired by games like Crimsonland and Super Stardust HD. Whilst I was playing I got a feeling of Geometry Wars, which is not a bad thing, sadly that's one of the few good things I got from my several play throughs.
When the game first boots up it has a quality to it, nice menu, good bit of audio and then you try use your D-pad (which personally I always use for menu's) and it failed to work.
Once you start a new game you have the option of choosing from three different ships to play as, the Hunter as a all rounder for new players, the Falchion which is alot faster and more fun than the Hunter and the Eagle which is slow and sluggish, I advise forgetting about this one and just stick with the Hunter for maximum fun.
In game, the graphics are pretty nice. It's nothing jaw-dropping (what is on the Ouya? it's all in the gameplay!) but the images are pretty neat. The main issue I had with the ships was the movement, it seemed as if it was like a cardboard cut out being moved around on a back drop by someone dragging it with tweezers, it has no fluidity and just seemed slightly awkward. The lazer effects from shooting are nice with a bit of flare but the ship is just too distracting, especially with the back drop colours and it's shifting stars, it actually made me feel like I popped a few acid pills and my eyes were screaming hell Mary's at me!!!
I am sure with a little tweaking something can be done with the ship movement and maybe adjust the detail on the moving back drop. As for gameplay, it's pretty fun! Asteroids spawn with more waves spawning, after uyou wipe out the predecessor's and eventually on the later levels (level 3+) robots spawn which shoot red bullets. At times the screen can get pretty hectic with so much being drawn, hence at some moments especially on level 5 (the last demo level) you experience plenty of slow down as if someone is purposely pressing a pause button on and off to just piss you off. To add, if you drive out the back drop parameter, you just have a black back drop that hides your ship....kind of ruins the fun.
During the course of destroying the asteroids and robots you collect star dust which can go from generating health to providing ship boosts and coinage to spend on upgrading your ship between levels. The upgrades are actually prettying intriguing especially when you can makes your ship shoot a hell of a lot faster and more bullets!!!
Sadly Black Hole does not hit the mark for me....yet. I say yet because after all it is a preview build and there is time to fix and tweak things.
If the slow down can be fixed
The ship movement/fluidity can be tweaked
The back drop effect toned down
Black Hole could be something fun for the Ouya, especially at later levels if level 5 already gets exciting and hectic in the early stages.
Unforatnely the most exciting thing for now is at the completion of each level your ship dives in the Black Stinky Hole....where it should stay until it's fixed.
Hey, thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be gathering all kinds of feedback and try and improve the game.
Could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean with the ship movement fluidity? How would it work better for you?
The backdrop can be turned in the options menu if the effect is too strong. But we can consider toning it down a bit more or provide an option for that.
Sadly the slow down is a serious problem we are still trying to attend to. The OUYA isn't quite as strong as we anticipated.
It's hard to explain the movement, it basically feels like a 2d sprite on a back drop..which is what it is...but it just does not seem right. Maybe the motion of the background does not help or the ship moves too smooth with little to no animation?
DeleteI noticed you updates the game, I'll give the updates a try and will be as informative as I can. Might be worth holding back preview release until its in a good state. I'm mocking dong, but the early previews may put people off enough not to try it when you finally tweak it to be a awesome game!.
Just a thought my friend.
Do you think the camera should be more rubber bandy when you move? Or the ship need more time to accelerate?
ReplyDeleteThe current update (0.82) just has a few minor tweaks, ps3/xbox controller support and high scores. I'm incorporating some of your points into the new version I'm working on now. (Dpad for menus :) ) And we've also squeezed out some more performance when the level is full. Still a bit slow but no more pause on / off feeling.
Although I understand there's always a risk releasing preview versions, it's also a good way to get feedback. And we do try not to release broken or buggy versions.