andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2002-07-18 10:23 pm
andrewducker) wrote2002-07-18 10:23 pm
All the pretty colours
Yesterday I downloaded Tranquility, a mixture of old-school gameplay and intensely pretty swirling graphics.
The gameplay isn't just old-school in that it's very simple, it also harks back to the early days when games could be abstract. When you couldn't possibly simulate in a realistic way, so game designers didn't bother, they went for the more imaginative "anything goes" approach. And that's what Tranquility is - there's no real world anywhere within 50 feet of the game. There's just abstract swirly shapes of different kinds. They move up and down, follow each other in spiral patters, disappear when you're least expecting it and then pop up just when it's least convenient. Oh, and the Spinner, which is somewhere in the midst of the swirling realms of strangeness, waiting for you to thread your way through the shimmering pulsating maze of otherness until you can find it, and be transported to a different shimmering maze.
Yup, that's the other thing that's old-school - there's no real change in levels. I mean, sure, they look different, but looking at a few levels so far, there's no easy way to tell which one's harder than the next (although some of them definitely are). The graphics, however, despite their simplicity (most of the pieces are rectangles, or warped versions thereof) are incredibly pretty. I've seen everything from a sparse collection of squares, to 8 different towers, each moving seperately, interweaving with each other, while you weave and bob amongst them.
If you have a half-decent machine (PC or Mac) I firmly recommend you give it a go. And if you're one of my flatmates, you can find it in f:\tranquility.
The gameplay isn't just old-school in that it's very simple, it also harks back to the early days when games could be abstract. When you couldn't possibly simulate in a realistic way, so game designers didn't bother, they went for the more imaginative "anything goes" approach. And that's what Tranquility is - there's no real world anywhere within 50 feet of the game. There's just abstract swirly shapes of different kinds. They move up and down, follow each other in spiral patters, disappear when you're least expecting it and then pop up just when it's least convenient. Oh, and the Spinner, which is somewhere in the midst of the swirling realms of strangeness, waiting for you to thread your way through the shimmering pulsating maze of otherness until you can find it, and be transported to a different shimmering maze.
Yup, that's the other thing that's old-school - there's no real change in levels. I mean, sure, they look different, but looking at a few levels so far, there's no easy way to tell which one's harder than the next (although some of them definitely are). The graphics, however, despite their simplicity (most of the pieces are rectangles, or warped versions thereof) are incredibly pretty. I've seen everything from a sparse collection of squares, to 8 different towers, each moving seperately, interweaving with each other, while you weave and bob amongst them.
If you have a half-decent machine (PC or Mac) I firmly recommend you give it a go. And if you're one of my flatmates, you can find it in f:\tranquility.
no subject
Geeking: kind of wish the controls were customizable, and looking around were done better (it sure feels like the view is rotating around something other than the camera). Felt odd that it was done all in GLUT instead of as a native program, but I guess that makes it a breeze to port. I thought I saw it required DirectX, but it wouldn't need that for the graphics with GLUT--guess it uses it for managing the input devices? Would be nice if it grabbed the cursor then, since I kept bumping it out of the window.
Most interesting game I've looked at since Plasmaworm. Thanks!
no subject
The view does rotate around the camera, and you're effectively flying a spaceship. Push forward to move faster, pull back to slow/move backwards, left and right to rotate, mousewheel allows you to look up/down and space makes you fall faster (so you can bounce higher). Very, very simple.
I'm running Windows, and it uses OpenGL as its graphics engine - oh and DirectSound for the sound. It's only 10MB, give it a go...