Concursion

The game has some really nice ideas with the genre mixing interspaced throughout the levels but it's just not much fun after the novelty wears off and you're left with the boring and trite gameplay for each section. I did like that gameplay mechanic where you went into a different gameplay mode to get a boost to get to a place you couldn't get otherwise in another mode. That was ingenious. If you can get it cheap or in a bundle, check it out.

[h1][b]Getting this game will net you a sweet item in The Metronomicon: Slay The Dance Floor - link to the store page below - as a loyalty bonus. While not an essential item, it's a nice touch for showing your support.[/b][/h1] Steam's new policy of segregating reviews into reviews done with a key and reviews done via store purchases has somewhat led me to regret a lot of my purchases/game acquisitions. For games that I genuinely enjoyed that I had previously gotten from a bundle, I unfortunately cannot affect the score percentage, and Concursion is one of them. But we'll leave this topic for another day. Concursion is the debut title from developers Puuba. The game endured a slightly rough failed Kickstarter campaign, but had a successful Greenlight before being picked up by the now-defunct Mastertronic. At its core, the game is a mashup of multiple genres in one. A platformer game, a ninja hack-and-slash, a shooter game, a floaty-jetpack game and a pacman-like game, each with their own different gameplay mechanics. This is the standout feature of this game, where you seamlessly blend from one genre of game directly into another, and sometimes multiple times within the span of a few seconds in a level! Games like this aren't complete without the stereotypical bad guys and princess you have to rescue, and this one also likewise features one - only, in this case, with Puuba's witty and irreverent brand of humour, as well as a plot twist at, or rather, near the end. Nope, not spoiling here. ;) In general, the controls felt quite good, though at times maybe a bit awkward. The same keys are used in all the modes - the platformer mode has a run key and a jump key, in the hack-and-slash mode one of the keys is used for slashing instead, in the shooting mode it's used for shooting bullets, etc. No need to memorise a different set of keys for each mode. The only problem I have is that in the shooting mode, you can actually fire faster if you button mash the key - you get a higher rate of fire than if you hold it down. There may rarely be cases where the default rate of fire isn't enough and it can be taxing on your hand. The world shifts are handled by the game engine incredibly well. Incidentally, the game engine is custom-built in Java - a completely different engine from what most people would expect. Not Unity, not Clickteam Fusion, not GameMaker. It's quite an impressive standout. Even the music shifts are handled well as, when you switch worlds, the music seamlessly cross-fades into the music of a different mix. This would be the first collaboration with Christopher Hoag of House fame, who tirelessly composed various mixes of all the songs in the game for each world, and the soundtrack here is striking in terms of compositional depth and variety. The only sore point I have with this is the visual presentation - unfortunately it is a rather large sore point. The characters and images themselves on their own are decent, but when you look at the animations and menus it does give the impression of a lack of visual polish. Even the Steam header sadly looks a tiny bit unpolished, no thanks to the somewhat large wording of Concursion with a somewhat typical font. The jetpack mode was the worst visually as this was mostly all pixellated - while this was intended to make it look more retro in accordance with the game's retro-style leanings, I don't think it works visually. But this does bring me to my most important point. Don't ever judge this game by its cover - play through it and you can actually see their gameplay design wiles and charm peek out from underneath. Their later games would also feature an interesting mechanic combination coupled with their particular brand of humour. Visualise this as a snapshot of the devs' design headspace at that particular point in time, play it in conjunction with their later works. For me, I find it really heartening to see how much they've progressed since then - and at the end of it all, I still really enjoyed this game. <3 [h1]When to buy[/h1] Try out the demo first - while challenging, it does give you a good grasp and idea of what happens in the game. The price was knocked down to $5 a few months back from $10 - but, for the amount of time I've sunk into this game, it's actually a steal, if you enjoy the genre mashup. [h1]Other games from the same devs[/h1] In chronological order from earliest to last: http://store.steampowered.com/app/329240/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/416790/ [h1][b]8.0/10[/b][/h1]

Nice concept, game feels unpolished, controls are floaty, art design doesn't feel cohesive.

Was an interesting game for the time I played. Loved the intermixed genre. Though, there is a point where it was annoying on a lot of levels dying because you don't know what power or movement you're going to get when you go into a bubble, and monsters or something spawning right behind you kind of makes it important. I really liked the concept, but the gameplay was kind of lacking in terms of knowing what to expect. That led to my distatste of the game once the mixes started happening more rapidly to where the mechanics changed so fast that most of the time you'd end up taking damage to something that just happened to spawn in there because something else moved into it. I beat the first kingdom just because I liked the challenge, but I'm not one to grind away on one level over and over, dying multiple times for stupid reasons, learning the enemy paths so that I can avoid. That kind of gameplay is annoying.

To be honest, I'm on the fence with this one. I did like a lot of this rule-changing platformer, but there were glaring issues as well. Pros: +fun and creative levels +interesting idea that works for the most part +five different heroes at once +the game does a wonderful job teaching new concepts through gameplay +the earlier bosses are fun to fight Cons: -There are too many autoscrolling levels. I don't mind autoscrolls in moderation, but at least half the stages are like this and the tedium and frustration can build surprisingly quickly. -checkpoint placement gets iffy in the second half, which makes the autoscrolling even more of a pain -the sheer amount of autoscroll levels makes the optional speed run goals pointless -every time you die, you have to manually tell the game you want to continueinstead of respawning automatically and this can get really old really fast -the hints that appear when you die are pointless since playing through the game will tell you what you need to know -later bosses are cheap and prone to insane levels of attack spamming alongside utilizing instant death traps -the retained momentum from shifting styles alongside some leaps of faith have led to more deaths than there should've been -the mini-Tor hero (think arcade Pacman) has TERRIBLE controls and will make certain levels and boss battles really aggravating

The best Concursion has going for it is a "unique" concept, which in actuality is more like a rip-off of other games from various genres. The controls are pretty terrible, the art style isn't very appealing, and overall, it's not a very good game.

[h1] Actual potato. [/h1]

The game is looking like a half baked potato. It is very unpolished, the controls aren't to great and im really not a fan of the artstyle. A pretty bad platformer altogether

A really interesting game concept but the graphics, sound and controls are just too poorly done. It was a fun game though but it just came of as too cheap.

Unique 7/10 Going from super mario to a side scrolling aerial shooter. The constant changing of gameplay types and looks is a great touch. Controller is a plus keyboard felt akward and not as accurate.