Reviews

Review by entheh all reviews by entheh

\'Zerog\' is an entertaining little timekiller. It pits you, an odd purple blob creature with teeth resembling the cutter on a clingfilm dispenser, as a trainee hopeful hoping to join a mysterious clan who appear to be planning underworld domination - a nice twist on the rules.

You are presented with three courses, each differently themed and of very different layouts, all of which test your ability to reach a target teleporter without falling through any unsafe platforms. At the start of each course, a blue member of your species hovers into view, tells you a little more about who you are and what you\'re doing, insults you, and then glides away and leaves you to it.

I found a few small issues with the game. The Instructions and Story pages stated that I could press any key to return to the main menu, but some keys (e.g. Space) didn\'t work, and the arrow keys operated the main menu as if I was already there. In-game, there was no clear indication of how picky the collision detection was, making me a little too nervous to try moving between two diagonally connected squares when the opportunity came up. When I completed the final course, the game displayed a final screen of text and then exited as I continued pressing arrow keys, so I didn\'t get a chance to read it.

However, the game has a lot going for it too. The very existence of the short, concise Instructions and Story pages adds a lot of approachability. The changing themes and layouts expertly get the most enjoyment out of the engine. The first course shows you which tiles will disappear, and warns you (concisely again) that it won\'t last - a good mechanism to ease a new player into the game. The death sound effects are a nice touch (if a little lonely without any other sound or music), and are exactly the right place to put the comedy, since that\'s when players most need it.

All in all, a good entry, although I question the name \'Zerog\' if you can fall in!

Overall: 4. While not perfect, it\'s pretty good and certainly above average.
Artistic: 4. The dialogue is well integrated, and the art creates good atmosphere and variety. The world domination is a little tacked on, but does have the \'underworld\' twist.
Technical: 4. The atan2() is used in a rather original way, to create the game logo on the title screen. I would never have guessed without checking the code.
Genre: 4. The map undergoes destruction as you proceed through it, which is subtle and well integrated.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 4