Reviews

Review by amarillion all reviews by amarillion

In this game, the "hand of god" controls programmers who have to battle to protect the integrity of the code against bugs. The code to protect is actually the code of the game itself, which makes for a really neat implementation of the "view source" rule. I feel "battle against bugs" is an accurate metaphor for what programming is like, although I don't really feel like I'm being controlled by a deity when I'm on a bug-zapping spree. We can see that the "deity" rule was second in line for this game.

The hand-drawn graphics are good but not as great as some of the other entries we've seen this year, and certainly not as extensive. The blue and red lines give it a "notebook" effect, but this is in sharp contrasts to the default, monospace font that is used everywhere. All sprites are animated, which gives a nice effect.

Gameplay wise, I had a couple of problems. It's hard to see where you have to click exactly to control your guys, so sometimes you end up clicking furiously next to one of your programmers while they are eaten by a bug. The clicking problem also makes it hard to switch in a hurry. And if you don't move the programmers from the starting spot, they end up stuck in the bushes in a later level.

For future improvements, I would recommend against the use of numpad buttons, because that requires laptop users to find and plug in an external keyboard. The fixed resolution is also not ideal for laptops.

In conclusion, this is a solid entry, that scores very high in the technical category. Because of lack of balance and some other gameplay issues the overall score is not as high though.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 5 Genre 3