Reviews

Review by Gassa all reviews by Gassa

Cute pixelized animals live in a 2D world. Irridescent crystals are scattered over the world. The animals want to eat, sleep, and mine crystals.

The player has indirect control resembling SimCity and, to lesser extent, real-time strategies. There is a $20,000 balance at start, and nothing built. The player decides what and where to build: houses, mines, cafes, spaceports, and roads for faster travel. The animals act on these plans, and use the created stuff. Animals travel to and from the world via spaceport.

After reading the hints in the README file, but not before, I was able to maintain a positive balance.

All the rules are met, except the bonus rule in which there is no need.

I like the overall style: fitting background music, simple but coherent graphics. The Dune2-Carryall-like spaceship made me smile, as well as the elephant-or-mouse animal and the "can't put it here" sound.

Very nice for a weekend project!

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 5 Technical 5 Genre 5

Review by Gassa all reviews by Gassa

This is apparently a non-interactive prototype of a would-be game.

A frog leaves its parents and goes its own way. The frog gets a job, which is to carry other animals across a river. There is a demo of what the game might have perhaps looked like, if the author had time to finish it: animals come and offer money for carrying them across the river.

Apart from that, there is a long intro, and a case of taking a job which did not end well. The latter actually recites the titular fable.

The presented story scenes look 3D-rendered, but as there's no interaction, how much of these would hold up in the actual game remains an open question :) .

Character art looks minimalistic for a 3D world, but the animals are nice, in their own peculiar way. I like the last job scenes: despite simple graphics, their overall design suddenly made me believe the world of the fable.

All the TINS 2023 specific rules are touched--well, except the game being interactive :) .

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 4