52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

[dhaabi]

23. Kids || PC || 05.10.24



Nearly six years ago, I remember first watching the teaser trailer for Kids and having my attention immediately grabbed. Despite it being a short experience and one which I've had available to me for about four years, I'm only just now properly playing it.

Self-described in succinct ways such as it's "a game about crowds" and "the psychology of the group," Kids presents its audience a strange series of screens with nondescript cartoon persons—I suppose the titular kids—interacting with another as a crowd. In some ways, Kids blends the puzzle game genre with interaction animation, as its development grapples with the connection between game and short film. Like those short descriptions imply, the project demonstrates what a crowd is and the various events which often surround them, whether they be positive or negative. As the player, it is not necessarily about our controlling or even guiding them but instead witnessing what happens through our brief engagement which serves as a catalyst for some sort of event, whether it affect two or two hundred.

At times, these faceless figures you dictate are few in number, but other times you will see their presence grow into the hundreds. Then, the screen becomes a sea of figures who, on their own, represent nothing, but, as a collective, are perplexing to understand what they are exactly based on their actions and reactions. In some situations, crowds demonstrate groupthink as they stand motionlessly, awaiting for any one of their neighbors to act of their own free will first, so that they themselves know what to do. However, other situations are the inverse. During these moments, we instead see crowds disrupt to devolve into minor conflict, as they react in clear opposition to someone's initial action, perhaps thinking they know best. No matter the scene, all kids must agree to progress.

Through its simple yet effective visual design, the project's presentation is often hypnotic as patterns seemingly unfold, greatly evident once a proper crowd is a part of the scenario at-hand. This is especially the case because, until the player understand what sort of action is necessary to progress, the game runs on loops. Additionally, great use of contrast is employed through its binary color system, as new screens may appear suddenly and shift from black to white. I'll also mention that I surprised to hear voice acting, however minimal it may be. In each of these scenes, the simple dialogue complements the on-screen action, perfectly demonstrating what it's like to be in a group. At the same time, the project's use of music sung by a boy's choir is haunting as it amplifies the empty void these characters reside in.

Ultimately, Kids is a project up for audience interpretation, which was an intentional design choice. I don't necessarily think there is one explicit takeaway to be gained from the experience, but clearly there is some sort of commentary on groupthink and the dissonance or harmony it may bring. Nevertheless, Kids offers an alluring experience to the introspective, which I'm glad to have played. Like I mentioned above, Kids is short, about 15–30 minutes. I know several here have access to it through a massive itch.io games bundle from years ago, so I'd suggest for any one with immediate access to it who are curious to try it for themselves.

[realpoketendonl]

7. Miraculous: Rise of the Sphinx [Switch]

Hold your horses, got a lot of thoughts on this one.

I got this game because it was on a huge sale (with my gold coins I got it for 3 bucks), and I really like the animated series it's based on. This game does not do it justice though. I knew it looked bad, and yeah, it was kinda bad.

The game’s biggest problem is just how monotenous it can be. The level design and platforming are basic and dull. Combat is basic and repetitive, with only like 1 or 2 enemy types with different skins (excluding bosses). Combat doesn’t feel good either. There’s barely any sense of impact, some sound effects are outright missing, your movement and actions all feel a little slow, but worst of all: it downright feels unresponsive sometimes. You will get through the earlier levels effortlessly with button mashing. Their idea of making levels more difficult though, is to just throw more enemies at you. And at that point I sometimes found it hard to get through, in no small part because I was fighting the controls when I wanted to dodge. You also can’t control the camera, and in some points the angles it chooses cause real problems. I know this is a kids game and I don’t expect Bayonetta here, but I doubt this could even hold the interest of kids for long, or it would frustrate them to the point of quitting.

The combat is broken up by sections where you go around and talk to your friends as a civilian. This feels almost unfinished. The controls can be straight-up broken sometimes here: whenever you leave a menu you can get stuck spinning on your axis, and it frequently takes me two or three tries to simply talk to someone. I’ve also seen layering issues, with text boxes being covered up by other elements. On top of that, I’ve even managed to trigger dialogue out of order, simply by walking into a location as the wrong character. This could’ve been interesting, and it is admittedly neat to see the characters from the show in any form, but at any point it’s either dull, broken or feels pointless.

Visually the game looks pretty bad too. On top of the basic level design, the models and character renders look rushed, with very awkward facial expressions and basic problems like odd hair colours in dark lighting. A shame, especially because I feel like Miraculous’s visual style should not be that hard to adapt faithfully into a game.

The performance is really bad too. I played the Switch version, but this is nowhere near pushing the limits of the platform. But still, the load screens take long enough for me to almost write this paragraph. The framerate frequently dipped into what felt like less than 10 fps. It would stutter noticeably whenever you trigger a change, like a cutscene or written dialogue, with the transition always looking sloppy.

And then there’s the glitches. I encountered a few, including one which could’ve locked me out of finishing the quest if I hadn’t figured out how to undo it. Good luck if you’re little kid with that problem.

I also need to mention the voice acting. There is voice acting during the action parts by the original voice actors, which is good, but they’re only oneliners and parts of the dialogue. No grunts during attacks or when you get hit or anything like that. How do you forget to add attack grunts? On top of that, most of the dialogue between characters is text only. That is hard to excuse in a game based on an animated series. It really should be fully voiced. Also, there’s a distracting amount of typos in the dialogue.

It’s a real shame. A Miraculous action game could be amazing. The series has a lot of creative fight scenes, moves, choreography, enemies, and abilities. There’s so much potential. But this game does not live up to that. I enjoyed it slightly, but that's solely because it looks like a show I like. I picked it up for 3 bucks. If you have a kid that really loves Miraculous and really wants this, I say it’s worth that much. But otherwise, just skip it. You can do a lot better elsewhere.


So that's 7 games beaten thus far, six of which for the first time. Also finished 8 books thus far this year. Decent progress! In terms of games, I did also abandon BROK the InvestiGator. A shame, I was really charmed by its world and characters, but the combat just wasn't clicking for me, and I found out the game has a lot of different endings, which is something I just hate in games. No idea what I'll play next, but thinking Star Fox Zero or The Big Wave or something. We'll see!