Every year as the world’s gaming media descends upon the industry’s flagship spectacle, the streets are lined with giant-sized billboards proclaiming the next biggest release for the year. And while there’s an almost innate draw towards the bombastic booths of Electronic Arts and Activision, it’s oftentimes the quaint, tucked-away enclosures housing smaller indie titles that prove to have the most lasting of impressions at the world’s biggest gaming expo. And naturally, this year was no different.
Found in a relatively secluded corner of South Hall, Sony-internal-group-turned-indie-publisher LOOT Interactive triumphantly showed off a number of titles set to come to PlayStation 4 in the near future. The first of which was a charming little puzzler named Back to Bed. Taking its ‘forced perspective’ visual cues from the likes of paintings by M. C. Escher, the game revolves around guiding an ever-sleepwalking character, Bob, back to his bed using his subconscious guardian-of-sorts Subob. Thankfully Bob has a penchant for seemingly oversized apples so the player must utilize his love of the green fruit to guide him back safely to the land of nod. Sounds simple, right? Not exactly. Back to Bed’s Dali-esque layout leaves you second guessing a lot of your apple placements initially, unsure as to whether or not it’ll trigger the right path for Bob to go down. Of course, our main character’s steadfast in his adherence to sleepwalking, never letting up unless there’s an obstacle in his way to redirect his route. As such, each level is on a timer as it were, complete with the possibility of Bob overshooting a ledge and falling to his premature demise.
It’s something a lot of puzzle games attempt to achieve but few actually manage, that is, create a mechanic that looks simple from the outset but in actuality has that sort of malleable frame that accommodates for expansion and, of course, obtusion; testing you in ways you didn’t exactly anticipate. During the 15-minute playtime, I peddled through the introductory levels with ease, effectively lulling myself into the false sense of expectation that I could speed through whatever the game threw at me with relative proficiency. But as I was whisked ahead to some of the more advanced stages, I could feel a palpable sense of pressure to figure out the run of the level in the allotted time and sadly, more often than not, it simply didn’t play out that way; for me at least. It takes a few tries and a healthy dose of trial and error. There’s something playfully disconcerting about playing cognitive puzzlers in the presence of people who have either created the game or have had a hand in promoting it, too.
You’re given help if necessary to move the demo along but it sort of negates the point of what the game actually is. Alas, it speaks volumes for Back to Bed’s appeal when I’m actively trying to get Bob home to sleep over and over again despite the fact there’s more to see in the short time with the game. Having been released on Steam back in August of last year, many gamers have already had a play of Bedtime Digital Games’ (apt name) maiden excursion and the response has been wholly positive. As a result, we all know what to expect; an accomplished head-scratching puzzler that challenges your cognition and asks you to think a little outside of the box, or bed as it were. We all know what it can be like if you don’t get your eight hours.
Following from one puzzler to the next – albeit one with a vastly different mechanical makeup – I went hands-on with Velocibox, the sole sum of Malaysian-based indie developer Shawn Beck’s austere talent. In the same vein as Super Hexagon – a game rife with a twitch-heavy ‘one more time’ mantra as well – Velocibox is a minimalist, pure video game. That is, an experience undeterred by convoluted design mechanics, unnecessary fluff, and complex graphical fidelity. Rather, it’s throwback to those games that relied heavily on the player’s dexterity and almost-manic insistence on seeing a stage through more than anything. It’s infectious, really; infectious to the point of near insanity. Like Back to Bed before it, Velocibox’s premise is deceptively simple: guide a cube through a linear maze by switching between each of the four walls of the level and being wary of blockades and pickups along the way. While that by-numbers description isn’t in itself daunting, it’s the game’s fast-paced temperament and hypnotizing visual style that sets it apart as one of the most addictive games in recent memory.
And with attempts at the more advanced stages oftentimes lasting a mere ten seconds or less, the frustration really is tangible. It’s also not only a matter of just simply reacting to the blockades and pickups that come your way throughout the levels, no, the game’s squared-like design tempers your concentration if given enough time, meaning you’ll find yourself being roped into its mesmeric pattern and failing a stage spectacularly. And you’ve only got yourself to blame, obviously. That inevitable fate is almost always met with a pronounced grunt, an exhale, and a tap of the ‘retry’ button. That rings true so much so in fact that I went over my allotted time with Velocibox due to my incessant tapping of that very button – as good a sign as any that the game had dug its claws in deep.
Much like Back to Bed – and indeed Whispering Willows which I played, too, Velocibox has been on Steam for the best part of a year and has garnered numerous plaudits for both its mesmeric style and addictive quality. There’s little doubt that it’ll find a healthy audience once it releases on PS4 in the coming months. Be wary, however, it’s not for the faint-hearted but those who like a healthy challenge should definitely apply.
And with those final twitch-heavy moments of anarchy, my time with what LOOT Interactive’s got to offer in the console stakes this year came to a close. A fitting end to what was most certainly an impressive array of titles on show. It’s always refreshing to take a few short moments in amidst of the chaos of E3 and go and appreciate some of the smaller video games on the show floor; titles that could full-well surprise and delight, unabashedly dwarfing some of the bigger games on show in the process.