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Fun concept that needs implementation improvements

  • Irog
  • 07/20/2016 09:35 AM
  • 1134 views
Weapon Birth presents a fun concept: you play the role of a cute animal and fight your siblings in large battles. We usually associate the cute animals to peaceful pets but this game has the brilliant idea to set them into a third-person shooter death-match.

The aesthetics of the game is very pleasant. The 2D pixel sprites look great in its simplistic 3D environment. Animation fits in just right. The menu makes good use of the display but some abbreviations remain obscure like "ETH" and "EP.". Moreover, there is no in-game help and the txt help file only instructs on controls. The game runs in multiple resolutions, including full-screen via <Alt+Enter>.

Four playable charters are available: a wolf, a fox, a cat and a winged (a creature with black wings). The wolf wields a sword and is the only melee fighter. Its movement speed is the slowest which makes it an easy target for the shooters (the three other characters). Luckily, when you play as a wolf, the AI is not particularly good at running away from you. The fox trows a magic fire spell that has unlimited range. He and the wolf are allies so they don't cause damage to each other; which is good. The cat shoots a bow. Its arrows have a limited range and push back a bit the target. This small push advantage can send an enemy out of the battle area causing instant death. But the limited range drawback makes the cat far inferior to the fox. The winged, ally of the cat, trows black explosives orbs. They have unlimited range and cause area damage. I like the definitely-not-an-angle aspect of this darkness orb thrower. Its weakness: low HP.

The game lacks a camera rotation control so player have to move close to the "bottom" edge of the battle field square to see most of the opponents.

AI character respawn but the player does not. This and the frequent game crashes are the most fun-breaking elements of the game.

The AI is pretty stupid: it attacks in random directions, never jumps and sometimes walks out of the battle field to die. There are some issues in the collision system: some clear hits simply go trough. There is no clear terrain separation because the respawn positions are totally random so the fight is completely disorganized. The control keys are non-configurable.

Weapon Birth has a great potential but needs to improve its functionality and gain software robustness.

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