OMORI is a role-playing game developed by OMOCAT and released in December 2020. It features elements of psychological horror and touches on sensitive subjects like dealing with and overcoming anxiety, depression, and loss. Through the lens of a shut-in kid named Sunny and his dream-world counterpart, the titular Omori, we come to learn of the world and the people around them, the troubles they struggle with and secrets they keep.

Steam
Final Trailer (2020)

Lens 9: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

OMORI’s game mechanics can be split into two different kinds, namely overworld exploration and combat. 

Exploration

Exploration of the overworld is in similar fashion to that of other 2D RPGs like Undertale: top-down perspective and 2D navigation with arrow keys (or the D-pad on controllers), interacting with the environment (talking, picking up items, initiating battles etc) using the Z/X keys (specific buttons vary on controllers).

Throughout these worlds, the player will encounter enemies. These can come in the form of regular enemies randomly traversing the overworld where the team might engage in battle by coming into contact with them (or avoid if they wish to), or as compulsory battles like bosses. These battles employ a separate set of mechanics.

Combat

OMORI employs a turn-based battle system with a unique twist: in line with the game’s central themes, it incorporates emotions into the effectiveness of attacks in battle. The four members of OMORI’s team battle together, and there are four emotions each member of the team can hold: happy, sad, angry, or neutral. In addition, each member can learn a move-set of up to four moves, learning new, more powerful moves as experience is gained. Each move is associated with one of these emotions as well. 

In accordance to a scissors-paper-stone-like system, different moves deal different kinds of damage depending on their associated emotions, as well as the emotion of the target. Using moves or items, any participant in battle can have their emotions changed.

Story

The story of OMORI is the essence of the game. Heavy juxtaposition is thrown at the player as they are brought back and forth between Sunny’s less-than-ideal real life and the super-cutesy, idealised dream world in his head. Through exploring the world further and learning more about our protagonist and the people around them, key themes of the causes and effects of trauma, anxiety, depression and isolation are explored, heavily reinforced and supported by the game’s simple yet powerful visuals.

Aesthetics

2D pixel art-based assets are what is mostly used in the overworld, and hand-drawn art and animation are used in battle sequences and during cutscenes. The game also features a diverse soundtrack album with close to 200 original tracks. While not exceedingly detailed or complex, the aesthetics are well used to complement the story: The dream world and the real world are shown in clear contrast in terms of the colours used in the art as well as the intensity of the music. 

Technology

The game began development in 2014 using RPG Maker. The game was made available on Windows and Mac OS upon initial release with controller support, and a Nintendo Switch port was later announced for Spring 2022. Aside from OMOCAT and their team’s express desire to use RPG Maker to “promote this platform that supports and provides the tools for DIY storytelling and game-making”, the use of RPG Maker was perfect for their ideas of a simple visual style and 2D gameplay. The game consequently does not have expensive memory, graphics or storage requirements, making it more accessible for the player base.

Lens 38: Challenge

In relation to challenging the player, OMORI does a good job of that through requiring an increase in the player’s ability to work their way through battles. As you progress from area to area within OMORI’s dream world, the player encounters enemies and bosses of increasing strength, meant to match their own increasing strength so the characters can continue to gain experience and level up. There is a need for the player to have gained sufficient experience by the time the boss fight is reached so as to not lack the raw firepower to take them down, and a need to have sufficient planned out move combinations or when to use items to be able to tactically overwhelm the enemy.

Personally, during my play-through of this game, the initial stages were fairly smooth-sailing, being able to overcome enemies and area bosses without too much difficulty. Around mid-game though I found myself unable to keep up with the game’s difficulty. I found the need to boost my team a fair bit by grinding experience and the need for more planning in terms of battle strategies. Even past this point, battles further down the road continued to pose challenges: the difficulty growth does not let up, and the game makes sure to keep you on your toes essentially the entire way through.

Lens 79: Freedom

There is a need to constrain the player to somewhat of a linear path through the dream and real worlds in order for the story to be properly told: it would not make sense in the case of OMORI to give the player total freedom of exploration when the core of the game is in the storytelling, which is done by directing the player to and from the two worlds in order to slowly provide context to the plot and let the player clue in to the game’s key themes.

While in the grand scheme of things the player does not have total freedom of exploration as you might see in open world games, on a smaller level the player is given the freedom to do things at their own pace as they discover and explore new areas. New areas afford the player the chance to explore the areas for themselves to figure out what needs to be done rather than spoon-feeding instructions and directions. The game also introduces side quests every once in a while that require traversing through previously explored areas, and even includes entire areas that are optional for the player to discover and survey if they wish. 

Lens 91: Character Transformation

The story of OMORI is centered on the character transformation of the protagonist Sunny as he struggles to overcome his trauma and anxiety. As the plot progresses, the player gets to experience and see up close the different kinds of fears our protagonist has, how he can work to overcome them, and how he can eventually come to terms with himself.

With regard to Sunny’s friends, since the story is viewed solely through the eyes of Sunny/Omori, their transformations do not necessarily come in the form of character growth or maturity as the plot progresses but rather as a juxtaposition of their personalities, qualities and relationships between the dream world and real world. These changes can initially be surprising and interesting, inspiring the player to find out more. Eventually, through studying the protagonist’s psyche, the player will come to understand why exactly these disparities exist.

Lens 6: Curiosity

As with story-driven games like OMORI, the player motivation stems from a desire for plot progression and learning more about the world and the characters in it. 

The game begins with a mysterious cutscene: the player doesn’t know who the characters are or what they’re talking about. We are then dropped directly into the game, into an ominous barren landscape called WHITE SPACE where we meet Omori who has apparently been there for as long as he can remember. What is this place? Why have we always been here? What did that opening sequence mean? We later meet a bunch of our friends and set out to explore the world. Everyone is having fun and everything seems just fine, until suddenly it isn’t. The player then wakes up in the real world as Sunny, and more questions arise.

The game starts out with a cold, potentially vague and confusing opening that forces the player to ask questions, questions that can only be answered by making progress through the plot. As the game takes the player on a journey to uncover our protagonist’s secrets, we gradually get more and more context, and more of our questions are answered, but we never truly know everything until the very end.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an adventure role-playing game made by Larian Studios. The game allows for a single-player system where a player controls multiple characters or an online co-op system where each player controls only one character. The two main aspects of the game are the interactions and dialogues with in-game objects and non-player characters (NPCs), and the tactical turn-based combat. I personally think the x-factor of the game is the complexity of the game and the freedom of the players, which means there are many different ways that the players can progress the story, each providing a different experience for the players.

link: https://divinity.game/

demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ4SVSm1ARQ&ab_channel=PlayStation

Elemental Tetrad:

Mechanics

• Exploration & Interaction

In Divinity: Original Sins 2, the players explore the world from a bird’s eye view perspective by clicking on where they want to move to. There are also skills that the players can learn to navigate the world in more interesting ways, such as telekinesis to move objects around, or teleportation to get to seemingly inaccessible parts of the terrain. The players can interact with objects and NPCs through a dialogue box, where the players can choose the different dialogue options.

• Combat

The game uses tactical turn-based combat. The players have a set amount of action points they can use each turn, and every attack, skill, or item-use costs action points. As items and skills usage is limited by action points and cooldowns, the crux of the combat is planning effective combat strategies.

Story

The setting of the game is a fantasy world where the world is under attack from the “Void”, and the “Divine” (a person with God-bestowed powers), who is supposed to hold back the “Void”, is dead. The player(s) role-play as characters who are “Sourcerers” (people who have special magical abilities) and fight against the “Void” and try to become the new “Divine”.

Although the background story is the same, the players are able to choose different characters and customise to their liking at the start of the game, which changes the players’ dialogue options and behaviour of some NPCs (e.g. some NPCs are hostile to only some characters), hence changing the story. On top of that, the players’ decisions can also drastically change the story based on their action choices.

Aesthetics

The game has beautifully crafted terrains and environments, as well as well-made combat animations. However, I personally feel that the aesthetics in Divinity: Original Sins 2 especially excels in the characters, from the unique designs to the expressive voice acting, the game was able to make the characters come alive and feel easy to connect with.

Technology

Larian Studios made Divinity using the Divinity Engine Toolkit, which players can use to create their own modifications to the game that they can play with their friends. The game is cross-platform and is available on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Nintendo Switch, and iPadOS. With the same Larian Studios account, the progress can also be shared across platforms.

Other lenses:

Lens 79 – Freedom

While playing the game, the biggest thing that struck me was the seemingly unlimited degree of freedom I had as a player. Right from the beginning, when interacting with NPCs, the players can choose from many different options on what to do or say to affect how the story progresses. For example, the player can choose to befriend or make enemies out of almost all the main NPCs. The players have so much freedom that if they so choose, they could kill all the NPCs. This freedom makes the choices made by the players very meaningful, and gives the game very high replay value for me, as I would want to know how the story would progress if I had chosen another option.

On top of that, unlike many role-playing games, the skills and weapons in the game are not limited to specific characters or classes of characters. This means that players would be able to freely experience all the different skills and weapons throughout the game even in a single play-through.

Lens 8 – Problem Solving

While playing the game, I found the battles in the game very challenging and had to strategise very carefully to beat the enemies. This was an aspect that made the combat very interesting to me, as every combat would feel like solving a problem you are faced with. One example is how different combinations of skills have different effects on different types of enemies. For instance, water skills make the enemy wet, and wet enemies become more vulnerable to ice and lightning attacks. However, there are enemies with different types of elemental resistance, so the strategy needs to be varied for each enemy. Another example is how high-ground attacks are more effective than low-ground attacks, so positioning is also an important strategy aspect. These complicated aspects of the combat make the combat very puzzle-like, which is fun and rewarding for players who are able to put the right pieces together.

Lens 44 – Cooperation

Although the game can be played by a single player, I personally enjoyed the cooperative mode more, as it feels like going on an adventure with your friends. Coupled with the complexity of the combat, synergising your skills and moves with your friends is a degree of difficulty in cooperation that can bring fun and challenge to the players. In addition, the freedom of each player also allows for more randomness in the story, as your friends may choose different dialogue options that cause the story to progress in unexpected ways.

Lens 85 – The Avatar

Like many other role-playing games, Divinity: Original Sins 2 allows players to customise their character’s appearances and skills to their liking. On top of that, Divinity also allows players to customise the type of person their character would be. For example, the players can choose “origin tags” for their character, which mainly affects the possible dialogue options the players will have in the game. For instance, a character with the “scholar” tag will have different dialogue options from a character with the “outlaw” tag. Another example is the ability to learn civil skills such as persuasion and bartering, which also affects the possibilities in the gameplay. I feel that these extra ways in which the players can customise their characters can really help them feel more connected to their avatars in the game.

The game I want to review is Genshin Impact, a popular action role-playing game. Official website: Genshin Impact – Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure (mihoyo.com)

I started playing the game several days after its release, and I have been playing for more than one year now.

Game Experience

1. Exploration

When the player just starts playing the game, there are tons of things to explore, the combat system, different characters, unknown areas on the map, etc. This is probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the game, the beautiful game scenes, the great music, the interesting stories and characters, as well as some unexpected but nice details.

The Lens of Problem Solving: There are a lot of puzzles in the game at this stage, some hard content also require player to adjust their combat strategies.

2. Casual Daily Activities

Although the game has a lot of great content, players will still finish doing most quests and exploring most areas eventually. For many games, this means the game is finished, and the player will either play again or quit. But that is not completely true for Genshin Impact, there are many players like me who have finished most content of the game but still play the game everyday.

The experience of the game becomes mostly doing daily quests and farming resources, as well as participating in the various events from the game updates.

The Lens of Time: The gameplay time decreases significantly at this stage, which can be frustrating sometimes. But spending less time on game is actually not a bad thing (can focus more on real life activities).

3. Making Progress

Doing similar things everyday does not sound very interesting, and some people indeed quitted the game after the finishing the “exploration” state of the game. So why are there still many people willing to do the repeating daily events and farming?

As I am one of those people, I think I can share why I am not getting bored with the repeating tasks in some games.

MAKING PROGRESS. Although doing daily events and farming can feel repetitive, but the resources gotten can make the player’s characters stronger and also allow them to pull for new character or weapons. The feeling of getting stronger/making progress is really satisfying, especially when the progress is becoming from some “hard work”. This can also apply to real life, for instance, some people enjoy workout as they can feel that they are getting stronger in the process.

The Lens of Motivation: Making progress is a crucial motivation of the game, how to keep this motivation or add new types of motivation is something that need to be considered carefully.

4. Communication with other Players

A large amount of time I spent in Genshin Impact was chatting, most of the time with the friends I know in real life.

The Lens of Friendship: Features such as visiting other players’ worlds and doing dungeons with other players are nice to have.

Description

Honor of Kings (王者荣耀 in Chinese) is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Tencent Games for the iOS and Android mobile platforms for the Chinese market. Released in 2015, it has become the most popular MOBA game in mainland China. Nowadays, the game has more than 100 million daily active players. However, as a phenomenal game in China, it is largely unheard of in the rest of the world.

Link to the official website: https://pvp.qq.com/

Link to game play demo: https://youtu.be/JGBojVkNE-M

Lens #9: The lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics:

The sophistication and variety of skins form a major part of the game’s aesthetics and also play a crucial role in generating revenue. The most representational example is the skin of Zhao Yun (a famous military general who lived during Three Kingdoms period of China) raises 150 million RMB within one day. Originated in China, the design with oriental aesthetics perfectly integrates with Chinese traditional culture and history, bringing in visual enjoyment to players. The very fast update of skins provides players an extremely large number of appreance choices and lots of freshness. The skin design competition improves the player participation and involvement in creating a skin of their interest, maintaining high player stickiness.

Mechanics:

The most popular mode is the 5v5 player versus player matches. The basic gameplay involves controlling a hero with unique abilities to kill non-player characters and opponents to gain experience and gold, with experience used to unlock their character’s abilities or further augment the ability’s power, and gold used to purchase items at the shop (which change specific attributes depending on the item bought).

The teams start on opposing ends of the map, with the victory conditions either being to destroy the enemy’s core building or the enemy team surrendering. To destroy the enemy Nexus(core building), teams must destroy defensive turrets, which are situated on the 3 main routes(top, middle, bottom) used to reach the enemy base.

106 Heroes are categorized into 6 types: tank, assassin, warrior, support, archer, and mage. Players adopt various strategies in the picks and bans of heroes and collaboration within the team.

Story:

Honor of Kings has a rather complex storyline though many players are attracted by its game mode to a larger extent. The heroes usually originate from folklore, mythology, or mythical creatures, with others coming from works of literature, movies, and even other in-game heroes. This greatly enriches the diversity of the game’s story and increases the player’s familiarity with the game characters.

Technology:

As a real-time MOBA game, the requirements for back-end servers and networks are very demanding, and higher requirements are placed on cloud service providers. Frame synchronization technology is utilized to ensure low latency of game. Also, the development of the mobile Internet and the popularity of smartphones have contributed to the success of the game.

Lens #27: The Lens of Time

The average time taken for one game is 15-20 minutes. Not-too-long game duration makes it easier for players to open the game in various scenarios. On the streets of China, you will see people of various occupations playing this game with friends during their work break. Commuting on the bus and subway and waiting for food in restaurants is no longer so boring with this game. 

At the same time, the gaming duration is not too short as well. Players will experience all stages of the game, feel the visible progress, the improvement of the character level, the gradual destruction of the turrets until the final breakthrough of the Nexus, which can bring players a rich game experience within only 20 minutes.

Lens #45: The Lens of Competition vs Cooperation

The special region-based ranking system motivates competition among players. The system indicates a player’s ranking in his home street, county, city, province, and even the whole country. It encourages players to achieve a higher ranking in their own region, and then enter a higher level to compete with players from all over the country. Meanwhile, it does not discourage players too much because players will always find a suitable level and achieve a higher ranking.

Honor of Kings encourages the players to cooperate with teammates and defeat the opponents. The design of 6 hero types is an excellent example, 5 players within the same team are supposed to choose heroes of different roles to form complementary abilities and improve the overall strength of the team.

Lens #46: The Lens of Reward

Throughout the game, players get various kinds of rewards which brings lots of sense of achievement.

Resources:

Experience value and gold are the two most important resources in the game, player gains them by killing heroes, other characters and destroying turrets. Resources lead to the higher value of attributes and better weapons, improving the power of the hero.

The unique sound and light special effects：

Players get special effects and sign on top of the screen when they achieve a killing spree. Compliments from teammates and loss of opponents greatly bring satisfaction to the player.

Powers:

The player gets a buff, which is a status effect given to the hero that gives it a beneficial boost to their performance. The increase in power makes it easier to get the victory and the special appearance of a buff is another kind of reward to the player as well.

Lens# 96: The Lens of Friendship

Relying on WeChat and QQ, two billion-level communication tools, players can easily team up with real friends by logging in through WeChat or QQ. The process of playing together helps strengthen friendship and forms a community of Kings of Glory. Matching with unfamiliar teammates also allows players to meet new friends and form a larger social circle. Playing the game together rapidly breaks the ice among people and creates more possibilities for a closer relationship with other players. Convenient sharing of the game in WeChat moments and Qzone increases the game exposure and improves the discussion of the game among friends.

Description

Unpacking is a zen puzzle game in which players are tasked to, you know, unpack. The game narrative follows an unnamed character that players help to unpack for between the years 1995 to 2015. While unpacking for various house moves, the player learns of clues about the character’s life story. For a game with no dialogue and little to no words used, it is impressive to be able to craft a character’s personality through unpacking boxes. It is no wonder the game is also a finalist of several categories for the Independent Games Festival 2022, including Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative and Excellence in Audio.

Gameplay Video

The Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics
Unpacking is essentially a simple game to play in terms of mechanics as it mainly involves using the mouse to point and click to move items to places you want. The game starts off small in a child’s room which allows the player to adapt to the game mechanics before slowly moving to larger living spaces which are larger puzzles to solve.
There are no time pressures while playing the game as there are no countdown timers, so the players can have a easy and relaxing time playing the game.

Story
The storytelling in Unpacking is a very interesting element they have. Instead of specific dialogue happening in-game, the players are given hints in the form of items present in each level when they unpack the boxes. Players can identify what are the items that were brought over from the character’s previous house to their new house, and what are the items that are new to the story.
Unpacking allows players to unpack not just boxes, but eventually the life story about the character in the game.

Aesthetics
The game uses an isometric, pixel art aesthetic, coupled with satisfying sounds when interacting with different objects. The game soundtracks and sound effects add to the relaxing experience for players. The game sound design includes over 14,000 foley effects, with multiple pick-up and placement sound effects unique to each item.

Technology
Unpacking supports gameplay on Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The Lens of Emotions

With the gameplay centered around the character’s life progression, the player is influenced to be attached to the story and changes while the game progresses. This captivates the player to continue playing the game to discover what comes next and leaves the player wanting more.

Besides the usual gameplay, the game also provides an option for the player to review their whole attempt at the end of the round. The player is given a fast forward clip of their whole attempt when unpacking the boxes, showing how the items fill up the initially empty room or house. This gives a sense of satisfaction to the player at the end of the round, making them feel accomplished and motivated to continue playing another round.

The Lens of Curiosity

As the story is not told in an outright manner through dialogue or usage of words, the player is often left wondering what the subtle hints given by the game actually means.
The life story of the character slowly unfolds as the player progresses through the different stages.

The Lens of Challenge

Unpacking challenges the player to arrange the items given in boxes in a satisfying manner, figuring out and placing the items where they belong. Initially, the first few levels are relatively easier but it slowly progresses to a higher level of difficulty as players are given more items to unpack. Eventually, players are challenged to be able to figure out the correct placement for the items.

However, it can also be argued that there is less of a challenge when playing Unpacking due to its ultimate goal to be a zen puzzle game that allows the player to have a relaxing experience. There is no time limit for the player to work against, and there is no other character or player to beat.

The Lens of Fairness

The game allows many different ways for each level to be solved, which makes sense as there are different places where people prefer items to be placed. In a sense, this mechanic makes it fair for players as opposed to having just one strict answer to the puzzle.

Game description

Journey is a game co-developed and released by thatgamecompany and Santa Monica Studio in 2012. It is modelled after the progression of human life. (Note: I am unable to upload any images, hence I was unable to upload screenshots of the game)

Game website: https://thatgamecompany.com/journey/

Game playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkL94nKSd2M

In this review, I first will be examining each of the elements of the elemental tetrad. Throughout and after this examination, I will be evaluating the game through different lens as well.

Aesthetics

Journey is set within the landscape of a vast, endless desert with the remnants of a fallen civilization buried in sand.

• #54 The Lens of Accessibility: The landscape of the game is marked consistently by one distinct mountain, with light flowing from its summit. This sends a strong signal that the mountain is the player’s destination and guides the player to travel in its direction.
• Other than the general desert theme, the game is divided into several stages at different locations. From exploring ruins in the middle of the desert, to wandering lonely underground towers, to enduring the blistering cold of the mountain, the stages are varied enough to convey different moods and experiences to the player. At the same time, the setting of each stage is well integrated into the overall story.
• The music is mainly orchestral, with oriental undertones, and ties consistently into the mood created by the setting and gameplay at each stage of the game.

Story

In Journey, you play as a cute red cloaked being, with the goal of reaching the top of the mountain. On the way to the mountain, you reach checkpoints where you meet a larger white cloaked being, which could represent a deity or higher being of sorts. At each checkpoint, we learn more about the history behind how this world came to be, as well as how it met its ruin.

Mechanics

The story of the world depicted through the game suggests that its game world is structured around a single form of “magic” which comes from the mountain which you are travelling to. You can use this magic in two main ways:

• The first is by evoking such magic through sound, which is dispersed in all directions in your immediate vicinity. In doing so, certain items can be activated and can fulfill certain functions.
• Secondly, you can store this magic in the form of glyphs on your scarf. The length of the scarf represents its capacity. The magic from your scarf can be used to fly but must be replenished by certain magical items/beings at different locations.

#24 The Lens of Novelty: The concept of “magic” in this game manifests in a novel way compared to most other games. Magic in this game world can be felt and used in a variety of ways, allowing the player to explore all its uses and experience all its manifestations. For example, it can be visualized as glyphs on your scarf which light up, or when magical items turn from grey to bright crimson as they are activated, or different musical notes when you evoke the magic, or a form of communication towards other magical beings (e.g., you can use it to ask the magical kites to help replenish the magic in your scarf). In this way, it avoids an overly simplistic and cliched interpretation of magic.

Technology

The game was first released as a PlayStation game but can be played on the computer and various mobile devices. While the technology is limited, its stunning visuals and music are enough to make the game an immersive experience for any player.

Overall, the four elements of the elemental tetrad work well to portray a unified theme of the “journey of life” and bring the theme to life within the player’s experience.

Other lenses

#21 The Lens of Flow

• The game structure is simple, having a purely linear flow with distinct stages (making it more game-like than the real world in this respect). At each stage, the goal is constantly to reach a checkpoint which brings you to the next stage. At the same time, there are typically sufficient spatial clues which lead the player towards this checkpoint.
• During the 3^rd stage through the desert, the path is less straightforward. However, this may have been done purposefully, with the aim to replicate the stage of nearing adulthood (in real life) when we are given more autonomy and choices, and the road ahead becomes is less fixed and certain.
• The stages follow a gradual increase in difficulty, as players learn how to better use their skills. In the 2^nd stage, not much skill is required as we are simply required to walk around the arena activate certain items in the desert to unlock the path forward. In contrast, in the 5^th stage, we must avoid detection from huge metal monsters. However, it could be argued that the difficulty remains rather tame throughout the game.

#67.5 The Lens of Metaphor

• The game manages to convey themes and feelings at each stage matching universal aspects of human life. For example, the awe and excitement when exploring the desert with magical kite friends is akin to that of childhood exploration and the fear when first encountering metal monsters in the underground ruins is akin to that of facing your first serious challenges in our childhood/teenage years.
• Furthermore, as you come closer to reaching the mountain, your journey is shown as an important part of the narrative of this world. In the same way, perhaps all our individual life journeys carry significance in the real world.
• However, the game avoids overly literal expressions such as dialogue, or environments which restrict the player’s freedom or movements. This leaves room for each player to interpret and experience each stage in their own way, proving complementary its objective in modelling human life, which similarly, would have a different set of experiences for everyone.

#94 The Lens of Atmosphere

• The 4^th stage brings the player through a lighthearted experience of surfing through the ruins of the desert, while being led by magical kites to our next destination. The thrill and fun of surfing is complemented by a breathtaking view of the sunset, inspiring awe and wonder at the beauty of the game world. The visuals are heavily populated with red and golden hues, complementing the warm bright red that characterizes magical items and creating a warm and bright mood.
• In the 5^th stage, the player enters the underground, which is coloured in dark blue hues, creating a colder, lonelier, and creepier atmosphere. This stands in stark contrast to the previous stage, invoking stronger feelings of fear and unease in players and warns of the dangers posed by the metal monsters which lie ahead.
• The different atmospheres in these two stages are very well portrayed. Their juxtaposition also serves very well to evoke stronger emotions and immersion of the player.

All in all, with its stunning graphics and minimalistic gameplay, the game stays focused in bringing across its story and theme as an experience to players.

Valorant is a team-based first-person tactical shooter game developed by Riot Games. Even though the game started development in 2014, it was only released in 2020.
Set in the new future, players play as an agent that each have unique abilities and can utilise a variety of weapons to try and defeat their opponents in a variety of gamemodes.

Game Demo

Lens 9: Elemental Tetrad

MECHANICS
As a tactical shooter, Valorant, at its core, is a game about working together with your teammates to try accomplish a specific objective or to defeat your opponents. Of course, being a shooter game, players are rewarded for precise and accurate mouse movements to aim and win gunfights. In addition, players can use their variety of abilities, as well as their knowledge of maps or understanding of different visual or sound cues to assist them in winning gunfights or achieving their objectives. The game also has an economy system, where players earn money from winning rounds or achieving certain results, such as defeating an enemy. Players then use this money before each round begins to purchase their weapons and utility for the next round.

AESTHETICS
The aesthetics of the game aren’t anything special. In fact, for a game released as recent as 2020, the graphics seem low quality. This is done on purpose however, as the developer intended for the game to be playable on any PC, no matter the specifications. Furthermore, as a competitive shooter, players need to be able to discern their environments and the location of other players as quickly as possible, something which high quality graphics could actually be detrimental for.

STORY
The game does not have much in terms of story apart from a couple of videos released every few months. This is to be expected however, as the bulk of the game is about its gameplay and competing with other players.

TECHNOLOGY
The developer, Riot Games, chose to develop the game on Unreal Engine 4, as it allowed them to focus more on gameplay and optimization. As I mentioned earlier, this was also done to lower the performance barrier and allow as many people as possible to play the game without worrying about hardware requirements.

Lens 34: Skill
Being a tactical game, Valorant requires many skills from players, which they can continuously develop and improve at the more they play. Things like being able to read the enemy’s intentions based on the information you have at any moment, using your abilities in the most efficient way, controlling the information you’re giving the enemy to work with and of course, the most important skill in a shooter, aiming. What I enjoy the most is that wins and losses are determined by how good a player is at any of this and the feeling that you are able to constantly improve as you play the game. Of course, this also means that the higher skilled player would win more often than not but this is made less of an issue with a matchmaking system to ensure that players in every game are at approximately the same skill level.

Lens 27: Time
In every match of Valorant, each team competes to be the first to win 13 rounds. Furthermore, each round lasts for only 100 seconds, which makes the game a fast-paced experience. This forces players to make decisions quickly , which in my opinion, makes the game more fun. It also prevents players from being dead for long periods of time or from being devoid of action for a long time. This ensures that the game remains engaging and not boring.

Lens 6: Problem Solving
Due to the fast paced nature and relative complexity of the game, a player would have many different aspects to consider at any moment, such as their time remaining, what resources they have to work with and information regarding their enemies, such as their last known position and the tools they have. They would then have to come up with a plan of action that they think would lead to them winning the round. This particular element of the game allows me to always feel engaged and invested while I’m playing, which in turn makes it feel enjoyable to me. Furthermore, there is also an economy in the game, where players can buy their utility and weapons for each round. This means players have to decide on the best way to spend their limited amount of money each round to maximise their chances of winning, as well as the number of rounds they win.

Lens 96: Friendship
As a team-based game, Valorant requires players to work together and to communicate to improve their chances of winning. Due to its fast paced nature, most players choose to communicate using the in-game voice chat as it is faster than typing. They can then use this to share information so that they can all make better individual or team based decisions. Valorant also allows players to add each other to a friends lists and allows them to queue up together, up to 5 players in a group. This means that players can choose to go into the next match with people they work well with or with their friends.

Conclusion
The analysis of this game has allowed me to see exactly what makes this game so enjoyable for me and why this game has been as successful as it has been up till now.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (BATOTS) is an adventure game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by 505 Games on numerous platforms. It has received critical acclaim, having won the award for Best XBOX Game (2013) at VGX Award Show and Best Game Innovation Award (2014) at British Academy Games Awards. The game has the option of co-op or single player and takes place in a fantasy world filled wth fictitious creatures like orcs and trolls. It brings you a puzzle solving experience involving the story of two young brothers on a fairy tale journey to find the “Water of Life”, a cure for their father’s illness.

#9 : Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

One of the essential elements and what I deem as the key for immersing players into the game is the constant need to interact between the brothers in order to progress in the game. I played this game with my brother and used the co-op function where we control one player each. Although both players have the same set of controls, most (if not all) puzzles require some form of collaboration between players to complete. In a sense, this naturally implies the need for communication between players which keeps players engaged throughout the gameplay. Even for single player mode, the player has to strategically decide how and when to move each of the brothers simultaneously to proceed.

Although the controls and mechanics of the game are fairly simple, the puzzle-solving aspect of the game makes the gameplay more dynamic – different situations require different approaches or combinations of controlling the characters. Players have the basic movement options like moving in 4 directions (left, right, up, down), jumping, grabbing and climbing.

Story

The game provides a fantasy-based setting, where most of the entities are fictitious. It has the otherwordly feel which helps isolate the story into a specific “mini world”, where it focuses only on one problem. This gives the story a more coherent flow as the side plots are easily tailored to support the main storyline. The main conflict in the story was that the brothers’ father fell heavily ill and as sons, they wanted to find a cure. Emphasis was given on the “Water of Life” as the possibly only solution to save their father, hence the motivation to set on a journey to obtain it.

Personally, I feel that there is beauty in having a simple plot or context and expanding on it during the journey itself via tasks instead of introducing more complicated problems that digress from the main resolution. The game is well-made in a sense that it utilizes the potential setbacks or difficulties during the journey to be the puzzle-solving aspect, thus weaving in the plot and gameplay more seamlessly. Despite the storyline being simple, a plot-twist is introduced in the end which was impactful because (i) the plot involves kinship and death which makes it highly relatable to the human life, (ii) the journey gameplay gives time for players to get invested into the story and form attachment towards the character and (iii) it leaves players with thought-invoking topics and perspectives towards the ending. The plot ends in a conclusive (in terms of what factually happened) yet leaves you reflecting on life decisions and thinking back deeply about whether the journey was worth it in the first place.

Aesthetics

The graphics did a beyond impressive job at extending that immersive experience to make the fantasy more convincing. The lighting and illumination gave the game a dream-like feel, hence accentuating the aspect of fiction in the setting. Additionally, since the tale takes place in a rural environment, the sounds of nature and human-made noises are amplified to set the mood and context. For example, you will hear sounds from birds chirping, wood knocking and people going about their daily duties. At this point it doesn’t just feel like a game but a movie that indulges you in the presence of a society, and you will be left with wanting more!

Technology

BATOTS is available on many platforms, ranging from PC to controllers. Depending on the platform you use, the difficulty level of the gameplay may vary. For example, playing in co-op mode and sharing a keyboard may be more difficult than having a controller each.

#44 Lens of Cooperation

Cooperation is one of the core mechanics of the game. When playing the game, my brother and I found ourselves taking turns to lead the path and being the supporter in solving the puzzles. This involves constant communication and understanding of each other’s skillset. Some players may be more skilled in parkour-based controls whereas some can plan more strategically. This game hones on the chemistry between the players and utilizes their individual strengths in order to come to decisions effectively. Not only do you have to progress, but you have to progress together because the camera only pans when both players are within the same frame or in a certain proximity.

One thing I found interesting was that since I played with my brother, it felt like we were a translation of the brothers in the game itself and that gave a real touch to the experience, almost as if this story was ours.

#50 Lens of Character

BATOTS brings a unique twist to reality in a sense that it incorporates civilization invention, materials and entities into the adventure. For example, players have to use man made bridges to crossover and start throwing sheeps around to act as weight. It gives a sense of humor when solving the tasks and puzzles because of how it contrasts with how we usually use or behave around such entities in the actual world. Another memorable component of the gameplay is also how trolls are central to the development and progress of the quest. They act as friendly aid to the players to open up more avenues for exploration, almost as if they were the key to our freedom. It plays into the idea of fiction and having fictitious entities expand the possibilities our imagination.

To build on the concept of trolls, I noticed that the trolls had faces resembling that of humans, and thought that this might be the reason why I felt safe in their company. The trolls resemble humans in their actions, reactions and appearance and that they are much bigger in size compared to the brothers. The brothers’ mother had died at the start and their father fell sick, hence they only have each other to rely on. The trolls could possibly symbolize as the guide and protector of the brothers. If so, this was a really nice touch to showcase or imply the inner feelings of the main characters.

#55 Lens of Visible Progress

On the note of progress, I liked that there were indications and clues provided throughout the gameplay to signify that my brother and I were one step closer to obtaining the “Water of Life”. What BATOTS did was to show that there was a change in the environment and mood of the avenues explored. This included changes in platforms, type of strategies used to solve the tasks and the characteristics of the entities encountered. This progression was also more seamless because of the nature of the mechanics, where the puzzles and tasks depends on the available resources in the environment and how players can potentially interact with them. There is also a visible change in climate, where you get to experience being in different temperatures and the four elements (i.e fire, water, earth, air). Interestingly, as the brothers got deeper into the adventure, the altitude of the platform and environment gradually increases too.

#54 Lens of Accessbility

BATOTS alternates between story plot and actual gameplay quite frequently, though the transitions are not abrupt. This actually helps preempt the players when they need to solve the puzzles presented to them in the environment. Despite the flow being non-abrupt, the switch is significant or noticeable enough to indicate that its time for the player to watch or act. The game also makes use of camera pannings, music changes and vocals to transition between the switches. The puzzles are easy to adapt to due to the clearly defined space given to players to explore when carrying out the tasks. The possible strategies are also highly visual based which eases players into the problem solving situation.

Overall Thoughts

Overall this experience has been nothing short of amazing. Despite it being a pretty short gameplay, my brother and I had fun discussing how to solve the tasks and being immersed into a new world together. Though BATOTS captures impressive graphics and feel of the game, I do believe that there could be more depth in the characters and how they feel throughout the journey. Yet, perhaps the whole point of not being more explicit with the emotions of the characters was to ride on the imagination and personal feelings of the players themselves. Each player feels and interprets differently, and there could be beauty in not excessively restricting the emotion flow throughout the gameplay. This might also be the reason how BATOTS was able to leave players with an impactful and thought-provoking ending.