Thursday, April 19, 2012

Revelo: Battle For ASCIION



Battle for ASCIION is a side scrolling shoot-em-up displayed all in ascii art. As a result, any screenshots make it seem like a minimalist roguelike. Now that I think about it, a minimalist roguelike sounds delicious (more below). More delicious than Battle for ASCIION, I’m afraid.

The main problem with Battle for ASCIION is that it’s not very good. The weapons are poorly balanced, the enemies are dull, the controls are fiddly, and my real joy at the visual stylings was squashed as soon as I realized how confusing it made actually playing the damned thing. The production style is what drew me to the game, and I find myself coming back to it just to watch it do its dance, despite the crummy playing. If this had been a video-mockup, it would have been amazing, but the gameplay design just isn’t there.

Having to move one character’s distance at a time makes the game unable to achieve anything like the sort of precise grace that makes a shmup good. If a foodstuff has an awkward texture, it’s difficult to appreciate the taste. The same goes for a shmup.

I like shmups a lot, but I’m not good at them. To me, the mark of a good shmup is that I can see where I could improve, and build skill if I were to invest it. That I don’t end up choosing to invest that time is my choice of priorities, and not the game’s fault. If I play a shmup and don’t fantasize about being really skilled and graceful in it, then it’s probably a waste of time.

Despite my gripes, it does win a few points for having reversed the toggle for sound. If you want to hear sounds you click on “NO” and if you want them off you click “YES”. For this detail I offer developer Revelo Videogames a mighty applause. Also of praise is the ability to download the soundtrack offered to all players, and the TEXTSHOTTM feature which allows you take a screenshot of the game outputted as fully copyable ascii image. For instance, following is a screenshot I took of the most frequently encountered scenario in the game:


SCORE 000000007700    |    |    LOCAL TOP|000000010000           |  |LIVES|x00
           |  |______/ \__/ \______|  |  |  |____________________|  |  |  |____
           |__________________________|  |__________________________|  |_______
           ·              |  |       |    |       |  |  |  |       |    |      
    ·                     |  |______/ \__/ \______|  |  |  |______/ \__/ \_____
 ·                        |__________________________|  |______________________
·                                        |  /_\     /_\  |  /_\  |  |           
                                        |  \_/____/\\/_/ \_\_/__|  |           
      _____    ____    __    _  _______\|__________________________|_____      
     / |  \\  /  /\\  |  \  /| |  |  \ /  /  / \\ |  |  || |  |    |  | \\     
    |  | __  |  |__|| |  |\/|| |  |___   |  |   |||  |  || |  |___ |  |_//     
    |  | | | |  |  || |  |  || |  |/     |  |   |||  |  || |  |    |  | \\     
     \_|_|_| |__|  || |__|  || |__|___    \__\_//  \__\//  |__|___ |__|  \\    
                                                                             ·
                  - Y O U R   M I S S I O N   F A I L E D -                    
                                   ·                                           
                                         ·                                     
                                                                          /  ·
                                                     ·                  =o)    
·                                                                               
            --------------------------    --------------------------    -------
           |   ______   __   ______   |  |   ______   __   ______   |  |   ____
·          |  |      \ /  \ /      |  |  |  |      \ /  \ /      |  |  |  |    
[X] Select Weapon type:    SHOT x1 |  | LASERx1     |WIDE|x1     |  | STAGE 01



Battle for ASCIION is a flash game and can be found here. I do recommend playing it, if at least to encourage one’s fantasies about more interesting combinations of roguelike and spaceship.



My rating:

I could...

A. does not compute.

B. Take it.
C. Leave it.


PS. (more on the minimalist roguelike)

Picture a lone wanderer (the ‘@’) wandering through a desert (or maybe a void, or maybe a gymnasium). There are a few rocks here and there (represented by ‘,’), and some plants (represented by ‘r’). There is a hunger meter at the top (represented a growing string of ‘!!!!!’) and when it fills the top of the screen, you die. There are other letters distributed about the landscape and they either do, or do not mean something. This game is perfectly suited to iOS. A mockup screenshot (I promise I’m not infringing on your TEXTSHOTTM copyright, Revelo).


__________________________________________________

H!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!               
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                                         
                   r                                                     
                                                                         
                                                                         
             ,                                                           
                                               r, r                      
                                                                         
                                       W                                 
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                             r           
                                                                         
                                                                         
          @                                                              
                                      ,                                  
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                  ,                      
                   ,                                                     
                                                                         
                    r                                                    
___________________________________________________________________                                                                          
                                                                      
   
                                        

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