I hope you can figure out what it’s all about. – [Author’s description]
The Ruins of Machi Itcza (MNWS, Andrew Gleeson)
Posted by Aquin
on July 6, 2013
I hope you can figure out what it’s all about. – [Author’s description]
redder
The person who made it has played through Redder too, so it’s no coincidence.
Oh wow, you weren’t kidding at the end there.
Just a word of warning:
Ah shoot, really? I may have to restart. -_-
Does anything change if you get them all?
What do the hearts do?
Excellent redder-like, although the final area has a few too many empty rooms.
The player character has incredible swagger. I love that walk cycle.
This was neat, although I got lost-ish at the end and never ended up finding the 12th key. It’s been cool following the evolution of MNWS’s platformers. I see this one still has the tables made of bismuth.
I just made a video of a full runthrough of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfGJsiZPRb8
I really like the wrap-around mechanics, they were done really well. The ending is also pretty smart.
It’s a great game that is awesome right up until the game over screen. I think it could have been improved by removing the flavor text at the start so we don’t get the promise of some sort of resolution. Either that or intersperse a flavor text mechanic throughout that hints at this sort of reality bending non-resolution.
But the platforming was super solid and awesomely satisfying.
I really enjoyed this. Actually, right up until the gray area I didn’t realize there was a map. I was having to just remember all the connections, and was about to give up (because the gray area was too convoluted for my memory) when I noticed the m: map. Heh.
I guess I should go play Redder.
As for the ending: it left me feeling anxious and looking for more meaning. I thought “oh, maybe I have to get hidden hearts? Maybe I can get the key if I…”, which is exactly the emotion the authors intended to evoke. Good on them! Great game, great ending. Reminded me a little of “Don’t Look Back” at least in the visual style.
Yeah, definitely go play Redder.
I enjoyed this game a bunch — I’ve liked all of MNWS’s stuff that’s been posted here — but Redder is pretty much a masterpiece. You can take Redder’s similar tricksiness as equivalent to what’s going on here, but it also supports a more forcefully political reading beyond its game-about-a-certain-game-trope surface.
In this game it feels like the environment has punished you for your transgressions. In Redder it feels…well, you should find out.
This was really good, but I’m kind of incensed that collecting all the hearts doesn’t change the ending at all. If you want to put some deeper interpretation on it about the meaning of life then it works perfectly, but as a game mechanic it’s lacking in execution.
Also: having only a single fake wall (without a more instructive instance) was permissible, given the Metroidvania context- the author has a right to expect us to expect fake walls. Having only a single instance of invisible platforms was really just over that line, however. And requiring the player to pixel-hunt and make the invisible-platform jump with perfect accuracy was fucking obnoxious. Stop that.
I think I would have enjoyed this more if I’d read the controls before playing and seen that you can bring up a map by pressing M.
This is lovely. MNWS’ games have a distinctive flavor to them that I really dig. I also enjoyed the Redder-ness of the end game.