In the first paragraph game-designer eaagvark wrote:The demo is over when you make it to the left side of the first map but there is no door.
Dialogue, unfortunately shaped bosses (My bet was a penis. I was wrong.) and bad battle balance? All between the right side of the first map and the left side of the map? No doors?! Had to see what that was all about.and then a little bit later eaagvark wrote: Stuff I'm not happy with, in retrospect:
-the dialogue
-the unfortunate shape of the dungeon boss
-some of the battle balance
-some enemy sprites
So, what is it all about? Painted Space starts with an animated creation myth. The Creator (Not to be confused with eaagvark, who wasn't very creative with this name) is creating a new world. Inspired by the colors on his palette (Who created that palette?) he decides to dab some different colors all over the place. Then, like in the Christian recounting of Genesis, he decides to take a break. While he's off resting, his new world is busy doing stuff and that's where you come into it.
The first map is a nice place. There's a house with some books in it, a campfire, a lake. There's two orange balls to the left side of the map, but true to the author's word there are no doors. When I touched the balls, I considered the game beaten but I really wanted to see that mysterious boss that's so funny looking. It's not a slime, so it's gotta be boobs. Fortunately there was a cave to the right side of the map.
There's also a save point to the right side of the map, and it's a good thing. This should be made more obvious. After the long intro, you choose some information about your character. What stat of his will get a boost (I think I choose accuracy) and what kind of a weapon he uses (Claws!) which the game flavors as color and shape. It's a neat premise that ties into the theme of an Artist-Creator, but it's always awkward to have to make a game defining choice like this before I've done anything. There's no way in hell I'm gonna replay the game 8 times to try all the weapons, so some kinda.. try before you buy would be nice. At any rate, if I had died without finding the save point, I would've had to do it all over again and that would've been a nuisance. I'm of the opinion that if your game has a long intro, you should do your players a favor and let you save anywhere on that first map. But I digress!
Once you've saved, it's safe to enter the dungeon. A signpost up ahead tells you the name of the dungeon: Hole Hollow. So the boss is gonna be a vagina.. why am I always wrong?! My resolve was strengthened: I was going to get to the bottom of Hole Hollow and see the Vagina Boss. The battles were a little bit slow and the selection of available techniques were nothing out of this world. The monsters stuck to the art theme, being snakes made out of little colored balls and gray flies that hung around to heal them. It was interesting to see that they were done Earthbound style and the maps had been arranged so that you could sorta stealth through parts to get treasure. That was fun!
Further fun was the layout of the map, which utilized a combination of stairs to climb to higher levels, and holes in the floor to drop back down to the floor below in novel places. Sometimes it was just for treasure, but eventually I found the right route to get to the boss. I could see a save point up ahead. But first, another signpost gave a dire warning: The boss
would have an extraordinary amount of health and would only reveal his weakpoint to a certain kind of attack. Ominously, it foretold that he would also have a counter to this kind of attack! As I pushed forward I wondered.. what kind of monster could fit this description?
We were at the bottom of the dungeon now. The save point that once teased me from behind a wall was now letting me save and rest. A butt. It had to be a butt! Bottom, butt, it all made sense. As I left the save point behind and moved into the next room I was confident. I was going to see a butt. A certain kind of attack would open the hole and I was going to be pooped on. This was going to SPECTACULAR. I talked to the monster, the screen faded out. The tension built! The screen faded in! What was I looking at?! What had I come ALL THIS WAY to see?!
A swastika? A crummy hate crime?! Son of a bitch! The bastard leeched my MP, so I utilized my ability to regain MP and hit him with an other-wise pointless magic attack. Sure enough, the core appeared. After a vicious battle, I defeated the first core and did 5,000 damage to the Nazi Party. Repeated the process and a few minutes later I'd beaten him again and did another 5,000 damage.. but the Swastika was still there. Hatred isn't so easily erased. Since when can bosses have more than 9999 HP anyway?! Mystified, angered, incensed that this game might be unbeatable I repeated the tedious process one final time. I heard a strange noise.. could this be it? Yes! Hitler's logo of ignorance was erased!
There was a treasure chest after the boss, but I wasn't feeling it. I'd had my laugh, seen what I came to see. I picked it up just to be safe, just to be complete and what I read made me feel bad. "*SpellBook Symbol*Bomb! You can use this to blow up boulders on the map!"
A god damned Pokemon HM. And I had a sinking feeling that those orange balls I'd giggled at before were the boulders in question. The game suddenly felt new, felt fresh, felt exciting! This guy had tried to implement HMs! So that's what the orange balls were! So that's what hte orange swirls were! And when I used it on the orange ball.. it shrank away into nothingness! What a cool effect! I hadn't made it to the left side of the map at all, not really! With a final bold step, I proceeded to that last frontier. The leftest part of the firstest map.
And there wasn't a door! Just like he said! Right when I wanted to see more! Aww man!