T.W.T.P.B.
Friday, March 07 2008 20:29:36 by freelancer
I played this game for the first time about three months ago, and since I'm still playing it regularly I thought I'd say a few words about it. T.W.T.P.B. is a Shoot Em' Up developed by Spell of Play Studios, and it's probably the most addictive game I've ever played. The concept is simple; you control your ship with the mouse and increase your score by destroying enemy ships (which are actually various formation-flying geometric shapes). To aid you in doing so you have three different abilities at your disposal; time warp (think "bullet time"), rapid fire, and regeneration (use energy to restore your health). Energy is acquired by collecting square powerup boxes that are left by destroyed enemies. There are also triangular boxes, which provide you with weapon upgrades. This basically adds more guns to your ship for more firepower.
And...that's it, as far as gameplay is concerned. Don't get me wrong though. This game might seem simple, but it is really fun. And really hard. There is also a story to it, but it isn't very developed yet. Which brings me to another interesting point. This game is being developed iteratively, which means that about every two weeks a new update is released, for free, adding new features and refining old ones. That's right, at the moment this game doesn't cost anything. If you want you can donate $5 (it's worth it!), but it is by no means a requirement. This will probably change when the game is finished, but I'm sure it'll be worth whatever it will cost.
If I want to call this a review I should probably say something about graphics too... Well, there's nothing really fancy in there, but if you take the enemy ships for what they really are (various geometric shapes) they actually look really good (see screenshot below). Besides, in my opinion most games today focus way too much on graphics, and not enough on gameplay (yes, that's a cliché, but it's a damn good one). Hopefully after reading this you'll want to play the game. If not, I advise you to download it and try it out anyway (it's only 6MB!). After doing so, don't forget to post your feedback on the forum. As I said, this is probably the most addictive game I've ever played, so don't blame me if you lose any sleep playing it. Big thumbs up for the awesome guys at Spell of Play Studios!
(No, I'm not going to give the game a score. I really don't believe in arbitrary scales based on subjective opinions. Also, if you know what T.W.T.P.B. means, do tell. There's a cake in it for you. (Can you mail cakes? Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure something out.))
And...that's it, as far as gameplay is concerned. Don't get me wrong though. This game might seem simple, but it is really fun. And really hard. There is also a story to it, but it isn't very developed yet. Which brings me to another interesting point. This game is being developed iteratively, which means that about every two weeks a new update is released, for free, adding new features and refining old ones. That's right, at the moment this game doesn't cost anything. If you want you can donate $5 (it's worth it!), but it is by no means a requirement. This will probably change when the game is finished, but I'm sure it'll be worth whatever it will cost.
If I want to call this a review I should probably say something about graphics too... Well, there's nothing really fancy in there, but if you take the enemy ships for what they really are (various geometric shapes) they actually look really good (see screenshot below). Besides, in my opinion most games today focus way too much on graphics, and not enough on gameplay (yes, that's a cliché, but it's a damn good one). Hopefully after reading this you'll want to play the game. If not, I advise you to download it and try it out anyway (it's only 6MB!). After doing so, don't forget to post your feedback on the forum. As I said, this is probably the most addictive game I've ever played, so don't blame me if you lose any sleep playing it. Big thumbs up for the awesome guys at Spell of Play Studios!
(No, I'm not going to give the game a score. I really don't believe in arbitrary scales based on subjective opinions. Also, if you know what T.W.T.P.B. means, do tell. There's a cake in it for you. (Can you mail cakes? Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure something out.))
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