BY ALEX BARNARD
Perspective, a free mind-blowing plat former developed by a small team of students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, has been gaining popularity after being nominated for the Technical Excellence award for the upcoming 2013 Independent Games Festival. The game begins as a fairly traditional 2D plat former with the player controlling a little blue avatar that must run and jump along blue tiles while avoiding red objects in order to reach the finish of each level. However, after teaching the player the simple rules to 2D navigation, the game dramatically expands. Perspective then allows players to click the mouse button switching control over from the blue avatar in the 2D environment to that of the game’s camera in a first person view, allowing users to freely walk around the environment.
The game’s 3D environment camera movement is what most puzzles are carefully designed around. Most require the player to continuously switch their viewpoint in order to move the blue avatar through the finish line. When in first person mode, the blue avatar remains in the same place, so the use of both perspectives is crucial in navigating to the finish of each level. By moving the camera around the environment, the blue objects that the avatar must walk across change in spatial relationship to one another. A simple change in camera angle can open up areas that were once thought to be inaccessible.
Still, difficulty of Perspective ramps up quickly. Some of the latter puzzles require experimentation on the part of the player to find out just how the different viewpoints can be manipulated. Rather than holding hands with the player to learn the game’s mechanics, Perspective encourages exploration and leads the player to learn many of the more complex mechanics on their own.
DigiPen students have long been known for developing unique games. One of its most famous is Narbicular Drop, a unique puzzle game that requires the player to use portals to navigate through the environment. Sounds like a familiar concept right? The students who developed Narbacular Drop were brought in by video-game industry giant Valve Software to develop the critically and commercially acclaimed Portal games. Hopefully the team behind Perspective will earn the same recognition and utilize their unique ideas for an even larger game.
With all that being said, Perspective is not an extremely polished product. The environments are both bland and repetitive; with the game’s old arcade motif not being varied enough to keep things interesting. The game also lacks any resemblance of a real story. However, the game still offers a unique gaming experience by combining traditional 2D plat formers with more modern 3D first person games. The puzzles are intuitive and the game’s ending makes playing through it well worth the time and effort. If you enjoyed games like Portal, or just like a good puzzle, Perspective is a memorable experience. Best of all, Perspective is completely free. It can be downloaded from seewithperspective.com.
