Steam is a great service for online gaming, and Vessel is one of the many demos that is
available to try before making a purchase.
I’ve played this test of a game, and though unique elements are present,
they can’t make-up for the hardship I felt in the demo.
To begin this whimsical platformer, the stage is set through
a slow camera pan through a lab. The
scene shows pictures of your characters research into creating “fluros”;
strange, fluid-based automatons that become the workers of the steam-punk world
you live in. This gallery clearly
lays-out that these laborers revolutionized society, but something went wrong,
thus depicting the current situation you find yourself in.
The story is put forward in a decent manner, but this is a
comment on the first time seeing it. The
second and third times are overly repetitive, and the player has no way to get
past them! This distraction detached me
from the world of Vessel when I just
wanted to get back into the platforming and puzzles.
So, why did I play the demo three times? Well, the first time was that the game
trapped me in one of its puzzles with no way out. Getting stuck in a closet is not a way to
encourage trial-and-error testing of the puzzles in the game. Therefore, being left between two inoperable
doors, I had to restart.
The third play through comes from something deeper in the
very foundation of Vessel. Getting to a fluid puzzle area – the one that
trapped me previously – caused the game to jitter then crash. Forcing me a third time to play the game, I
nearly had the title crash again; more fluid-based areas caused the game to distort
and slow to a barely bearable pace. I
made it through that sequence after a few minutes, but my confidence in the
programming design of Vessel is
deeply shaken.
Now, when I was actually playing the demo, I had fun solving
and manipulating the fluid-based puzzles.
Hot and cold fluids have unique effects, levers and machinery fit well
in the steam-punk universe, and the “fluro” workers lend a creative element to
problem solving. However, the time I had
getting to these places was greatly lengthened not just by the aforementioned unskippable
cut scenes, but by long, drawn-out loading scenes. I was not expecting such a drag from a 2D
platform puzzle game!
Vessel’s demo was
a quick one; that must be a saving grace.
Don’t get me wrong, for I did have fun with the simplicity of the
visuals and the intriguing puzzles. The
downfall comes from lengthy time delays, poor design choices that punish
players, and issues at the core of the program execution. If I have judged this game wrongly, where the
demo cannot convey some majesty of the actual Vessel release, please let me know.
But, when it comes to the first impression that Vessel’s designers decided to put forward, they either made a poor
choice or worse, made a faulty experience.
Either way, I’d say take care in trying other games before approaching
this title.
- + Good setup of background, motivation, and story right from the beginning.
- + Creative and engaging puzzles based around fluid motion and physics.
- - Uncontrollable, unskippable cut scenes.
- A fix: Add a simple button press to take the player straight to play.
- - Puzzles that punish curious testing without redemption from each trial.
- A fix: Leave room for a player to reset to some sort of checkpoint, or create limited, foolproof level layouts.
- - The game crashes over its main mechanic of fluid use.
- A fix: Properly check the quality assurance to the title, making adequate changes in how the game relates to itself and the machine it runs on.
- - Long load times.
- A fix: Better streamline the asset reliance the program makes on itself.
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