Aphelion Incident

Category	Rank	Score
Innovation	40	3.80
Overall	54	3.57
Graphics	91	3.47
Community	98	3.15
Coolness	115	5
Humor	119	2.47
Fun	122	3.10
Theme	175	3.23
Audio	371	1.00

vdogamez 2011-08-22 02:18

This game is pretty amazing. The graphics are charming, the gameplay is fun, if a bit easy, and the characters are made surprisingly endearing by making them more than faceless guards, possibly by having them have relationships with each other (it's adorable how romance driven these aliens are). I played another game that tried this and failed, but this one really made them like people who I felt too guilty to kill. I really like the aliens in this, they're imaginatively designed and feel like they've been thought about much more than most people think about their game enemies (which coincidentally reflects one of the points of the game). It's definitely not without its flaws, though. I'm bugged a bit by how the guards can't jump high enough to climb around their own base, and it's kind of difficult to maneuver them. The fact that only like a third of them fire at you is also a bit confusing, and although I noticed that they're the ones with violent personalities the other ones probably wouldn't just walk up to the dangerous alien that breached containment to say hi and make friends. I also felt like the controlling guards mechanic wasn't expanded on as far as it could have been, and I can imagine it being more puzzle oriented and successful. Still, these minor detractors are more than expected with the limitations of the competition, and I must say that this is my favorite game yet. I'll be sure to look you up and watch for more of your stuff in the future.

vdogamez 2011-08-22 02:33

Also the teleporter room door opens waaaay before it is supposed to.

josh-dreamland 2011-08-22 05:04

Yes, the amount of monologue is very impressive. Made it to the teleporter room much sooner than I expected; figured I was lucky. Very nice game, overall.

kevglass 2011-08-22 22:11

Best thing I've played so far, nice game and very enjoyable to get lost in.

dramble 2011-08-23 01:48

I didn't really get it, perhaps I missed something important looking at all these other comments. Nice art but the design and gameplay weren't the best.

vandriver 2011-08-23 05:27

This was pretty fun. I would have loved for the thought-reading to be important in my escape, though.

gornova 2011-08-23 19:27

I think this game could do more: more levels, more audio, more ui (lol) more polish on controls: for me just feel "wrong" :(
Good game

summaky 2011-08-24 19:09

It is a great game.

mtthwcmpbll 2011-08-26 00:05

Very cool - an amazing amount of flavor content that feels like it gives real actionable information about the game world (like who will attack you, etc). Nice job.

shigor 2011-08-26 18:31

At first I thought it's just another generic platformer, but the mind reading (although not used enough imo), background informations, monologue etc together with nice clear art made this one of the winners :)
While game could of course use some more work (especially audio), it's excellent entry and one of few I really played till the end because I wanted to see what's awaiting me and enjoyed it a lot.

angrygeometry 2011-08-27 14:58

a lot of depth to this game, and i hope you work on it more after the compo, you could make this into an excellent game. not to say it's not good as it is!

kavudx 2011-08-27 19:23

Loved it. Reminded me a lot about Iji, as you sure made a way for us to feel guilt about hurting the aliens...

vitae 2011-08-27 21:32

I really liked the mind reading. Made me feel bad getting them to shoot each other. The gameplay was a bit annoying, in trying to maneuver the (non-player) aliens

mpc174 2011-08-29 00:27

Managed to get through most of it with only a few casualties among the enemies. Felt bad whenever they died, though eventually they began to shoot each other when they recognized a friend being mind controlled. Lots of moral gray area here, between an amoral protagonist and the punch clock villains. Loved it.

rudy 2011-08-31 13:30

I really like how the idea is implemented. You don't "mindlessly" control enemies, you actually read their thoughts. Love the messages. This is definitely something that places the game above average. Controls are also well done. Art is minimalistic, but animations are nice.

blahoink 2011-08-31 16:03

awesome game! you got mentioned: http://indiegames.com/2011/08/browser_game_pick_aphelion_inc.html