Endless runners happen to be some of the most popular games in the AppStore. They almost always have a perfect mix of casual and hardcore elements, and can be played in little 2 minute spurts, or 30 minute sessions. High-score mongers as well as kids just starting off with video games can end up loving the same game for many different reasons. Uncade, a one man project, based in Richmond, VA, has thrown his title, Haunted Hallway, into the endless runner genre, and it’s a pretty impressive first attempt at a runner.
Haunted Hallway mainly focuses on platforming with a big risk/reward element to it. You’ll try and guide Bob the adventurer as far as you can through a tunnel filled with ghosts, goblins, bats, and traps, while being chased by a ghoul with a flood of green souls behind him. While avoiding all of these hazards and enemies, you’ll have the chance to collect coins, and if you’re skilled and brave enough, green gems which seriously boost your score, but are almost always placed in spots that will almost immediately result in Bob’s death. Sadly, there are no upgrades, power-ups, or unlockables, like in most endless runners, and hopefully things like this will be added to the game in the future.
The controls, matched with the physics, are fairly good for an iOS game. Getting the controls and physics just right in endless runners is quite the task, as there’s many titles out there that have flopped because of bad physics or controls that were not just right. In Haunted Hallway, you’re able to double jump, but your second jump is more a long jump than a high jump. Don’t expect to be able to land on a platform above your head while using the double jump, but instead, plan on using it to reach a platform in front of you that you would other-wise miss, causing you to fall into lava. You’re given typical platformer controls, left and right buttons, with a jump button, and the screen moves with you instead of you trying to keep up with the screen. This addition of typical platformer controls, and giving gamers the option to go back and try and grab coins before the wall of souls eats you up was a very good decision, but will also most likely make you wish that Haunted Hallway was your typical platformer instead of an endless runner.
The graphics are good, and the environment and all the objects within the game are presented and come together quite well, but the animation for dying, a green poof, no matter what you run into, land on, are sucked into, fall into, or what lands on you, could use some work. Bob’s running, spikes falling, the lava moving, bats flying, all of those animations were done well enough, but it would have been nice to see the skeletons break apart and Bob bounce backwards, end up falling onto his back, then get sucked up by the flood of souls chasing him if he ran into a skeleton. Or if when Bob falls into lava, to see him wave his arms around, slowing sinking in, and then saving the green poof animation for when he’s absorbed by the souls, or impaled by a falling spike would have all been nice. Various death animations can add a ton to games (think Dead Space), and would have gone a very long way if they were included in Haunted Hallway.
Lastly, there’s no online leader boards, so there’s not very much replay value or drive to play the game at the moment, but thankfully, Uncade is planning to add GameCenter in the very first update. Also, iCade and Joypad support have been mentioned in the Touch Arcade thread by the developer. Also said was that “this game is absolutely the foundation to a full fledged platformer. I wanted to make a game that gets the core gameplay right, get feedback and improve upon it, and then release basically the best platformer ever.” So it’s looking like there’s some big plans for Haunted Hallway, either with basic updates that add GameCenter and hopefully iCade support, the replay value would shoot up, and high-score casers would have scores to chase other than their own, and possibly, Haunted Hallway could either end up turning into a platformer or be the prelude to Uncade’s “full fledged platformer”. With Haunted Hallway being $0.99, Universal, and having great controls, with good physics, and challenging gameplay, it’s definitely worth checking out. However, if you want some instant gratification, you might want to wait until the GameCenter update has gone through, as challenging your friends, and gamers around the world will add a lot of fun and replay ability to the game. But as it is now, Uncade has shown what they’ve got in terms of design, control setup, physics, and core gameplay, and we here at The App Shack are definitely excited about the future of this one man developing project.
Lastly, there’s no online leader boards, so there’s not very much replay value or drive to play the game at the moment, but thankfully, Uncade is planning to add GameCenter in the very first update. Also, iCade and Joypad support have been mentioned in the Touch Arcade thread by the developer. Also said was that “this game is absolutely the foundation to a full fledged platformer. I wanted to make a game that gets the core gameplay right, get feedback and improve upon it, and then release basically the best platformer ever.” So it’s looking like there’s some big plans for Haunted Hallway, either with basic updates that add GameCenter and hopefully iCade support, the replay value would shoot up, and high-score casers would have scores to chase other than their own, and possibly, Haunted Hallway could either end up turning into a platformer or be the prelude to Uncade’s “full fledged platformer”. With Haunted Hallway being $0.99, Universal, and having great controls, with good physics, and challenging gameplay, it’s definitely worth checking out. However, if you want some instant gratification, you might want to wait until the GameCenter update has gone through, as challenging your friends, and gamers around the world will add a lot of fun and replay ability to the game. But as it is now, Uncade has shown what they’ve got in terms of design, control setup, physics, and core gameplay, and we here at The App Shack are definitely excited about the future of this one man developing project.
Haunted Hallway gets a score of 6 out of 10.
0 comments:
Post a Comment