#second time i've had performance issues in an indie game that should NOT have performance issues. first was ultrakill

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than figs

Now that I have a more powerful computer, I can play games that have high performance requirements and were were obnoxiously laggy on my old, mediocre computer.

Such as this 2D pixel art RPG Maker game

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Omno

More like "Um-no" - Just Kidding! (Kinda). It's my kind of game, but feels like an un-optimized student game. Mostly that's felt in the framerate which is interfering with my ability to enjoy this simple, but charming game.

Nearly 2 years ago I looked up a list of highly rated indie adventure games. Omno was on that list, and for good reasons too. I'm finally getting around to play it and I'm having mixed feelings.

Graphically

I like the low-poly art style. The game is blocky and proud of it. But while each object is lowpoly, there's a lot objects in the environment. The characters and creatures have many more polygons. Closer to PS2+ level. And while AER also had high(er)-poly characters, these characters are "smoothed" over so the edges don't show. I prefer this. It's still low poly, but not distracting. The animations are really good, especially during gameplay--it feels very smooth and natural. While they went for low poly models, they did not skimp on animating them.

But there's a bad to this. While the game is lowpoly, there's volumetric fog, god-rays, and some other advanced lighting techniques. And unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to be optimized. My computer isn't great, but it handles Sea of Thieves better than Xbox One--so it should be able to handle this? It's like they flipped "make pretty" light switches but didn't do the work to keep performance consistent. At one point, I dropped my graphic settings with minimal effect. So I turned them back up. A few minutes later, the game suddenly started running at full speed again. No idea why.

Gameplay & Level Design

The gameplay is simple (no fighting...so far), move, jump, climb ledges, and interact with your magic pole. The magic staff you carry seems to interact on context. Frustratingly, some of the interaction has an animation attached: examples--activating a switch is a 3 second animation and moving a box involves a 3 second animation--no constant movement. It looks beautiful, but it takes up time I could just be playing.

So far I've unlocked two skills: dash and fly. Neat.

The level design reminds me of PS1. It starts off small, compacted, and simple. Then the areas get bigger and more challenging. It's not so bad. But I wonder if the larger levels are causing performance issues.

I've played this before...

The game most reminds me of Journey. It's a quiet game with a character on an unknown pilgrimage. There's also soft, ethereal music, and they want you to feel like you're in a beautiful place as much as challenge you. There's actually this flying stick move that is introduced during a sequence you have to travel down a long canyon. This is totally Journey!

It's not a bad game to rip from--but I don't feel it's really adding to it. Not a terrible thing, but you know...

Story

There's not much of a story. I keep finding these notes and it suggests there was a cataclysmic event and these pilgrims (whose footsteps were following) led people to a safe space. Pretty bare bounces and simple. I wasn't expecting anything great, but I'm almost offended. This is too generic. We'll see if it gets better.