Game Memorial

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Arantor

Day 9 of our tour through New Beginnings Month, and we take a look at Ichi, by Jay van Hutten and Stolen Couch Games.

This game has one curiosity - as far as I understand it, it works on both desktop (PC/Mac) and on mobile devices and is still the same game. I'm not sure how that'll work out but I'm sure we'll see.

Before we begin...
The intro screen tells me very quickly, without even looking at the game, that we're dealing with a puzzle game - because there's a 'create' option, and that I can play another 2100-odd levels, which are presumably user-submitted, but for now let's start with a new game.

There's not really much else to say at this point, there's no tutorial, no guide on how I'm supposed to play so I guess I'll figure it out as I go.

Playing the game
Hmm, level 1 is available, all the rest - pages of them! - are locked. No variable progression here, meaning you could quite easily get stuck and put the game aside. I'm not really a fan of this unless it's necessary for story progression purposes, because it artificially limits the game in a way that really isn't necessary.



So, looking at level 1, an intro level, I'm slightly bemused as to what I'm supposed to be doing, but a couple of clicks on the screen make it fairly clear. Normally I'd like *some* kind of tutorial but in this case I don't think it's actually necessary.



And straight away we can also see how this game is going to work on mobile phones as well as the desktop - everything is done with the left-click of a mouse, or a tap - and the game even tells us that.

The first click on the screen lets loose the yellow ball, and it's moving in the same way the smudge mark indicates.

OK, so the ball's bouncing off things, if it hits a line straight on, it'll bounce straight back, if it hits a diagonal line it'll bounce off at 90 degrees. And so it is very swift that the yellow ball flies off to the right, off the blue triangle and rebounds off the red triangle back the way it came.

Already I understand the rules of this game - the ball bounces off surfaces and I'm trying to get it to the yellow circle (the only other entity on the screen) - and my only tool is the red triangle whose angle I have some control over - one click rotates it 90 degrees clockwise. A couple of experimental clicks later and it's home, job done.

I'm also aware of the scoring already - the ideal number of clicks is indicated in the top corner of the screen, and graded an 'A', and each time I click, that number goes down, but I guess all the time I'm within the number, I'm going to get an 'A' grade for this level.

I hope the game is more in-depth than simply bouncing things off walls, because even with the complexities I can envisage, it's really not that complicated a pattern. Anyway, let's look a bit further on.



OK, so now it's officially getting interesting. There's two yellow circles this time, and some kind of spikes. What's that all about?

Well, let's find out... what happens if I kick off the level and do nothing, I'll hit that yellow circle, then hit the spikes, which will answer two questions in one - and sure enough, I die.

So, spikes are death. And since collecting one yellow circle doesn't win the level, I clearly have to collect all of them to succeed.

Interesting twist, this time I have to change the red triangles at the right time, rather than just setting it up pretty much and leaving. So, kick the ball off, switch the red triangle around to face left, so the ball goes up and left, then back down to the blue triangle, before switching the red triangle back to aim the ball at the second yellow circle.

And now we're getting to the meat of the game. It is about timing, but also planning, figuring out what has to be done, when and in what order.



So, this time we're presented with a number of circles to collect. Here's the tricky part - all the red triangles move at once. So it's about a lot more deviousness in planning, because now it's about rotating multiple triangles to set up the ball travelling down multiple paths, right up until the final one.



Another tricky level. This time we're juggling the ball between turning triangles to avoid going into the spikes. And still against the move counter.

Later levels, which I haven't taken screenshots of, feature other mechanics - blocks that rebound the ball but disappear after one hit, teleporters, beam splitters, pieces that are solid some of the time and not solid others... and more.

And on that bombshell...
It's a puzzle game, with only one principle control - tapping the screen to rotate items on it, and everything else is understanding the planning and execution of what the ball will do with every move you make.

This kind of puzzle isn't for everyone, especially given that progression is limited to actually completing levels - though there are many user-constructed levels to try out. I would have appreciated more advice on how the level elements work, as opposed to having to figure them out through experimentation.

You can get more information from www.ichi-game.com if you're interested, including videos of later levels, plus links to buy the game for the desktop (directly, or via the Mac App Store for Apple users), or links to it on mobile on the App Store or Google Play store.

The game is clearly mobile-oriented, given the first level even says 'tap' on the desktop version, and the one-button control then makes perfect sense.

As a time-waster while on a mobile phone, I can fully appreciate this game as being ideal - levels take a minute or so to play out, and there is plenty to play with, but on the desktop it almost seems a bit lacking in some ways, even if the graphics and sound are pleasant and agreeable, even down to the iconography being meaningful and clear.

If you do want to try, I'd suggest getting it on mobile rather than desktop, you'll probably appreciate it more that way - I can see this was built using the Unity framework, and it strikes me that it was built for mobile first and then deployed to desktop after, and it actually shows.