Parachute
Paul Bork
Basic Information
Parachute is a single player game designed for use on a mobile device. The game is well suited for short playing time, as it is fast and simple.
Story
There is no story for the game. This in no way takes anything from the game, which would have been hampered by a story. You want to get straight to the fun, not be bothered by a backstory.
Objective
The objective of this game is to jump out of the airplane and land on the target. You are given a point for every time you land on the target. A high score is saved so you may attempt to beat the previous high score.
Game Play
There are only two buttons. Down arrow drops you out of the plane, while up arrow releases the parachute. I only tried this on a keyboard, but it seems like it would work very well for cell phone or PDA. There is also a menu which is reached using the mouse, although adding one more button on a mobile device will not make the controls to complicated. Perfect controls for this type of game.
Game Design
The game is a single level. It simply loops over again and again, but the plane goes faster. This could use some improvement for a couple of reasons. First it would be nice if the target moved around, although location where it could be is very limited, so it may be difficult to make this work. Also, the plane speed increases a lot in the early stages, but it seems to be at a static speed later in the game, meaning that the difficulty doesn't change much later in the game. Perhaps if the target shrunk, it would add more difficulty. Lastly, the faster moving planes also make the player move faster in his decent. This means that the player covers more ground in a drop. This actaully makes the game somewhat easier, as early on in the game, if you dropped to early, there was nothing you could do. In the later parts of game, if you drop fast enough, you can almost always get to the target, and if you overshoot, you can open your parachute to slow down. I think wind speeds should increase at later difficulty settings, therefore making correct time of parachute deployment more important.
Visuals
The visuals for the games are not going to blow you away, but the simplistic, small amount of different colors work well with this sort of game. The visuals are not horrible where you can't tell whats going on, but at the same time they are not taking up all your concentration looking at them. They are there, but really, only the plane, the man, the parachute and the target matter and they are all drawn well. Another complaint, however, has to do with how the sky diver hits the target. The boundy box is obviously drawn with the parachute included, which makes it rather large. This makes the game far simpler, ecspecially since the parachuter doesn't even have to land on the target, only get the corner of his parachute to touch it and it counts.
Audio
No audio.
Ease of Play
As stated before, the controls are simple as can be. It takes no time at all to pick up the game play.
Enjoyment
The game is enjoyable to play and its simple to use interface makes it a game you can pick up, play for a minute and still have fun. If the difficulty could be increased a little more as the game progressed, then the game could be more fun to play for longer periods of time, but for now its a very nice waiting for the bus kind of game.
Overview
Overall, I believe that this is a good start to a game. The potential is there for a really good game, but difficulty issues are holding it back for now. Still, the game is very fun even now. It's biggest strength comes from what it is not, and that is a complex game. It is simple game, with graphics, controls and learning curve all coming together to make the kind of game that gives you something to do during those brief periods when you find yourself doing nothing. Again, this is not a game you play on a long car ride, but if your ever stuck waiting in line, then this is the kind of game you will want to grab.
SCORE
8/10. A good quick game that needs a little bit of work before it is complete.