What Do We Mean By "First Impressions"?

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, I won't say where I was at or where I was doing, but I was thinking not only what our idea is but what a readers idea of what a "First Impression" might be.  In the Nintendo eShop, you can't submit a review (albeit a pretty short review that's limited to if you think the game is casual/intense, if it's for everyone/gamers and the number of stars out of five you would award it) until you've played the game for at least an hour.  Granted if you hate a game after the first five minutes, you could just leave the game on for the next 55 minutes then give it a scathing review.

For me, it really depends on the game.  For Cogs, after about 10 minutes, I knew that it would be a game that I wouldn't either be able to or want to finish due to my pseudo-dislike and frustration with sliding puzzles.  Presently I've put in 56 minutes in Cogs and I probably won't play it again unless we have people over who happen to really like sliding puzzles.  After those 56 minutes though, I felt like I could write a First Impression about Cogs (which I did) and feel that I had a good feel for the general purpose of the game.  At the moment, I'm currently playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and 27 hours in, I feel like I'm almost at the point to where I could write a First Impression.

So why the huge disparity from one game to another?  

I'll give another example for both Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2.  I've spent 25 minutes with GTA and 44 minutes on GTA2.  I feel like I could do an article for the first game, again because I feel like I know what is expected of me in the game.  I won't presume to know everything about the game or to be an expert, but I have the general gist of what's going on.  In GTA2, I feel like I need to put in at least another hour or two before I could write something that sounds like I know what I'm talking about, which I will probably do in the next few weeks, but don't hold me to it as I recently put Mario Kart 7 (I know, I'm late with the games again) in my 3DS and Steam always seems to have 50-75% off sales on games that look like they're too much fun to pass up.

I feel it all comes down a fraction of the amount of time it would take in order to complete that game.  What is that multiplier?  I don't know and I don't think that it could be whittled down to a simple percentage.  So I just invalidated the first sentence of this paragraph, which any high school English teacher is a bad way to write a paper.  Thank goodness my sister, who is a high school English teacher (and our mother who was an English major in college) aren't frequent readers or I'd frequently be hearing from them about improper syntax or using multiple tenses of verbs in the same sentence.  But this is all beside the point.

Now, I can't speak for the Good Doctor (English major) on how he determines when is a good time to write up a review or an impression, but I feel that we're at least reading the same book, if not the same chapter.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Stage 1 of the Process

First Impressions: Cogs & And Yet It Moves (PC)

I've had Cogs for sometime, although I do not remember which Humble Bundle it was bundled with, but I have always liked the look of the logo (mission accomplished).  Sadly though, last Friday (as in 12/7) was the first time I played Cogs, and that was only because Coolman asked about it.  So it was that I discovered that Cogs is a game that I will not be playing a great deal.

First off, the game could be described as a "casual puzzle game," but for me, it's a frustratingly beautiful puzzle game.  The puzzles are all variations on the sliding block puzzle.  That might be a decent description, but here's a screen cap:

In this puzzle, you have to move the three gear pieces so that the gear on the left is touching a gear piece, which in turn is touching another gear piece and finally, has another gear piece above that one so that it's touching the gear attached to the propeller.  This particular puzzle is multi-sided, which at first is intimidating, but once you quickly realize that you only have to solve one side at a time, it's pretty simple.  Sort of anyway.

The thing for me though, is that I've never had an aptitude for these kinds of puzzles.  I just get really frustrated when I have one or two pieces of the puzzle figured out, but then realize that I need to move everything around in order to get a much needed piece three to it's ending place, but that ruins where piece one and two are supposed to go.  

As I mentioned, all the puzzles are variations on the sliding block puzzle and not all of them involve gears.  There are puzzles that use steam or colored steam to fill up the appropriate ballons; two sided puzzle where a piece has two sides and each side of the puzzle has to be turned to look at the back to make sure the corresponding piece isn't messing up the solution on the other side.  And I forgot to mention (or you could just look at the left hand side of the above picture), there's a timer and a move counter, so you're encouraged to complete the puzzle in as few moves and as fast as possible.  It's a pretty brilliant take on an early kids game.  Lazy 8 Studios has made a really beautiful game that was, admittingly, somewhat fun to play with other people.  So, when I got frustrated and couldn't figure out a solution, I could pass off the mouse/keyboard and let either Coolman or Conklederp have a go, I just may not be playing this game solo.

And Yet It Moves is yet another puzzle game from Broken Rules, although it's in the form of a platformer, but there's twist; pun only slightly intended.  Like any platformer, you have your character and move them from point A to point B.  There are some baddies that are reminiscent of the kind you'd find in Little Big Planet, i.e.: passive and there to be in your way.  The twist with And Yet It Moves, is that you're able to rotate the world 90 degrees in either direction.

The world in this game is beautifully created to look like pieces of colored paper products have been torn and crumbled to create environments.  The effect is not as distracting as it sounds and it is very easy to learn where you can stand and where you fall.  Black non-paper = bad and you will fall.  Which is where rotating the screen comes in.  For example:

That black area will swallow you like it owns your soul.

But, upon rotating the camera 90 degrees, you can safely land on a new surface/ground.

That's the basic gist of the game.  However, you do have to be careful with how far you fall, either by jumping or by constantly rotating the world as you will constantly gain momentum and you're little paper person is not indestructible.  There is a skill (one they teach you in game) about hitting the ground at an angle so you can land from any height/speed safely, I just haven't been able to master it.  And thankfully, when you die (which you will, and possibly very frequently), you don't have to start over, but from one of the many check point paper people who populate each map.  Additionally, they will point you in the right direction you need to go, literally.  They will point you in the direction (with their little paper fingers) you need to go in order to find the next check point, and each one you come across is like it's own little victory.

So there you go, two readily available games.  Both are fun in their own rights but I think I'll be playing And Yet It Moves more often than I will with Cogs.  But again, that's just because sliding block puzzles aren't really my cup of tea.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

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