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Eufloria
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Graphics & Sound:
Eufloria is a great example of a game that focuses on design. The playability of this game right out of the gate is high, because its developers put time into creating an intuitive interface. There just aren't many things to do, which doesn't mean that Eufloria has simplistic gameplay. It manages to take something that plays a bit like Real-Time Strategy and pack it into a very compressed space, where a few taps on the screen can deploy and manage all your assets. RTS games tend toward a cluttered interface, in part because there's so much to do. Eufloria drops that convention and imagines a game where there are simple, elegant ways to do everything that needs doing.
The sound design is also a model of sophistication. The opening credits pitch Eufloria as optimized for headphones, no doubt because of the great ambient soundtrack. The music works very well against the spare, modern design style of Eufloria, but what we found more interesting was the use of sound effects to provide subtle clues about the game's key events. As you send conquering forces off to battle, you'll hear sounds of skirmish, and ultimately the sound of victory. You learn to listen in for these sounds, so that something important in one part of the game world isn't missed because you're away tending to some new flare-up or obstacles. For a game with zero spoken dialogue, Eufloria manages to convey a lot of information through sound.
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Gameplay:
The comparison we can draw immediately is to Osmos, a great independent game that has found some success on PC and now mobile platforms. What made that game interesting was its very abstract and organic style of play. In a similar vein, nothing about Eufloria is recognizable, outside of a few far afield sci-fi themes. It's a "god game" in some respects, but it's unclear whether your dominion is at a cellular or interplanetary level. The game does allude to planets, so we'll go with the space theme as our default. There aren't really characters in the true sense, just orbiting specs that reveal themselves to be organisms, as you zoom in closer. These organisms are spawned from plants that root themselves in a planet, and you now know everything necessary to play a game of Eufloria.
No, seriously. That's it. The premise of the game is that a dark force is threatening the cluster of planets where your organisms reside, and you'll need to amass your forces to conquer this threat. You do all this by hopping from planet to planet, building production and defending your position all the while. The enemy is doing the same, so there's the constant threat of attack hanging over your head. In every way, Eufloria presents the classic "power triangle" so instantly recognizable to gamers. The premise is "A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A." Certain organisms are just better against others, so your strategy comes down to developing and deploying the right forces for each situation you encounter. This holds true for the game's main Story Mode, and there are two unlockable modes with extra levels, Skirmish Arenas, and Dark Matter Mode. What's missing is some kind of multiplayer option, which would have elevated Eufloria from an interesting distraction to something much more compelling. |
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Difficulty:
The need for a human opponent is evident as you peel back the A.I. in Eufloria. It's decent enough, but that power triangle we mentioned earlier doesn't provide enough depth for the long haul. Human interaction would make the game less cold and routine, but it's deeper than that. The basic play mechanic doesn't go far enough toward making it worthwhile to really exploit the power triangle. Sure, you need to use your units appropriately to win with style, but a lazy player will probably just farm units until the point where it's possible to send a mass wave against enemies. The fact that only 20% of that wave will be effective doesn't matter. Eufloria gets the idea of god-gaming right, giving you a feeling of lording over a teeming multitude of organisms. What's missing is a reason to care about wins and losses. At first, you'll be disappointed if spores you send to a planet expire, but as you get deeper into the game, you'll find it's all about numbers. Superior forces win, hands down. The deeper strategic elements of Eufloria aren't present to the extent that we would have liked. If what you're looking for is a thinking-person's casual game, with interesting mechanics and fresh design, Eufloria scores. If you're looking for a drop-in replacement for the classic RTS, Eufloria won't help you on that score.
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Game Mechanics:
We mentioned the intuitive mechanics earlier, and there's no question that this game was designed for a touch interface. Obvious controls like tapping to view and tapping to commit forces work as expected, although there are some instances where things work a bit too smoothly. The example we noticed was the control for scouting. In a nutshell, if you tap an adjacent planetary body once, you'll see nothing until you have forces deployed there. Rather than risk losing everything, you can send one scout. There's a specific button for this scout, but if you happen to tap the planet again you'll inadvertently send your entire force over. It sounds obvious, but it happened more than a few times and made us wish for an "instant recall" button, which doesn't exist. One of the coolest controls is a pie-chart that lets you rotate around a planet to dictate how many of your forces should go over in a deployment. It's like a dial, but more intuitive...
Other smart controls include a command that lets spawned organisms deploy immediately to another planet. We like this a lot, but it suffers from a lack of auditing capability; you don't have a simple way to go back and see where forces are being deployed. What we missed was some kind of overlay or map to see all the connections between planets. This becomes really important as you are managing a large battle on one side of the solar system and need to know that things are moving along nicely on another side of the galaxy. The overall feeling we get from Eufloria is that it contains tons of great ideas, especially in the area of interface design. The gameplay isn't as revolutionary as it might first appear, and after a few levels, we wished for something more complex. At heart, this is a casual game with some interesting strategic twists, and if you approach it that way, you'll definitely be entertained. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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