'Alphaland' Flash game goes behind the screens

*few minutes
Not "first minute"

@MEMgrizzlies7
I thought this was weird, bud very unique. Very indie.
Loved the 'math' objective system!

@Acosta02 God you are so cool...can I be your best friend?

@gshauger

I seem to have caused some offense! You'll have to forgive my terseness, I'm writing a blog comment, not a review. But please, if you have any other problems with my thoughts on the game, I'd love to hear your own take.

@Acosta02 Jesus man! Stop having opinions on blogs! You're offending people!

@Pugnaciousturtle There's a difference between an opinion and pretentious douchebaggery. Acosta02 will certainly illustrate the difference.

@gshauger I guess whomever modded my comment down values pretentious douchebaggery. The rest of us on the other hand find comments like "nowhere near as atmospheric as it wishes it was" to be comically ignorant. Acosta02 wants you to believe the following took place..."the creator of this flash game indicated an atmospheric measurement of 8 where as my own measurement, using a quantifiable and scientifically valid process, came up with 6. Since 6 < 8 then we've clearly been misled."

LOL!

@gshauger

you're obviously the developer of alphaland...right?

@gshauger

Wow, that's not what I'm going for at all! Maybe you shouldn't be quite so literal? Not everything has to be presented as quantifiable, you know!

Here's what actually happened, if you care to know: I played the game to completion. Upon finishing the game, I thought about what I had just experienced. Personally, I felt there was a dissonance between what I believe the developer's intent was and what I actually experienced. The music is "creepy" and the graphics are simple and chaotic. My interpretation of these design choices is that it was the developer's intent to put the player on edge or otherwise apprehensive – maybe going for some alienation? However, I felt nothing of the sort. This is because nothing in the actual gameplay reinforced the idea that the game is creepy. The controls were a little stiff and unresponsive at times, but nothing unexpected or alienating.

I was a little disappointed by this, because I personally expect any game that wants to make an artistic point to focus on the strength of the medium, the interactivity. Sometimes they don't, and that's totally fine. BUT, this game definitely needed it. I personally believe that if you're going to make a point about games (which I think this game is trying to do!) then you should be looking to use the gameplay to help convey that.

So, when I say the game is "nowhere near as atmospheric as it wishes it was" I mean that the game struck out to create a mood, but didn't actually follow through with it. The gameplay seems to be from a completely separate game from the sound and graphics, so the tone comes through as muddled. I feel the game just doesn't ever come off as a cohesive experience.

@Acosta02 Oh brother...how can you say it failed to meet a mood when a) there's no way to quantify a mood and b) your own anecdotal experience is based on your interpretation of the mood they set out to create and there's no way to quantify whether your interpretation is in alignment with theirs.

Hence your post came off like pretentious douchebaggery. Clearly that stuff is popular here hence the down voting.

@gshauger

My interpretation is based on my experience? Say it isn't so!

Look, man, I never tried to quantify "mood" so I have no idea where you're coming from. The best I or anybody else can do is play the game and try our best to interpret what we've experienced. I interpreted the game as striving to achieve a particular feeling. You say this is unacceptable because "there's no way to quantify whether your interpretation is in alignment with theirs." Are you saying that one should hold off from making any kind of judgement?

Typically when somebody plays a game, they don't know what the developer's intent was. Should we just not form opinions at all? Of course not. We form our opinions based on what we're given, and the things I was given by this game led me to believe it was designed in a certain way. I felt that this method of design was incomplete, and based on this made the claim that the game did not live up to what I felt it was trying for. Am I not allowed to make the claim, or the feeling? What exactly is the weak link in my method of play the game -> interpret -> react? I think you're saying I'm not allowed to make the interpretation, but why exactly is that?

@Acosta02 You can never quantify the mood of the game nor the mood they set out to create therefore you can never prove that they failed to meet it. This is common sense 101.

You'll keep arguing though...most pretentious douchebags will

@spekkio You're like a cool guy only without any any of the positive qualities

@gshauger Burn!

@gshauger

Do all your posts get voted down, or just the one's where you're clearly trolling... I guess negative attention is still attention.

@beano311 I'm trolling because I called out someone else who was trolling? LOL! Oh OK.

... and I h4z k1llz0r3d teh m3tr01ds

@shaktazuki

I found.that if you use a super bomb, jump, and go back into a ball, you heal yourself.