It's been a rough day for CP6, the pixelly titular star of Gametron Studios' new platform game. For a long time, he had a nice steady job as Dot #428 in a Pac-Man rom hack, but when the user sent his game to the recycling bin, he had barely enough time to transfer his data to a forbidden sector of the system's RAM. And so begins his journey to the safe-haven of Back-Up, travelling through code from a vast array of programs, trying to stay one step ahead of the Garbage Collector, and hoping against hope that the user won't decide to randomly shut down. CP6 is a knee-less sprite, though, so he'll have to rely on the functions of the platforms around him to make up for his lack of jump-age. It won't be easy, but if he can collect enough access tokens, he'll be in safe mode in no time.
Use the [arrow] keys to move CP6 back and forth. He cannot jump, so you will have to plan your moves with that in mind. However, coming into contact with different colors of blocks will affect CP6 in various ways. He'll start to shrink while resting on Red platforms (which will allow him to duck under low over-hangs, but too much and he'll shrink to death), Orange platforms will bounce him up like a trampoline, Dark Blue platforms are instant death and so forth. In addition to the usual goal of finding the exit, there are three I/O access chips to collect in each level. Grabbing them will require some skillful platforming, but the more chips you collect, the more sectors will be unlocked. If you get stuck, each level can be restarted with a hit of the [R] key.
Note: Currently only the first three sectors of CP6 can be unlocked, for 27 levels in all. The developers have said that remaining three will be made available as the number of people who've played the game and give useful feedback increases. It's a bold idea that will either grant much-needed publicity to a little-known Colombian game developer, or else backfire spectacularly. Or even a little of both.
CP6's has a sneaky level of difficulty to it, so it's a good thing that it's so engaging. The developers use the best of their self-imposed limited color pallet to create some really evocative 4-bit art, making levels that play like Picross solutions come to life. The addition of new colors of platforms in each sector allows level complexity to build right alongside the expansion of the visuals, building to a nice crescendo as the game progresses. Throw in a score of retro gaming references both classic and modern, and a lovable little blip of a protagonist, and you've got a sweet little debut release. Later levels could be a little less stingy with the checkpoints, but CP6 has addictiveness to balance out its frustrations, and the result is retroriffic.
It's a nice concept, but it has two very serious drawbacks.
1) No jumping. It's a platformer, why can't my guy jump? His knees work just fine as far as walking goes. Gravity also doesn't seem to be a problem or he wouldn't be able to walk at all.
2) Lag. You cannot move your little guy too far and too fast without the game lagging like you're playing it on a computer from the early 90s. This makes it nigh impossible to play properly.
No jumping is a gameplay mechanic. It doesn't make sense to complain about it when the levels are specifically designed around this limitation, and the Orange Blocks added in the second sector cause him to jump with their own puzzles and challenges designed around them.
What I do have a problem with, however, is that movement is not precise enough for the jumps once they're added in. You're frequently required to land on tiny blocks, but the little guy accelerates so quickly that it takes try after try until you get lucky and make it. I got frustrated and quit on level 2-8 after trying over and over again to make the jump to get to where the final access token, only to finally make it up there and have the platforms fall away while I was blocked by a descended pillar. I don't know how you're supposed to be able to time this correctly, and with how annoying the jumping is I don't want to keep trying.
I recognize that it's a game mechanic, but given that it's a stupid mechanic, I've elected to point it out.
Between the lag, the overacceleration, and the lack of manual jumping, the game suffers dramatically.
Mine didn't lag at all. But I still couldn't manage to get past the 2nd level.
Holy heck, that was quite the experience. Finally managed to get all the little gold icons on each of the three sections but boy oh boy was that difficult. Thank goodness for the checkpoints, despite their being rather in when/where to show up (with any sort of consistency).
Orange makes you jump, but the platforms are spaced so that you need to be pixel perfect on the first level you are introduced to them. It seems that the 'trick' is to just hold the movement keys, instead of being careful and taking time.
And of course, after the fourth level in the second sector, the game suddenly decides that no, it doesn't want to be a 'hold button to perfectly jump', and instead wants it to be a precise platformer. With near pixel perfect jumps and/or timing. With 'floaty' controls.
And the third sector introduces insta-death blocks. I'm done. I don't care what is in the other sectors.
Pixel-perfection is one of the most annoying traits of games like this. In any kind of game, really. In fact, it should be regarded as sinful to build a game of any sort with this concept in mind.
I'm with Kgummy. I can't even get past the Donkey Kong section and I am just done with this.
@Wolfgang DelaSangre
It's not a stupid game mechanic, criticize games for actual flaws, not experimentation. There is no reason that this game should have manuel jumping, an already overused mechanic.
Then how about I criticize its poor execution of the mechanic? Lag which occurs during acceleration, the character's tendency to accelerate WAY too fast, and the pixel-perfect nature of the game make this "unique" mechanic absolutely worthless and more a frustration than innovation.
Honestly I like the limitations, the level design, and the general gameplay style they were going for. With tight, precise controls this would be a good game.
Welp, figured out my lag problem. Chrome had once again decided it was a good idea to use my computer's Flash and it's own built-in Flash at the same time. Disabled one and the game ran smoothly.
That said, the controls are now far too loose, and I maintain that pixel-perfection is a game-developing sin and should be regarded as taboo.
The game needs slicker controls.
Love the concept. I think I would turn the acceleration off during jumping though. I didn't like the way forward momentum was inconsistent while jumping and I think that was a function of the acceleration. Adding a way to kill momentum (down arrow) might have helped in some areas. If the acceleration is a critical part of the game mechanic and design, I think either the player needs to have tighter control or the rules governing how fast and how far made consistent and clear to the player.
I'd like to see some credit given to Kraftwerk for the music. The rhythm and bassline sounds alot like 'The Robots'. Now I think I may have just realized that was on purpose, given that CP6 may be a little robot guy running around his world. But still, it might be good to note the reference to Kraftwerk.
The controls..seem okay at first, but the momentum/running mechanic just isn't tight enough for the kind of jumps demanded of the player once the orange tiles are introduced. If the player had some leeway, like 2 orange tiles to land on instead of 1, it might work, but as it is the precision demanded as early as 2-4 just tends to be impossible. You can direct where you're going a little bit, but you don't really have quite enough control over where you're going to land when you're sailing through the air for the player to really be at fault for missing that one orange tile floating way up on the top of the levels.
The problem really seems to be that not only do I, the player, need to know exactly where I want to land and plan on landing there, but I also have to have the exact required amount of momentum in order to be able to reach that spot. And this is three or four jumps out from where I started, so I have to know exactly how to push the arrow keys to get the right momentum and direction at the right time, or I miss the second or third in a row of jumps. And the controls required to get the exact right amount of momentum just don't feel natural for some reason. It's like I'm either slipping around and way overshooting my mark, or I'm moving way too slow and no matter how hard I push the right button I can't get over there, with only a very narrow possibility for success in between. Yet again, I think widening the jumping platforms the player has to land on would be a good hot fix for this, although tightening the jumping physics would probably be even better.
Checkpoints are a huge plus, given both the game's intentional difficulty and its flaws, and certainly something that should continue to happen; they confused me at first, though, since I initially thought that the sector keys themselves were the checkpoints. It would be nice to have some kind of clear indication, like a flag or something, that I've just hit a checkpoint and will respawn there if I die now.
Also, the story mentioned in the review, if it is the real story, should really be spelled out in-game, perhaps with an opening cutscene or something. Nothing fancy, just something to let a player who hasn't read an article on the game know what's going on.
Great concept, but the controls don't work well. It's hard to be pixel-perfect when the character takes a while to decelerate and slide around after landing.
I have beaten all three sectors, getting all the gold blocks in each level. The reason I did this (for the first two sectors is because of habit of wanting to get collectibles) then as I beat the levels in the third without getting them, and I couldn't move on, I figured all NEEDED to be collected. So I spent much time getting most of the Sector 3 I missed, only to find that the game isn't finished...
Full version of CP6 can be played only on Kongregate. Many levels have been redesigned, checkpoints are now visible, and the overall difficulty of the game has been lowered.
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