Rapture Capture
You might remember the name Isomura Kai of Tonakai Interactive from the previously reviewed, Out File #01 and Out 2: Out of File, two exceptionally good point-and-click adventures with an unusual twist: You can actually die in them. Kai's latest creation is another jaw-dropper: a shmup minus the shooting(!) and with a unique control mechanic.
In Rapture Capture, take control of a ship with a tug wire attached by waving the mouse back and forth. The tug wire is your only defense against incoming enemies and munitions, use it as a whip to take out anything that comes at you. The tip of the tug wire is especially powerful, as you can even capture enemies with it and whip them around as a weapon. It's fantastic!
Power-ups appear periodically that extend your tug wire, with the extension appearing in bright blue. The longer the blue extension the easier it is to grab enemies, but also the more difficult it becomes to control, so there is a trade-off. Get hit and lose a ship, and you lose the extension, too. You start with 3 ships and earn a bonus ship every 50,000 points.
The game consumes a lot of processing power, so make sure you have little else running and use a speedy browser. If necessary, you can click the mouse to pause the game and to reduce the quality setting in the bottom right corner of the game window.
Analysis: Rapture Capture is a remarkable game not only for its unique gameplay mechanic, but also for its stunning visuals and enveloping soundtrack. The techno background music goes well with the high-tech theme of the game and its green matrix-style monochrome computer graphics and wire frame overlaid 3D-like models. The whole package is exceptionally well-designed and integrated.
I especially enjoyed the control mechanic and was immersed, wide-eyed and in-the-zone almost immediately with it. It's an engaging and compelling game that's quite a bit different than anything I'd every played before. Also notable are the large 'boss' objects that are introduced to constrain movement and make things more difficult to maneuver around, which keeps the action interesting and changes up the gameplay a bit. I found that making smaller, more subtle movements with the whip was better than flailing it back and forth, but sometimes the wider movements were productive, too.
On the downside, this game suffers from an issue common with all Flash games: when the mouse cursor leaves the game window the game loses focus and mouse events are no longer processed. The end result is that your ship stops moving, and in a game like this that could be disastrous. The gestural input this game requires causes this to happen more frequently than usual. So, my best advice is to keep your movements short and be aware of where the mouse cursor is, especially when a boss is around.
Excellent game. Unique control. This is definitely a classic in the making. Well done, Isomura-san! Arigatoo gozaimasu!
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
Rapture Capture strategy guide
Woo! After a few tries, I completed stage 1, and also managed to get rank 42 of all time. :)
Here are some strategies that I've found to be very useful:
Again, I want to echo that jay's advice about focusing on small movements is paramount. Not only do small movements prevent your mouse from moving out of the screen, but it also makes your whip much less prone to curling up. You can usually sweep out most of the screen with small movements, so don't go overboard with the mouse.
Tip for Mac OS X users: hold down the control key and scroll vertically with a scroll wheel/ball. This'll allow you to zoom in on the game and make it essentially fullscreen, so that it's a bit harder to move your mouse out of the screen. You will also want to go to the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane, and change the zoom options under the Mouse tab to scroll only when the mouse hits the border.)
Just in case anyone didn't know, clicking the mouse button pauses the game. This is useful if you don't want to sit down for a long gaming session, or if you need to catch the phone, or even if you just want to get your mouse back to a good position before you continue playing.
Don't underestimate the power of a longer whip. Yes, as jay said, there's the trade-off of it being harder to control, but if you concentrate on small movements this shouldn't be too much of a problem. On the other hand, the longer whip is indispensable. If you rack up enough powerups, your whip can get twice as long, and really CAN sweep out the entire screen. This'll allow you to get those enemies on the edge of the screen much easier.
When your whip gets completely curled up, it takes both TIME and SPACE in order to unfurl it again, which many times you don't have. This makes it absolutely necessary to learn to use small movements of your mouse. Note that as your whip gets longer, it takes MORE time and MORE space to unfurl it from a completely curled up position. So if you get more powerups, be very careful not to curl it up unless you mean to do that.
One of the greatest benefits of a long whip, though, is that you can use it as a sort of shield. There are a number of times when you want to plow through a column of enemies, and using your whip in the normal manner would make you too vulnerable. So, just completely curl up your whip by moving your ship in one direction until it does so. Then, slowly position your ship under the column of enemies, and then move a little bit in the direction so that your whip unfurls and extends a bit. Leave it there. Your enemies will just move down into the whip and be destroyed. If you have a long enough whip, you should be able to curl it once completely around your ship while simultaneously keeping the last part of it extended so that enemies just run in to it. You won't be completely shielded from one side, but it can be an effective temporary strategy to get through a rough part.
Unless you're already an expert, concentrate on removing enemies from the center 2/3 of the screen. If the enemy is on the edge, chances are he'll just fly past you and go off the bottom of the screen, and you can probably ignore him. (Enemies don't come up from the bottom of the screen, with the exception of the boss.) Also, if you concentrate on the center 2/3, you're less likely to get distracted by that one tiny asteroid on the edge of the screen which will cause your whip to get curled up if you try to get it. Obvious exceptions are for those larger enemies that tend to shoot a lot.
On the other hand, the back of your ship is your definite weak spot. If you're not careful, one of those annoying cross ships can get to the side and in back of you and it's almost impossible to get rid of him with your whip. Since the cross ships move around on the screen and don't always just continue off the bottom, these can be particularly troublesome when they get in back of you. Bug ships less so, but they can sometimes cause you problems too. Make sure to get rid of these if they look like they're headed for your back side.
Learn to use the EMP. This involves catching ships with the tip of your whip and then whipping them around until they explode. Note that you can only catch larger ships on the tip, not smaller ships. The EMP is definitely your friend, and can get you out of some serious sticky situations, especially those involving girders.
When you have an enemy on your EMP, you have to continue colliding it with other things in order for it to finally explode. So once you catch an enemy on your whip's tip, you're not out of the forest yet. Keep moving your whip around and colliding the caught enemy with others. You'll see it slowly turn blue, and then it will finally explode, taking out everything on the screen except girders and bosses.
A consequence of the previous tip is that you can control when a caught enemy explodes, to a certain extent. If you need the EMP right away, destroy as many enemies as you can as fast as possible (but remember, don't flail around too much!). However, if you don't need it right now, consider avoiding hitting enemies for a few seconds to see what's ahead.
Girders can be your friend with an enemy caught on your tip. If you collide a caught enemy with a girder for just a second or two (by keeping the tip of your whip and the caught enemy over the girder), the EMP will immediately go off. Since there are a few areas with a lot of enemies and those annoying girders, use this technique to quickly take out all enemies and then you can concentrate on avoiding the girders.
There are a number of techniques to catch large enemies on your whip's tip.
The easiest way to catch enemies on your whip's tip is by catching them at the top of the screen when it's fully extended. Oftentimes lines of large enemies will appear at the top of the screen, so you can usually be prepared for catching them with your whip's tip immediately.
Then there's the backhand catch: if you're right-handed, you'll tend to have your whip slightly curled up to the right. To perform this catch, move your mouse to the left and extend the whip back and to the left as far as possible and catch the enemy to the side or left of you. (You'll do this in the opposite direction if you're left-handed.)
Then there's the uncurl-and-pounce method. Because your whip's movement is directly tied to your ship's movement, it can be difficult to precisely position your whip's tip to catch an enemy on the middle of the right side of the screen. If you're whip is completely curled up, you can move your mouse off to the left like you're going to do the backhand catch, but when your whip is half-way unfurled, quickly move your mouse back to the right. This'll make a sort of c-shape with your whip that'll move back to the right and "pounce" on the enemy on the right side of the screen.
Hopefully that helps to some of you that are having trouble with this game. :)
Posted by: Simone Manganelli | April 15, 2007 8:50 PM