The Victories of Vagante
Vagante is a challenging 2D platformer where you can play alone or with up to 4 people. The game has very tight and responsive control. The control of the avatar was control wise confusing but by the felt clean and tactile. The game has a few situations where the locations can cause confusion such as boxes that can be moved but do not block the player without them getting on top of the box. Other than those few situations space was very crisp with its friction, gravity, and collision. That was just a minor design mistake.
The game provides obstacles and level randomization to support the puzzles and movement. There are ladders to gain elevation while other means of movement to those positions are available through precise movement of wall jumps or moving boxes to allow better jump height. The addition of swimming allows some other paths to take advantage of.
Vagante lacks pedagogical building as basic movements are given with left right and jumping, but otherwise it lacks teaching movement and mechanics because of the randomized levels. Being that the player starts in a randomized location the player just must guess what keys to press to learn their movement. You may eventually get into a position to learn the game specific controls when falling off a ledge to get the ledge grasp into wall jumping or into swimming if the level is customized to having water. If the player stands at a doorway long enough or chest long enough it will prompt the player to use the correct key for them. There is a lack of color coding or signage to support or teach the player as well.
When looking for affordances it becomes another inconvenient situation with there being very few. There are doors that allow the player to finish the level or the chests in the map that make the player question if they can open it to find loot. Those work just perfectly as wanted; the real inconvenience is when looking for the moveable boxes. The moveable boxes do not particularly stand out as they are just a brown small box that is too like the background of the map.
The pacing is done in an oddly beautiful manner. Each level being random makes it hard to know what is coming, but the level size is scaling. The first level is a small map allowing it to act as the tutorial level. The levels increase in size and complexity as you go further. The controlled fluctuation is well made allowing a new experience each time but that is not great as well for a new player or someone trying to learn how the game works. With randomization there is not a continuance of additional content, it is just being given different enemies each time with no specific pattern except for the bosses. Each level does have a specific boss for it and a set pattern to their appearance. Because of the set up for how levels progress there no consistency for the level or common enemy challenge progression or added content.
