Amorphous+ and What It Can Teach You About Game Design
Play Amorphous+ here: https://www.kongregate.com/games/innocuousGames/amorphous
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about Kongregate’s death and the mistakes that led up to it. It was a fairly gloomy article and I’d hoped it was one I would never have had to write. So today I want to talk about something a bit more upbeat. Kongregate has had a variety of great games over the years. Epic Battle Fantasy, Burrito Bison and Super Duck Punch! are just a few that come to mind. And while all these games are great and special in their own way, there’s one I keep coming back to despite the fact it’s almost 12 years old now. Amorphous+ is a classic that still holds up today, and probably will continue to hold up until the inevitable heat death of the universe destroys everything. The game has aged like a fine wine, and many games today could benefit from its design triumphs. In this article, I’ll be analysing just what makes this tiny Flash game from 2008 so special.
The gameplay of Amorphous+ is extremely simple. Your little character follows your mouse as you move it around the screen. When you left click, he swings his huge sword in an arc in front of him, splatting any glooples in the way. That’s it. Well, you can get some special abilities you can use in a pinch later on, but for the most part you’ll just be swinging your sword. Enemies aren’t much more complex. Most of them just randomly move around the screen while the more dangerous ones mostly just try to impale or absorb you. It doesn’t seem like a game you can play for hours on end. So what makes it so fun?
Well, everything has a certain ‘weight’ or ‘feel’ to it. Game ‘feel’ is an extremely important but oft forgotten part of game development. It doesn’t matter how well-made or complex your gameplay is. If it doesn’t ‘feel’ good, people won’t be interested in playing it. Amorphous+ absolutely nails the game’s feel. Swinging your sword is swift and satisfying. Enemies explode and splatter in the direction you hit them with your sword with a gratifying ‘smush’ sound. Most enemies will die from a single hit but even the ones that don’t feel good to hit. Sharps are invulnerable once they activate their defenses, but hitting them causes a metallic ‘clang’ to ring out and sends them careening away from you. Amalgams gradually become smaller and weaker with each hit.
But as I said, as powerful as the sword is, it also has some ‘weight’ to it. While you’re swinging, you’re stuck in place and unable to do anything. All it takes is one hostile gloople to come up behind you while you’re swinging and it’s game over. You don’t get a second life. A single hit, and you’re dead. This forces you to think quickly but smartly about when the right time to swing is. Too early, too late, too carefree and it’s all over. You need to be precise, tactical and careful with your swings. Despite the game’s main form of attack being simple, it also requires a lot of thought to be used properly, keeping the game engaging and rewarding.
This is also reflected in the game’s scoring system which encourages high risk for high reward. Each enemy has a point value which usually isn’t much on its own. Rewards such as the Box Gun automatically attack enemies and take the pressure off, but can only attack one enemy at a time and don’t earn much points. However if you splat two Glooples in a single swing with your good old big sword, you get double the points. If you splat three you get triple the points and so on. While the sword is risky to use and leaves you vulnerable it gives you the most points if you can bunch several high value Glooples together and splat them without losing your life. You often have to walk a thin line between high risk and possible reward, forcing you to carefully analyse and assess every situation.
But sometimes it’s better to not use your sword at all. For example, Clutters back away from you if you get too close and can be pushed off screen where they despawn or into Meltie acid often much easier than they can be sliced with your sword. Other enemies are also invulnerable to your attacks such as Grinders or react violently if you do attack them such as Torchies. Every single enemy is straightforward, yet require their own mini tactics and strategies to defeat or otherwise deal with, and while they’re not much of a threat on their own, as a team they are extremely dangerous. Every single enemy type from the simple Green Gloople to the explosive Torchie to the deadly Void Eater have their place. Not a single one feels redundant or wasted and pretty much every single one can end your run prematurely (indirectly or directly) if you’re not careful.
Glooples are a colony of creatures, similar to ants, and are designed to be simultaneously smart and stupid to represent this. Stickies and Melties throw themselves at you, purposefully forfeiting their life to drench you in a liquid that slows you down and melts you respectively. However, they do not pay attention to their comrades and often collide with them as a result, hindering their allies more than they help. You can use this stupid intelligence to your advantage, deliberately leading enemies that would usually be problematic to deal with into each other to take them out or otherwise slow them down. But even this comes with a risk. When an enemy is killed, its gooey remains are sent at an angle based on the direction of the attack. Often Melties will collide with their allies and launch their acidic remains right at where you’re standing, taking your life before you even realise what happened.
But this is one of the game’s simpler Gloople combos. Some combinations can be so unpredictable that you can’t help but wonder whether even the developer knew what would happen. The tough outer shell of Grinders can be melted with Meltie acid. The oil Inkies leave behind can be ignited by a Torchie’s fire. Sharpies can be batted around with your sword into other Glooples like a wrecking ball. You can never predict what will happen next, what spectacular display of unintentional teamwork or lack thereof will change the pace of the game. This keeps the game fresh and interesting for a long time, without the enemies themselves needing complex AI or mechanics.
Finally, the game encourages replayability through its awards. There are 110 of these achievements. Some are easy to achieve, some are hard, others you will get purely by accident. But every ten awards you’ll receive a key you can use to unlock a reward. These are little gadgets that can improve your chances in a variety of ways. You can equip two at a time, and once you unlock a few, it can be hard to decide on which to take into battle. Should you take a Grenade or Teleporter? Lure or Inhibitor? Saw Drone or Box Gun?
Almost all of these gadgets can be both helpful and a hindrance. It all depends on how you use them. The Instant Wall can give you some breathing room but limits your range of movement, and stuns you briefly if you hit it. The Saw Drone flies around splatting a lot of enemies, but it can also splat you if you end up in its flight path. If you throw your grenade carelessly and end up too close to it when it explodes, you’ll lose your life. The shockwave can also stun you at a fairly big distance leaving you vulnerable. But it’s also one of the most reliable ways to deal with Grinders and other tough enemies.
What makes Amorphous+ so great is that everything in it is there for a reason. Every single enemy, reward, swing of the sword feels valid and important. The game doesn’t really get any easier, you become a better player. Your power isn’t dictated by your level or the upgrades you bought or the powerups you obtained, it’s dictated by you and your own skill. It’s dictated by your ability to experiment and adapt and use the enemy’s abilities against them. That’s what makes Amorphous+ so fun to play. That’s what makes it so interesting. That’s what makes it one of the best-designed games I’ve ever played.
