Australia isn’t any stranger to pumping out banger indie video games. It’s one thing that’s been part of our online game panorama for an extended whereas, nevertheless it’s ramped up considerably for the reason that launch of the Swap. Hole Knight, Golf Story, Unpacking, Shifting Out, Cult of the Lamb, Untitled Goose Sport, The Plucky Squire — there’s most likely much more I’m forgetting, however Australia’s impression on the video games trade is obvious to see, and there are numerous success tales. After having performed Tempopo from Brisbane-based Witch Beam (additionally recognized for Assault Android Cactus and Unpacking), I’m happy to say that Australia’s trendy legacy of an indie recreation banger manufacturing facility gained’t be altering anytime quickly.
Tempopo is greatest described as a mixture of Lemmings and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Just like the latter, you’re introduced with a small, floating diorama of a stage, and also you’re tasked with accumulating little trinkets – on this case musical flowers – across the stage. Besides in contrast to Captain Toad, you’re not controlling your character instantly; as an alternative, you’ll be directing a bunch of cute little pink guys referred to as Tempopo across the stage for you.
These Tempopo, moreover being the cutest pink guys in gaming after Kirby, will begin in a set place on the stage, then begin bouncing ahead when you hit play. You haven’t any direct management over them, they’ll simply stroll in no matter path they’re dealing with, even when they’re about to launch themselves into the ether or run face-first right into a nasty skeleton.
And that’s the place the Lemmings facet comes into play. Every stage supplies you with a restricted number of objects that may be positioned into the stage, and these objects change your Tempopo’s behaviour after they run into it. There’s a variety of objects that your Tempopo can use, starting from easy ones like altering their path to extra advanced ones like smashing a tile in entrance of them, turning right into a block or bounce pad, or pushing a block of their approach — and that’s simply within the first world.
So every stage goes like this: you get dropped right into a stage, together with your Tempopo of their beginning positions already, and your behaviour objects in hand. Then it’s as much as you to determine the best way to use these objects to direct your Tempopo across the stage to gather all the flowers and get to the top of the extent.
It sounds fairly easy, however the complexity scales up shortly. It didn’t take lengthy earlier than Tempopo began tickling the puzzle fixing advanced in my mind, and never lengthy after it was giving my mind a full exercise. My strategies for fixing these puzzles modified all through my time with the sport, too — at first I’d simply let my Tempopo run after which cease the run after they encountered an issue to put an object to assist them, however that technique didn’t final for lengthy.
Then, I attempted working from the top level going backwards, planning out the strikes that my little guys would want to get to their aim. That labored for some time, however ultimately the complexity of the levels reached some extent the place it wasn’t possible to work that approach. Working backwards, I didn’t know the way or the place my numerous Tempopo can be by the top of the stage. They may have smashed a couple of blocks I’d relied upon in my calculations, or one may need collected flowers whereas the opposite didn’t. In the long run, I had to make use of a combination of methods to unravel every puzzle, and I slowly discovered new strategies for piecing collectively a stage.
And that is the great thing about Tempopo as a puzzle recreation. It’s not a puzzle recreation which you can simply study as soon as and immediately you’re good at each stage — the mechanics are shared throughout levels however the stage design signifies that you’re pressured to give you distinctive methods for fixing the logic behind the puzzles. It’s advanced and difficult, however by no means mechanically tough, and each barrier that you just come throughout is one that may be solved by analyzing your personal strategy, moderately than essentially needing to determine one thing new within the recreation itself. You understand how the whole lot works by the point the true complexity kicks in, so you want to refine your strategy as you progress.
And in the event you’re discovering it too difficult, there’s an possibility for a extra directed mode that tells you the place objects will be positioned to unravel the puzzles, and a touch system that appears to work very properly, even when I used to be too cussed to make use of it myself. It’s enjoyable to strategy these puzzles with a pal or cherished one, too — the mechanical simplicity of Tempopo means which you can have a couple of pals round and all level on the TV the place everyone thinks gadgets ought to go. It most likely wasn’t designed to be a celebration recreation, nevertheless it’s enthralling when performed as one nonetheless.
It helps, too, that the presentation is as robust as it’s. Tempopo is a completely beautiful recreation, bursting with color and character, and it has an outstanding soundtrack that really performs into the gameplay, too, together with your Tempopo bouncing alongside to the beat. Nothing is particularly timed so that you don’t want good rhythm to really play, however there’s one thing extremely charming seeing your pink little guys hopping alongside to the music as they go about their enterprise.
It seems and runs like a dream on Swap, too, with easy body charges, pretty fast load instances, and no bugs or points in sight. It’s polished to a mirror end in nearly each facet, which is to be anticipated from Witch Beam — in my expertise, the group over there don’t do issues half-way, and Tempopo isn’t any completely different.
If I had any criticism in any respect, it could be that the visible design can generally be just a bit bit overwhelming. It’s not sufficient to negatively impression the expertise, however loading right into a stage generally has you struggling to make sense of the extent, not as a result of it’s not well-designed, however since you’re bombarded with brilliant, vibrant levels bursting with all types of fascinating stuff, and it takes a second to regulate and begin making sense of the whole lot.
The controls will be very barely finicky too. With the sort of recreation, utilizing a controller is at all times going to be a really barely subpar expertise in comparison with a mouse, the place you possibly can freely place objects shortly and simply. Witch Beam has finished the whole lot it could to make this expertise smoother – together with help for contact in handheld mode, which is sweet – however I can’t assist however really feel like having the finer management of a mouse would make it even higher. Maybe a Swap 2 Version sooner or later might iron out that minor wrinkle.
Tempopo is an outstanding puzzle recreation that excels in nearly the whole lot it tries to do, taking inspirations from a few of the greatest video games within the style and turning them into one thing really distinctive and really particular. It’s a beautiful audiovisual expertise that places your mind right into a puzzle-solving frenzy, and it’s among the best puzzle video games you’ll ever play.
Score: 5/5
