1. This is a game where you are a circle that shoots other shapes.
2.
A friend of mine told me he once took so much LSD, all he could see was
shapes and colors. I never really believed him but I suppose if you
took said dose of LSD and played Hotline: Miami, the end result would look a lot like Thoth. The music also sounds like some sort self-inflicted cerebral chemical abnormality.
3.
This is a twin stick shooter played w/ only the two sticks. You move w/
the left stick, shoot in whatever direction the right stick is pressed.
You go a bit faster when you are not shooting. This works
well--elegance, simplicity and all that. It can be a bit of a mindfuck when you are in tight situations somehow.
4. You will be in a lot of tight situations. This game plays fast.
5.
You have to beat four levels in a row to advance, the fourth of which is something of a boss battle. This is extremely, extremely
frustrating like you wouldn't believe. Some of the boss battles might
take a dozen attempts to come up w/ a strategy and to get to try again you
have to play the three levels before them over and over.
6. and over and over and over and over and over...
7. Frustrating isn't strictly
bad in this case. You fall into sort of a trance repeating the levels
and you naturally start challenging yourself to find the fastest way to
complete them.
8. The shapes you shoot at are 3D shapes that
bounce around in 3D space but you only see them on a 2D plane. This adds
a certain unpredictability but it seems to be deterministic; if you
input the exact same controls, you will see the exact same behavior from
the game. Most games would use random number generation for this sort
of unpredictability but I like this better. It also makes this an
interesting option for tool assisted speed runs if you are into that
sort of thing.
9. As you shoot the shapes, they gradually turn
into black space. If you incompletely convert them to black space, the
shapes gradually return to their original color. If you completely
convert them, they still exist and can still kill you but don't block
your shots from hitting the other shapes. They also get a burst of
speed. Between this and the fact that your little circle moves faster
when you are not shooting, a surprisingly large amount of strategy
emerges.
10. Thoth does not wait to get hard. In fact, I
can't really even think of another game that gets so hard so soon after
starting. By the second level of the first set of four, you are already
having to start to think in terms of strategy and not just adept
movement.
11. Actually, it does not even really get all that
much harder from that first set of levels. Or, in any case, the
difficulty curve is really gradual. Again, it is surprising how much
good strategy plays a roll beyond just twitchy stick. It is better to
invest your mental energy into trying to learn the dynamics of each
enemy type and level than it is to worry about your increasing your
manual dexterity.
12. You still need manual dexterity in spades. Don't get me wrong. There is just a lot more to it than that.
13.
This is a game that gives you a lot w/ very little. I think many people
will complain that this looks and feels like it should be a browser
game--not that there's anything wrong w/ that. This may well be true but
I think investing some time to get into Thoth's rhythm and
seeing how it ticks reveals a level of attention to detail and
craftsmanship that is seldom seen in any sort of game no matter the
production values.
No comments:
Post a Comment