AVSEQ

Developer: Big Robot Ltd
Steam Release: Aug 2012
Hours Played: 2
Similar To: Jack Lumber / Orbt XL / Trino / Waveform
Rating:  1/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
AVSEQ won't win any awards for the catchiest title in the world and being quite unremarkable, won't win much for anything else either, it's just nothing to get excited about. Hitting the name of a level starts you off, and you begin by watching small 8-sided shapes falling gently towards the bottom of the screen. These have a glowing colour around them that range from red, blue, green and white (in the early levels at least). Your task is to match these up with your mouse as they fall. When you're done making your match, you release the mouse button - or right click (depending on your set-up) - and watch the earned fragments fill up a yellow meter in the bottom left of the screen. When this reaches the end, you earn a note which fills up the red meter on the botttom right.The How To Play doesn't tell you this but your game is timed to last about 3 minutes.


BALANCE & PACE
This means you have to play fast and get as many notes as you can before you hear the ominous timer counting down those last few seconds. Two more key elements are involved: (1) if a shape hits the bottom you lose a note, and (2) white shapes are your friend - when you click on these you may link a further different set of colours which increases you multiplier and earns you more fragments. The game is unique enough to draw you in and make you want to beat your score to progress - but it has no depth to take you anywhere new once you've settled in and played the first few levels. In other words gameplay can be rather mechanical and repetitive and probably won't hold your attention for long.

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
This is not a big-budget game. It is a no-frills casual game that looks as if it has been made with inexpensive software by a small development team - but hey, this is indie so there's there's nothing wrong with that. The makers have gone with a rather dull menu though. Their title-page gives you the options of viewing a simple video of how to play (which is far too fast and quick); let's you configure one of two ways to use the mouse control and lets you exit or play the game. The fonts used, both in the menus and in the main part of the game, are blocky and chunky. The sound-effects are the game's main strength which, when brought together, create a melodic effect that do a great job to immerse the player.    



PROGRESS SYSTEM
Hitting Play takes you to the level-select screen where you can play nine levels of increasing difficulty. Each one goes by the name of precious stones. These are listed in chunky orange text with your best score next to it. You must score a certain amount of notes before unlocking the next level. Notes are earned by collecting fragments as you play and fragments fill a yellow meter. When this meter gets to the end you get awarded one note which gets put into the red meter. The notes count towards your high-score and it's a refreshingly simple system without complications. You can also unlock the Infinite Mode but I'm not sure why you'd want to play that mode.  

 

CONCLUSION

AVSEQ can be offputting at the beginning because the How To Play section rushes through the rules too quickly and explanations seem vague. Personally, it took me a while to realise: (a) I could actually cross over anything I wanted with my line, including any shapes and my own line, and (b) that a game ends after a certain amount of time. Maybe I'm just a bit thick but if I understood the game clearer beforehand I could have dived in with more confidence and not felt so perplexed and unsure. Fortunately, AVSEQ does have the power to grip and you'll be frantically matching up those shapes and enjoying the chimes in no time as you desperately try to hit your quota of notes. On the other hand, things do get hectic and there will be moments when you link the wrong shapes accidentally and wish there was an unwind feature. Overall then, it's a game worth a dabble but perhaps gets just a little too old, just a little too quickly.