And Yet It Moves

Developer: Broken Rules
Released: Apr 2009
Hours Played: 5
Similar To: 6180 The Moon / The Bridge / In Between / VVVVVV
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips




GAMEPLAY
For me, AYIM was one of those pleasant surprises where actually experiencing and playing the game itself greatly surpassed my modest expectations which were mainly formed from reading negative reviews. The idea, like most platform puzzlers, is to negotiate your way through the landscape and exit through the portal at the end. You control a human character with wavy long hair that looks like he's been drawn out of chalk. Apart from the distinctive torn-paper art-work and the eerie sound-effects, the main USP is the fact that you can rotate the entire landscape ninety degrees at a time in any direction you choose. While there is a certain amount of leaping and jumping involved your main purpose is to kind of steer your character through the environment using the correct gravitational pulls. It's not quite so simple, however, because your character will die if the fall is too great.


BALANCE & PACE
The main thing to bear in mind is that his momentum always increases while he's in the air so make him whirl around through too many ninety-degree spins and he will break apart with a squelch on landing before being returned to the last checkpoint. Checkpoints are made out of ghost-forms of your avatar and, because it can be very disorientating, very usefully point out the way you need to go. The game is refreshingly enjoyable to play because it is so different to the usual formula and the action is such that you're always purposefully on the move getting to the next areas with interest and intrigue. The movement of your character, with his hair flowing in the breeze, although a little gangly and haphazard at first, is also fluid and makes you want to crack on with the game.



PRESENTATION & DESIGN
AYIM's art-design employs that torn paper look and this is true for the menu-screens. Little torn out rectangular pieces of paper adorn the title-screen and these lead down your usual pathways. Resume The Game does the obvious while the Playmode option supplies you with 5 game-types to choose from. Journey mode, the main campaign or story, will be the one you'll mainly go for and this initially unlocks two other game-types (Speed-Run and Time Trial). Sound-effects are tremendous. We're not talking wild in-your-face noises but eerie, mysterious and subversive sounds. There is a minimal, almost imperceptible soundtrack featuring various jungle-noises but also sound-effects that generate a disturbingly surreal atmosphere as if you're in some kind of dream. The clanking sound while passing a checkpoint and that echo-like swoosh as you enter the exit portal are two cases in point.


PROGRESS SYSTEM
Personally, I'm happy with just the journey mode where I can take my time and enjoy working out my route at my leisure. This is divided into three chapters of 16 fantastic levels. Each level is represented by a square at the level-select screen and change from a dull-white thumbnail to a colourful one as they're completed. The time-attack portions of the game record your best times for each level you've completed in journey mode. They also feature leaderboards to show how your time compares to others online but, as mentioned, to me this game is not a precision-platformer and is best enjoyed for its fantastic journey mode. Two more modes (Limited Rotations and Survival) are added later for those who really want to dig deep.

CONCLUSION

I was unsure of AYIM to start with because it looked tacky and amateurish from screenshots and videos. Yet ten minutes in I was totally hooked. Turning the environment around really gives the player a sense of power because it's fluid and gives a rewarding sense of control. The level designs work a charm; one minute you're turning the world 180 degrees to get on that hanging branch and the next you're escaping from a banana-throwing monkey or a giant-sized guinea pig. One minor gripe I have is that some areas can be frustrating. One particular jump in Chapter 3 involved rotation and being acutely aware of speed which had me struggling for what seemed like an hour (another point that counts against speed-runs). Anyway, for a unique twist on the usual formula I would recommend And Yet It Moves to anyone remotely interested in giving this a whirl.