BlindGiRl 2
Video games, like many of the modern forms of entertainment, rely on the use of our key senses. Fancy graphics and soaring musical scores mean nothing if you don’t have the ability to process the information. A few games have addressed these issues, to varying degrees of success. Even rarer, are video game protagonists with any of these physical handicaps.
BlindGiRl 2, recently released on the Xbox Live Indie marketplace puts you in control of a blind girl and a wheelchair bound boy and sets you in a world full of darkness and unknowable terror.
On the surface, BlindGiRl 2 is a puzzle game that centres around using the abilities of the games main characters to solve the maze-like levels. Obviously, having one blind character would usually be a bit of a spanner in the works, but in this case, she is blessed with a great set of pipes.
In a move that is fairly unrealistic, the main female character can use her singing to illuminate the surroundings of the levels, turning previously unseen walls green, and helping lead the way towards the objective, usually a pair of red high heeled shoes.
The sound waves also help guide the other playable character, a boy in a wheelchair. His movement is a little restricted, owing to the nature of his disability. The levels cannot be beaten by one single character alone, and team work between the two is essential. Thankfully, swapping between the two is as easy as tapping the Y button, as is resetting the level by holding X.
You’ll be holding X quite a lot in this one, I’m afraid. While the game may not set out to frustrate the player, often it does. If the objective was to share the feeling of fumbling in the dark with the player, then the designers have succeeded. It’s not a bad game because of this, but often in the puzzle genre it seems that fun is sometimes replaced with frustration almost intentionally.
Adding to this, the enemies placed throughout the levels can also be a little more annoying than maybe the designers set out to be; the various enemies will follow any sound back to it’s source, unless you dash away as far as possible. While this often works, the enemies then lie in such a way that sneaking slowly past them is an impossibility. Again, fun takes the back seat and often you’ll find yourself getting frustrated with a game that really doesn’t deserve such ire.
It’s obvious that a lot of attention has gone into so many parts of the game, with the sprites having more character than their simple hand drawn lines should portray. Little details, like the cough the blind girl makes if you move her while she’s singing, or the little Zs that float up from nearby sleeping enemies. This is a game made to impress the player with a singular art style, and there are a lot of indie games out there that should take note.
Even though the art style is admirable and the concepts behind the game really are fascinating, without addictive and fluid gameplay, it can all come apart. Even a quick tutorial at the beginning of the game would’ve improved this, but being thrown in at the deep end can either make or break a game, and in this case it really didn’t help. Although the lack of tutorial can be confusing, the inclusion of split screen co-op more than makes up for it.
As a first step down the road of creating something truly thought provoking, this is a good step, but with more of a guiding hand it could’ve been great.
