Video Games are occasionally constructed one single idea in mind.
One main mechanic which can be expanded upon or left alone, to create a memorable or forgettable
experience respectively.
When inspecting and initially playing Minimal Move, given to us by Tako Studio through Keymailer,
it seemed to me that this would be the case.
But is it memorable or forgettable?
Now, Minimal Move is a 3D puzzle game slated for a Spring 2020 Windows release.
It’s currently up on Kickstarter, so go check that out, and if you enjoy what you
see I’ll note that it’s next goal on kickstarter seems to involve a Nintendo Switch version.
I’ll also note that this is an early version of the game, therefore my experience with
it was fairly brief and some issues I may have involving Minimal Move might not be present
in the final version of the game.
The game's brief introduction tells us story involves two space investigators, Kaiten and
Ido, who are sent to inspect a signal coming from a cubic world.
Kaiten is a nervous giant character who is reluctant to endure the journey and Ido seems
to be the brave figure pushing Kaiten and pursuing more exploration.
They are brought to the cubic world by their AI spaceship RX-181, who also serves as the
tutorial provider for the players.
Though RX-181’s tutorial tips abruptly stop at some point resulting in me misunderstanding
some features in the game that he could have been there to described, like how touching
certain blocks will make me die.
In the demo I got to experience three different worlds; Oasis World, Lava World, and Lunar
World.
Each level had its own features like lasers, cacti, and lava.
Minimal Move offers both single player and cooperative modes and seemingly prefers being
played as a cooperative as that’s how the game describes itself.
Being the two main characters of the game, Kaiten and Ido have pivotal roles in the gameplay.
Ido moves platforms up, down, left, and right, while Kaiten rotates platforms on a 2D and
3D plane.
Each level in the demo will have one portal for both characters to reach or two portals
for each character to reach.
Looking at some of the concepts on the Kickstarter page, it seems as though the full game might
have some sort of enemy to avoid or fight, which adds another element to gameplay.
Watching the trailer before playing Minimal Move got me excited.
Each level looked fast-paced and seemed to flow really nicely, but unfortunately I found
this not to be the case.
For one the game feels slow, especially compared to what I saw in the trailer.
Then there is by far the worst experience I’ve had with Minimal Move, which is controls
and how it flows.
Since the characters can walk on upside down and vertical planes the controls tend to get
extremely confusing.
There was one point in the game where I was hitting the same direction on my analog stick,
but my character was stuck in a loop of jumping on 3 separate platforms.
90% of the times I died was a result of me pushing a direction on my analog stick expecting
a different action than the one I got.
If the result of a player dying in a game is very often the result of an unexpected
output from an input,I believe that’s a huge game design flaw.
Sometimes I would stop and really think, “Alright if I pushed left on my controller will my
character go up or down.”
And after a 15 second conversation with myself my decision could still be wrong.
I have a hard time believing a game describing itself as an “intellectual puzzle game”
or seeing quotes describing Minimal Move as “a great puzzle game for gamers with 200
IQ.” when I can’t complete a simple task with assurance.
The puzzles themselves don’t seem as intellectual as they are made out to be.
Maybe when the game releases we will see some more interesting puzzles, but I felt as though
the difficulty wasn’t really there and I’ve never been someone to particularly enjoy puzzle
games due to difficulty.
Obviously, the introduction levels aren’t supposed to have any sort of extreme difficulty,
but even playing the last level I was able to get by fairly quickly.
Pulling away some of my larger issues with the game I think the foundation is extremely
solid and I could see this as a fun co op experience, but I can’t ignore the lack
of tutorial, shortage of interesting puzzles, and especially the disconnect between the
player and the game due to poor controls.
I hope the developers are able to meet some more of their K ickstarter milestones and
push a real flushed out game next spring.
Note that the following score does not represent the overall quality of the game, but rather
how much I recommend checking the game out based on my first impressions.
With that being said:
2/5