For my first foray into game reviewing (“professionally” at least), I decided to go to a nice upstart source for indie gaming goodness: the Greenhouse game store. Greenhouse is the brainchild of Penny Arcade authors Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins in conjunction with their partnered game developer, Hothead Games. Greenhouse has becoming a nice front for legitimate indie game development, and I thought it would be appropriate that I chose my first game from its pixel-based catalog.

And Yet It Moves (AYIM from here on out) is an interesting take on the traditional platform adventure/exploration game. The game is developed by Broken Rules, which originally created the game for use on the Wii; since I don’t own one of those (yet) I opted for the PC version. I highly recommend watching the teaser trailer as it will give you a nice feel for the game, and showcases much more of the environments that were available in the demo. The installation and startup interface look nicely polished, which is always a good thing to see as your initial introduction. It doesn’t require any sort of high-end graphic capabilities and is more akin to the PopCap genre of puzzle games in scope. In fact, while the point of the game seems to be exploration, it is done in a manner that involves the solving of puzzles of a directional and topographical nature. Of note is the general slowness of the cursor tracking in the game menus, something I sought to remedy via the control settings and found there was no ability for adjustment.

The puzzle factor of the game is perhaps its most interesting attribute, largely because of the play controls involved in solving the navigation roadblocks presented. The game is entirely keyboard based, having no use of the mouse involved for actual gameplay. Keyboard navigation consists of basic left and right movement with a standard jump action via the A, D, and W keys respectively. But the real novelty comes from the use of the left and right arrows keys to tilt the game axis 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise. This is the crux of the game and how the end goal of each level is achieved; obstacles, slopes, pits, etc are placed in your way and you must use the axial movement to change which direction is down. The majority of the demo was spent in freefall using this method for navigation, but interesting results can be attained when executing an axis rotation mid-jump.

Apart from its unique control setup, AYIM is defined by its visual style. The environments consist of platform 3D layers all skinned in a torn or crumpled paper motif, and your character/avatar resembles a notebook sketch brought to life. The animations are relatively smooth, but simple. The visual design is complimented by an eerie soundtrack of low-key music. There are no sound effects apart from the “whooshing” noise that is made when your character meets his demise.

The game is not a sandbox that you are free to explore; it has its limits and dangers. Your character’s death is typically achieved by attaining a critical velocity, upon which your body is shattered into its component pieces. My main complaint about the gameplay is that this magic velocity seems to be too quickly and easily attained, especially while trying to cope with the sudden rotational shifts required. You may also confront doom by falling into one of the “black zones” that border certain sections of the  level map, acting as an “Out of Bounds” device. The game allows for checkpoints that save your progression in each level, but in some cases these points are located a good distance from each other and separated by some complex topographical trials. This makes the game more challenging, but in a manner that hearkens back to the platform arcade games of old. Memory, muscle, and movement repetition are the tools to win the day in many situations, and rarely was I ever at a loss for discerning which direction I was supposed to head.

Overall, I’m left a bit ambivalent as to enjoyment received from the game. It certainly drew me by means of the puzzle factor, but I found myself asking “What is the point?” There is no antagonist, your character is allowed unlimited lives and attempts for each level, and each level basically consists of rotating yourself from point A to point B. I think my goal confusion was further enhanced by the mildly dark mood that the game portrays, a lonely paper figure scrambling his way across landscapes of muted colors and creaking noises. The environment could be described as sublime, but without any sort of inferred underlining meaning.

AYIM does have a multiplayer aspect in the form of web-based scoreboards. There’s no real incentive for submitting your scores and times other than having your name potentially float to the top of the list. In the same vein you may compete in a time trial against a fellow player, either via your local network or over the web. Judging from a quick glance at the scoreboards and user accounts, the game has garnered a fair following in this aspect.

Overall Rating: B

Pros

• Unique directional rotation gameplay
• Easy learning curve
• Lovely hand-drawn and torn paper environments

Cons

• Sluggish menu cursor movement
• Death is easily achieved
• “Multiplayer” feels tacked-on, but this isn’t the games main focus

I’ve been struggling recently with several things regarding my career / web presence over the past months. I’ve done a lot of study on finding a niche and have performed a lot of introspection regarding what I would like to do with my time. I have concluded the following:

• I dislike writing in general. I only like to write about things that I feel passionate for and have in-depth experience and knowledge of.
• Most of the things that I am passionate about and have experience in have already been written about thousands of times over.
• I dislike most of the people in my industry. I think many of them are very pretentious and show this in their commentaries and writings. An exception to this is Karj.
• If I do not contribute something to the web, then I will feel like a failure. It needs to be something personal, something mine. I believe it is important to the purpose of the web (and for my own sanity) that I add to it.
• Since I dislike writing and much of what I am good at has been covered over and over, I become mired in apathy toward producing any sort of content.

So… here I am again. I’ve decided to stab out in a direction that is entertaining for me, encompasses one of my life passions, and something that I feel I can place a personal mark on. I’m going to test drive and review indie games.

For those of you unacquainted with what an “indie” game is… it basically means that it isn’t produced by one of the mainstream conglomerates, like Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sega, Nintendo, etc. You can liken it to indie movie production or the indie music scene, the story is the same: the little guys making their own way by kicking ass and taking names. The indie game sphere has exploded in just the last few years and there are tons of solo gaming projects being undertaken. Some are in it for the money, some are pure experimentation, many are written in their parents’ basement. These are my people, and I think I can give some objective and useful reviews.

So, for starters I’m going to try and install/download/play online one indie game every week or so (caveat: or so) and write the reviews on this site. If all goes well, I may end up migrating to a dedicated domain.

Feels good to have a plan.

Yet, I encountered a problem that I could find no solution for, which plagued my nerves for weeks on end. I finally figured out the problem (with a hint from a dry-humored tech support rep), so I thought I’d share it here in case anyone else was having the same issue. However, to get the full feel for the frustration (and ultimate hilarity) of the situation I need to share the story in full:

(Hopefully research and options that I hit along the way may be helpful to others with the same issue, but with a different cause.)

Background, technical Info, etc.

I’m not going to explain a lot of the basic of the game in detail. If you’re reading this and don’t know what WoW is… well, hit my archives for some other posts that might better tickle your fancy. The setup is this:

• I’m a level 80 Tauren Shaman, with dual-spec Elemental and Enhancement
• The majority of my Elemental gear is level 213+; my Enhancement gear is mostly 200+
• In full 25-man raids with all buffs and the appropriate talents, I’m doing about 1700 DPS.

For the uninitiated, 1700 DPS for my gear (at the time) was exceedingly low. The Off Tank typically was doing more damage than I was in raids, and even in Heroics I could get bypassed by the tank. This is slightly embarrassing for a class that is supposed to be one of the most versatile in the game while still dealing very high damage. My gear was by no means the best possible, but it should be churning out waaaaaay more performance than what I was getting.

So, I started my research.

Fact-finding

There are a lot of things that impact the amount of damage that you deal, especially when playing a caster class (I was playing as Elemental primarily, but Enhancement also depends a lot on spell damage). While I knew the basics of a lot of this, I hadn’t been dedicating much time previously to raiding, so I had to delve into the murky realm of theorycrafting to acquire some info:

(all this info is current as of Patch 3.2.x)

Hit:

Your hit rating determines your probability for actually connecting with whatever attack you’re trying to do against your enemy. Hit is key. This stat more than anything else will make your DPS soar or sink it like a soggy towel in a pool. If you’re missing, you aren’t doing damage. The people-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands at Elitist Jerks (to whom I am very thankful) sum it up thusly:

“While this is the most valuable stat to have when not hit capped, it is worthless when over the hit cap.”

Spell Power:

This number increases the bonus damage applied to the base amount caused by any given spell. This is the caster equivalent to attack power in melee. The more spell power, the more damage caused by each spell. Some hybrid classes like Enhancement shaman and Retribution paladins can make use of this stat as well. This is typically the most important stat for casters, especially once the hit rating maximum has been achieved.

Critical Strike Rating:

This rating determines the percentage of times that a connecting damage spell or melee attack with score a critical strike and cause 150% (at least) damage. This stat is important for all classes, especially ones that have special spells or abilities that only occur on or after a critical strike. For shaman however, the importance is diminished as we have talent skills that give us plenty of crit and our Lava Burst spell crits automatically on any target that we have applied Flame Shock to – 100% of the time.

Haste:

This is a close second with spell power. While SP determines base damage increase, haste determines how fast you can fling your spells (or swing your axe). A 1% increase in haste can equate to a 1% increase in DPS. For shaman, haste is preferable over critical rating (see critical explanation above), especially in reference to spells like Lightning Bolt that have no cooldown.

An important note: haste does not lower the cooldown on spells.

Attack Rotation:

This is almost more important than your stats. Having down the order in which you fire off your attacks can be the biggest determining factor in maximizing damage output. If the attack rotation doesn’t make the most of any interplay that exists between spells, that’s damage (and time) wasted.

For Elemental shaman, the rotation is relatively simple. Glyph of Flame Shock is required (REQUIRED) for making the most of your damage. The rotation goes like this: Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt.

Lava Burst has a long cooldown, so Lightning Bolt (LB) should be fired non-stop until it’s cooldown is up. Depending on haste rating, a complete rotation before Flame Shock expires on the target will look something like this:

Flame Shock, Lava Burst, LB, LB, LB, LB, Lava Burst, LB, LB.

If you’re attacking a group of creatures, you can interject a Chain Lightning here and there to provide more area of effect damage.

Applying what I learned

In every capital city, there is a section that contains immobile training dummies for players to whack away on. These exist solely for the purpose of recording data, using an addon like Recount or Damage Meters. I piled all my different gear pieces into my bags and headed for the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar.

I started by first stacking all the gear that contained hit rating, giving preference to it above all other stats. I dropped my totems, hit Flametongue and let loose. I followed the rotation, and even used some of my trinket abilities to lead off. Lava Burst was hitting for around 6,000 from its automatic critical strikes. The damage meter?: 1500 DPS.

Ok, so maybe it’s not my hit rating. Looking at Recount showed I never missed a shot, so I decided to sacrifice a chunk of hit for spell power and give it another go. DPS: 1700. Spell power made a difference, but not a lot. Interchanging spell power with haste yielded similar results.

What was the deal? By all rights I should be doing waaaay more damage. During my testing period, another Elemental shaman had come up beside me to test his damage. Comparing our gear, I found mine was better but that he was doing roughly 2700 DPS. That’s almost twice as much damage as I could sustain – with a lower gear rating!

The “ah ha!” moment

Something I took notice of during my research through forums and blogs were several references to the crit amount on Lightning Bolt spells – somewhere in the range of 8,000 – 10,000. My Lava Burst was getting close to this amount, but my LB shots were getting critical hits of around 1,000. That’s a far cry from 8,000… so I thought I’d found my culprit.

There is a talent called Shamanism in the shaman Elemental talent tree that gives your LB spell an additional bonus from your spell power. My theory was that, for whatever reason, my talent was broken and wasn’t applying this bonus. I submitted a ticket to game support, briefly outlining my research and what my hypothesis was.

Roughly a day later I received a reply message stating (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Hello! We’ve checked and do not believe there are any bugs in the talent you referenced. You might check and make sure that you are using all of your highest level spells when you’re doing your testing”

Well of course I was… wasn’t I? I looked at my status bar. Lightning Bolt – Rank 9: 347 – 389 nature damage. Hmm… that did seem a bit low. I checked my spell book and *BAM* I’m an idiot. My highest ranking of LB was actually Rank 14, which does a base damage of 715 – 815. I equipped it to my action key, fired off my anger at a target dummy: 2900 DPS.

The culprit (apart from my own blindness) turned out to be Dominos, the action bar addon I had taken to using. The default action bar interface automatically updates any spells you have assigned to it to their highest rank. Dominos doesn’t do that, apparently (at least in the version I was using).

I hope this has all been helpful, and that you will learn from my journey of knowledge to better inform yourself on the mechanics of your classes. And remember: always check your spells :)