Cut It

By: Derek Yu

On: July 13th, 2010

[This is a guest review by Pinky. If you’d like to write an article for TIGSource, please go here.]

His first game about drawing, Crayon Physics Deluxe, won the IGF Grand Prize in 2008 and since then, Petri Purho has been developing experimental games on a monthly basis. Cut It is his most recent project and features similar concepts seen in Crayon Physics, but also introduces new ideas and offers a solid concept from which the crayon master can draw on.

The gameplay is simple enough: use scissors to cut a straight line across various pieces of construction paper in order to make the white square land on the green paper and be at a standstill for a few seconds. There are multiple ways to complete each level, and apparently every level is possible to complete with a single snip. The gameplay itself is simple, offering no additional mechanics such as those seen in Crayon Physics Deluxe because it is only an experimental tech demo.

The levels themselves are difficult and require thought and practice to master. Luckily, the developer was smart enough to combat this by giving the player the ability to freely switch between any level at any time. Part of the difficulty may be due to the single cutting mechanic, or just me being bad at games.

Cut It features simple, yet functional design. Each level is constructed of construction paper and the objective is always clear, but requires experimentation to achieve. The game utilizes the Box 2D physics engine, so it’s no surprise that the physics are modeled accurately, but still feel a bit slidey. It is available on both PC and Mac and ran fine for me, without any noticeable bugs. Probably one of the most striking (or soothing?) aspects of the game is the gentle piano music that hums in the background and really sets a slow, relaxed mood for the game. I actually left the game on for at least an hour just listen to the single track.

Cut It is well worth your time. However, Petri Purho would likely have a hard time turning the concept into a full game due to the limited mechanics.

Posted in Freeware, Macintosh, Physics, Windows | Tags: PetriPurho

Raigan

level 12 is impossible! :(
MisterX

I also found this rather difficult, but it's nice.
Prior to this, Nitrome have actually made several games using the same mechanic, the “Icebreaker” series. I've only played the first and that was really fun, because it does add more to the mechanic, making it a much more complete game.

Not to say that Cut It doesn't deserve mention, but this time Petri wasn't the innovator ;)
Eclipse_TIGS

Icebreaker from Nitrome has the very same mechanic plus more stuff, but this one is nice as well
PhasmaFelis

I was about to mention Icebreaker!

On the other hand, the one I played at least (Icebreaker Gathering) was, true to Nitrome's usual style, a neat idea poorly implemented. A lot of the levels were really annoyingly fiddly; what you had to do was simple and obvious, but you had to repeat it like 20 times to get the timing pixel-perfect.

Bottom line, I'm looking forward to what Purho does with it.
kb

Hmm seems very similar to Splitter…

http://www.kongregate.com/games/EvgenyKarataev/…

Conceptually, at least. DLing now.
Candardin

the cutting sucks and makes them incorrectly sooooooo often. its almost unusable!
Phubans

Apparently cutting things is all the rage in games right now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BHYYX6spdc&feat…
http://www.wetgenes.com/ XIX

Breathtaking and ground breaking!!!!!

Do you ever get the feeling that some indie journo nuovos only “play” games made by their friends?
Phubans

Come on now, it's not like the indie game scene is just one big circle jerk *knowing wink*
John Sandoval

The concept has been used before, but that doesn't stop it from being really great. The music is refreshing, the gameplay is simple.

A few glitches here and there, but nothing to make it unplayable.
PhasmaFelis

I get the feeling that some people only read TIGsource to bag on indie journos.

Which is kind of…man, talk about a tempest in a teapot.
http://wilbefast.com/ Wilbefast

Agreed :-)
Adamski

The concept reminds me of Tumbledrop
Frank

Other things to be reminded of: the newly released demo for a game that does cutting in 3D! http://www.tinyandbig.com/

(I can't play it on my laptop, so I don't know much about it.)
anonymous

Yeah, I have absolutely nothing against Petri or this game, I don't think he knowingly copied anybody else. But that Splitter flash game has been out for ages, but it's not made by the right people, it's flash and it doesn't have the right “TIGSource” look so there's no way in hell it'd ever get a mention here. TIGSource doesn't cover the most interesting indie games at all, it only covers what it considers the most interesting devs. This sucks for anybody who isn't one of these devs.
anonymous

Funny that it wouldn't make you think of Totem Destroyer, the flash game that came before that and basically created the whole genre. Oh, right, you wouldn't know of it because it wasn't covered by TIGSource, hmm, wonder why! Again, I have nothing against Tumbledrop or dock, but I hate how TIGSource pretends to be a journalistic news site covering the best in indie when it's really only a bunch of devs mostly writing about what their friends are currently making. (no idea whether Derek and dock are real-life friends)
Eclipse_TIGS

life is hard
Eclipse_TIGS

stop this shit really, TIGsource is made by humans, humans with lives, and with jobs and families. It's not like they can try and write about all the flash games posted on newgrounds or kong every day.
Also this game is different from Totem Destroyer, is more similar to Icebreaker, and Nitrome is a developer that was covered several times.
Also I believe Derek has a time machine, because he surely knew about this game and Tumbledrop so he thought “I'll not review this game because two friends are going to make similar games” when Totem Destroyer went out
rinkuhero

close but not exactly: tigsource tends to cover the games made by people in the forums here. dock is a forum poster here. so closer to reality would be 'a game development community that often posts games made by people who frequent the forums'.

i agree that we should cover a greater variety of games, and that there is too much of an in-group, but we don't do this full time, it's voluntary. the only one who covers indie games full time is probably timw. if it were possible to make a living reviewing indie games for tigsource i'd do it in a heartbeat and have much more time to spend finding and writing about great games by people who don't post in the forums here, but as is i tend to post about games that people recommend me to post about. possibly derek's the same way.

for instance, i posted about the a game by its cover competition because melly bugged me to, i posted about dungeon because podunk asked me to, i posted about redder because auntie pixelante asked me to (which isn't to say i don't like those games; i don't post about games i don't like). but there are also many cases where i just liked a game and posted about it, and don't know the author at all and when they don't even post on the forums here: houka imura for instance, or where we remain. and there are also cases when people ask me to post about a game and i don't, due to lack of time or lack of interest in their game. it's a mixed bag. there's truth in what you say but reality's always more complex than we can hold in our minds.
Guest

Like the things you have in in your mouth?
Eclipse_TIGS

yeah my teeth are pretty hard too, I love to take care of them, thank you
anonymous

Yeah, criticism is obviously by definition “shit”.
Eclipse_TIGS

unuseful trolling isn't criticism
anonymous

Calling any criticism “unuseful trolling” is a stupid knee-jerk reaction that leads nowhere, and a sign that you spend too much time online. What the hell is trolling about my post anyway? Can you “win” any conversation/debate by copping out and calling the other person a troll?
anonymous

the “we don't have much spare time” isn't a particularly good excuse – not that it's horrible, but if you keep making that argument, you're legitimizing the “this game steals attention from this other game you should have written about” kind of comments.
rinkuhero

so? those comments do have legitimacy.
anonymous

OK, fine then, but that's not the way TIGSource editors usually respond to that sort of complaints.
spinky7

I wrote this article and can say that I in no way have ever contacted Petri Purho. I respect him a lot because of his previous work, which is why I follow him. Plus, there is so much in the indie scene that it is impossible to cover it all!
rinkuhero

of course, but so what? is there some rule that says the editors all have to think alike?
spinky7

Actually to me, TIGS tries to be not much more than an indie gaming blog, and there is nothing wrong with that. If it isn't covered here, then we either have no interest in it, or we don't know about it. Hundreds of new games arrive every day on sites like Newgrounds and you expect the people here to know about every single one of them? We write what we want about what we want. If you want this to be changed, then start submitting your own articles.
anonymous

No, why would you interpret it like that? Other editors would disagree that “this steals the spotlight from game XX” kind of arguments are legitimate while still defending themselves by saying “we're just doing this in our spare time”. If you think it's a legitimate argument, that's good, but other editors don't so it's worth mentioning.
Nobody

The whole attitude you're displaying here is that all flash games are the same and not really worth checking out, “how could we possibly play every single flash game”? You don't have to play every single flash game just like you don't have to play every downloadable indie game, but if you had an interest in indie gaming that goes beyond these forums you'd keep yourselves updated on the latest flash games as well. How can you keep tabs on what people here are doing if you can't keep tabs on flash games?? “Flash is inherently inferior… unless it's flixel, of course because that looks like real indie games should”
rinkuhero

i don't know why it's worth mentioning, since it's obvious — did you believe that i didn't know what the other editors think? don't you think i've read the same comments as you have? plus we do talk to each other occasionally and all.
guest_reviewer

“submit your own articles”… “submit your own articles”…. “submit your own articles”…

we've heard that line a million times. why have editors if you are going to just post guest reviews? why even have a front page for tigsource?

you “editors” (including that lazy bum Derek) really need to step up and do some real work, instead of resorting to the same old tired excuses (.e.g. amateur guest reviews) and copypasting stuff from other sites. I'm starting to think that the only requirements to become an editor on this site is if you wank off to Curly Brace porn in front of your monitors when your parents aren't around.
rinkuhero

derek has posted over 1000 articles on tigsource. there are in total about 1800 articles on tigsource. meaning if you're going to call any editor lazy, derek's not the one. i don't think it's reasonable to call someone who has posted over 1000 articles without getting much of anything in return lazy. me, yes, since i have less than 100 articles.
spinky7

Actually I believe that Flash is an excellent game platform, but I don't follow sites like Newgrounds and Kongregate all that much. I have a few favorite developers here and there who I follow and make Flash games, but I have other things to do in life. I have more to do than keep a tab open for every indie gaming site and forum on the internet, and I'll admit that I don't know about the latest and greatest Flash games.

If you think you know so much about Flash games, then start writing some articles and reviews for TIGS. Indie games also aren't a singular interest for me, I also play my fair share of AAA PC titles and mods.
moviesda

Free Moviesda 2024 HD downloads with 10,000+ free Tamil movies. Easy download and user friendly website.