Closure

Your mom’s different games kekekekeke

Oh, alright. :)

I played this game last week, it’s called minecraft! 

I bought this last night, and it’s really fun! I completed the first two scenarios, but I still have the “Circus” to play, as well as whatever is behind that mysterious locked door on the far right of the main hub.

In addition to the “Scenario” from the original game, there are at least two new scenarios plus a tutorial with a fourth character. I think a really important part of the game, aside from the light and darkness puzzles, is that each scenario tells a little story about the character through symbolism and background elements. It’s easy to find yourself sucked through the puzzles because you want to see the next level and the new clues to show what happened to the character, and get closure on the events (hence the name of the game). The way it tells little stories with no words at all is brilliant and my favorite part of the game.

It also features silver moths to collect, each of which is located in a tricky part of a map. Getting the moth and completing a level often requires you to adopt  a completely different approach to the puzzle than the “Easy” solution. They chime and scatter sparkling dust to help you identify their presence, but almost all of them fall into the category of easy to find, hard to get.

The background elements are lovely, and littered with clever touches. Many of the elements are clues to the character’s background, but others feel like easter eggs, such as trees and bushes that invoke the image of the mysterious tutorial character.

The music is simple and has a few really good themes (for example, when you reach the last part of the middle scenario) but isn’t particularly memorable. There’s a weird slow-down effect to the music when you go in water that is kind of neat at first, but gets a little annoying in levels with a lot of water. Most of the songs are pretty forgettable, unfortunately. The sound effects don’t stand out, but a few of the percussive effects (such as snapping a heavy button or crushing a crystal) are pretty good.

My only big complaints so far: The ‘loading’ graphic is really choppy is sharp contrast to the smooth animation elsewhere, and since it is literally the first thing the player sees it’s really off-putting. The characters don’t have an animation for pushing objects, which looks a little cheap. I also wish I had an indicator to tell me which levels contain uncollected moths, though their chiming sound and the convenient hub-world doors make this a minor issue.

This is an excellent game and I recommend a purchase!

Hey thanks a ton for the review! I’m glad you appreciate all the little things with ‘story’ elements and the background art.

After a few days / weeks I would love to read a blurb by the design team about what they intended for each character’s ‘scenario’ to be about. The Factory one in particular is ambiguous with lots of scenes that are unclear, though I did enjoy imagining my own take on the character’s situation. The Circus seemed really simplistic by contrast, I wondered if maybe there were some elements I was supposed to interpret less literally, or if maybe it really was as simple as it came across.

I would like to read a little deconstruction of the scenarios and what you folks intended for the player to see, think, and how you interpreted the various situations. But obviously not now! Give the game a few weeks to settle first.

I don’t see anything Cave Story in Minecraft, nor anything Minecraft in Closure.

This seems like vagueness by design.  Perhaps it’d be more fun to discuss theories with other players yourself!

I would, but I fear I’m the only person in this comment thread who has actually bought and played this.

I love the game but I couldn’t help but think that this trailer doesn’t quite communicate the unique gameplay mechanic until pretty late, and even then not too clearly.  It’s an awesome mechanic and people see this for the first time should unambigously know about it!

What I got from it – It’s obvious that the three characters. .are dead. Everything in the artwork points to how they died, and as an demon creature you are rewalking in their last footsteps – For example the middle girl; you walk through a grotesque hospital – which in the end you find the girl motionless in a hospital bed.

It makes a lot of sense when your taking place in a level called ‘purgatory’ in a world of dark and light, and the concept version originally had the main character start off emerging from a burning car wreck.