We’ve noticed a more acceptance type attitude towards gaming and gamers in general the last decade.
UK is investing millions in creating jobs in the gaming industry because it is a more accepted pass time for all cultures, age groups and genders.
That being said, we have the gaming giants that dominate their respective genre.
For a new game or developer to grow, they will need to present something so original and revolutionary, to be able to make their mark onto the circle jerk that is the gaming industry.
Many small developers appear on the market with the growing popularity of smart phones. Most of them vanish just as fast as they appear. I think the main issue is the lack of exposure. There are few sites that cover games that are not “the flavour of the month“. Exposure is so very important towards helping a smaller developer or game designer to grow. I think this is where us gaming bloggers/ sites need to cover these unknowns a bit better. To create a more competitive market, the better the games it will generate.
I mean, aren’t you sick of the same titles over and over again? Same brands, same names, same game play.
They do need some competition and it is our responsibly to bring that competition to them.
-“Look what these dudes made! I like it, people like it, it is awesome, new and it’s making decent amount of money”
A game to get any recognition needs to either have tremendous funding or a known brand backing said game. However, few games break through that market and present something new. Take angry birds for instance. It swept the world like a storm and is still one of the most popular games on the smart phone/pad market.
Hilarious graphics and a great physics engine was the key in their success.
Now about the rest of the smart phone gaming market? Well I want to cover that part a bit more.
I call them upcoming because they haven’t reached the glorious turning point where it either plum-it’s down or sky rockets upward. In the eyes of the big boys, they are in fact, newbs. Which is exactly the reason I will be covering their progress. I think it will be exciting for everyone involved to see how far these people can go from start up, to greatness/and or crash ‘n burn.
BACKGROUND
Triolith Entertainment was founded on a campus in Skoevde Sweden by 6 enthusiastic students in March. (The new developer smell hasn’t worn off yet!)
Their CEO approached me about their controversial game called Thunder Bang. I call it controversial because it has received both bad and good feedback. As someone who has some experience in reviewing games, I’d think my review might help him in further development of his games. The new developing companies do need exposure and feedback so we can enjoy a future of great quality games and if we are lucky, more affordable. (Much more affordable, I’m literary going broke trying to keep up with the gaming releases)
THUNDER BANG
Thunder bang is a gaming equivalent of Kick-ass with the body of Captain America and the mental capacity of Dead pool. Actually, never mind all that, he IS dead pool. In mannerism and how he perceives reality (which as we know, is a whole different reality then the one the rest of us exists in).
Installing the game went in without a hitch. A different story however when I started to load the game. It made an audio hiccup while loading. Meaning that the music started then abruptly ended and the next screen where the music was supposed to launch, all I got was a “whoop” and then silence. I run a HTC Evo 4g, so I doubt it is lack of power. I did relaunch the game and this time started without flaw. The song seems very Turricane inspired..
One wonders..
You know, I’d never thought i’d see the day where a game presents
a monkey bomb and a cat UFO. This was like looking into the sub conscious
of a hamburger wearing glasses.
The game presents a few possibilities.
Play endless (Playing the game without the story)
Story mode (Well, the game with story)
Options (difficulty settings blah blah blah:)
Lets start with what type of game this is. I’d compare it to a touch screen platform. The music, the tempo of the game remind me of classic nes/snes fighting game. You are remember by those old style Kung fu games, where all you did is walk continuously and occasionally beat up bad guys without being able to walk back. The screen moves along with the character and there is no stopping Thunder bang. Once you beat up the bad guys for a bit, Thunder bang starts to sprint, making it harder to slide your finger around the screen to control Thunder bang.
The finger sliding sometimes launches a move i didn’t want to use.
For instance, to jump you tap the screen, punch you slide from left to right. At times when I slide to punch ,it launches the jump function instead. I did not tap the screen to what i was aware off.
The game is played by holding your smartphone horizontally. I noticed that once I held it vertically, the game became easier to play. The miss communication between sliding and tapping became a true rarity where I could claim blame. That is how I kept playing it till the very end of the game.
I think this picture is self explaining. There is Thunder Bang, a boss and how
much health he is currently hogging. Spandex FTW.
The story campaign took me about 40-50 minutes to complete. Going through 6 chapters in which at the end present a great little comic that gives you a little glints into our so called “hero” wanna be Thunder bang. The story comic itself was worth going through all that sliding and tapping.
While the game got progressively harder, I felt that at the end “chapter six” the game just went beyond crazy hard. Most of the game play was progressive in a standard phase, while the difficulty jumped at the end to the point of finger machine and blister sliding hell. In any case it was great fun, I cannot deny it. I was able to play through the entire thing and finish it.
It costs about a dollar on the android market, I am not sure if its available in the apple store as well. Either way, is it worth the Price. I’d say it would’ve been if there were a bit more levels. 40 min game play is just to short. I do not dismiss the purchase either. Because it was entertaining. Also you only have four type of bad guys, it gets a bit monotone after a while.
Once the story was done, it didn’t really offer any replay value. Maybe if you are a point junkie, it would be a great deal for you. For me, I am more about the story.
I have one suggestion that I would like to see replaced.
After you enter every level you get a tutorial that show you how to defeat the bad guys. It is useful the first few times, but I think a skip button should be implemented, it gets dull when you’ve replayed a level 4-5 times .
Either way, I enjoyed the game. I am looking forward to see more from Triolith Entertainment and wish them the best of luck. The more options the market has, the better and we need to support new developers. They will make the big guys nervous enough to give us more value for out buck.
I was surprised not to see a story or an intro. Nothing really to introduce the character in the first level. I thought maybe I missed something important so I reloaded the first level. Still nothing that really introduces the character. I wanted to return to the main menu, but there was no option in game to go there. Probably for the best too, because the finger is all over the screen, you would most likely keep pressing menu by mistake. I do think that there is a solution. For instance, instead of a pause button on the right top corner and a reload button on the left, there could be an option button instead that pauses the game automatically (encase you press it by mistake) and it would give you the option of returning to the main menu. What I do enjoy is that you get to see the instructions as you “fly along” which is a bit more interacting rather then a manual. Once you finish a level, the menu will be available to you. It brings you to the level selection so I can for now assume that there isn’t an intro story in the very beginning. That the creators might have placed it along the way. I pressed to continue on level two. Again I thought it froze, because it took 13 seconds before the loading screen turned up. I might just be impatient or something.
