The team that made Red Game Without a Great Name are back at their colour-game shenanigans with Green Game: Timeswapper.
Just like Red Game, Green Game is a straightforward puzzle game about getting your little mechanical bird friend from point A to point B while collecting gears along the way. The difference this time is that instead of teleporting around the screen to avoid obstacles, the player must control the flow of time by controlling a beam of light that moves back and forth across the screen. This, in turn, is used to control jets of air to redirect your flight path, teleporters for warping around the level, and time-shifting obstacles that will knock your bird out of flight.
While the design is straightforward, make no mistake — this game is not easy. If you love a puzzle game with lots of item collection, split-second timing, and maddening puzzles, this may be the game for you.
The levels themselves present a very good challenge from beginning to end, and that is without even trying to collect all three gears in each level. The game also does a good job of keeping things fresh throughout by involving new level abilities and obstacles. About the only issue I had with this was the game would throw you right into using the new abilities making for a fly, die, repeat scenario until you really got the hang of them.
Visually, the game has a clean and beautiful feel to it. Everything in the foreground is in silhouette, which actually makes for a stark contrast that allows you to concentrate on the gameplay while still enjoying the beautifully animated backgrounds.
Along with the visuals, the sound design is fairly well done. There is not much in the way of sound effects — but that’s good, because it allows the player to enjoy the jazz-inspired soundtrack. About the only issue I had with the sound design is that there were only three or four pieces of music, and they were so good that I wanted to hear more.
Overall, Green Game: Timeswapper feels like a very well-built item-based puzzle game with a simple and fun time-shifting mechanic. The soundtrack is short, but great, and the difficulty level will offer a solid challenge for any fan of puzzle games.
No price has been listed yet, but the game is set to release April 4th on PC for Steam and will see release on iOS, Android, and PS Vita this summer.
Dandr0id is a content writer for AYBOnline.com, a producer for Level 1 Scrubs podcast and an avid fan of pizza. He may also be a robot and is probably a ninja. His opinions are his own.
