“Codename Arrow” by hellando
Codename Arrow is all about speed. Your goal is to swipe in the direction the arrow on the screen is showing. Every arrow awards you some points and extra time.
It doesn’t look like much. It’s interface is simple and truly not the prettiest, but it does the job. The game’s font used for score and text is a basic one, whereas the font on the arrows looks custom made. This causes a lot of inconsistency and it just confuses the player.
Picture 1: Start screen
Swipe down and you’re stuck with the tutorial. It’s great that it even features the tutorial, but it’s way too long and there’s no way to quit it. The game really isn’t that complicated for such a tutorial.
Green: Do it!
Red: Do the oposite!
That’s it.
Once you get into the game big circles start appearing. Each with it’s rule of where you must swipe. Swipe left, swipe right, swipe up and down. Game Over. Press “R”?!? So you just played the entire game using your mouse and all of the sudden the game forces you to press R? It breaks the flow of the game and just doesn’t make sense.
I like the fact that the score gets recorded and a leaderboard is kept. It creates some sort of competition and an extra reward if you do especially well.
Features I would add/remove:
Using the same font for everything: This one isn’t that hard. You can get some great fonts for free and the game would simply look better if it used one font for everything.
Combo indicator: The game uses a hidden combo counter. The more correct swipes in a row you do, the more points each swipe awards you. It would be great if the player knew that.
Combo decay: Now you only lose combo if you fail to swipe correctly. I would make it so that you could lose it by not swiping for too long aswell.
Keyboard support: Using WASD keys instead of swiping
Overall I don’t think this game deserves more than 10K plays. The game has some replayability, because you can strive for a better score, but after playing it a few times, it loses it’s charm.
I think it would fit mobile devices much better than it does PCs. It’s a game meant to be played if you have a few spare minutes.
I give it a 3/10.
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