Trance

Trance is a 2D platformer with an emphasis on "exteme difficulty," as per the game's own description. Unfortunately, its difficulty manifests via mechanics that are more frustrating than fun, and I found myself uninterested in further attempts after less than ten minutes of play time. The pixel art is beautiful, the narrative is fairly cohesive, and the overall presentation is quite nice. Sadly, the level and enemy design are masochistic, and not in a way that motivates the player to try "just once more." Poorly-telegraphed enemy attacks (that are often so quickly chained together as to be unavoidable), completely unforgiving platforming sections, and difficult-to-parse foreground and background artwork all combine to create a gameplay experience that's an exercise in frustration. There are right and wrong ways to do "uber difficult" games - relying on cheap shots, poorly-balanced enemies, and janky platforming sections are all wrong ways, if you ask me. The core game design would ne...

Hey I’m Corthos and I’m a member of The Indie Game Collective I’ve played this game a bit ago and I wanted to give my thoughts on it. I’m not going to copy and paste my script either so if you want my full thoughts watch my video on it. For me the best part about the game is the graphics. The graphics are depressing and I like it. It’s gloomy areas with little to no color fits this game a lot more than filling the game with bright colors would not work. The muted color filter change for each level is good enough. On top of that the concept of the game is great, but execution needs a bit of help. However I’m the type likes to focus on the gameplay elements the most and I have to say while in concept the game is simple with its controls, the game’s difficulty all over the place. The combat works as intended including all the upgrades you get, but fighting the bosses can get annoying when you realize sometimes they do not target you, they attack in general. Confused? Let m...

Trance is a challenging adventure platformer that presents the platform elements and the atmosphere in a good way. Its story is told in a simple and pleasant way. It includes a few but nice puzzles. It has impressive and beautiful ideas but I felt that the combat mechanics were weak and boring. Some of the attacks and the movements of the bosses we encountered seriously disrupt the flow of the game and some improvements are needed to make the game more challenging in terms of the damage that character taken. On the other hand, I think the shield skill we reach in the later stages should have a more humane usage time. The game's average duration is probably not as long as the time I spent. Experienced and skilled gamers of the genre will probably finish the whole story in a short while. Gamepad support is at a good level as far as I experience. Apart from these, even though I finished the final fight a few times, unfortunately, every time I tried to get to the text-based final scene, an...

Quite challenging but superb nonetheless!