Demo Play Thursday - Hogtie On #Switch
0For this week's #Demo Play Thursday i played the #NintendoSwitch version of #Hogtie from RedDeer.Games and Alacrity Games.
there were a decent number of puzzles to playthrough in this demo for Hogtie. as you play it, it's clear where the cut off for the demo is. as there appears to be no story, such a cutoff doesn't feel weird. what's nice is that we're given puzzles across two different biomes, which means a greater number of types of puzzles are available. in this video, i played through all the puzzles i could, but i didn't get all the stars. for the purpose of this video, getting all of them wasn't important. but it does seem that progress is gated behind ability. So if you're bad at this game, you won't gain access to much of it. it's not ideal but as this isn't a story based puzzle game it is understandable. What's unknown is whether our playthrough of the demo would carry over to the final game or if we get a bonus start or two in the main game for playing it.
i'm not great at puzzle games, so i always hope that there's a clear tutorial or a sensible ramp up in difficulty, or preferably both. With Hogtie, i appreciated how they showed each new ability in action and the controls needed. what they didn't show was when to press the controls. so i had to experiment a little with tapping, holding buttons until i understood. but the videos were very clear in showing what the goal of the puzzle was. i also appreciated how quick the puzzles were to restart by hitting the replay button on screen during the puzzle or the replay option at the end. but i don't know if "replay" is the least confusing word to chose. when it's after the puzzle i would suspect it means watching a replay of our game. i think retry would've been a better choice.
This communication problem occurs at least one more time. some of you may be watching and thinking the audio is quiet, and i would agree. i have not turned down the game audio. actually, i've turned down my commentary audio a little. and yet, i show in this video the audio options and i genuinely couldn't understand what it meant. if you have labels, they must be universal and clear. but i've seen all 3 of those labels used for all sorts of audio stuff. i even turned it up in-game. so i have to imagine the audio is a little broken in the demo so let us know if the final game fixes it.
Overall, i thought this was a good demo for Hogtie. if you're curious about the game and the puzzles in it, trying this demo is a great place to start. remember, the game is skill based so if you struggle to complete the demo then you're unlikely to get enough stars in-game to progress. the controls are good, the tutorials are great, the art is fun, and the mood is casual. it's a nice game to have and to make slow progress through.
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