Hydrocis (Amiga) - A Playguide and Backers Bonus Review - by Lemon Amiga.com
40Hydrocis is a water-based puzzle game, released as shareware by Sebastian Winkel in 1996. It shows that "Only Amiga Makes It Possible", with some 'out of the box' thinking involved. I really got into this game, but can I remember how to play it for this Bonus review, let's find out.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 23 October 2020
Narrated Live: 13 May 2021
Edited: Dec 21 - Jan 2022
Released to Backers: 7th February 2022
I think I first tried this game in 2019 or 2020, and reached a high level. But when I came to record the footage for Series/Season 6 (now series 10), I couldn't remember how I did it. In the end, I didn't include the game for a full review as it seemed a bit low rent compared for the A and B games we reviewed, so it never got finished. I considered releasing it for Series 6B, but it didn't fit in with those games either. So in May of last year (2021) I decided to make this a backers exclusive. The idea was to make this my first ever live video narration (rather than just live audio) so people can see me, like other youtubers do. But the plan didn't go very well, because the audio was recorded by my camera's tiny microphone rather than from my main mic, so it sounded weak and weedy. At some point I got the idea to fix the audio in an editor, but nothing seemed to work unless I distorted it. Sure enough, with the distorted voice it sounded ok, so I made two new audio tracks, the first with heavy distortion for the start and end of the video, and the second was a light distort for the middle of the video. I then merged these in the editor. Finally I added a frame from GamesMaster over the top, to make it look and sound like I was a robot hologram. The live footage means I can't cut out most of the stumbles and slurred words, as the video would jump during those cuts, so they are left in the video. There arn't too many of those compared to normal, as most videos contain at least 20 mess-ups which I fix in post-production. The music is also from the previous series, and maybe this will help to bridge the shows?
There are tones of Reviews That Weren't, and I'm surprised this one made it all the way out to the public. There are loads of them in the backers section of my Patreon page, and each new dedicated member gets another one released as a perk for joining up. So still plenty of stuff to get out there eventually.
Danscore:
Hydrocis is a game which looks, sounds and feels homebrew from the very start, but which has that "only Amiga" feel that works like magic to make the game feel fun. The graphics are only just up to the job, with no music or sound whatsoever. But gameplay feels solid in a Lemmings kind of way; just click the landscape and hopefully you can make the water bend to your will. The later level featuring paper are great, as you can get a certain amount of water over a paper barrier before it melts and breaks. The use of valves and pumps is also neat, even though there are some levels which are very difficult, and most of them can only be done a certain specific way. The player will get the feeling of "one more try" and once a puzzle is solved comes a great feeling of achievement, as player is rewarded with a fish. I guess this is a love it or hate it kind of thing, and it can take time waiting for the last drips of liquid to make their way to the goal in order to win a level. Hydrocis only plays on a stock PAL 000 processor and anything else is too fast. For novelty value and even potentially educational value, I give this a high score of 7 out of 10, and for a Shareware game this is high praise indeed. Anyone who want to get into this should find the full version, as by the time you get to the end of the demo, you just want to see more. I found it on the EAB file server.