Iniquity and Vindication

All in all, Iniquity and Vindication shows promising foundations to what may well be a nicely polished piece of work. Mapping is generally of a high standard, graphics and animations and also very well rounded, though a few key issues could be put into place to ensure this game maximises and takes full hold of what it opportunities it has given itself.

"Iniquity and Vindication" in ten words: Rebellious protagonist takes it upon himself to murder lava sharks?

Storytelling and Direction 2.0

I'll admit, though this game does prove to have strong possibilities for extension of storyline, plot twists and exciting events, this demo really places the player in a state where they aren't too sure what is going on entirely, just that "this" is what they need to do and "this" is how they will manage it.
From what I can gather, James Clyde, our protagonist, (who somehow reminds me of Dante, not sure why) has been captured by a powerful company that thinks that laser sharks are this years summer trend. The company is owned by a rather unpolished antagonist named Lord Justice, who I must admit was my favourite character throughout the demo due to his humorous quirks and his "I know my own strength" attitude. Somehow he managed to capture James Clyde, (whose background I'd really be intrested in knowing, hint hint) and has chosen to execute him via feeding him to sharks that can, as I'm sure you will agree sounds very convincing, live in molten rock. I liked this idea, however, as it seperated the game from reality in a nice way. It opens up other possibilities for Lord Justice's obstacles he can make for James.

Characters 2.5

I'm almost quite depressed at the score I chose to gave this one in the end. The characters all seem to have their own unique backgrounds, though I feel that this wasn't used to the creators advantage in making a game that would keep people up at night waiting for the full version. However, I only found that one character throughout the game actually had his own personality, while the other characters seemed to be the classic "I'm quiet and I'm not going to do anything other than agree with everyone else" type mood. By this, I mean that despite the antagonist having some form of structure and personality, the rest of the characters are generally bland and have little personality on their own. As a creator, it should be your primary goal to get the player into liking the protagonist, which could easily be worked on if you polished up a few text dialogues. If this is worked on, I feel that people would want to sit by their computers for hours wanting to know how the story progresses through actions of characters. The story is kept at a small cast, which is always helpful for the player to keep up with things. Too many times have good games crashed and burned because the creator decides to make it much too complicated. This score could, however, well become much higher when the full version is released.

Overall Gameplay and Atmosphere 3.0

I struggled to come up with a score for this one and hence initially decided to give it the half way mark, but I felt that the atmosphere was slightly higher than many other games I've played before on this site. The maps were designed to a high standard and little work would be needed to make them completely perfect. The concept of using your own tilesets in games is always risky, so you've got to commend someone who does this so well. The music, though it was appropriate to what was going on, was a little too consuming. By this, I mean that the music tended to dominate the game, while I'd much rather enjoy the atmosphere of the game. Perhaps this could be improved by cutting the tracks or simply turning the volume down or smudging them. The storyline was great and I certainly had fun playing through the game, though at the end, the protagonist was in absolutely no danger, with no current problems and had successfully achieved his original intention. No cliffhanging or suspence made there, making me come out of the game thinking, "Oh, right, it's finished?" Overall, Iniquity and Vindication has the potential to be a classic on the site and become popular, assuming that these key points are accounted for. I look forward to future work and updates, so keep that blog updated!



-Shill