Canvas

Canvas is a game primarily based on solving puzzles, with some action fighting, and combined with some RPG elements. This review is mostly spoiler free, with the exception of the first dungeon.

Story:

The story is presented as a story inside another narrative. I liked the intro narrative, and it seemed to paint an interesting setting for the world to draw the player in. The game cuts back to this outer narrative at various times to poke fun at the logic of it's own puzzle mechanics, which was pretty charming and amusing.

The actual story itself was alright, but it suffers a bit in terms of the delivery and direction. For example, by the end of the first dungeon, we're told that the protagonists are escaping their captors, searching for an important artifact, and find a new substance that they care enough to collect. Yet, when the protagonist wakes up, he seems barely concerned about any of those things, including the mysterious person who saved them. Instead, he just seemed happy to go on a fetch quest, which seemed kind of odd. I understand that the story will return to those things later on, but at least he should have more of a reaction to show his thoughts on everything that happened.


Characters:

There are only a few main characters in this game, and they are somewhat original in terms of their archetype. The two main characters had a good dynamic between them, and their conversations brings out some of their personality and history, and contrasts them well. However, each character (including the others) on their own don't seem to be particularly interesting or charming. Part of the problem is that their dialogue was kind of flat during key cutscenes with new/other characters. Their reactions seemed a bit to generic and didn't quite express their own personalities well enough, and they seemed to accept big plot twists with minimal emotion or reaction. The writing itself was very clean and well presented in terms of spelling and grammar though. Also, I don't think it was ever fully explained who Elphea is or what happened in their past.


Gameplay:

The gameplay mostly revolves around solving puzzles in dungeons, and that is easily the strongest feature of this game. The puzzles are top-notch and probably one of the best I have ever seen. They are very creative, fun, and the difficulty is mostly fair. You will have to switch between character abilities and various shared abilities, and combine them in different ways in order to solve puzzles. There is also a simple jumping system, which actually adds a lot of depth and altitude to the feel of the locations, as well as being a key part of some puzzles. Getting new abilities also let's you explore previously unreachable areas and try new interactions with various objects. Skills needed for puzzles should cost less MP though, since you might have to experiment a lot, and MP is hard to come by.

Fighting is done through an action battle system, which was kind of awkward and clumsy, using only a default four direction system. There are actually a lot of interesting and creative enemy movements and patterns though, and the bosses have some pretty interesting mechanics as well. For the most part, fighting is not too hard, but the controls and spacing creates a lot of artificial difficulty.

There is a crafting system, but there are some problems with it. First, the resources are randomly dropped by monsters so a normal play through won't always get you the resources. Second, later craftables depend on previous craftables as a component, so if you missed the first ones, you can't craft any of the newer ones. Third, the color of items in the crafting list are not greyed out when you don't have the materials yet. That means you have to manually select each one to check it, which is a huge chore the more recipes you have. (This crafting script already does this for you, if you use recipe books as categories instead of single recipes)

It's hard to see the effects of stat boosts from equipment and passives in this game. The boosts themselves are small, and there are no HP numbers during battle. Enemies die from 1 or 2 hits, so it's really hard to tell if say buying new equipment actually helps or not.

There are also a lot of mini-games, which is another one of this game's biggest strengths. Most mini-games are pretty fun and have different levels of difficulty found throughout the game. There are many varieties of games, and some of them are an abstract representation of the task you are actually doing, such as "Persuation", which I found hilarious. Some games also have high scores, so you can play the ones you enjoy again and again to top your own scores if you want.


Visual/Audio:

The maps and sound effects and pretty much default as far as I can tell. The mapping was pretty good, although next time don't start with a generic brown cave. You want to make a better first impression. There is a custom interface for showing your HP and currently selected abilities on the field. Mini-games take place in separate screens with their own graphic style, which is actually a nice little diversion.

The music was alright for towns, but I think dungeon music could've been better. In a normal rpg, it would've been fine because you can switch to exciting battle music during an encounter. But in an action rpg setting, I think the music needs to be more catchy and upbeat, because that's all you hear the whole dungeon. The music for Ruins of Resolve was good though, because that one was mostly about thinking, and not about exploring and fighting.


Misc:

There's a lot of treasure to be found throughout the game, and you'll often come across something you can't get until you have a new ability later on. There's a lot of sidequests as well and a lot of extra things for players to do and explore. You can tell that the author put a lot of effort and heart into this game, and I really appreciate that. I did like the analogy of how the characters view their world with how the player views the game.

It was also nice that a Glossary was included in the menu, so that you can check on the descriptions of your tools, abilities, and puzzle mechanics when necessary. The simple dungeon maps were also pretty useful. I wish the shared-ability was selectable in a submenu like Zelda games though, instead of toggling through 1 item at a time.

In the later part of the game, there tends to be more bugs, due to all the different abilities and enemy hit stuns happening all at once, which can create some unexpected interactions. Some of the bugs can send you into unpassable tiles, which would be game breaking if it weren't for the item that lets you exit dungeons.


Conclusion:

Canvas is a game that you will highly enjoy if you love creative puzzles and mini-games, which are plentiful and very thoughtfully designed. The action and RPG elements could be improved a bit, but overall this is a very solid complete game, which plays for about 15 - 20 hrs.

I really wanted to give this game 4 stars, and I went back and forth to 3.5 whenever I found more flaws. Looking at the overall picture and seeing all the effort made and all the content in the game, I really want to give this a 4, even though I think all the bugs and the crafting dragged it down.


P.S. My single most favorite moment was when I started using the freeze ability on the townsfolk. I couldn't stop laughing and went on a cruel tyrannical rampage on anyone who gave me lip.