Eling: First Dimension bills itself as a puzzle-platformer, but the platformer part isn't accurate. Just because gameplay revolves around jumping doesn't mean it's a platformer. I'd stick with calling it a puzzle game, and as a puzzle game, it's a fun diversion and uses the RPG Maker engine in a unique way. However the project is also over-loaded with extra features that don't actually make things more fun for the player, and just seem like an attempt to imitate trends in the commercial game circuit.



Eling: First Dimension is a game of tour puzzles, based on hopping your character over obstacles. If you can't step forward but there's a free space exactly two tiles in front of you, you can jump to it. Out of this simple premise Eling has managed to wring quite a few interesting scenarios; many tricky spots make use of RPG Maker's rule that you can't turn in a new direction without taking a step, which would move you out of position. The puzzles also use visual themes to obscure solutions, which is great; cliff formations, for example, throw you off track by messing with your assumptions about how you can move through an area.

It really opens up when the game introduces the power-up that lets you jump two spaces -- and permanently removes your ability to jump one space, closing off certain paths just as it opens up new ones. This mechanic of changing your jump distance hints at a type of maze where you would have to carefully manage your jump distance, increasing and decreasing it as necessary; unfortunately this game stops at using this power-up as a one-time event in each level, essentially reducing it to just a passkey necessary to reach the goal. Areas are even carefully designed so that you can never "trap" yourself by getting this power-up too soon. I feel this represents a lot of missed potential.

Levels are also peppered with monsters that hurt you if you run into them, but this really only challenges your patience rather than your precision reflexes. (Monsters will never hurt you if you just stay still; you have to run into them to get hurt.)



There are "boosters" which force you to run quickly in a certain direction until you hit a wall. You can interrupt a boost by jumping, which stops your automatic forward movement but retains the fast movement speed. I was never quite confident that this was an intended feature and not a bug, even though several areas require you to exploit it. Boosters have the ability to launch you over pits as well, as long as you complete some morale-boosting QTEs.

The player enters levels through a playable overworld, which is also built out of jumping puzzles; it's large and sprawling, and to access new regions you have to earn power-ups (such as the long-jump power-up) by completing levels, which is an ingeniously organic way of pacing the player's progression and building anticipation for future worlds. I found the overworld map to be the most interesting part of the game to explore.

Some levels are timed exercises for a change of pace. You have to race against an opponent (who always seems to start with an advantage), or else there's simply a timer running. Later time trial levels are so demanding that I gave up on them; fortunately, you don't have to complete every level in order to access the final challenge.

In terms of presentation, there is a custom HUD that shows your current health level, and notifications are done with a blurb at the bottom of the screen that doesn't interrupt gameplay, which is appreciated. Visually, it's functional RTP fare; nothing to write home about, but it's consistent and used competently. I found the music to be very aggressive and irritating, though. MIDI music is always rough around the edges, but even among MIDI files these were quite jarring. I had to take off my headphones.



There's even an effort to inject a story into the game, but it's not very important. It's like when casual games try to come up with a reason why you're lining up tiles or breaking blocks. It seems like it ties into the mythos of other games the designer has made, which is fine; not knowing the back story of your character really isn't a roadblock to solving the puzzles.



Jumps, power-ups, boosters and QTEs that compliment you, all implemented exquisitely: these elements form the core of Eling: First Dimension, and I think it's worth checking out for this interesting and uncommon use of the RM2K3 engine.

But that's not half of the sheer amount of stuff that's in the game. I never thought I'd ever call an RPG Maker game "over-produced", but Eling definitely inches in that direction. For such a simple premise, it certainly doesn't need so many peripheral features, like an item store, achievements, and an unlockable "Free Mode" that basically grafts all the maps together and lets you wander around without a win condition. These features are unnecessary and only dilute the value of this product, which is supposed to be challenging puzzles based around jumping.

This is the part where the light-hearted review descends into a rant about the games industry, but I think it may shed light on a problem for hobby game-makers.

Hobbyists have always been influenced by the commercial market, in that hobbyist designers will copy aspects of the big games, whether unconsciously, or deliberately in an attempt to make their game seem legitimate in comparison. Thanks to our bloated and over-produced eighth-generation game market, this simple RPG Maker game is full of bells and whistles, achievements, unlockable game modes, Borderlands-2-style SHiFT codes, and even a limited-time special edition. If it were possible, would there be a micro-transaction store too?

I've made some cruel assumptions about the creator here, but the fact is that all these extra features don't actually add value to the player's experience. They seem to have been added in an attempt to create a sensation, rather than a game, which is misguided when you're using RPG Maker. I'm sorry to speak these unutterable words which will blow the foundations out of this whole website and send us plummeting into oblivion, but RPG Maker games just aren't that big a deal. Fortunately, most of these additions exist laterally to the main gameplay so you don't have to bother with them if you're not interested.



There is however one aspect of this game which definitely lowers its value, and may also have its roots in the commercial game industry's cynical cost-cutting habits: reusing the same maps over and over for different puzzles. It's true that Destiny makes you run back and forth through the same dozen areas for hundreds of hours, but this is a penny-pinching measure, and they're trying to tie down the Skinner-boxed completionists who find it rewarding to shoot into a cave for 45 minutes. It's not because players actually want or expect to see the same scenery so many times that they memorize it. There's no reason why Eling couldn't have had unique scenery for each level; RPG Maker's greatest strength is that you can whip up a new map in a matter of hours.

It should be noted that very little done by the eighth-generation game industry is for the player's benefit. Making a game fun is actually a side-effect of commercial game design, which is more focussed on engineering sensation and addictive Skinner boxes. Hobbyists should be very careful about looking to commercial games for ideas about what actually makes a game good.

To emerge from this cynical rant, I'll say that it's at least commendable how much effort the creator put in to support all these extra features with custom graphics and interfaces. I appreciate that it's fun to build bells and whistles. My negative reaction to it is obviously because of the bigger picture and not because of just the game itself; for this reason, it won't affect the star rating. However, as they say in engineering, your job isn't done when there's nothing left to add; it's done when there's nothing left to take away.



Eling: First Dimension is a puzzle game, built around a simple and quirky jumping system, which is worth your download and the few hours it takes to finish. The huge number of add-ons represents a lot of development effort that would have been better spent elsewhere. Eling should stick to being the best puzzle game it can be, and not try to be anything else.

MY RATING:	3.5 / 5
Best feature:	Devious design of some of the "underground" puzzles
Worst feature:	Reusing the same maps over and over
Best area:	Overworld
Most appreciated convenience feature:	Overworld shortcuts to the different worlds, once you've reached them the hard way
Rather annoying feature:	Long Game Over animation every time you fail a level.
Favourite power-up:	The healing one, because I like dark cyan.
Most frustrating level:	5-3. You thought level 7-8 from SMB3 was stressful ...