PEGBRJE: Color Cannons+ and Fidelity
Neon chaos, and the unending chaos.
Color Cannons+ is a fluorescent arena brawler published by Symptomatic Productions and created by their (at the time) Lead Designer Gage Melton with audio credits to composer Matt Slifka. Something that started as a game jam title, this ‘plus’ version is the polished and published edition that brings four players in to an arena as cannoneers, ready to shove each other around and destroy them with prejudice.
Upon finding at least one other friend to pilot a cannon against, players will choose one of ten stages in Color Cannons+ before hopping in to destroy each other. Granted, ‘destroy’ isn’t necessarily the correct word, for players will instead be shoving each other around with each cannon blast in order for them to touch the red outskirts of the map. Each cannon shot that hits an opponent will increase their percentage which indicates the modifier for how ‘volatile’ they will feel when hit, similar to Super Smash Brothers; the higher the percentile, the farther the hit target will fly. There are also the different types of blocks that litter each stage, which may confuse some at first until one notices that the symbols on the blocks give a hint as to their purpose. For example, the green blocks that have positives are able to be moved over, but block shots from the cannons. The yellow blocks with circles block movement, but allow for shots to pass through. Blue triangles block both, because triangles are the strongest shape and nothing gets past those. Now, in order to hit the opponent players will need to reorient their gun and reposition, which may feel a bit odd to some as the movement and turning isn’t fluid in the traditional sense. Instead, movement feels as if there is an invisible grid that players are moving between and they are tied an internal rhythm, with each movement being at a static length in one direction at a time. It gives a sense of rigidity to what appeared to be a free-flowing title without actively impeding on players ability to shoot away and ruin the high-octane action.
All that’s needed now is to get a few friends in and see who can remove all of the competitors from the ring first in order to win a round of Color Cannons+, and see who can get to three wins to claim ultimate victory. It’s not meant to be a lengthy game, one that you and some friends can pick up and play immediately without having to worry too much about specific rules or styles. The music also adds a level of intrigue, as it’s a lovingly crafted backdrop of relaxing piano music, giving a severe contrast to the destruction that’s occurring within. If you’re in need of another arena shooter that gives you a slight shakeup of the formula, this might be what you’ve been looking for.
Fidelity is a psychological puzzle game created by megamini009, an indie developer and hobbyist out of Germany. Players will find themselves staring at a long and bleak apartment complex with a single individual standing within, and only told to discover what anomalies may exist within.
At it’s core roots, Fidelity is a game of discovering the ‘wrong’ aspect of the scene after comparing the entire apartment to what it ‘should’ look like. These anomalies will take on many different forms throughout the room, from actively glitching out the fridge to a simple change of colour on a desk. Clicking anywhere else will cause the room to become more red in anger for the player’s inability to discover the issue, and too many failures will give a ‘game over’ like screen that will ask if the player wishes to retry the ‘level’. Getting it right will cause a fade, and the room will return with a different anomaly to discover, repeating this seemingly-infinite process.
This is, of course, due to Fidelity’s narrative structure; the individual in this apartment is stuck in a terrifying timeloop that they cannot escape. Every so often, instead of a level loading from a fadeout, text will appear to give some bleak context to the life situation of this individual, usually through horrific cries for help or a need to atone and ‘fix’ everything. It doesn’t necessarily give all of the information, but it doesn’t need to; it outlines the absolute scrambled mess that the individual is becoming due to the constantly repeating life, the need to break free through exploiting the anomalies that are occurring. They know not if it will work, or if it will make anything better, but they know that they need to try. And they will definitely continue trying, because if there’s one thing to note about breaking free of a time loop; it isn’t easy. I can recall at least two different instances where I would spend an upwards of 10 minutes searching for what was wrong with the room, only to run out of tries and have to restart the level. I can safely state that even the sharpest of eyes and the cleanest of memories may not always be enough to break free.
Fidelity is an intriguing game that tells you little, repeating much of the same gameplay and themes over and over; yet thanks to this it tells you enough to understand the desperation that the individual is going through. Reality is blending, and only through constant searching can one seemingly escape. It doesn’t seem like much, but it can easily suck you in with its unsettling aura. If you needed something that only requires a pair of eyes, a mouse and an unending desire to discover the truth, this might just be what you’ve been looking for.
Oh and it’s a browser game. Neat!
