While working on Heartbound I find myself thinking back and replaying a lot of the classic RPGs. What made these and other role-playing games fun for me?

Bound is a platform and artvideo game featuring a dancer as the main character. It was developed by Plastic Studios, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and released on August 16, 2016, for the PlayStation 4.

The game received mostly positive critical reviews, praising its art style and originality, but criticizing the gameplay as shallow.

Gameplay[edit]

The player controls an unnamed princess^[1] and ballet dancer as she makes her way through surreal, dreamlike environments. She must complete platforming challenges and has the ability to repel enemies with her dancing.

The game uses an 'Edge Guard' to prevent the player from falling off certain platforms. This was because the developer believed that being able to fall off detracted from the game experience by forcing players to pay closer attention to the character's legs than to the world.^[1] There are some places where the princess can fall and die, but she will respawn nearby.^[1]

Plot[edit]

The game takes place inside the mind of a pregnant woman who is revisiting her childhood home and memories. In the woman's mind world, the main character is a Princess who is following the orders of her mother, the Queen, to vanquish a monster that is destroying the world. According to the game's creative director, 'everything in the game is a big metaphor', and there are scenes in the game that show real life and not the game's world.^[1]

Development[edit]

The creative director of Bound, Michal Staniszewski, said that the game took three and a half years to develop.^[1] The game was designed to be best played in a single sitting, and he suggested that investigating too much of the game before playing it would cause the experience to be spoiled, comparing it to the games Journey and Firewatch.^[1]

Inspiration for the game's idea also came from the game Ico.^[1] The game was directed at a target audience of older gamers who have been playing games 'their whole life' and are tired of solving puzzles, instead simply wanting an audiovisual experience without frustrating or repetitive gameplay.^[1] However, the developers still wanted to include some challenge to the game, so that it was not simply a walking simulator.^[2] It was meant to be a short experience as the creative director noted that, like other adults, he lacked the time to play larger, 100-hour games such as The Witcher 3.^[1]

The game's aesthetics were largely inspired by modern art and its development from the beginning of the 20th century.^[1] The game developer Tale of Tales was also cited as an influence in the design of the game, as well as the digital art of the demoscene.^[1]

The idea of a dancing main character was not added from the beginning of development. Rather, after one and a half years in development, the developers were disappointed with how similar to a typical game character her movements looked, and were inspired by a video of a modern jazz dance to change their movements to those of a dancer.^[1]Motion capture was used on the dancer Maria Udod, who was chosen due to her experience both in ballet and contemporary dance, in order to record her movements for use by the protagonist.^[1] Her choreographer was Michał Adam Góral.^[1] Every animation of the character was changed to a dance move.^[1]

The game's developers were forced to sacrifice visual effects for performance, because they did not want the game to run with motion blur or framerate drops, due to the hardware limitations of the PlayStation 4.^[1] The game runs at a stable 60 frames per second (FPS), and Staniszewski believes that games that run at lower FPS than 60 are not the 'proper way that games should look on TVs'.^[1]Sony vegas pro 13 32 bit with crack.

On October 13, 2016, Plastic released a patch that enabled PlayStation VR compatibility. Later, on November 10, 2016, another patch was published, enabling PlayStation 4 Pro support, including 4K resolution and increased pixel density in VR mode.

Reception[edit]

Bound received mixed to positive reviews, with an aggregate score of 71/100 on Metacritic.^[3] Chris Carter of Destructoid rated the game 60/100, saying that its graphics are 'gorgeous' and 'stunning', but calling the movement 'stiff' and combat too easy, believing the game leans 'too hard' on the platforming aspect.^[4] Matt Peckham of Time rated it 50/100, saying that while the game is fun to watch, it is boring to play because it is so easy to navigate the world.^[5]Jim Sterling of The Jimquisition gave it the same score, saying that, while beautiful, playing it is a 'messy, obstructive hassle' with poor controls and camera movement, as it is unable to commit to either being a walking simulator or a fully realized puzzle platformer and is instead a hybrid of both.^[6]

Atomic theory on flowvella. Justin Clark of GameSpot gave the game a 70/100, saying that while its gameplay is 'rudimentary', this is made up for by the graphical details of the game, calling each stage a 'cubist marvel' and the idea of a dancing main character deserving of praise and saying that it 'displays immense amounts of contemplation and ambition in every aspect except gameplay'.^[7] He claims that '[to] decry it for its overly simplistic mechanics is to ultimately miss the forest for the trees', and that 'Bound is digital art installation' whose full impact is only evident in its final moments.^[7]

The game was selected to appear in IndieCade 2016.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopq}Tamayo, Paul (2016-05-20). 'How Dance Gave New Life to PS4 Platformer 'Bound' – The Optional'. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
2. ^ ^ab'Bound (1P) IndieCade - International Festival of Independent Games'. www.indiecade.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-18. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
3. ^ ^ab'Bound for PlayStation 4 Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
4. ^'Review: Bound'. Destructoid. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
5. ^Peckham, Matt. 'Review: 'Bound' Is Beautiful to Watch, But Boring to Play'. TIME.com. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
6. ^'Bound Review – A Beautiful Mess – The Jimquisition'. www.thejimquisition.com. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
7. ^ ^ab'Bound Review'. Retrieved 2016-08-25.

External links[edit]

This is the town of Threex where you will spend a lot of time in the beginning of the game. A lot of places won't be accessible in the beginning. Don't get too frustrated because there has got to be a flag somewhere--you just haven't triggered it yet. Pay attention to what people say (especially people who might be blocking your way), for they might tell you what you need to do next. Keep yourself high on healing items and sell what you don't need.

The story line in this game is very intense. Some of our editors are saying that the story line is better than FF3's. While I don't know about that, I'll tell you this: The story line is going to make you want to play the game until you beat it. This is yet another RPG that is going to keep you up late on weeknights and all weekend long. This game was originally called Mother 2 in Japan and was a hit over there. The people at Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America got together on the translation of this game to make it based more toward our culture. The effort is very evident in the game play.

Who would ever have thought you'd read something like that while playing your Super NES. For that matter, who would have thought you'd see blood from Nintendo. This game is full of sick little human expulsions like that. There are all kinds of disgusting sound effects and such. One of the Bosses belches crud at you and does some hellacious damage. Very unlike Nintendo.

The humor in this game is unexpected, but clearly evident. The game is actually fun to sit down and play because not only do you get hours of fun from playing it, but you also laugh a lot (a nice surprise). This game has been coming for a long time now. You can tell they really put their all into the game. This may be a Japanese game originally, but you can't tell by playing it.

FIRST IMPRESSION

When I first got a look at this game, I laughed out loud. It looked like it could have been done on a Nintendo, and that was all the thought I gave it. It wasn't until I sat down and gave the game more than a onceover that I realized this was no NES game.

BEST FEATURE

The story line is definitely what makes this one a winner. This game wouldn't be nearly as good without it.

WHAT'S MISSING

Graphic intensity! The graphics are nothing to get excited about, and I think that could hurt this game. People might look at the back of the box and then put it down, not giving it a fair chance.

WILL YOU LIKE IT?

I think so. This is a game that most people young and old (not too old) can enjoy. This definitely isn't just a kiddie game. If you play this game for more than an hour, you'll most likely be hooked, which is a rarity with games nowadays.

• MANUFACTURER - Nintendo
• DIFFICULTY - Hard
• THEME - RPG
• NUMBER OF PLAYERS - 1