Developer: Kenny Sun
Publisher: Kenny Sun
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam) and £8.49 (Humblebundle)
Released: 9th September 2015
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Circles within circles within circles within circles going on forever until… well forever. Except they don’t, there is an end you can see it. And then there’s another end, and another and another.
Circa Infinity is a ‘circular platformer’, at least that’s what they say. I personally think it falls under the puzzle platformer genre even if its only a loose fit. One thing it definitely is is a game is about timing, more than that, its about learning what you can do with the space and timings afforded to you.
If you have dyslexia or just generally have trouble distinguishing left from right this game is going to confuse you. Hell, I suspect that even if you don’t have that you’re still going to find yourself feeling turned around regularly.
The controls are very simple [A] makes your character jump and also lets your character enter a circle through the raised area (look at the video to see what I mean). Left and right on the analogue stick (trigger buttons, bumper buttons or D-Pad) moves you clockwise and anti-clockwise. And finally [Y] resets the level. That’s it two buttons and a when it comes to directional controls, gotta’ love simplistic design.
The game itself is separated into five stages and each stage consists of ten levels and a boss fight.
As can be expected everything becomes a lot more challenging the further in you go, thankfully the difficulty curve is fair. You’re never just thrown in the deep end and plenty of time is given to get used to a mechanic before they really throw the big guns at you.
The default visual style is appealing to the eye using only three colours which keeps the game from being too busy (its already confusing enough without adding extra things to keep track of). It also allows the player to intuitively see that the creature in front of them is dangerous because they’re coloured red as opposed to everything else that is either black or white.
I can’t really not speak on the the music, the composers have done well in creating music that really suits it, energetic and repetitive but not irritating. In some ways it was the music that encouraged me to keep playing for much longer than I would have done without.
Then there’s Circle Affinity, this is a game mode that was added after the game was originally released and… its evil. You see, in the main game mode even though you sometimes feel under pressure there are still safe spots where you can think about how to get past this particular bit. There’s no time limit so you can take your time and puzzle it out. BUT in Circle Affinity there most definitely a time limit. A horrid spiky red circle closes in on you constantly, the only way to escape it? Go into the next circle and complete it. What makes the spiky circle o’death so horrid though is the noise. If I never hear a noise like that again I’ll die a happy man. I can only describe it as a scream that’s been highly distorted and elongated to make it sound almost demonic. All I know is that it offends my ears even on a low volume.
If at any point you die the number of circles you beat gets added to a score which is used to… actually I’ll save that for the next paragraph.
Remember I said about the ‘default’ art style? Well, as you might have guessed you can choose from other palettes which change how everything is coloured.
Personally I didn’t find any that I felt were better than the default but perhaps you may find one you like. At the start of the game most of the palettes are locked, to unlock others you have to play Circle Affinity and just rack up as many points as you can.
I like this game, I can’t seem to complete it and it makes my brain ache from the strain but I do like it. That being said, it definitely isn’t for everyone. If you don’t like puzzles, or brain benders then perhaps give it a skip, otherwise give it a go. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Downwell
Limbo
Pony Island
