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Let's start simply: Gorogoa is a puzzle game where you move around anywhere from one to four tiles to stitch together scenes from an abstract story that you learn more about as you play.
GorogoaJason RobertsJoel CorelitzReleaseMicrosoft Windows, iOS, Nintendo Switch14 December 2017PlayStation 4, Xbox One22 May 2018Mode(s)Gorogoa is a developed by Jason Roberts and published. The game was released for, and on 14 December 2017, and in March 2018, and shortly thereafter an and Kindle Fire release.Gorogoa has the player manipulate images placed in a two-by-two grid, exploring within each image as well as placing or stacking images relative to others, to solve puzzles. Through the puzzles, the player guides a boy as they encounter a strange monster among a landscape that becomes war-ravaged and then rebuilt, with the boy growing older and ends up an old man reflecting on his past. The game, solely developed by Roberts, started as a failed attempt at an interactive graphic novel, and took nearly six years to complete. Puzzles in Gorogoa involve manipulating the scenes within each of the panels, as well as moving the panels around themselves to connect them up and create new scenes.In Gorogoa players are presented with up to four images in a two-by-two grid. Most images can be manipulated on their own, such as zooming in or out from the image, or panning across the image. The player can also move the image to any of the other grid spaces.
In some cases, the image presents a hole such as a doorway, so when moved onto a different image, the moved image becomes a mask to cover the existing image, creating a new image. Through this method, the player must stack, combine, and explore each image to find a connection between them in order to advance and open new areas.
Players are not guided through the process, as the game contains no language, and must work out what they need to do to finish each level, though when the player has successfully completed a connection, the images will briefly animate on their own, showcasing their result to the player.The plot involves a boy seeking an encounter with a divine monster, exploring themes of. The scenes in the game follow periods of time in the 20th century, including peace, war, and rebuilding, and the life of the boy as a survivor of war, living through the rebuilding, and then reflecting on his past as an old man. Development. Roberts at the 2018 Game Developers ConferenceJason Roberts began development of a card game inspired by interactive comics in his spare time while working full-time, but later decided the style was too complex. Roberts considered writing a graphic novel, but following the success of indie games such as, he realised he could combine his love of art and interactive video games, despite knowing very little about how to develop them.
Development on the game began in 2011, with Roberts quitting his full-time job to focus on the game. Originally planned for release in 2013, Roberts ran out of money two years after starting development. He was able to fund his work for another year through investment from, and in December 2016 announced that it would begin publishing games as, with Gorogoa being one of its first published games.Roberts adopted the title Gorogoa from a name he invented for an imaginary creature in his youth. He chose it for the game because it was not part of any existing language, wanting the game to be accessible to anyone, regardless of language, and therefore also choosing not to add any to the game.Gorogoa was originally written in a custom-built created by Roberts in, but it was ultimately ported to the Unity game engine so that it could be more easily distributed on multiple platforms, including the. All illustrations are hand drawn by Roberts. Roberts cites, and as influences to his art style.
Roberts also stated that his was indirectly influenced by, due to travels to and other similar locations. Roberts found such two-dimensional art challenged him of how to explore that within three dimensional spaces within his puzzles. Further, it helped to suggest a world with a similar history to the real world. The game's audio, for the first few years of development, was composed by Austin Wintory, until Roberts decided he wanted a different style and instead hired Joel Corelitz, who also composed the audio for 2012 video game.
Eduardo Ortiz Frau is the game's sound designer. The score is a composite of audio from each panel currently viewed by the player.The game was revealed at the 2012, with a demo version released shortly afterwards, and was released in full in December 2017.
Roberts says the game took much longer to develop than he anticipated, in part because as his drawing skills grew he kept going back to re-draw earlier scenes. He also scrapped and recreated large completed sections of the game multiple times during development.
Reception ReceptionAggregate scoreAggregatorScorePC: 84/100NS: 83/100iOS: 91/100XONE: 83/100Review scorePublicationScorePrior to release, Gorogoa won the Visual Design Award at the 2012, and in 2013 won the Good Game Club top prize. The game also won the 2014 Excellence in Visual Art award for which it also received honorable mentions in the Design and Narrative categories.Following the full release of the game, it received generally positive reviews from critics, holding a score of 84/100 on PC and 91/100 on iOS on.
Reviewers particularly praised Gorogoa's illustrations and graphics. Sam Machkovech of described the game as the 'prettiest hand-drawn, hand-illustrated video game ever made', and Philippa Warr, writing for, called it 'utterly beautiful'.Writing for, Andrew Webster praised the game's lack of frustration, rarely finding himself stuck or unable to progress with a puzzle as a result of the game's design, a sentiment echoed by Warr. In 's review, Stephanie Chan praised the game's accessibility and the satisfaction of completing the puzzles. Rob Kershaw at Jump Dash Roll agreed, writing that Gorogoa was 'beautifully illustrated' and 'a marvel of game design'. Machkovech, though, found some annoyance with puzzles which didn't have a clear solution process.At two to three hours, the game's length was described as 'short-and-sweet' by Machkovech, albeit wishing it was longer. Some reviewers, such as Warr, expressed a desire to play through the game multiple times to digest the story.ranked Gorogoa 49th on its list of the 'Top 50 Games of 2017', while ranked it 35th on their list of the 50 best games of 2017.The game was nominated for 'Best Mobile Game', 'Best Puzzle Game', and 'Most Innovative' in 's Best of 2017 Awards.
It won the award for 'Best Mobile Game' and the 'Innovation Award' at the 18th Annual, whereas its other nomination was for 'Best Debut' (Jason Roberts/Buried Signal); it was also nominated for 'Excellence in Art' and 'Mobile Game of the Year' at the 2018. In addition, it was nominated for 'D.I.C.E. Sprite Award', 'Mobile Game of the Year', 'Outstanding Achievement in Game Design', and 'Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction' at the; and for 'Game Design, New IP' at the 17th Annual Awards; and won the award for 'Debut Game' at the, whereas its other nominations were for 'Artistic Achievement', 'Game Innovation', 'Mobile Game', and 'Original Property'. The game was nominated for 'Best Storytelling', 'Best Visual Design', 'Best Indie Game', and 'Mobile Game of the Year' at the 2018. Polygon named the game among the decade's best. References. Cragg, Oliver (19 June 2018).
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