L.G.C. |Reviews| — Ellipsis

Your intrepid heroes get in the zone, play with gerbils, and slow down time. Ellipsis faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Ellipsis
Webzone: http://playellipsis.com/
Devel: Salmi Games
Engine: Unity
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: Ellipsis is an action-packed Avoid ’Em Up with minimalistic, yet powerful neon styled visuals. Guide your ship through a mysterious universe while deftly avoiding hordes of roaming enemies, spikes, lasers and more.

Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

V-

Had to reinstall it because it could not sync with Steam cloud.
Fancy Unity Scream of NOPE but you can navigate it it with a controlla in Big Picture mode.

J-

Oh hai ellipses screen of nope

P-

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Shiny / Sounds

V-

You need to label your menu option, Brad.

J-

You’re a circle. Avoid basic shapes.
Gets the job done, but no points for style

P-

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Control

V-

You can use a controlla… but you going to get dead.
Unlike these two yahoos my gerbil input is spot on.
Then again I keep the speed set at 12.
But at the end of the day using the gerbil feels like cheating… because it is.
Don’t worry, I’ll explain in the Fun section.

J-

Much easier with a mouse than a controller. Don’t make the same mistake I did
There is a noticeable delay with mouse input

P-

That mouse smoothing is annoying.
There are “gravity fields” in some levels which make the mouse behave differently, but that’s not what I’m complaining about.
It’s everywhere else, where the mouse is either being smoothed or it’s the framerate cap causing input delay and it’s annoying!

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FUN

V-

This game has the unnatural ability to slow down time.
I can be spooky good at these type games if I achieve a “flow state” or as I call it “haaamered”
You got some ball-organs charging double for the Desktop version of this game.
Yeah, that’s right… it’s on the Play Store for $4.49.
Guess that explains the useless stars… that I give zero FKS about collecting.

J-

I really dislike these sorts of games. All the end up doing is making me super anxious
This one doesn’t really do anything to change my opinion of the genre
Shootemups I get, because at least then you can kill things
See point number one
It’s well, done, just not my bag

P-

Much like Venn, this is one of those games that after a few levels I just get “in the zone” and I’ll get through several levels in one sitting.
And that’s good, that is exactly the kind of experience you want players to go through in this game.
And they would have succeeded if the mouse controls weren’t so “floaty”.
In the whole Narrative, Aesthetics and Mechanics context, Ellipsis is one of those games which focuses completely on the mechanics.
Aesthetically, it’s neon-graphics (shorthand for we couldn’t be assed to come up with a proper visual style) and bleep bloop sounds. So there’s nothing to write home about there.
Narratively… Well, there is no narrative. You’re a blue neon circle avoiding the other neon colored things on the map which aren’t blue.
You could make an argument that’s a metaphor for racism in society but that’d be you projecting your own biases towards a completely blank slate.
The only thing to Ellipsis are its mechanics and mechanics are only as good as the way the player has to interact with them, aka how good the game controls.
And even though there’s a sensitivity slider, there’s no way to disable that completely fucking stupid mouse smoothing, and that’s what makes the controls feel floaty in this game.
I can see how this game would be good but I don’t want to play anymore of it.

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Final –