Ballistic Zen
released on Jan 25, 2023
Skate. Strafe. Wallrun. Master a unique movement system based on old-school air-strafing, updated for the modern age. Use your hoverblades to find hard to reach collectables and beat time trials in an open world. Feel the Ballistic Zen.
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i had lots of fun playing this game. the satisfying feeling when you complete a hard line is awesome and the whole idea of not using a keyboard is a tiny bit weird at the beggining but once you get the feeling of this game its very satisfying. the story isnt really here but this game is not based at all around the story so it doesnt really matter
Its a first person free form parkour challenge runner built on predetermined traversal challenges around the map illustrated as blue lines. The control system is odd at first, you control exclusively with the mouse : left click to start/stop, right click to jump.
You get used to it surprisingly quickly and its honestly really fun at first clearing the first 2 areas, learning the ins and outs of the system and interacting with the various NPCs scattered around.
The game looks appealingly simple and readable, which is probably a byproduct of the solo dev, unreal engine development process but its nice nonetheless. Theres also not much in the way of consequences for failure, you set your own checkpoints and can reset at any time and respawn instantly if you fall through a bottomless pit. The physics do seem kinda off, at times. You try over and over again to do the same line and seemingly you succeed by what seems to be luck, a tricky jump now suddenly working the way you wanted it to despite seemingly having changed nothing about your approach. Maybe its too precise of a precision platformer and here we get to the main thing that makes me not mark this game as complete : By the third zone the jumps the game expects from you are ridiculous.
INB4 Skill Issue and all that and Im sure its not impossible to pull off these jumps but the lines get so long that even with essentially unlimited attempts with little downtime it just feels too punishing to be rewarding. Maybe I'll come back to it and I do recommend this game to those looking for a nice speedrun game but right now it just isnt fun to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3d9KTYHIE
You get used to it surprisingly quickly and its honestly really fun at first clearing the first 2 areas, learning the ins and outs of the system and interacting with the various NPCs scattered around.
The game looks appealingly simple and readable, which is probably a byproduct of the solo dev, unreal engine development process but its nice nonetheless. Theres also not much in the way of consequences for failure, you set your own checkpoints and can reset at any time and respawn instantly if you fall through a bottomless pit. The physics do seem kinda off, at times. You try over and over again to do the same line and seemingly you succeed by what seems to be luck, a tricky jump now suddenly working the way you wanted it to despite seemingly having changed nothing about your approach. Maybe its too precise of a precision platformer and here we get to the main thing that makes me not mark this game as complete : By the third zone the jumps the game expects from you are ridiculous.
INB4 Skill Issue and all that and Im sure its not impossible to pull off these jumps but the lines get so long that even with essentially unlimited attempts with little downtime it just feels too punishing to be rewarding. Maybe I'll come back to it and I do recommend this game to those looking for a nice speedrun game but right now it just isnt fun to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3d9KTYHIE