Ice-cream duck unfairly named after Tories loses their cone to Insert Itch.io Scaryguy Here and ends up becoming the new Ninpen Manmaru for half an hour, 10/10 gg ez
The slow but steady low-poly revival in this industry, starting around a decade ago and now flourishing with notables like A Short Hike and Signalis, has had its share of wannabe mascots. Everyone from the heroine of Lunistice to Haunted PS1's garbed skeleton has auditioned for the role, and Toree's no different. This game's developer, Siactro, has made a small stable of mascots already, all of them suspiciously cute, identifiable, and resalable in today's nostalgia market. Disposable heroes are always in vogue, just easier to sugarcoat when hidden behind the veneer of aesthetic authenticity. So it goes. Toree 3D is exactly the kind of small, pleasing half-hour snack that game jams are known for, previously the domain of classic Flash or Shockwave releases. It's very easy to replay and a worthy title despite its shallowness. If I ain't seeing Fangamer merch for this in a year or so, then I'm going to be very confused.
Our premise doesn't get much simpler: you play the titular bird thing, flightless and defenseless save for a double jump and dash. All the player's worried about is getting from point A to B, either with all the star pickups or the fastest time possible to hit that top level rank. Toree 3D nails almost all its basics, from intuitive controls to reproducible physics and scenarios. I know, for instance, that airborne momentum is a constant, which makes jumping across icy platforms that much trickier. A lack of auto-adjusting camera means you'll need to force center or move the right stick more often than should feel necessary, though. This degree of polish is easier to achieve nowadays thanks to widely-known tricks and prefabs in middleware engines like Unity, but it still takes work and testing. So I can't hold anything against Siactro for making a solid platformer loop, one which can't rely on much content or gimmicks to distract from potentially poor playability.
Make no mistake, however. Toree 3D is proud to be derivative, following not just one but two social media bandwagons. Why develop a more distinct identity for this avian anybody and the world they're exploring when you can just slap that low-res filter atop what feel like prototype assets? And why not hastily add a so-light-it's-nothing horror/spooky theme to the opening and final stages, just so it can technically qualify alongside the other Haunted PS1 jam entries? Again, I can't blame Siactro for making these savvy decisions. They're smart compromises to spread the game way farther on Twitter, Discord, Tumblr, Backloggd, etc. than was once possible. I'm a sucker for low-poly art in general, enough to lament its popularization as a micro-trend that'll risks being recycled into meaninglessness. For 1 buck, a mini foray into this style cost me practically nothing and offered so much in return.
All nine levels are well-designed for what they are, though quick to repeat their ideas. One could argue there's only so much these simple jump and run mechanics could offer, yet I'd hoped for more puzzles and enemy variety. There was certainly room in the snow stages for less mindless auto-scrolling down slopes with fences. I'd have added sections where skillful players can quickly hop between panels to activate temporary platforms, perhaps a little icy hopscotch across lava. There's a lotta clash between the game's autopilot segments (ex. the moving scaffolds in the city) and the light speedrunning angle Siactro's going for.
The only incentives you get for pushing Toree to the finale as fast as possible are two extra characters, for that matter. It's thankfully satisfying on its own to master these obstacle courses, and I messed around with Macbat's free flight for a bit of fun. But the game's truly over by that point; we're far from a Pilotwings 64 scenario where the game's worlds remain intriguing to explore without win states. Siactro's reverence for, and ability to replicate, nostalgic echoes of '90s pop art and software also holds him back from doing anything that unique here. My favorite theme here was chaotic New Osaka, which itself teeters too close to the vaporwave Orientalism I see in other contemporaries.
Games that exist to remind me of older, more fleshed-out experiences put themselves in a tricky situation. As I played the ocean levels so obviously cribbing from Sonic Adventure (2), I couldn't help but think, "why not just go for that A rank and emblems on Metal Harbor?". Indeed, Toree 3D tends to trap itself into these comparisons. Evoking nostalgia for that era of bigger-budgeted console games runs the risk of bouncing one towards replays, assuming nothing substantially new or unique is offered. Whereas Sonic became a mascot for cool, challenging setpiece-driven adventures in his heyday, Toree feels like the runt of that litter, an adorable ode to some unreachable past. I want the best for this scrimblo, though, even if I'd rather not play something like this for more than an hour. Efficiently packing a more diverse and meaningful array of challenges into this runtime, like boss encounters or side modes leveraging the mechanics, seems like a logical next step.
A lot of my comments so far are closer to nitpicks than deep criticisms, plus expressing my regular disdain for pandemic-era trend hopping. (That behavior is itself partly excusable for a lot reasons, most of them coming back to the world likely ending as we know it, but I don't want to cramp Toree's style with that talk here.) But hey, it's hard to dislike, let alone hate this kind of game. It just doesn't compel me that much by design, as vibes...aesthetic...charm...whatever aren't enough for me. Siactro's found a place in this market no different from many other solo devs, expectedly polishing up quick prototypes into lightweight scene darlings. And this one's still a big leap forward from Kiwi 64, showing how much this guy's learned and improved upon in eight or so years. I've designed enough Doom maps to know one shouldn't be so harsh towards even the slightest works in this category, no matter how trivial or commodified.
In a sense, I think Toree 3D is well worth its price and promises, though hardly the ambassador of Three Strings and the Soul Gaming that some like to categorize it as. (Hell, I don't even lionize Cave Story to that degree, and that genuinely moved past its influences and somewhat against trends familiar to its original audience.) Here's just an inoffensive, inauspicious, Twitch-friendly ditty that plays well with just about anyone. It's like Gunman Clive back in those desperate early days of 3DS software, insofar as we've only just started to get low-poly, PS1-/Saturn-/N64-esque low-poly experiments of this quality. I'm just hoping to feel something more when I inevitable blast through Toree 2 and other games indulging this aesthetic. Nothing in this one actually feels cowardly, just missing out on its potential—my ire's saved for copycat low-poly horror games at this point. (Or that big Mega Man Legends 3 fangame which could have happened by now, given the talent and interest surrounding this style.)
Now, Toree 3D but condensed to 13kb of filesize? That would excite me. I'm not sure how one could reasonably compress the excellent poppy soundtrack into those limits, but that's one reason Pixel wrote his own sound tech for Cave Story to keep the size down. Regardless, everything I've heard about Toree 2 says I should enjoy that one a lot more on its own merits, not just as an exercise in clever imitation. Maybe I'll play that later this year when I've got nothing better to do.
The slow but steady low-poly revival in this industry, starting around a decade ago and now flourishing with notables like A Short Hike and Signalis, has had its share of wannabe mascots. Everyone from the heroine of Lunistice to Haunted PS1's garbed skeleton has auditioned for the role, and Toree's no different. This game's developer, Siactro, has made a small stable of mascots already, all of them suspiciously cute, identifiable, and resalable in today's nostalgia market. Disposable heroes are always in vogue, just easier to sugarcoat when hidden behind the veneer of aesthetic authenticity. So it goes. Toree 3D is exactly the kind of small, pleasing half-hour snack that game jams are known for, previously the domain of classic Flash or Shockwave releases. It's very easy to replay and a worthy title despite its shallowness. If I ain't seeing Fangamer merch for this in a year or so, then I'm going to be very confused.
Our premise doesn't get much simpler: you play the titular bird thing, flightless and defenseless save for a double jump and dash. All the player's worried about is getting from point A to B, either with all the star pickups or the fastest time possible to hit that top level rank. Toree 3D nails almost all its basics, from intuitive controls to reproducible physics and scenarios. I know, for instance, that airborne momentum is a constant, which makes jumping across icy platforms that much trickier. A lack of auto-adjusting camera means you'll need to force center or move the right stick more often than should feel necessary, though. This degree of polish is easier to achieve nowadays thanks to widely-known tricks and prefabs in middleware engines like Unity, but it still takes work and testing. So I can't hold anything against Siactro for making a solid platformer loop, one which can't rely on much content or gimmicks to distract from potentially poor playability.
Make no mistake, however. Toree 3D is proud to be derivative, following not just one but two social media bandwagons. Why develop a more distinct identity for this avian anybody and the world they're exploring when you can just slap that low-res filter atop what feel like prototype assets? And why not hastily add a so-light-it's-nothing horror/spooky theme to the opening and final stages, just so it can technically qualify alongside the other Haunted PS1 jam entries? Again, I can't blame Siactro for making these savvy decisions. They're smart compromises to spread the game way farther on Twitter, Discord, Tumblr, Backloggd, etc. than was once possible. I'm a sucker for low-poly art in general, enough to lament its popularization as a micro-trend that'll risks being recycled into meaninglessness. For 1 buck, a mini foray into this style cost me practically nothing and offered so much in return.
All nine levels are well-designed for what they are, though quick to repeat their ideas. One could argue there's only so much these simple jump and run mechanics could offer, yet I'd hoped for more puzzles and enemy variety. There was certainly room in the snow stages for less mindless auto-scrolling down slopes with fences. I'd have added sections where skillful players can quickly hop between panels to activate temporary platforms, perhaps a little icy hopscotch across lava. There's a lotta clash between the game's autopilot segments (ex. the moving scaffolds in the city) and the light speedrunning angle Siactro's going for.
The only incentives you get for pushing Toree to the finale as fast as possible are two extra characters, for that matter. It's thankfully satisfying on its own to master these obstacle courses, and I messed around with Macbat's free flight for a bit of fun. But the game's truly over by that point; we're far from a Pilotwings 64 scenario where the game's worlds remain intriguing to explore without win states. Siactro's reverence for, and ability to replicate, nostalgic echoes of '90s pop art and software also holds him back from doing anything that unique here. My favorite theme here was chaotic New Osaka, which itself teeters too close to the vaporwave Orientalism I see in other contemporaries.
Games that exist to remind me of older, more fleshed-out experiences put themselves in a tricky situation. As I played the ocean levels so obviously cribbing from Sonic Adventure (2), I couldn't help but think, "why not just go for that A rank and emblems on Metal Harbor?". Indeed, Toree 3D tends to trap itself into these comparisons. Evoking nostalgia for that era of bigger-budgeted console games runs the risk of bouncing one towards replays, assuming nothing substantially new or unique is offered. Whereas Sonic became a mascot for cool, challenging setpiece-driven adventures in his heyday, Toree feels like the runt of that litter, an adorable ode to some unreachable past. I want the best for this scrimblo, though, even if I'd rather not play something like this for more than an hour. Efficiently packing a more diverse and meaningful array of challenges into this runtime, like boss encounters or side modes leveraging the mechanics, seems like a logical next step.
A lot of my comments so far are closer to nitpicks than deep criticisms, plus expressing my regular disdain for pandemic-era trend hopping. (That behavior is itself partly excusable for a lot reasons, most of them coming back to the world likely ending as we know it, but I don't want to cramp Toree's style with that talk here.) But hey, it's hard to dislike, let alone hate this kind of game. It just doesn't compel me that much by design, as vibes...aesthetic...charm...whatever aren't enough for me. Siactro's found a place in this market no different from many other solo devs, expectedly polishing up quick prototypes into lightweight scene darlings. And this one's still a big leap forward from Kiwi 64, showing how much this guy's learned and improved upon in eight or so years. I've designed enough Doom maps to know one shouldn't be so harsh towards even the slightest works in this category, no matter how trivial or commodified.
In a sense, I think Toree 3D is well worth its price and promises, though hardly the ambassador of Three Strings and the Soul Gaming that some like to categorize it as. (Hell, I don't even lionize Cave Story to that degree, and that genuinely moved past its influences and somewhat against trends familiar to its original audience.) Here's just an inoffensive, inauspicious, Twitch-friendly ditty that plays well with just about anyone. It's like Gunman Clive back in those desperate early days of 3DS software, insofar as we've only just started to get low-poly, PS1-/Saturn-/N64-esque low-poly experiments of this quality. I'm just hoping to feel something more when I inevitable blast through Toree 2 and other games indulging this aesthetic. Nothing in this one actually feels cowardly, just missing out on its potential—my ire's saved for copycat low-poly horror games at this point. (Or that big Mega Man Legends 3 fangame which could have happened by now, given the talent and interest surrounding this style.)
Now, Toree 3D but condensed to 13kb of filesize? That would excite me. I'm not sure how one could reasonably compress the excellent poppy soundtrack into those limits, but that's one reason Pixel wrote his own sound tech for Cave Story to keep the size down. Regardless, everything I've heard about Toree 2 says I should enjoy that one a lot more on its own merits, not just as an exercise in clever imitation. Maybe I'll play that later this year when I've got nothing better to do.