In my review of VVVVVV (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279124/) I noted pure vertical shifts aren’t intrinsically different from standard jumping in platformers- yes, you’re technically moving in a disparate manner, but those actions ultimately come down to bounding in an up/down motion.
Well, a year before VVVVVV came out, an indie title called And Yet it Moves was released that ironically addressed that observation. See, developed and published by Broken Rules, AYIM is a platformer built on the mechanic of rotation: at the click of a key, you can turn the screen rectilinearly, repositioning environments in ways that allow you to circumvent them. The question is how fun is it? It’s pretty good, though a significant flaw hampers things. For the longer answer, read on!
Before pressing forward, I’m going to put out a disclaimer that the Steam version of the game, despite being listed as having “partial controller support,” is not compliant with such devices. I tried multiple times with my 360 controller to no avail. It's not a big deal since the keyboard works perfect; however, it should be noted to those thinking about beating it with a gamepad of sorts.
Anyway, we'll start with the graphics as AYIM is what I imagine a theoretical amalgamation of Doug and The Amazing World of Gumball would be. Your anonymous character looks like he was drawn by Jim Jinkins, topped with a hairstyle akin to Roger’s, albeit animated as though it belonged in the Fancy Pants Universe. His posture, constant frown, and pencil-drawn figure cry hipster, and he certainly stands as one of the more uniquely-designed protagonists in gaming history. The settings he finds himself in, on the other hand, are paper-mache extravaganzas: wrapping tissue backgrounds adorned with photos seemingly cut out of some cheap designer magazine. These objects, ranging from terrain to arts & crafts, literally have those fuzzy white boundaries you get when you haphazardly tear a thick sheet of parchment, the backdrops they rest on as crinkled as remnants from a post-Christmas gift heap. The first half of the game sticks pretty firmly to primary colors; however, the second half kicks things into psychedelic gear, with bright complexations straight out of an I Spy book. The whole display ends up being very chromatically coruscating, but whether or not it’s pleasing will vary from person-to-person. I personally liked seeing something that diverged from your typical Mario-inspired sprite work, and as an advocate for specialized art focuses, I hope that more games follow the example set by Broken Rules for their project.
The sound, unfortunately, is mostly atrocious. There’s no voice acting, and the SFX is the worst case of foley I have ever heard in a video game. As you’re in jungle and nature-themed environs, there was an attempt to mimic the noises of a forest whilst giving it a musically-tinged motif, and the end product is unpleasant: owl hoots sound like muted French Horn warbles, monkey screeches like a Trumpet imitating Tarzan, and bird chirps like a human tootling. Even out-of-boundary falls rip-off that slide whistle gimmick Doodle Jump overdid years ago. For most of your playthrough, this abysmal sound scheme is intermixed with a vocal percussion rhythm that I assume was meant to evoke a tribal chant but winds up coming across like the type of amateur beatboxing we used to do in middle school. Oh, and did I mention it’s all played on a painfully obvious loop, because apparently crafting a composition for the duration of a single level was too difficult for the maestro.
In the second half, when things take a wacky turn, the score does get better in terms of accentuating the ludicrosity around you via some pretty nice jazz accompaniments. However, the SFX never improves, and in some cases arguably gets worse in Broken Rules' vain quest to be experimental. Footsteps, in particular, are morphed into this grating…you know what, I can’t even describe it. Search videos or play the game yourself to know what I mean.
Despite the title quoting Galileo’s famous proclamation, there’s no story to speak of, meaning we move onto the gameplay. As I said in the intro, your goal is to get from Point A to Point B via manipulating the immediate area- left 90°, right 90°, or a complete 180 flip. Doing so whirls the solid ground about you accordingly, creating passageways or gaps you may not have had access to from your original vantage.
As you can expect, things aren’t completely straightforward. Loose objects will tumble freely, becoming hazardous projectiles or impediments in the process; gravity remains a constant, accelerating your mass to dangerous speeds if you don’t hamper it quickly; and numerous puzzles require accurate screen pivots lest you misaim and sabotage the whole shebang.
There was a lot of potential to this premise and, to their credit, Broken Rules adopts most of it. It would’ve been cool to maybe see boss fights thrown in that would have had to be resolved in a manner akin to Teslagrad’s, but the base game gives a lot of variety in its own right. There were only two things that prevented me from truly enjoying AYIM. The first, which I alluded to early on, is the momentum-mechanic. AYIM can get really frustrating in terms of depicting terminal velocity: that is, the quickness in which G-forces affect your avatar. I genuinely don’t think there was a code in-place to accurately calculate it as, I swear, there were instances where the exact same drop from the exact same circumstances either killed me or landed me to safety. My conspiracy theory is the programming diverges depending on what that particular section calls for -- i.e., if the game wants you to go a certain route, it will speed-up your celerity, and vice-versa if it wants you to rely on pure platforming. A strategic stopgap is technically in place in the way of downward slopes; falling on them, no matter your propulsion, is said to guarantee a safe landing. While I personally found even this to be inconsistent, I have seen walkthroughs on YouTube that showcase gamers successfully utilizing them, so I concede it’s probably user error on my part.
The second issue that crops up is your sideways jumping. There’s this uncanny waywardness in the air that takes place whenever you horizontally saltate, and it honestly messed-up my spatial awareness by making it hard to acutely gauge where I was going to touch down. Now, some may claim that Broken Rules was trying to recreate air resistance. First off, if that was true, then I should never collapse from dropping; secondly, the new gravity should be constant enough that you end up adjusting eventually, and that didn’t happen here because it isn’t stable. Combine this with speed bursts from a gravity tilt and you may find the more-precise platforming to be harder than it needs to be.
Overall though, And Yet It Moves is a chill enough game to get through. With the exception of some post-game bonus levels, the challenge is very fair, and you get an entry in the platforming genre that stands out from the crowd. If you can get past the gameplay flaws and desire a change of pace from your usual jumpers, consider picking it up. Just make sure you plug-in your own music to listen to….
Well, a year before VVVVVV came out, an indie title called And Yet it Moves was released that ironically addressed that observation. See, developed and published by Broken Rules, AYIM is a platformer built on the mechanic of rotation: at the click of a key, you can turn the screen rectilinearly, repositioning environments in ways that allow you to circumvent them. The question is how fun is it? It’s pretty good, though a significant flaw hampers things. For the longer answer, read on!
Before pressing forward, I’m going to put out a disclaimer that the Steam version of the game, despite being listed as having “partial controller support,” is not compliant with such devices. I tried multiple times with my 360 controller to no avail. It's not a big deal since the keyboard works perfect; however, it should be noted to those thinking about beating it with a gamepad of sorts.
Anyway, we'll start with the graphics as AYIM is what I imagine a theoretical amalgamation of Doug and The Amazing World of Gumball would be. Your anonymous character looks like he was drawn by Jim Jinkins, topped with a hairstyle akin to Roger’s, albeit animated as though it belonged in the Fancy Pants Universe. His posture, constant frown, and pencil-drawn figure cry hipster, and he certainly stands as one of the more uniquely-designed protagonists in gaming history. The settings he finds himself in, on the other hand, are paper-mache extravaganzas: wrapping tissue backgrounds adorned with photos seemingly cut out of some cheap designer magazine. These objects, ranging from terrain to arts & crafts, literally have those fuzzy white boundaries you get when you haphazardly tear a thick sheet of parchment, the backdrops they rest on as crinkled as remnants from a post-Christmas gift heap. The first half of the game sticks pretty firmly to primary colors; however, the second half kicks things into psychedelic gear, with bright complexations straight out of an I Spy book. The whole display ends up being very chromatically coruscating, but whether or not it’s pleasing will vary from person-to-person. I personally liked seeing something that diverged from your typical Mario-inspired sprite work, and as an advocate for specialized art focuses, I hope that more games follow the example set by Broken Rules for their project.
The sound, unfortunately, is mostly atrocious. There’s no voice acting, and the SFX is the worst case of foley I have ever heard in a video game. As you’re in jungle and nature-themed environs, there was an attempt to mimic the noises of a forest whilst giving it a musically-tinged motif, and the end product is unpleasant: owl hoots sound like muted French Horn warbles, monkey screeches like a Trumpet imitating Tarzan, and bird chirps like a human tootling. Even out-of-boundary falls rip-off that slide whistle gimmick Doodle Jump overdid years ago. For most of your playthrough, this abysmal sound scheme is intermixed with a vocal percussion rhythm that I assume was meant to evoke a tribal chant but winds up coming across like the type of amateur beatboxing we used to do in middle school. Oh, and did I mention it’s all played on a painfully obvious loop, because apparently crafting a composition for the duration of a single level was too difficult for the maestro.
In the second half, when things take a wacky turn, the score does get better in terms of accentuating the ludicrosity around you via some pretty nice jazz accompaniments. However, the SFX never improves, and in some cases arguably gets worse in Broken Rules' vain quest to be experimental. Footsteps, in particular, are morphed into this grating…you know what, I can’t even describe it. Search videos or play the game yourself to know what I mean.
Despite the title quoting Galileo’s famous proclamation, there’s no story to speak of, meaning we move onto the gameplay. As I said in the intro, your goal is to get from Point A to Point B via manipulating the immediate area- left 90°, right 90°, or a complete 180 flip. Doing so whirls the solid ground about you accordingly, creating passageways or gaps you may not have had access to from your original vantage.
As you can expect, things aren’t completely straightforward. Loose objects will tumble freely, becoming hazardous projectiles or impediments in the process; gravity remains a constant, accelerating your mass to dangerous speeds if you don’t hamper it quickly; and numerous puzzles require accurate screen pivots lest you misaim and sabotage the whole shebang.
There was a lot of potential to this premise and, to their credit, Broken Rules adopts most of it. It would’ve been cool to maybe see boss fights thrown in that would have had to be resolved in a manner akin to Teslagrad’s, but the base game gives a lot of variety in its own right. There were only two things that prevented me from truly enjoying AYIM. The first, which I alluded to early on, is the momentum-mechanic. AYIM can get really frustrating in terms of depicting terminal velocity: that is, the quickness in which G-forces affect your avatar. I genuinely don’t think there was a code in-place to accurately calculate it as, I swear, there were instances where the exact same drop from the exact same circumstances either killed me or landed me to safety. My conspiracy theory is the programming diverges depending on what that particular section calls for -- i.e., if the game wants you to go a certain route, it will speed-up your celerity, and vice-versa if it wants you to rely on pure platforming. A strategic stopgap is technically in place in the way of downward slopes; falling on them, no matter your propulsion, is said to guarantee a safe landing. While I personally found even this to be inconsistent, I have seen walkthroughs on YouTube that showcase gamers successfully utilizing them, so I concede it’s probably user error on my part.
The second issue that crops up is your sideways jumping. There’s this uncanny waywardness in the air that takes place whenever you horizontally saltate, and it honestly messed-up my spatial awareness by making it hard to acutely gauge where I was going to touch down. Now, some may claim that Broken Rules was trying to recreate air resistance. First off, if that was true, then I should never collapse from dropping; secondly, the new gravity should be constant enough that you end up adjusting eventually, and that didn’t happen here because it isn’t stable. Combine this with speed bursts from a gravity tilt and you may find the more-precise platforming to be harder than it needs to be.
Overall though, And Yet It Moves is a chill enough game to get through. With the exception of some post-game bonus levels, the challenge is very fair, and you get an entry in the platforming genre that stands out from the crowd. If you can get past the gameplay flaws and desire a change of pace from your usual jumpers, consider picking it up. Just make sure you plug-in your own music to listen to….