Analysis of Birthdays the Beginning, as beautiful and interesting

I saw in ‘Birthdays the Beginning’ one of those games that my day to day in danger, a well of hours in which these fly without control and jump from lunch to dinner with the command still stuck in the hands without knowing very Well, what just happened?

What’s new about the creator of ‘Harvest Moon’ changes the farm for an ecosystem in a glass box, a kind of interactive pot where our actions not only mark whether there will be a mountain or a small lake here, but also the life that will grow around it.

The simulation of Birthdays the Beginning

On paper is a premise that I love . A simple but effective idea in which I must sculpt the ground with the intention that life begins to sprout and make its way. Then I will go for a walk by collecting information about the new species that have been appearing.

The key to its apparent simplicity is that I will only raise or lower the ground. A flat area will raise the heat of the ecosystem, while a mountain will reduce it and the amount of water that you add will mark the air temperature. From there, if I throw a drop of water, life will be born and, with the appropriate temperature changes, new species will sprout that will feed on the previous ones and an evolutionary cycle will begin.

The simulation of Birthdays the Beginning

On paper is a premise that I love . A simple but effective idea in which I must sculpt the ground with the intention that life begins to sprout and make its way. Then I will go for a walk by collecting information about the new species that have been appearing.

The key to its apparent simplicity is that I will only raise or lower the ground. A flat area will raise the heat of the ecosystem, while a mountain will reduce it and the amount of water that you add will mark the air temperature. From there, if I throw a drop of water, life will be born and, with the appropriate temperature changes, new species will sprout that will feed on the previous ones and an evolutionary cycle will begin.

Add to that that the changes produced on the ground can change the situation drastically, causing a mere elevation that a key species is ruined and, with it, our goal of each level go from actions of just a few minutes to a It stretches and loosens with the temperature of the planet that will last an hour.

Let’s say that your hand has run out of water or that the requirement to create a new species forces you to change the ecosystem. Suppose that, in that imp, your life bar is exhausted and you must return to the external view to recharge it. Since your work has been halfway because your thing is to create an efficient world, but also beautiful and logical, the changes produced have unexpected consequences as time goes by and the bar is filled, so when you return you must undo the created to return to the original species and start from scratch.

The problems begin

Restart the level is not an option, you have to sweat and trastear turning a bucolic experience into a slow, tedious work with minimum indicators that force you to experiment more than necessary.

That’s when the tools offered begin to seem scanty, when you realize that the pace of the game has completely broken and that, after all, to create a world to walk around to capture information while monkeys play next to wolves and crocodiles without anything happening beyond predefined animations, it is very short to a game of 2017.

Even the editing tool, a square of greater or lesser measure, has lived better times in games with a tradition like ‘From Dust’ . Its cubes reminiscent of ‘Minecraft’ collide with the rounded and stuffed shapes of the animals that populate the stage.

In short, there is a lack of mime, affection, attention to detail at all levels, whether mechanical or ways of presenting the necessary data to move correctly. And by its appearance can call the attention of a child, however, is going to hit against a thick and unintuitive tutorial.

The opinion of VidaExtra

‘Birthdays the Beginning’ is one of those projects that, without a doubt, you would wish with all your strength that they would have finished better. I had everything to be one of those titles that I force myself to uninstall to disengage from the vice in which I end up submerging, but decisions regarding mechanics and, above all, a user experience design quite weak, completely undermine the proposal.

With such sensations it is difficult to recommend him openly, but I will not deny that his ideas continue to seem equally interesting to me and that, when things go well, it is a very satisfying game. Hopefully a turn of the page in the future with a new delivery or, at least, someone will be inspired by him to deliver a better proposal.

The best

• A fantastic idea
• Get to create dinosaurs
• A demanding and long game

Worst

• Very unintuitive
• Some uncomfortable design decisions
• Limited depth