Polar Vortex

Ethan! First off, just great work with this assignment. From the music, to the visual style and even the tuning of the gameplay, this game has a very clear and polished identity, and it's clear that you put a lot of care into this. One thing I really appreciated was the distortion of the music when you die. Everything is communicated very clearly in the game, like the timer in the center, the white effect around the obstacles that move, and even the player's shape and trail. One thing I did notice was that the changing obstacles like the floating spike balls can phase through the player when despawning which can be very jarring, especially during a tense section. Overall though, really good work! If you told me this was currently available for purchase I'd believe you.

AAAAA! This is amazing it so frustrating yet incredibly rewarding once you learn the controls! The music is absolutely perfect for this type of game as I would sit and play this for hours (which I might have already done) the distortion when you die is a super nice touch to indicate a death! One this was I did encounter some patterns which seemed actually impossible to get out of so maybe adding something to prevent those but it only happened like twice so not a huge deal! Really good game!

A few minutes into Polar Vortex, I was ready to criticize the spontaneous intermittent spinning for making it unreasonable for players to predict the positions of obstacles ahead of time, but I kept at it a little longer. And a little longer. And about twenty minutes later, I'd earned a score of 90.68 and finally felt qualified to leave a comment. I kept playing until I earned a slightly higher score, and now I'm here. 

You don't need me to tell you that this game is incredibly well-polished and thoughtfully designed - the collision detection feels fair, obstructions spawn in with enough time and distance for players to become aware of their presence, and the visual and audio presentation speaks for itself. It took some time to adjust to the pace of the player avatar's movement and the sharp angle of its turn, but once I did, I appreciated how well the obstacles' shapes and positions were tuned around my capabilities. Needless to say, the spinning grew on me. The most satisfying part of Polar Vortex is the process of adapting and reacting and threading the needle through the moving map until the player feels completely in sync with the game. It's awesome, and made even better when restarts are both quick and cleverly incorporated into the soundtrack. This is a critical response, though, so I have a couple of nitpicks.

For one, the timer is already built into the game's aesthetic in such an elegant way that the ever-increasing number in the top left corner feels tacked on, and its hovering in my peripheral vision distracted during gameplay more than once (I started covering it up with my left hand after a while). I think it would've been more appropriate for the number to show up in the center of the screen after death, so as to keep the player immersed until it's no longer necessary. My only other gripe is that when obstacles transition back into the center circle, they can harmlessly pass through the player avatar in a sort of jarring way. Everything else in the play area is so clean and consistent that I may or may not have freaked out a tiny bit when this happened for the first time. This behavior might've been easier to read if they shrank down into nothingness instead. Otherwise, I had a great time with this one. It's got my stamp of approval.