Release Date: 15/06/2017
Played On: Win
Available On: Droid / iOS / Mac / Win
Time Played: 3h 25m
Progress: Completed
Developer: Irisloft
Publisher: Irisloft
As time goes on, the difference between PC and console hardware has grown smaller and smaller. While technologies continue to improve and iterate, they lower in cost and general accessibility. I think it's fair to say that even though PC technologies will always surpass the locked-down console capabilities, it's becoming much more difficult to find a noticeable difference in the quality of games made for those systems.
That's another discussion for another time though. I bring it up to then divert your attention to mobile games being ported to more powerful systems. Many years ago now, I was playing a simple dot-matrix style version of "Snake" on my mobile phone, which was the height of mobile technology for its time. Some years later I remember seeing a video of John Carmack at Quakecon, as he demonstrated Rage running on an iPhone.
As I write this, my smart phone sits nearby on my desk. It's a few years old, but earlier today I was playing the mobile versions of Anomaly and Skullgirls. Both titles are comparable to their PC counterparts, except they're running in the palm of my hand.
It's no longer applicable to say that all mobile gaming is held back by the available technology. Our smart phones have become powerful computers in their own right, so it's hard to ignore mobile ports in the same way we used to. It used to be obvious when a game had been ported from mobile, as it looked ugly on the big screen, and performed like a car without tyres.
Recently though, it seems like a lot of developers have taken the time to port their mobile games over to PC with a little attention to detail and with a bit more care. I've come across many mobile ports that hold up well on PC, but it's interesting to me how often these titles still feel like mobile games. I think it has something to do with transferring the touch control scheme over to a mouse and keyboard input. Often substituting touch for a mouse can work seamlessly and feels natural, but sometimes there are some subtle methods that remind you you're playing a game originally designed for touch.
However, I don't really know if it's something that can be helped. Much in the same way that using a gamepad for FPS games feels slow and inaccurate, often substituting touch for a mouse can feel awkward, even though it's perfectly functional.
All of this is meant to outline the minor issues I have with Flood Of Light, which only suffers from its inception as a mobile game. The only aspect that doesn't sit right for me in this nice little puzzle game, is that some of the systems and motions required of its mouse input, feel a little odd and out of place.
Although I have to admit that Flood Of Light drew me in from the start. On the surface it's simplistic game where you are tasked with solving puzzles in order to clear the flood water away from a desolate city. Along the way you encounter machines and logs that hint at some lore and your reason for being there, but it's easily forgettable and doesn't impact progression in any significant way.
Most of the time you'll be gathering orbs of light and distributing them through networks of lamps to activate switches and machinery that allows you to progress. It's one of those puzzle systems that's easy to understand, but can really stretch your thinking cells in some creative ways.
This is where Flood Of Light reveals its mobile design roots, as almost every action you perform in the game, involves some combination of tapping or dragging. You hold down a mouse button to gather light and another to send it away. Dragging from a lamp with extra light, will send the extras to another lamp, and so on. Eventually you're tapping and dragging light around in complex ways, but you're still tapping and dragging to interact with everything.
By its own merits, there's nothing wrong with the control scheme, except that it feels odd at times, because it has uniquely touch oriented systems. Like with other mobile ports, it soon becomes obvious that if Flood Of Light had been designed for mouse and keyboard from the start, it might have ended up with some different choices and mechanics. Of course, this is where I remind anyone reading this that I'm not a developer, so I have no idea how realistic these statements are, but this is how it felt as I was playing through the game.
Ultimately though, the ported control scheme takes little away from Flood Of Light, which remains enjoyable either way. As I mentioned earlier, the puzzles are complex enough to keep you thinking laterally in order to figure out the series of events that will bring a solution.
Most of the puzzles in the game, are solved by gathering up light from one, or multiple sources, then redistributing the light to lamps. The lamps are positioned in such a way that there is often a single path from lamp to lamp that will reach the level's objective. Things are kept interesting by limiting the available light, so that the same illumination might be used in a number of different places to complete the path. After a while you get used to lighting a lamp, then taking the light away again, only to light another lamp further into the level.
What's more, the complexity slowly rises throughout Flood Of Light, so that new obstacles and systems reveal themselves along the way. For instance, you eventually have access to yellow light and blue light, which perform different functions in each puzzle. Blue light is needed to connect lamps that are under water, while both colours are needed to work together and complete objectives. Eventually I found myself shifting different coloured lights around in a detailed order, simply to ensure that the correct colour made it to the correct lamp.
Even though the puzzling gameplay will occupy most of your time in Flood Of Light, a mention must be given to the overall presentation. This is the thing that surprises me about mobile ports these days, as developers are realising that they don't have to make everything oversized and low-res to make it function. The simple 2D graphics in the game are beautifully stark and a little bit mysterious. There's a lot of grey and monotone shades, which do well to illustrate the bleak nature of a city flooded by a never-ending rainfall.
Likewise, the instrumental soundtrack sits supportively in the background, ready to swell when solutions are found and nicely adding a sheen to the oppressive rained out city. Some of the details found throughout the game's presentation, would have been difficult to pull off on mobile hardware, but I imagine it's quite possible these days with that technological gap decreasing with every generation.
So on one hand, Flood Of Light is an example of a decent mobile port that shows off how well a game can perform on lesser hardware. On the other hand, it's held back by the design philosophies that shaped it into being a mobile game in the first place.
However, I'm happy to say that no matter which end is more applicable, Flood Of Light is an enjoyable puzzle game. The gimmick of distributing light through series of lamps is a nice take on a puzzle design that's been done in similar ways before. It's easy to understand, while presenting a challenge that will have you scratching your head at times.
You could do a lot worse for a short, cheap little game, which turns out to be a nice relaxing puzzler to soak up in an afternoon. From what I've played on PC, I imaging it would have a decent mobile version, as it doesn't seem to have been changed much in the porting process. Of course though, that's simply conjecture.
I'm looking forward to the day when some genius comes up with the universal solution for control schemes on mobile, as they still seem to have a way to go. At the same time though, I'm super happy to see more quality tittles ending up on mobile and being ported over to PC. Hopefully the days of lazy ports of ugly games are coming to an end and we can all experience decent gaming on all systems.