coign of vantage

2 A Perspective
“Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.” spewed Einstein while coming off of a caffeine high staring at a chalkboard of equations that a far from simple, or so I assume. Whatever the circumstances, such a mantra has rung true in almost every creative or intellectual medium, and especially true in the realm of games. Unfortunately coign of vantage is on the less common side of the equation, it is simply… too simple to be fully enjoyed.

coign of vantage gives you one objective, rearrange a collection of squares in a fashion where they correlate with the target pixel art. That may sound simple, even boring, but the combination of the abstract art style and equally abstract game mechanics suggests that the gameplay runs deeper than my description gives it justice.

The control scheme is extremely simple and more importantly intuitive. Your only input is moving the mouse. Moving the mouse left rotates the squares “left” in a mesmerizing pattern. Move it right and squares dart “right”, respectively. The same action applies to moving the mouse forward and back, so the moment you move the mouse and make the connection between your mouse movement and the movement patterns of the squares, you are immediately aware of all your possible actions in every degree of freedom. Experiencing this control scheme is one of primary reasons for playing this game. Unfortunately its significance only stems from the lack of other reasons to play.

The mouse movements to square movement to target image matching mechanics are very beautifully demonstrated by the tutorials which simply call for the player to move the mouse to the target coordinates and amazingly the closer you get the image magically forms.

After the tutorials you are given no mouse target but only a target image to match. The magic of the first experience wears thin extremely quickly. On my first solo attempt I wildly moved the mouse around and suddenly I managed to match the image. “Beginners Luck” I assumed, followed by that same luck repeating three more times. This is one of the main problems of the game, you feel completely detached from actually doing anything meaningful so you blindly flail around until a hint of the image forms. Unfortunately by that time you are so close to the goal that finishing is trivial.

This feeling of doing nothing meaningful while suddenly accomplishing the goal is the game’s primary annoyance. The problem is further exacerbated by the design choice of automatically detecting a properly aligned image. Adding an action as simple as requiring the player to click when they think they have a properly aligned image would add so much to the level of immersion.

Another detrimental design choice is allowing the possibility of creating an arrangement which is well defined but a mirror of the target image but not counting this arrangement as a valid solution. This works directly in opposition of the primary objective of using your mouse to make a clear arrangement. You have been flailing your mouse around and suddenly the squares arrange to form a crystal clear image. What happens is that you sit there trying to perfect the arrangement since you assume that the arrangement is just slightly off. Once you get adequately frustrated, you realize that it’s a mirror image and you need to start over.

Ultimately, these annoyances are just that, annoying. My biggest gripe is the meta-game. The goal is to match as many images as you can within the time limit. The countdown clock does a great job of limiting how long you play but doesn’t have many benefits beyond that. With each matched image you are simply rewarded with another image to match. There is no noticeable difficulty curve, nor are there any rewards for matching images other than incrementing the “Number of Matched Images” counter. Usually one would expect the images to get more complex as you get farther along, or at least more intricate or aesthetically pleasing, really anything to keep you in the game.

Once you’ve matched a couple images beyond the tutorial, it feels like you have experienced everything the game has to offer regardless of the impeding timer.

The timer eventually reaches the inevitable and you are given the high-score list along with a nice statement telling you how many images you have matched. At this point I’d like to say that you think to yourself, “Oh man! If only I had matched 3 more images I would have been in 5th place. I’m going to try again and maybe I’ll arrange a ton of more really awesome, really beautiful images” but I can’t. In the end you come out experiencing an interesting control scheme, a clever game mechanic, and an appropriately utilized art style but you can’t shake the feeling that this is nothing more than a tech demo dressed up as a game.

3 All I see is a perspective, when it comes to 3D games.
Coign of Vantage is this strange 3-D puzzle game where you have to move the mouse until you find the right position to assemble the picture; it’s good concept; it’s challenging, but however, the flaw is that it’s not fun enough. But it had interesting concept, and I’ve never seen any game like this, so I’ll give this a 3/5 for effort.