And Yet It Moves

Posted 2 years ago By kingquagmire - David Collins

It’s funny how much Indie games impress me. You would think that with all the high profile, AAA titles that hit my hands, Indie games would pale in comparison. And if I took the superficial route, they probably would. However, Indie games carry that certain special something that the big boys don’t. I don’t know if it’s the lack of a big budget, the smaller development teams or just the brazen chances taken by venturing into the unique frontiers a new IP offers (and the fact that it’s a place the bigger companies hesitate to journey into), but Indie games always manage to put originality and creativity ahead of everything else.

The most recent independent game to come across my desk is And Yet It Moves. Developed and published by Broken Rules, the game first appeared on PCs last year on Valve’s Steam platform and has now arrived to the home console courtesy of Nintendo’s WiiWare.

First, if you come expecting any kind of story, you’ll be let down as the game is entirely a gravity-based puzzle-platformer. The entire point is to get your avatar from the beginning of the level to the end by manipulating the environment ala LocoRoco. Holding the WiiMote sideways, players will move the character with the D-Pad and jump with button 2. But moving from right to left will not get you more than a few feet before running into an impassable obstacle. The key will be to take the gameworld and turn it on its head...literally.

Taking a cue from the previously mentioned LocoRoco’s playbook, players will hit button 1 to basically freeze the game. Then, by tilting the WiiMote side-to-side, the gameworld will spin around, thereby readjusting the center of gravity and where the character can walk, jump or land. Falling too far or with too much velocity, getting crushed by environmental hazards or just moving the environment while the character is in a bad position will all lead to death. Fortunately, there are plenty of checkpoints scattered about each level that does double duty by also pointing you toward the next checkpoint in case all the world-spinning has you turned around. Although, the camera can be an issue at times, positioned just a tad to close to the action. It would have been great if Broken Rules had made it adjustable. It’s not a deal breaker, but certainly an annoyance.

I was a bit leery on how well the transition to the Wii would go. But surprisingly everything worked well and to be honest, I prefer the game on the Wii over it’s PC counterpart simply because the Wii version allows for any degree of spin, where the PC version restricted you to either 90 or 180 degree increments.

And Yet It Moves for WiiWare doesn’t look any different than the PC version. This isn’t a bad thing as the wonderfully colored, crumpled paper cut-out aesthetic reminisces of childhood magazine collages. Even still, it remains a unique and interesting style that I hope other developers consider adopting for various projects. The subtle coloring and minimalistic design keeps the focus on what’s important: the physics puzzling.

For me, one play through of the 20 or so levels was enough. Not that there is anything wrong so much as I just was disinterested by the time I got to the end. With that said, should I decide to come back to the game, there are a ton of different options available to tweak the gameplay. From the typical Time Trial, Speed Run and Survival modes to the interesting Limited Rotation mode, there’s plenty here to add a little spice to the game once you’ve run through it. Throw in the unlockables and the Wii-chievements and there’s a lots of opportunities to squeeze more time out of your 1000 WP ($10) purchase.

Conclusion

The biggest complaint I have is none of the puzzles are very taxing on the brain. That doesn’t mean you won’t have some trouble with the game, but the troubles are more with getting from point A to Point B than they are with trying to figure out what to do or where to go. But, if puzzle-platforming is your thing, And Yet It Moves is a solid effort that should have no problems finding a place in your game library. Great level design, improved controls over its PC brother and interesting visuals bring a fresh feel to the genre that easily makes it worth the price of admission, regardless of its flaws.