1121

Meaningless is a minimalist 3D isometric puzzle game that was inspired by Monuments Valley art style but its gameplay was also inspired by oddly satisfying TikTok videos. Outside of my nieces sending me videos of people being disturbed and confused and odd on TikTok I don't do that platform. But I have seen the adverts where you've got a ball or something perpetually stuck in a loop and this is what Meaningless is inspired by. Each of the levels is divided up into kind of two segments and the idea is to get the ball to the exit platform because then when it does it and goes through the portal it will then continuously replay your actions frame by frame on a loop in a VHS filter that you can speed up and slow down for your satisfaction. Oh yes! So part one is arranging the blocks in the world around you so that you can try and create the path that you need to to get to the exit. And some levels are really only that stage. And you'll do this by manipulating purple blocks that will change per click per frame as to where they're going to next. And sometimes that will build a path, sometimes that will manoeuvre things out of the way. Sometimes they will be turquoise blocks and they'll be hinged so that they can kind of almost like bridges or levers kind of open and close different parts of the path as you go. And this leads me to part two. When you click the ball ball it will roll forward in perpetual motion until it kind of runs out of steam or hits something. And so what you might need to do is click on various other blocks to kind of create or close barriers as you go. It might be as you get into world two you've got bouncy pinball things that you can like launch your ball off of and sometimes that will mean that it will go over gaps, sometimes it will catapult it across the screen. It just depends on what's going on in that level. And sometimes it might mean that you need to rotate the angle of that around so that it can bounce from place to place. Other levels are much more around clearing gaps or taking advantage of some of the frame by frame movement so that it almost pushes balls up a lever or manoeuvres things back and catapults it out elsewhere. As soon as the ball stops moving it starts to fade away and you've only got a couple of seconds really before it dies and then you have to restart again so you need to make sure that you chain the actions really really nicely together otherwise you'll end up with a game over. restart again. There's two different modes to this game. The first mode is a relaxed mode where you aren't scored on how well you've done. I personally preferred this mode because mode 2, which is the challenge mode, where you're up against a certain amount of actions to get a gold, silver or bronze rating, I found permanently confusing because some levels I could only see a bronze way of doing things. Maybe this is just me missing the fact that there might be multiple exits or something like that. But sometimes I was like well you can only get a bronze here, I don't understand it. And then other times it was like it was rewinding what I was doing and giving me points back and I didn't understand what was causing what. So the whole thing was a bit confusing on scored mode. The other thing that I'd say is that this is going for a minimalistic, relaxing vibe and the scored element of that really causes friction against the rest of the way how this game is set up. It's not hard. I was able to get through most of these levels within an hour. And yeah, whilst I enjoyed myself, I didn't necessarily want to feel challenged because it wasn't the vibe that this game was creating. I just wanted to see my actions replayed on a loop so I'd be like, that's quite cool. I do have one complaint and it's purely the isometric views and the way how sometimes levels were designed so that it was a bit trial and error to work out what aligned with what. And so sometimes I'd be like, ready to go. And then I'd click my ball and then it would just roll right past what I thought it was gonna hit. I was like, oh. So yeah, minor inconvenience. It just would take a couple of goes sometimes before I'd line it all up and get it right. But this became more of a problem in the late end of the game where things started to go monument valley like impossible shape perspective i guess but yeah interesting not top tier but a curio distraction if you will in the puzzle genre meaningless is out on the 12th of july higher plane games is part of the Higher Plain Network, a completely independent media outlet supported by people like you. The goal is to create the best possible content that cultivates a richer indie scene for games as well as music and entertainment. To find out more and to get involved visit patreon.com forward slash higher plain network. Your support makes all the difference and in return you'll gain access to bonus content and downloads. Thank you for watching.