Here is a quick analysis of what makes me, as a player, interested in playing Double Wires, a ’swinging on ropes’ flash game (yep, spidey stylez!). In this game design analysis I am looking to understand what motivates me as a player to play the game.

In Double Wires you have one rope in each hand, and each click of the mouse throws out a rope from alternating hands. You throw out ropes in front of you to keep swinging forward. The concept is great; simple, fun, challenging! It hits many of the key attributes of a good core mechanic, although its other non-essential elements (visuals, level design) are rather lacking.

Double Wires - an excellent concept poorly executed.

For how long did I play? 6 minutes.

What hooked me:

1. Simple physics-based mechanics that implicitly described my goals. I knew what I had to do without any explanation.
2. No distractions from actually playing the mechanic. I was experiencing the core mechanic within seconds of starting to play; swinging with two ropes, from ceiling to ceiling. Gorgeous! Some games suffer from pulling me away from actually playing the core mechanic, wasting my time – this game certainly did not.
3. Groking the mechanic and improving my skills was almost instant. It only took me a couple turns to get used to some of the subtleties of the design; the length of the ropes, how long each connected rope would stay alive, how fast I would move through the air, the elasticity of the ropes etc. Not only was it easy to improve, the better I got, the better it felt to fluidly swing through the air.

What broke me:

1. The difficult curve. I found the difficulty at the very start of the level quite easy, however it becomes 50x harder within about 10 seconds of the first level and for me that broke the whole system. It was completely unapologetic and did not ramp with me gently. Personally I cannot be bothered to pursue it since I feel like the skill I was gaining was not rewarded. I stopped playing here. I knew I liked the concept, and I wanted more, but the challenge to get over that initial wall was too high! Essentially, all that skill I felt I was gaining, was wasted because it still was not enough.
2. Vision impairment and level design awkwardness! The screen scrolls sideways at a constant speed like the infamous ‘Helicopter game’. However as you move faster than the camera speed, you reach the far right edge of the screen (the direction you’re heading) and the camera then begins to scroll with you at your speed to keep up, putting you at a constant 20-30% from the right edge. This is an issue because you need surfaces to shoot your rope onto and you don’t get much of a chance to see them coming when you’re up against the far right edge. This means you are effectively punished for moving faster than the camera. Ideally, you’d be kept on the left side so you can always see whats coming. Furthermore it would have been nice if the ceilings weren’t so low to start with!

Summary:

• Fell in love with the concept instantly.
• My experience soured almost as quickly once I hit an unforgiving and pointlessly hard difficulty curve.

I might be back, when I’m not tired.

Why am I doing this gameplay analysis? See ‘Analysing the shorter game experience’.

EDIT (the next night): I just replayed it and got much further. I like this game enough to return, but am still disappointed by its level design.

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