Entwined is a rhythm game developed by PixelOpus for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.
Warning there be spoilers ahead! Read at your own peril!
Entwined’s gameplay can be broken down into two sections:
PowerUp
- An on the rails experience in a tube game space with a fish and bird respectively confined to a half of the tube.
- Each side of the tube has a PowerUp bar that is filled by the player collecting objects contained on that side.
- Objects are collected through the player moving the fish and bird using their controllers joysticks.
- When the bar is full the player morphs into a dragon and goes into the SkyWrite section.
SkyWrite
- A freeroam experience where players use their controllers joysticks to fly around a fixed area collecting orbs till the sections PowerUp bar is filled.
- Once the PowerUp bar is filled the player can SkyWrite leaving a persistant trail.
- When SkyWriting is complete the player can proceed to the next PowerUp section to continue the game.
Like
- Beautiful visuals
- When the bird and fish come close together their color melds into a green, which is the same color of the dragon they later morph into.
- Little orbs used to direct player to fly interesting areas
- Powerup system links into joystick controls well
- Great tutorial. The developers employed practical examples with clear visual indicators in both PowerUp and SkyWrite sections.
- Good use of orange and blue which are strong color themes throughout game
Dislike
- PowerUp sections get repetitive. There are nine PowerUp sections which use similar joystick patterns.
- Skywrite is pretty to look at, but it could tie in better to the main game experience.
Improve
- Orbs in the PowerUp section should be brighter and larger as they are difficult to see (particularly when against a similar color background) until player is right on them giving the player little time to react
- Instead of directly punishing players for missing PowerUp objects a multiplier system could be introduced. When players miss an object it would instead reduce a capped multiplier.
- The SkyWrite drawings could be saved and added into the last level. This would add more value to SkyWriting by both tying it in to the end of the game, and make the games ending more personalized.
