Iris.Fall - Eyeball Symbolism and Light Puzzles
Get ready for some pretentious indie nonsense as we explore light-and-shadow themed puzzler, Iris.Fall. We discuss the game's Hot-Topic aesthetic, symbolism and theming, and compare it to other puzzlers like Contrast and Limbo. This week's topics include puzzle design, Apex Legends' new Ping System, and our impressions of the film 'A Ghost Story'.
Game Description
Iris.Fall is a puzzle-adventure game built around the theme of light and shadow. You play as a little girl making her way to the topic of a magical tower. The story-telling is very hands off--it's never clear if this is a dream or a memory or if it is actually happening.
The puzzles range from interesting perspective tricks using lighting and reflection to underwhelming block-sliding puzzles and Rubik's cubes. The run-time is very short, netting most players between 2 and 3 hours of gameplay.
Episode Topics
Iris.Fall vs Contrast (2:23 - 5:31)
Andy: "I will say Contrast could play with the shadow mechanic better than this one can because it didn't have set points--there was just a shadow button. You were still limited by needing a bright light to cast a shadow, but anywhere you could find that, you could use your shadow ability. It allows it to be both a puzzle and a platforming mechanic, whereas in Iris.Fall it is just a puzzle mechanic."
St0rm: "I think Iris.Fall may work better because it is a straight puzzler rather than a puzzle platformer. When you try to program a platformer, you have to test the game thoroughly because there are so many variables. As an indie developer without a huge QA department, it may be advisable to keep the gameplay simple instead of biting off more that you can chew and disappointing you audience, like 'We Happy Few'."
St0rm: "The music in this game is really good and it is used sparingly. There are long stretches with no score at all, but it works because you have areas such as 'The Gear Room' where the rythmic clanking of the gears functions as a sort of stand-in."
Andy: "I read an interview with the game's composers, Thomas Parisch and Edwin Wendler, and I confirmed that they did the sound design for the game in edition to the score--It's sort of an Akira Yakamoto situation."
Symbolism and Theming - Part 1 (11:27 - 13:26)
Andy: "This is perhaps me just being cynical, but I find myself constantly asking 'Was there a real artistic intent here, or did they take a bunch of known artsy cliches and just mash them together?'. When I heard the name 'Iris.Fall', I thought it sounded like a My Chemical Romance album."
St0rm: "I think the developers had a clear intent with the visual design of the game. It's hard to talk about without spoiling because there isn't an in-depth story here, it's more of a premise. What I will say is that the eye is sometimes associated with the soul, a theme we talked about when discussing Neil Gaimon's 'Coraline', and I think that's what Iris.Fall is hinting at."
St0rm: "The quality of the puzzles in this game vary. There are some really interesting applications of the 'using shadows to affect objects in the real world' puzzle, such as the Clockwork Servant room where you have to turn the shadow gears to affect a real mechanism. However, there are also some extremely basic puzzles such as sliding-block match-the-pictures and Rubik's cubes.
One change I would make is to space the puzzle types out. There are many segments where you do the same type of puzzle three times in a row with escalating difficulty, such as a series of progressively harder Rubik's cubes. I would have tried to mix it up a little to keep it fresh."
Andy: "One of the tricks of Puzzle Design is to let the player know when they are succeeding without making it so obvious as to let them brute-force the solution. It looks like Iris.Fall struggles with this."
Symbolism and Theming - Part 2 (38:30 - 47:48)
Andy: "I get that this is a puzzle game, but it has the feeling of 'puzzles for the sake of puzzles'. If you want to do the artsy thing, I feel like the puzzles should have some sort of thematic connection to the game. If you really wanted to make a game that symbolizes the theme of 'light and shadow', these sliding block puzzles would be horribly misplaced in it."
The Ping System from Apex Legends (56:07 - 1:01:20)
St0rm: "The ping system is revolutionary. It lets you mark any spot on the map for your teammates and also call out the position of things like weapons, ammo, armor, and enemies. It lets you communicate effectively with any player, even if they don't speak your language or understand phrases like 'Bogie on your 6'."
Andy: "It's a neat system. Unfortunately, it's pretty easy to copy--Fortnite has already implemented its own ping system."
Culture Corner: 'A Ghost Story'
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