A serviceable, speed-based platformer in need of a good shave
May 06, 2017 Coconut Island Studio’s foray into gaming has lead to the meditative looking platformer, Shio.The game is now available for PC and Mac on Steam and will run you $11.99 USD. As per usual, there. Money Movers, our favorite puzzle platformer is back! Complete each level by reaching the exit using switches, lasers, moving platforms and more. The 2 brothers in Money Movers 2 are trying to save their father by breaking in. N is the world’s best platformer. The vast single-player campaign is action-packed, skill-based, challenging and rewarding. Local multiplayer races and co-op are perfect at parties, and you can even make and share your own levels with the built-in level editor. We collected 598 of the best free online platform games. These games include browser games for both your computer and mobile devices, as well as apps for your Android and iOS phones and tablets. They include new platform games such as Fall Beans and top platform games such as Fall Beans, Crazy Roll 3D, and Fireboy and Watergirl in the Forest Temple. The main engine which drives you to continue challenging yourself and overcome obstacles in the world of “Shio” is the story of the masked man. Nobody knowns exactly what happened to him and why he insists on keeping silent. Version 1.2.0: We’ve changed the game process. Player will wake up at a lake house at the beginning.
'Take out the trash, take out the trash, so much trash, it never stops.'
If you’re unfamiliar with Shio, that sounds like an unfair quote to begin with. I’ll admit, it’s not the ideal tone-setter for a review, but it does sum up precisely what Shio needs to do in order to really succeed as the speed-based platformer it aspires to be.
There’s a little too much fluff. Reams of vague ponderings upon life’s futility, or flyaway comments about oily hair and mysterious strangers with no apparent consequence. Every now and then, I get visions of an empty lake, in which I walk like two paces as a little girl before waking up, and the only way I can hope to decode its meaning is by playing a kind of lantern bouncy castle. And in a game marketed as a choice follow-up to Super Meat Boy, I’d sooner just take the lanterns.
Shio presents itself as a side-scrolling platformer in the vein of Super Meat Boy, where the aim is to traverse wide, obstacle-laden ravines to reach a save point. You play as a nameless, gowned protagonist who encounters a mysterious journal and mask, before journeying across a series of dreamlike environments for reasons that.. well..
I’m sure there are reasons, but whatever drive there is behind the protagonist’s adventure is secondary to level design. Like Team Meat’s addictive fury-fest, the player gradually explores environments spanning multiple screens using trial-and-error, before gliding, bouncing and hovering their way to the end of each level. One of the most striking differences is its world, and it is beautifully rendered. The protagonist’s mysterious dreamland looks like the accompanying illustration to an ancient Japanese fairytale, pitching the land’s distinctive architecture against hazy mountain backdrops to match the game’s semi-spiritual tone.
The included four chapters are also themed around the four seasons, with weather conditions minorly altering the playstyle required for each environment. Some stages, for example, take place at sunset, requiring continual movement to avoid being fried by harsh rays of light. Rest assured, though, it’s sensitively-designed in terms of difficulty curve; familiarizing the player with obstacles and their required strategy through light tutorial levels, before growing steadily more complex as each stage progresses. There’s the slightest bit of puzzle-solving to be seen, but all are straightforward. A general rule is to hit all visible lanterns to successfully reach the next save point, and once you locate them all, it’s pretty self-explanatory where to go.
The control scheme is instinctive, and simplistic enough to work into your muscle memory within a few seconds of the game’s opening. Similar to Meat Boy, levels are peppered with death-pits, flames, and wheels of spiked, molten iron, all with the ability to fry the protagonist in a single hit. Interspersed throughout each level are lanterns, which you can use to give your leaps some extra distance; rather than ricocheting off of walls and corridors with your squishy, meaty body.
Shio 1 2 0 – A Challenging Platformer Game Tutorial
Save points are generously frequent on the standard mode, opening it up for more casual play, and especially satisfying to chip away at on car journeys and coffee breaks, while still making progress. Though, if you are craving some tough-as-nails punishment, there is a hard mode available, which includes narrower passageways and fewer save points to heighten the challenge level.
However, there are certain inconsistencies running (often glaringly) across Shio. While Super Meat Boy emphasised swiftness and repetition and stuck to its guns, Shio can’t decide if it prioritises calculation or speed. Consequently, it often attempts to value both, through requiring Shio to move quickly, while including so many moving hazards that evading all obstacles and still making it through unscathed is largely due to luck. Consequently, the best method for traversing Shio’s clean, minimalist world is trial-and-error.
There is a minor tendency for the protagonist to halt suddenly while holding the directional buttons, but that only happened while walking between save points, and it never interrupted the platforming.
Technically speaking, Shio makes a serviceable - and very often satisfying - addition to the camp of addicting, speedrunners celebrated on the indie market. What prevents it potentially being celebrated is that it fails to assert itself clearly within that genre. From start to finish, Shio can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be an atmospheric adventure game, or a pulsy platforming affair. What you get as a result is a confused mix of the steady, stoic pace of Journey, and Super Meat Boy, with its emphasis on swift progression and trial and error. Deliveries 3 2 2 12.
Shio prides itself so heavily on being a challenging, rapid-fire platformer, but works considerably against it in pursuit of something more complex. Characters speak only in vague hints, rambling about unknown strangers and oily hair, with little elaboration. There are times in which the impulsive, rapid-fire level progression is put on hold for ‘storytime’, which most often amount to prolonged ‘walking’ sequences and laboured, existential ponderings. One early sequence stands out in particular, where you’re stuck with guiding a small child from right to left through a despondent, grey landscape. You wake up, hold right for a bit and wait for the scene to end, before recovering your senses as the protagonist to resume the preferable lantern bouncing.
I’d have no problem believing many of these plodding sequences were included to allow the player to take in Shio’s gorgeously simple world. Sure enough, the minimalist design and tonal palette are pretty enough, but neither justify removing the player from the satisfying flow derived from the swift platforming, and there’s no additional reason given for how these scenes relate to the protagonist’s journey. This is certainly a story intended to be read into (and it’s made clear that Shio’s story must be pieced together by searching hidden rooms), but in a platformer that tries so hard elsewhere to replicate the speed-running appeal of Meat Boy, narrative analysis feels decidedly out of place.
Shio takes itself too seriously for what is essentially a speed-based platformer. There’s too much fluff padding out an attractive, rapid-run platformer, and I have a feeling if they’d dropped the wibbly-wobbly narrative and tweaked the level design, Shio may - ironically - have proven far more engaging.
Our ratings for Shio on PlayStation 4 out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
70
Shio differentiates itself from other platformers of its ilk through a simplistic, yet bold visual style, using an emotive colour palette to render a beautifully-stylised ancient Japan.
Shio 1 2 0 – A Challenging Platformer Game Free
69
Shio’s tightly-constructed obstacle courses can be hair-raising in a way Super Meat Boy fans will surely remember, but often can’t decide whether it values speed or calculation more. The result? Asking impulsivity of stages designed to require hesitation.
65
Often to pleasing effects, Shio blends the rapid-fire obstacle evasion of Super Meat Boy with ancient Japanese culture, but often wanders down the path of the ‘atmospheric adventure’, presenting obscure exposition sequences that only allude to something deeper.
NR
Performance
Alongside its nippy controls, Shio runs almost without fault on the PlayStation 4, with the occasional tendency for character movement to halt while holding the directional buttons.
Shio evidently understands the appeal of gliding elegantly between obstacle-riddled levels like an invincible pro, and often comes across as a more casual Super Meat Boy. Yet, the foggy storyline feels distanced from its rapid-fire level design, which can make the attempts at a meditative atmosphere feel forced and alienating.
Coconut Island Studio’s foray into gaming has lead to the meditative looking platformer, Shio. The game is now available for PC and Mac on Steam and will run you $11.99 USD. As per usual, there is a early purchase incentive with 10% off for those that purchase the game before May 11th.
The game takes place in an unnamed part of ancient Chinese history and concerns a man with a mask on his head looking for answers. He doesn’t say a word during his quest but he will be guided by others as he seeks unknown desires. His mysteries will become your mysteries and the story that will unravel will not be of the happy variety.
Gameplay consists of tricky platforming and multiple jumps while you avoid dangerous traps. This will be a Super Meat Boy level of difficulty and you should expect to die a lot and often. Lanterns will be there to guide your way but they might not always be the way you want to go.
Other features include:
Original side-scrolling platform game: As a difficult side-scroller game, you need to “beat” the game only by using lanterns. There are no “enemies”, the only enemy is an “environment” challenging levels design will never make you feel bored.
Meaningful scene layout: The game divided into four chapters, each chapter represents its own mood, its own weather. This “weather” will affect the level design and challenges that player will facing with.
All kinds of traps: Players will find many various traps and obstacles, the key is to learn how they work and be familiar with them.
Background music: There is no game without music in it, music in the game plays the main role. Composed individually for every chapter in the game, it enchanting all feelings from the game.
Sad and mysterious story: The main engine which drives players to continue challenge themselves and overcome difficulties is the story of masked man. Nobody knows what happened to him and why he always keeps silence.
Shio 1 2 0 – A Challenging Platformer Gameplay
Shio can be found on Steam starting today. A launch trailer is available below: