Third Review: Forest Marathon
Story: Forest Marathon features a girl main character outdoors exploring the average platform world in search of acorns. The structure consists of her starting out in a suburb illustrated level in which she searches for five acorns to pass. She progresses through each of the levels until the end when she stumbles upon the ultimate "Giant Acorn". Although there is a middle and end to the narrative, as to where the story starts is not very clear. Maybe her start was the controls and objective introduction however it was also not clear as to why the consumer should care about getting the acorns until the last level (when you see the huge acorn). It is also refreshing how the game features a female protagonist rather than the female side character.
*Note: I should make my structure and reasoning for my game are clear, although I did notice that the middle of the narrative is the attention holder so I need to keep that in mind.


Art: The art appears very grid-like, as if there was a glitch in the program. This makes the game appear incomplete but also replicates a Supermario Bros image. The visuals are able to appeal to a younger audience due to it's simple outlook in contrast to older consumers which prefer a more realistic diegesis. The colors are simple and bold which suggest that the game has a straight forward and simple approach. These bold colors are fine but it is also in danger of being so simple that it may fail to maintain the consumers attention. I am considering bright, bold and neon colors for my game design as these colors may attract the eye more. However I do not want the audience to be overwhelmed with the color so I will try to avoid over doing the colors. Although, because the characters and background are simple it is simpler for the audience to understand and keep up with the story.


Game-Play: The game play is also consistent with your average platform game. With the arrow buttons for movement and the space button to jump, it appears that the majority of platform games retain these controls for the game play. There were no antagonists and the jumping could use some work as the protagonist jumps it looked like I could fly. With my game, I will attempt to make the movements in the game-play clear and well executed to minimize gaming confusion