Summary

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a highly anticipated and well-executed retelling of the classic 1997 RPG. The story follows the original plot closely, but with added depth and detail to the characters and their motivations. The game’s mechanics are a combination of real-time action and strategic command-based combat, which offers a satisfying level of challenge and engagement. The game’s aesthetics are stunning, with detailed character models and lush environments that truly bring the world of Midgar to life.

FF7 Remake can found here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1462040/FINAL_FANTASY_VII_REMAKE_INTERGRADE/

Story

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a retelling of the original Final Fantasy 7 game, which was released in 1997. The story takes place in a world where a powerful corporation known as Shinra is extracting a mysterious energy source known as Mako from the earth, which is causing the planet to become increasingly unstable. The game follows the story of Cloud Strife, a former member of a powerful military organization known as SOLDIER, who joins a group of eco-terrorists known as AVALANCHE to fight against Shinra and uncover the truth about Mako and the planet’s fate. Along the way, Cloud and his allies will encounter a variety of characters, each with their own agendas and secrets, and will uncover a web of political intrigue and ancient secrets that threaten to change the course of history. (Trying to avoid spoilers)

Mechanics

Final Fantasy 7 Remake features a variety of mechanics that help to make the game engaging and fun to play. One example is the game’s combat system, which is a mix of real-time action and turn-based strategy. The game features a variety of moves and abilities that players can use to attack, defend, and heal. Players control one character at a time and can switch between characters during battle.

While the player only controls one active character at a time, the player can also command other characters to take on the same actions through a command-based menu that slows time after it pops-up, allowing players to combo different attacks, defence and healing actions using multiple characters, as seen below.

Players also have the ability to use special moves, called “Materia” which are powerful abilities that can be customized to fit the players needs. Some materia grants increased stats such as increasing one’s health points or critical chance, while others grant special abilities such as a unique attack after dodging or healing spells. These materia can be upgraded by simply playing the game while equipping the materia.

The game also features a “Weapon Core” system that allows players to switch a character between different combat roles such as offense, healing, and support, based on the weapon they choose to equip on each character. It is essentially a leveling and upgrade system, allowing players to customize their characters and improve their abilities through spending exprience points to upgrade their weapons. Players earn experience through defeating enemies, completing quests and solving puzzles. These experience points can be used to improve the characters health, magic and abilities.

The “Materia” and “Weapon Core” systems allows players to build their characters using the playstyle they like as well as to serve as an added layer of strategy on harder difficulties.

Aesthetics

Final Fantasy 7 Remake boasts strong aesthetics in a number of ways. One example is its detailed and highly-realistic character models and environments. The game uses advanced 3D graphics and motion capture technology to create highly-detailed and expressive character models, which are brought to life through realistic animations and facial expressions. Additionally, the game also features richly-detailed environments that are filled with interactive objects and richly-textured backgrounds that create a sense of immersion and realism.

Lens of the Hero’s Journey

The game makes use of it’s story to outline a Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey has 12 stages,

1. Ordinary World
2. Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Meeting with the Mentor
5. Crossing the First threshhold
6. Tests, Allies & Enemies
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave
8. The Ordeal
9. Reward
10. The Road Back
11. The Ressurrection
12. Return with the Elixir

FF7 Remake is the first installment of it’s trilogy, and includes the first 6 stages of the “The Hero’s Journey”, by including stereotypical elements in it’s story structure. It outlines how Cloud Strife, a cynical and disillusioned ex-SOLDIER for Shinra, acting as a mere mercenary, joins up with the AVALANCHE terrorist group to defeat SHINRA. He is reluctant to join them at first, but through the multiple jobs that he undertakes with them, overcomes many challenges and gains many allies both familiar and unfamiliar. This marks the beginning of Cloud’s Journey as a hero.

Lens of Juiciness

The game is well-designed in terms of “Juice” (dynamic feedback that rewards players for their actions). One example of “Juice” in Final Fantasy 7 Remake is the way the game rewards players for successfully executing combos in combat. As players chain together attacks, they build up a “combo meter” that, when filled, triggers a powerful “finisher” move that deals extra damage to enemies. This dynamic feedback, in the form of the growing combo meter and the satisfying payoff of the finisher move, encourages players to experiment with different combinations of attacks and to strive for higher combo counts. Additionally, the game also rewards players with different type of rewards such as experience points, items, and money. These rewards provides players motivation to keep playing and to try out different strategies in combat, which makes the game more engaging.

Another way that FF7 Remake offers juicy interfaces is through the materia and leveling systems outlined above. Through these systems, the player can create a certain playstyle for themselves through a unique combination of materia and leveling choices. Following which the players can test out these abilities during combat. This provides a continuous feedback loop for the player, informing them on what playstyles are most efficient or the most fun, allowing them to make more engaging choices during character customization.

Lens of the World

Through the Lens of “The World”, the game strongly builds a sense of immersion in the player, conveyed through detailed world-building and character development. . The game takes place in the city of Midgar, a sprawling metropolis that serves as the game’s primary setting. The game spends a significant amount of time exploring the city, depicting its various districts, and the different people who live there. The game also explores the political and social issues that arise in Midgar, such as poverty, pollution, and the exploitation of the city’s lower classes by the powerful Shinra corporation. This level of detail and nuance in the game’s setting creates a believable and immersive world that players can become fully invested in.

Additionally, the game also builds a strong sense of immersion through its character development. The game’s main characters, Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barret, among others, all have their own unique backstory, motivations, and personality. The game also explores the relationships between these characters, and how they change and evolve over the course of the story. The characters are complex and relatable, which helps to create a sense of immersion for the player as they are able to get to know the characters and understand their motivations.

Furthermore, the game also creates a sense of immersion through its use of cutscenes, voice acting and dialogue that convey a sense of continuity and realism. All this elements work together to create a believable and engaging story that players can become fully invested in, which is one of the key elements of the “The World” lens.

Lens of the Player

The game is also well designed through the lens of “The Player”, offering a range of difficulty levels and playstyles to appeal to different types of players.

One example of how Final Fantasy 7 Remake offers different playstyles to appeal to different types of players is through its difficulty settings. The game offers four difficulty levels: “Easy,” “Normal,” “Hard,” and “Classic.” “Easy” mode is designed for players who are new to the series or who want a more relaxed experience, with fewer enemies and less challenging combat. “Normal” mode is the default setting and offers a balanced experience for most players. “Hard” mode is designed for experienced players who want a greater challenge, with tougher enemies and more demanding combat. “Classic” mode is an additional difficulty level that is exclusive to the Remake, that emulates the gameplay style of the original game by introducing a more dynamic and strategic turn-based combat system.

This range of difficulty levels allows players to choose the type of experience that best suits their preferences and skill level, which makes the game more accessible and appealing to a wider range of players. Furthermore, the game offers players different playstyles by allowing players to customize their characters abilities, weapons, and spells, which allows players to tailor the game to their own preferences and playstyles.

Conclusion

Overall, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a faithful and visually stunning retelling of the beloved original game that will delight both new players and returning fans. The game is an excellent example of how to take a classic game and make it feel fresh and exciting while still staying true to the original.

Bloons Tower Defense 6 (BTD6) is a tower defense game, where the player place monkey towers to pop and destroy balloons trying to reach the end of the map. The game allows Singleplayer and Cooperative Multiplayer on both PC and Mobile platforms. It was initially developed as a tower defense flash game on the browser and the series was launched which included the development of other similar games with the theme of balloon popping (Bloons Monkey City, Bloons Tower Defense Battle etc).

Gameplay

The gameplay like, other tower defense games, is simple to understand and pick up. The player has money which can be used to buy different types of towers with different effects and use them to attack(pop) the balloons trying to reach the end of the map which will cause the player to lose lives. Towers have different attacking types, some having an area of effect attack while others specialise in popping multiple layers, slowing the balloons down, or providing utility effects like buffs to other towers. The towers can be upgraded into different paths to specialise in different effects, allowing many combinations and strategies. The balloons, unlike other tower defense games, have health in the form of layers. For example, red balloons take one pop to be destroyed, blue balloons take one pop and release red balloons. Balloons increase in layers with each layer releasing lower tier balloons when popped. Some types of balloons also have special abilites such as being stealth from most towers (camo) or requiring special popping power (lead). There are also giant balloons that release many stronger balloons and require a lot more attacks to be destroyed.
This requires the player to strategise how to combine different kinds of towers and lay them out optimally in order to be able to handle the different kinds of waves the game sends (Lens of Problem Solving).
All the maps also have difficulty levels which changes factors such as lives and costs of towers and upgrades to challenge the player (Lens of Challenge). This ensures that difficulties can be suited to each player’s preference and players do not find the game too easy after playing for long.

Environment

The game features different kinds of maps with varying difficulties for the player to play on. Each map is unique in the pathing of the balloons and the areas that the player can build on. Some maps also have hidden secrets like pressing a button for redirecting balloons or mechanics like requiring money to unlock more areas to build towers on (Lens of Secrets).
This makes each play of the game different and interesting as the strategy for tower placing is always new.

Progression

At the start players are given only basic towers to use and these towers do not have any upgrades unlocked for purchasing yet. Players have to use the towers in order to gain experience and these experience points can be used to permanently unlock the different upgrade paths to allow players to purchase the upgrade in the game. There is also a rank system for the player that unlocks more towers on rank up and also grants players skill points to be used for spending on skill trees that give permanent buffs to towers and gameplay. On completion of maps, players are awarded badges that is shown on their profile page.
Players can spend skill points depending on what towers they want to focus on in the game, for example utility towers or specialised towers (Lens of Meaningful Choices).
When playing cooperative multiplayer, depending on the skill trees of the players, different players can choose different roles depending on the towers they build (Lens of Cooperation).
The experience, rank, skill tree system and badges are not only essential to the gameplay but also shows the progress and time spent by each player to achieve the rank which differentiates casual players and hardcore players (Lens of Visible Progress).

Elemental Tetrad

This game focuses largely on game mechanics, having many towers with different kinds of projectiles and balloons with special properties. The storyline is short and simple, monkey popping balloons. Towers have interesting identities such as the Super Monkey which is a powerful tower imitating a super hero or Banana farms which is used for currency gain with the idea of ‘farming money’. With this weird storyline as a theme, the game uses cartoon graphics and animations to design each tower and balloon (Aesthetics). As this game was initially developed as a flash game, it retains the technology required which is simple keyboard and mouse inputs. Since BTD5, it has also been developed on mobile platforms to allow people to play on the go. From BTD1 up till BTD6, every release brings new types of monkeys and upgrade changes which is shows the development of the game mechanics that the game focuses heavily on.

Gamelink: https://store.steampowered.com/app/960090/Bloons_TD_6/

Introduction

Factorio is a sandbox, factory-building, resource management game where your goal is to construct a rocket to get off the planet you are stranded on. To do so, the factory must grow. You start off with nothing but a few tools and you must collect resources, construct buildings, research new technologies and automate such processes.

Factorio can be found here: https://www.factorio.com/

The Elemental Tetrad

Story

You play as an engineer that has crashed onto an alien planet. You will have to make use of the abundance of resources on the new planet to develop a factory that manufactures, transports materials and researches technology to construct a rocket to get home. However, the indigenous fauna will not take kindly to your exploits. You will have to defend yourself and your factory from their advances.

Aesthetic

Factorio is a dieselpunk-esque top down game. The graphics are semi-realistic and the gritty look adds to the industrial feel of the game. The top down view gives the player a good overview of the factory. While the graphics are neither flashy nor pretty, they work well as they do not distract the player from the core gameplay.

Mechanics

Players are able to navigate the map via the WASD keys. Combat is fairly simple, with <Space> allowing the player to empty their weapon into the hostile entity closest to the cursor. <Tab> allows the player to cycle through their weapons.

<E> opens the character screen, which presents the player with their inventory and a crafting menu. The player will have to collect resources and craft components in order to produce different resources to craft even more machinery.

As they progress, the players will also have to research more advanced technology to aid the factory expansion.

The player’s factory will generate pollution that will trigger waves of attacks from hostiles from nearby nests. Other than having to rapidly construct various supply chains, the player will also have to protect their factory. Buildings such as turrets and walls can be placed by players to defend their factory. Enemies will also evolve to be more dangerous as the game continues. The evolution factor (which affects the probability in which enemies evolve) will increase as the time passes, as pollution increases and as more nests are destroyed by the player. Players can check via the map where pollution has spread.

Technology

Factorio was developed using a proprietary engine written by the developers, in C++. There is also mod support, where users can make use of the Factorio API to create mods using the Lua programming language, providing even more gameplay content to an already content-rich game. The game is rather optimized and is able to run at a stable 60 frames per second (fps) despite large numbers of entities.

Other lenses

The Lens of Problem Solving

Just like in programming, players are going to have to do a lot of debugging. Why is production of green science packs so slow? Why has production of engines ceased completely? How can production of ammunition be optimised?

With the increasing need of automated production of newer resources, players will constantly have to figure out how to get a production line set up for said resources.

Whether or not a supply chain can be optimised is also up to the player to figure out. In Factorio, the speed at which the machinery operate and other metrics are provided. Players can use such information to further optimse their supply chains, for example, if the machinery is constantly waiting for iron gears, the bottleneck can be solved by placing more assembly machines to craft more iron gears.

The Lens of Simplicity / Complexity

Certain items or buildings in Factorio require other items to craft. Some can be crafted by hand, and some can only be crafted by Assembling Machines. Factorio is a complex game. While it can be simple (and possible!) to just run around your base, ferrying materials from building to assembly machines, or manually crafting them, it is more often than not very time consuming and too much of a hassle to keep up with. Instead, players can automate the crafting of such items. Transport belts and trains help move resources from one place to another. Inserters feed resources into or remove crafted items from machinery. Machinery will also require electricity or fuel to work. There is a lot for the player to consider with regards to how the production line can be placed.

The Lens of Visible Progress

One obvious way the player is able to check their progress is by bringing up the technology screen by pressing <T>. It shows the list of technologies that can be researched in the game, indicating which has been researched, which can be researched and which is still unavailable. As the player progresses, they will be able to see more and more researched technologies. Another obvious way the player can view their progress is via the size of their factory. As they continue playing, the once barren lands will slowly fill with increasingly efficient and powerful machinery.

The Lens of Atmosphere

Graphics and sound effects play a very big part in the atmosphere on the game. As mentioned earlier, the gritty look of the game play into the industiral feel of it. As the player navigates through their factory, they will be able to hear the factory working. The inserters can be heard whirring to life, the assembling machines are chugging away, the radars are beeping, the science labs are sciencing, and the boilers and steam engines are… actually really noisy. As you zoom in on your character running, you hear the footsteps getting louder and louder. In the distance, some turret shots can be heard as another wave of hostile biters are wiped out for daring to approach your factory.

Conclusion

There is no time for a conclusion. The factory must grow.

Introduction

The Monster Hunter Series are Adventure RPGs (Role Playing Games) from the Japanese company CAPCOM. For this analysis I will write on the latest installment of the series, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, which I will hereby refer to simply as ‘Sunbreak’. The game follows the player, a world-renown hunter of high regard, as he tries to uncover the mysteries behind the strange harrowing phenomenon afflicting monsters across the world.

Website

https://www.monsterhunter.com/rise-sunbreak/en-us/

Gameplay

Lens #7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

• Quest System
  • Players go on quests where they usually have a target monster to slay or items to gather and deliver within a time limit.
  • Each quest can be seen as a single ‘level’ in the game, where players have to complete before they can embark on another quest.
• Combat
  • Players can choose between 14 different weapon types, with 11 being melee weapons and 3 being projectile weapons.
  • The different weapons all have different movesets and combo attacks, and different strategies as well.
  • Monsters will move between areas in the map throughout the duration of the quest, and the players will have to travel to the different areas to continue the hunt.
  • Monsters have their own movesets and special attacks which players can learn and master dodging or blocking them.
• Rewards System
  • After completing quests, players will receive in-game money, known as Zenny, as well as other consumable items or items used to forge new equipment.
  • Monster slaying quests will allow the player to ‘carve’ materials off the fallen monster as well as receive monetary and more monster material rewards.
  • Players will receive more monster material rewards if they manage to break certain monster parts during the hunt.
• Equipment Forging and Upgrading
  • Players can forge new equipment or upgrade existing equipment using the monster materials they have received after completing quests.
  • Each monster has their own separate armor and weapon design, as well as different perks which will enhance the player’s abilities.
  • As monsters get progressively more challenging to defeat, players are advised to forge new equipment or upgrade existing equipment to level the playing field.
• Multiplayer
  • While the player can choose to finish the whole game on his own, the series offers online multiplayer. Players can go on quests together, up to a party of 4.
  • Monster health will scale accordingly to the number of hunters on the quests, to be fair to the single players.
  • Players can gift consumables to other players in game, so they can help each other out if they are low on health or stamina.
  • Certain consumables and equipment are able to provide buffs for teammates, to enhance the team’s abilities.

Story

The player plays as a legendary monster slayer who has helped many a village (and of course, the whole world) with their monster problems. It is set in a fantasy world where the inhabitants are not as technologically advanced as us, as they are still using technology such as ballista cannons and spearguns instead of modern warfare technology. The series’ main storylines revolve around an unknown large boss monster or phenomenon, that riles up smaller monsters which endanger the village dwellers. The player’s job is to hunt the smaller monsters and slowly uncover information about the final boss monster causing all this havoc, and eventually reach and defeat the final boss. After defeating the final boss, the players complete the story but are able to replay quests and gather more materials for more powerful gear.

Aesthetics

Sunbreak and the other Monster Hunter games are set in a technologically less advanced world, which may invoke a sense of calling back to the past. Speaking to the villagers will also uncover that the world lore is rich and well-thought, and they sometimes reference older games as well, which gives loyal players of the franchise a sense of continuity. They also showcase many beautiful locales where the player can hunt monsters in, for example, the Lava Caverns in the above gameplay video. There are also many different monster designs in the game, each with their own special movesets. As mentioned earlier, each monster has their own separate armor and weapon design, as well as different enhancements for the player. Players are able to interact with many different entities in the world, such as gathering consumables from gathering points, activating natural traps or aids to weaken the monster or buff the players. Certain events in the game will trigger the Switch controllers to vibrate as well, giving the player a small sense of immersion into the game.

Technology

Sunbreak was made using CAPCOM’s very own RE Engine, or Reach for the Moon Engine. It was created in 2014, originally for the purposes of developing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, as the team said that a “highly generic engine developed by another company would not be appropriate” for a game like Resident Evil 7. RE Engine includes tools to make animation faster, such as modular rigging, motion matching, procedural animation and motion retargeting, and also allows for more realistic debris. This is helpful in Sunbreak since monster as well as player attacks are quite fast and require lots of detailed animation, and the fast engine will allow for a more seamless player experience.

Lens #20: Pleasure

The game gives the player pleasure in a few areas.

• Defeating large monsters: the player gets to repeatedly defeat large powerful monsters, which gives the player a sense of power and satisfaction that they are able to accomplish such a feat.
• Amassing loot: the player accumulates more and more equipment as well as materials, and it gives the player the pleasure of owning more advanced equipment as the game progresses.
• Helping those in need: by completing quests, players are helping the relevant people requesting assistance with those monsters, and eventually when the player defeats the final boss and stops the phenomenon, they are pleased that they have ‘saved the world’.

Lens #21: Flow

The game has a relatively clear sense of flow, with the overarching story as the main goal, to defeat the final boss. However, as there is sometimes more than one way to progress through the story. There are certain key quests one has to complete before getting an urgent quest which unlocks more tiers of quests, eventually leading to the final boss. Here, players are at the danger of sidetracking to other non-key quests, which will delay them from completing the urgent quests, and so on. However, these other quests may also be seen as a chance for players to amass more specific gear from monsters that are perhaps not available to hunt in the key quests, before they go back to the key quests and urgent quests. Therefore, these ‘distractions’ can be tied into the game goals which is to defeat higher level monsters, and getting better equipment will surely make it easier for the player.

Lens #23: Motivation

The game motivates players to progress through the tiers of quests by making each monster somewhat harder than the last, giving the players more challenge when they fight these monsters. Players are also motivated to get better gear when they realize that their current loadout is not effective enough against the monsters which they are fighting, and it may be referred to as a ‘pain avoiding’ motivation. Moreover, as the storyline slowly uncovers more and more of itself as the player progresses, the players are motivated to discover the mystery behind the phenomenon and go through the quests faster. However, the motivation to get better gear may be in conflict with the motivation to progress through the story, as players would have to focus on a single monster repeatedly before they can forge armor and weapons using the monster materials.

Lens #28: The State Machine

For this lens, I will be discussing it in terms of during each hunt. During the quests, monsters have different ‘states’ throughout the hunt. Firstly, they are in a dormant state, moving around the map peacefully before noticing the hunter. Once the fight starts, after taking a certain amount of damage, the monster will become enraged, which is the first obvious state change during the fight. The monster hits harder, moves faster, and has a few more special moves. The monster’s appearance also changes over time, if the player deals enough damage to certain body parts. These body parts will appear broken or mutilated, and for most monsters, their tails are able to be cut off by the player, introducing even more ‘states’ of the monsters. Some monsters primarily use their tails for attacks or other body parts such as legs or arms for balance, so it is very interesting to see them lose their balance as those body parts are broken. Eventually, when the monster is weakened, its state will change again to a limping state, where they will try and escape to another area of the map to recuperate their health.

Lens #44: Cooperation

Since multiplayer is available for Sunbreak, there are elements of cooperation in the game, and players are able to enjoy the game more with other friends. Players can devise strategies before going on hunts, to improve the process and make the hunt more dynamic as well. However, one major drawback is that the Monster Hunter games do not have live chat, so players are constrained to emotes and (editable) instant chat messages to relay information to each other. Another drawback of multiplayer is that there are more ways that the hunt may go wrong, as there is now more space for human error, up to 4x, since parties have a maximum size of 4.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Sunbreak is an overall great game, in terms of its interesting mechanics, lovely aesthetics and rich lore. Although the base mechanics may be somewhat repetitive, the progression of more challenging monsters with different movesets and new locales to explore continuously give the players fresh experiences. As a loyal fan of the franchise who has played practically every installment of the series, I may be biased when I say this, but I highly recommend this game!

Overview

Raft is an open world survival game developed by Redbeet Interactive. It started as a prototype on Itch.io in 2016 and has since been developed into a full game with over 11 million units sold. In this post, we will explore the uniqueness of Raft and how it had garnered such a positive response in its release.

Lens 9: The Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

As a survival game, Raft brings a twist to the genre through a unique take on the core gathering mechanic. As the player is thrown onto a raft drifting along a seemingly endless ocean with nothing but an old plastic hook, the player utilizes it to grab onto floating debris as a means of gathering resources. Through this, the player can craft various items such as survival equipment, crop plots, cooking pots, grills and much more to help with survival. Collecting blueprints drifting along the ocean will also unlock new technologies to be crafted and progress the game.

There are many more mechanics which make Raft an enjoyable experience. Some of these mechanics include:

• Navigating to new destinations, solving their puzzles to uncover fragments of the story.
• Diving into the depths to gather rare metals and materials.
• Fighting various creatures as part of protecting the raft and making it through the islands.
• Farming and cooking by catching animals, growing plants and collecting recipes.

Story

The intriguing story behind Raft takes center stage in the game to pique the player’s curiosity. As the player explores the world submerged by water, they discover new parts of the story through notes left by characters who lived on the islands. These notes allow the player to gain new insight about the world and humanity’s attempts at survival on the island that ultimately failed. The story behind Raft and its many characters serve as a motivation for the player to continue exploring the world – to uncover the eventual fate of the characters and perhaps find life in a utopia beyond the endless ocean.

Aesthetics

The game goes with animated graphics which works well within the theme. It allows the game to have wacky-looking creatures such as the Poison-Puffers and for players to don them as hats when killed and looted.

Not to mention the amazing sunsets players can enjoy in the game as well as the amazing rafts they could build.

Although the aesthetics of the game are not as realistic as others, its animated graphics are able to give players a wacky and fun experience with the designs of various creatures while still providing an immersive and scenic experience when given the opportunity.

Technology

The game is built on the Unity game engine. It has excellent animated graphics that runs smoothly on minimum PC requirements. It has since only been released for PC, although release for consoles have been confirmed with no release date yet.

#3 The Lens of the Venue

The main venue of Raft and where the player spends the most time is, well, the raft. The venue in itself brings about much of the game’s story, mechanics and goals.

Being stranded at sea, struggling to survive creates the goal of gathering resources and finding a way to build a renewable source of food and water. At the start of the game, the sea currents act as the primary way of moving the raft, bringing resources to the player and enabling the player to progress.

All the elements of the game harmonizes well with the venue. The story revolves around how the world ended up in this state and humanity’s attempts to survive. The mechanics revolve around gathering resources from the ocean and various islands, crafting tools and devices on the raft to survive and thrive. The venue in Raft is of utmost importance as it acts as the overall theme of the game that unifies the various elements.

#6 The Lens of Curiosity

Following the unique venue, the player is immediately prompted with questions regarding the origin and backstory. How did the world end up this way? Why am I suddenly placed on a raft in the middle of the ocean? Why is this shark constantly following me and attack me whenever I dip my toes into the water?

Curiosity serves as the main driver and motivation for players to progress. Utilizing the Lens of Curiosity, Raft sets itself apart from being simply an open-world survival game. It becomes an adventure for the player to uncover the secrets held by the once inhabited islands in Raft.

The player starts off seemingly aimlessly, drifting along the ocean’s waves. Then, they’d start to see other abandoned rafts or shelters on islands – evidence of humanity. After crafting the first navigation item, the receiver, the player can finally start to seek answers to their questions and satiate their curiosity. Following signals and coordinates, the player journeys from island to island, following the footsteps of various characters. The game places the player in the shoes of these characters as their stories are told through notes and saved in the player’s journal. The completion of each island reveals part of the story, but sometimes even more questions. They can’t help but wonder – “What happened to them? Are they still alive? Did their plan for survival succeed?”

“Will we finally find humans on the next island?”

#21 The Lens of Flow

Raft starts off with the clear goal of survival. The player is thrown onto a raft with nothing but a hook and rubbish floating in the ocean around them. From there, the player focuses on learning how to gather resources to survive.

Once the player becomes adept at this, simple survival would no longer be an issue. Food and water become readily available through distillation devices and crop plots. Resources from the ocean can easily be gathered using collection nets, no longer requiring the player to constantly gather the basic resources manually via hook. Instead, the player now focus on researching new technologies and mechanics – gathering recipes and using the cooking pot to make better forms of sustenance, crafting and learning the navigation system, exploring and solving puzzles on islands to progress the story.

Through these progressions, the game continues flowing and provides the player with new challenges and mechanics to focus on before the old ones get dull.

#44 The Lens of Cooperation

Just like many survival games, Raft is designed to be both a single player and a cooperative multiplayer game. There are more than sufficient types of tasks and mechanics for players to split up and work in parallel.

Although the given characters aren’t any different, players often self-delegate roles when cooperating. This happens due to the nature of survival games and how players have different preferences to tasks and resource management. For example, a player might be in charge of gathering resources, building the raft and decorating while the other focuses on navigation, maintaining the farm and fighting off the pesky shark.

However, the split in taskings converge when the players reach an island. They start working on the same tasks to figure out puzzles or to fight off certain creatures. Namely, the rhino shark fight where it is much easier for one player to capture the attention of the shark while the other positions the explosives on the pillars.

However, as the game is designed to be playable in single player, none of these tasks force cooperation between players.

#96 The Lens of Friendship

Similarly, Raft has all the qualities of a game you’d like to enjoy with friends. More than just the element of cooperation mentioned before, the entire immersive experience of Raft feels like it was made to be experienced with others.

The fear when you first get attacked by the shark after falling off the raft.

The excitement of picking up a new blueprint and discovering new technologies.

The anticipation of possibly finding humans and uncovering the next part of the story upon reaching the next island.

The satisfaction of overcoming obstacles and figuring out the solution to various puzzles.

As a game rich with many of such experiences, players are guaranteed to find many memorable moments to share with their friends.

Conclusion

The experience of playing Raft was fresh as the game was able to keep delivering new mechanics and events before it got dull. Playing through this game with a friend was certainly one of my fondest memories of playing through a game as there was a good balance of calm moments to zone out and talk while gathering resources and intense moments to focus and cooperate to overcome challenges. All in all, Raft has a unique and creative take on the survival game genre and its story acts as an excellent driver for players to progress the game.