Scrap and Battery

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"Scrap and Battery" is another student project from the DigiPen Institute of Technology (certainly a very productive university, if nothing else, they've dumped 129 student projects onto Steam to date, with more on the way). This time the students probably got a passing grade. This is a quirky action robot game with a gimmick about recharging your battery after you take damage. It's short, though, the purpose of student projects is not to generate a lot of content for gamers... and that's really where the problem lies. This is a game made for the sake of the developer, not the gamers, and as always, when devs put themselves before gamers, it goes badly for all. The graphics in this game are really quite good, which at least makes the game look more appealing. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality product,…

I ran my first run rather rapidly after picking up the shotgun, seeing that it's virtually the only weapon I needed, and buying all my other tools to revolve around it. In fact, just about everything from the unique life mechanic to the difficulty of enemies was extremely tame. In hindsight of the team's abundance of UI designers, it's evident they had a directed goal towards encouraging several runs in the custom mode, but the misguided rubric of a murky, immediate "Start Game" button laden with tutorial pop-ups got in the way of what could have been a more prideful display of care and attention towards systems design and accessibility of difficulty. The game has effective but timid Nerve motivations that, final grade notwithstanding, could have been an experience that truly engaged me to play again, and it might have been as simple as a scripted loss, perhaps with an Asylum Demon that you can simply avoid. I seem to find that a strong tenet of Heart game motivation is the urge to replay a game, and in a broader sense, that includes after failing. In explicit terms, the story and characters become a cult film that you bear playing worst hits to watch again; in implicit terms, as …

A really well executed game Just some floor texture loading delays at the start of the levels

WHY THE ♥♥♥♥ DOES THE BATTERY PACK RANDOMLY DESPAWN SOMETIMES Absolutely devastating game-breaking bug that makes it unplayable, good god. Also the battery pack can launch into areas you can't access, which basically means you can't do anything and have to watch the clock count down. I don't know how these extreme oversights ever made it past the conception stage. Oh my god, I REALLY hope these devs get a LOT better before they even think about getting an actual job in the industry.

Scrap and Battery Positives: + Good idea + A lot of upgrades to buy + Cool weapons and abilities + Quite entertaining combat when you get the hang of it + Good graphics + Ok music + Its free Negatives: - Some bugs - A few of the sounds are quite frequent and annoying - AI is not the best - Side view camera angle is worse than if it was in free view third person - Its very short (over in 45 minutes) This is a nice little robot game with a cute attitude. There is a lot of upgrades you can do, making it more entertaining to play. Even though its got a few problems and its very short, its fun while it lasts. And its free as well, so what are you waiting for? Total Score: 7/10