Category Archives: kometen

Kometen Review

Posted on by

Kometen Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Erik Svedang
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.95 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.63 out of 5 stars

“To escape the frustration of normal games and every day life. No point, just like your life” -Evil mykall, iTunes

Some games are created to challenge you in one way or another. Some games have you shoot things, some games have you race things, and some games have you outsmart things, but Kometen is not that kind of game. Obviously inspired by the randomness that is Katamari, Kometen subscribes to the eastern way of thought in that games do not need to have a point, they only need to look pretty and be able to be played for as long as someone can sit down.

Kometen has a simple premise. You are a comet, and you like to eat things and go fast. You fly around the galaxy searching for planets while eating things orbiting planets so you can use your speed boost. To fly, you have to attach yourself to planets gravitational fields by clicking on the planet. After spinning around the planet for a bit and gaining speed, you swipe the screen to let go and you race off to the next planet.

After spinning around things, eating space junk, using speed boosts, and discovering planets for awhile, you are done. There is no more game to play, you just float along through the galaxy seeing how fast you can go during speed boosts. There is obviously a certain percentage of population that has reached some sort of nirvana that can let them play this for hours on end. These are the same people that enjoy playing Pocket God for hours at a time, as well as Nobi Nobi Boy.

The shining beacon for this app is its style. Everything is very nicely hand drawn (or hand made) with rich colors and fun effects. Your comet, while just a comet, has an expression filled face that changes depending on if he is eating, moving, not moving, and moving in hyper speed. The game deserves huge style points for looking so darn good, but I’m not sure if it is enough.

Like the time wasting app hall of fame games before it, there really isn’t much to do. The problem with Kometen is that there is really nothing to do. The game needs more variety to keep it worth playing for more than 10 minutes. The is only so much flying around you can do without longing for something that pays you back with something. I’d love to see some more effects drawn in for doing special things, or even some kind of basic mission added just to keep me excited.

I really want Kometen to succeed for the sole reason that it is extremely pretty. My hope is that I will be rewarded for my purchase with some sort of update package a la Pocket God, but I fear that I won’t. In its current state, it would be hard for me to advise getting this game if you are expecting a game of any kind. If you aren’t a gamer though and just want something pretty to pass the time, Kometen might be right up your alley.

[ Kometen Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Review: Kometen

Posted on by

Review: Kometen is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Most types of entertainment carry the burden of being expected to relate to us emotionally.

Music has an easy enough time of it. Its scales and modes are almost onomatopoeic of the human condition. Film and fiction, on the other hand, have a tendency to be stifled by formulas and archetypes intended to intensify our emotional responses.

Video games carry their own stigmas. We expect games to tweak our synapses within a wide spectrum of sensations, but rarely emotionally. Perhaps society still thinks of technology as too alien to relate to. There’s an undercurrent of fear of computers. Most people would view emotional investment in a software program as a strange fetish — some type of spiritual onanism.

It’s no wonder that arthouse games like Kometen are considered iconoclasts. Not only do they challenge our preconceptions of what games should be, they even call into question our morality on what technology should be used for. Can introspection be made into a game? Should I take an NPC as my wife?

Kometen is a video game about personal reflection; a postmodern Pac-Man in which the act of eating dots serves as the backdrop for the cut scenes. An adequate amount of skill is required to efficiently maneuver the comet through a watercolor cosmos, lilting in and out of orbit across the whimsical yet barren universe, but skill is secondary to the experience of being there.

There’s no narrative, no high scores, and no way to win or lose. There’s not even a virtual playground for us to walk our virtual pet in. Apart from the zodiac-like planets that are separated by a gulf of emptiness, there’s not even much to look at. With so little going on, one would expect space travel to be a rather dull adventure.

It’s peculiar how this game of mindless and relaxing exploration isn’t mind numbing, but to the contrary works from a broad palette of emotions in much the same way a good book or song does. The environment is crafted with enough charm and thoughtfulness that any boredom is proceeded by fascination.

This fascination is underscored by the world’s distance. Each landmark is far away and takes some effort to reach, resulting in a world that has been seen, but, at the same time, is impossible to fully conceive.

As much of the sense of wonder can be attributed to superb pacing, which allows time for confusion to uncoil into loneliness, for the game’s playfulness to surprise you, and for its weight to sink in.

There’s heaviness beneath the lighthearted demeanor of our tongue-wagging protagonist, but it isn’t heavy-handed. The creators give the player freedom to assign a meaning, or lack thereof, to its world. They only offers suggestions in the form of cryptically themed planets, which read like artifacts from some forgotten world — our own.


Blueberry Garden Creator Announces Space Exploration Title Kometen

Posted on by

Blueberry Garden Creator Announces Space Exploration Title Kometen is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

superboostErik Svedäng, creator of the acclaimed experimental PC title Blueberry Garden and winner of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2009 Independent Games Festival, has announced a new project for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Kometen (”Comet”) is a game in which players control a one-eyed comet as it rockets through outer space. Players use the gravitational pull of nearby planets to guide the comet in its quest to devour smaller interstellar bodies.

While its gameplay objectives appear similar to Eliss creator Steph Thirion’s recently announced Faraway, Kometen does not feature a scoring system or clearly defined goals. According to Svedäng, gameplay in Kometen is “all about self improvement and judging your own performance.”

Svedäng notes that Kometen’s App Store release “shouldn’t take too long.” A teaser trailer (including a brief snippet of gameplay footage) is below.

[via GameSetWatch]