8/30/2021
Review of DYAD
Developed by: Right Square Bracket Left Square Bracket
2012, PlayStation 3
I don't feel like I appreciate DYAD as much as it deserves. It does so much to make you feel cool while playing it, with the backgrounds and music changing throughout the level in ways that I don't really comprehend, and everything ramping up as you go faster. The music blends together with everything so well. Even the menus play along with the music, and when you do anything in the game it makes a sound that contributes to the song that's being played. I felt a little unappreciative that I didn't enjoy it for such superficial reasons as the gameplay.
Every level adds a new element to the game, and every level is based around you learning that new mechanic, so it ends up feeling like an endless tutorial. I thought after the first few stages it would have introduced all of the moves you can do and all of the objects you can shoot, but each level adds something new and gets rid of something you just learned. I was waiting for the endless mode after the last stage of the game, but there isn't one. In an endless mode, you could choose which moves to use and which objects are in the level, and you could see how far you get. It would be fun to find the abilities that you're best at using and come up with different strategies for getting the fastest speed.
I like when a game is abstract enough that I can't conciously explain how it works, but it makes sense as you're doing it. Liz Ryerson's Problem Attic (8) is the best example of that, with mechanics that change across levels until they only make sense on some internal logic. DYAD feels that way when you're going really fast, and everything is blurring by, but you still kind of know what you're supposed to be shooting at. My main problem with DYAD is I don't know when I'm playing it right. I click the shoot button multiple times because I don't know if I hit an object, or I think I'm in line with something and then the whole game slows down. It's an unexplainable audio-visual experience that you still have to control with a pretty normal shooting mechanic.
What if as the game got faster, the controls changed as well. Instead of trying to shoot the dots that are flying by, other things could appear on the screen that indicate where you should be aiming. The game itself could change depending on how fast you're going. I really liked the last level because it verged on that. It changes from the normal tunnel to a bunch of colors that you're still controlling. There aren't any game mechanics at that point though, it just looks cool.