October 2012 ~ Kitsune Shan

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Saturday 6 October 2012

Patterns: The new game from Linden Lab



Finally the new game from Linden Lab have been released today.

In a very early stage, we have a new game to build our world. It's impossible to not compare this game with Minecraft, but for now, they both seems very different even if the plot is kinda the same.

Actually, after playing for some hours, the game presents a small world where you can get some different kinds of materials to build shapes later. For now the possibilities are very limited, the world is not big enough, there aren't too much shapes to choose and either too much materials. What you can build are basic shapes connected to each other and nothing else. Each material have different physical properties, so this game seems to aim more to a complex physics world (I hope). There are no enemies get, so there aren't any objective either (while in Minecraft you have to survive, the only thing that can kill you right now on Patterns is to fall from very high). This makes the game a bit bored because, after some hours, there is nothing to do or explore.


Graphically seems interesting and very artistic, but the performance isn't as good as you could expect from a game that doesn't use complex geometry and shaders at all. The lack of options to customise the graphics doesn't help on this either. I must say, that while recording the game was at about 45fps, which isn't bad, but should go a way faster.

The sound is just "OK". There are small ambient sounds and the typical fx while breaking materials (which is a bit annoying). There aren't music yet, so we must wait before talking any longer about this aspect.

The control is a bit bad. Is simple to move, jump, , recollect, etc.. but the "walk" function doesn't seems to work for me (player should walk instead of run). The camera is not bad at all. You can use two modes, one where the camera is attached to your back and other one where you can move freely. Is in this last one where the camera fails a bit. You can move freely, but you need to move the cursor to the edges of the screen. Should be better to move the camera holding the middle mouse button for example.

Well, that's all for now. Remember that is the very first version of the game, so there aren't too much to do. A lot of things are planned to be added like mobs, pets, day/night cycle, more shapes, materials, etc...

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