Entropy (Second Chance with the Chick)

Entropy was part of the third Indie Games Uprising.  Like other members belonging to the second week of the event, it was one of the weaker games.  Graphically, it was head-and-shoulders above the rest, but the gameplay was clunky and boring.  The developers, even knowing that I wasn’t likely to upgrade the status of their creation to Chick Approved, still asked me to play around with it some more today to show the progress they’ve made.  Guess what?  They were right.  The game is improved, but my personal seal of quality is out of reach.

I would make a Jerry Lee Lewis joke, but there’s nothing great about Entropy. Not even the balls of fire.

Before going any further, you should probably check out my write-up on Entropy.  So what’s changed?  Well, thankfully I didn’t offer up my immortal soul for the ability to pick up the balls.  The guys at Autotivity Games added such a feature in.  It’s not perfect by any means.  In fact, the learning curve for it is almost as steep as figuring out the best way to slowly push the balls around using your body.  It’s still a step in the right direction, even if they got a little dog doo on their shoes.  They also cut out some of the more tedious bits in the opening section of the game.  Again, smart move.

Thankfully there’s no cake joke.

Sadly, the choppy frame-rate is not only still intact, but it’s actually a bit skippier.  So now when you chase around the little pink ball of light designed to point you in the right direction to go, you might not even see where it’s going.  One step forward in dog poo, one step backwards into a bear trap.  It sucks because Entropy really did go all out with clever puzzles and beautiful scenery, but the biggest problem still remains: Entropy is boring.  I’m not encouraging the guys at Autotivity to call it quits.  But they need to stop mending this snoozer and start work on something that can capture people’s imaginations.  Start by giving it a name less depressing.  What is the opposite of Entropy?  I don’t know.  Euphoric Kangaroos Dancing the Polka?  Feel free to steal that one.  It has to be good enough to sell at least 100 copies.

Entropy was developed by Autotivity Games

80 Microsoft Points said “more like Entropoohey” in the making of this review.