Dyad Is Insane, In A Good Way
Posted by Chris K on April 12th, 2012 | 1 Comment | Tags: Dyad , GDC 2012 , PAX East 2012
You might have heard Eric and I talk a little about Dyad on the A-Side from PAX East. But what you haven’t heard is that I was at GDC and got a chance to sit down with Dyad for about an hour. I talk about this a little bit in our soon to be released podcast, but for now I give you this. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story: The Tale of the Twisted Tunnel.
It’s Like An Onion
Dyad might look confusing at first and you might not have a clue what is going on, but the game does a superb job of teaching you as you go along. There are many layers to Dyad, just like an onion. The basic mechanic of the game is hooking. You can do this between like colored orbs to get a burst of speed. While you are hooking these orbs you want to avoid them. Simple enough right? After hooking comes grazing. Grazing is simply just jetting past the side of an orb after you hook it. By grazing you fill up a meter so you can lance. Lancing lets you take it to these orbs and get a phat boost while going through them. The game will throw these things at you in a way that you will never be overwhelmed. The build up through the levels will have you playing like an ace in no time. Once you master all these moves, there are even some more like zip-lines which create paths of boost, you will be playing like the player in this video below.
The Colors Duke The Colors
If you have seen a video of Dyad (look there are 2 right here in this post) you will notice immediately that there are some intense visuals going on for the majority of the time you are playing. While the effects that are happening may change from stage to stage, you will constantly be bombarded by more colors than a rainbow as you progress. Tacked on to that is the visual explosion that occurs every time do something in the game, whether that be hooking on to an orb or lancing through it. Each time I play it I am still in awe of what is happening in front of me.
It isn’t just the visuals that hit you though, the sound is just as mesmerizing. Especially in the stages where the whole soundtrack is changing based on your performance. In all levels, just like with the visuals when you do certain actions sounds are cued up. This all goes into overdrive when you lance. But there was a stage that I played where everything was changing. The experience that I was having was purely based on how well I was lancing through orbs. When I was doing great the music reflected this, but as I missed a few here and there you could hear it in the song. Missing more and more everything was becoming more distorted. I felt a real urgency, which is something I rarely feel while playing.
If I have one complaint about Dyad is that it is almost too much. Don’t close the page, I am not saying that I don’t like it because it is too good. It is almost the exact opposite. I am pretty sure you could die playing this game for an extended period of time. No joke, it is just that intense. But I still keep coming back to the game and I was left wanting more. I guess I am addicted.
Dyad should be out sometime later this year exclusively on the PlayStation Network. For more on Dyad, check the stories below.