The second minigame is much shorter, and much quicker to get through. I will say that aside from the whole pain element, I found the game cute and challenging and I hope it’s either replaced with one with more ergonomic controls or replaced with an option to skip for those of us who just can’t handle the beats. However, seeing as other complaints led to the games removal, my case probably isn’t unique. I still found a few days after completing the game that my fingers hurt, though I’ll partially blame it on a prior injury and the cold weather. I played this minigame to successful completion three times, and after each time had to take an extended break from continuing the game. Doing this, however, involves propping your wrists at an angle that is less than ergonomic. The minigame was set up to resemble Dance Dance Revolution, a game I’m sure most people are familiar with, where the player would press “q, a, z” and “o, k, m” in time with the beats to perform a dance for a picky bee lusus. There were complaints that the game had accessibility issues, but it’s unclear if the removal is permanent or subject to a later update. Since my playthrough of this game for the purpose of this review, the “bee dance” minigame has been removed.
#HIVESWAP GAME OVER SRCREEN TRIAL#
It otherwise has three minigames and an extensive trial portion which mimics the style of the popular Ace Attorney franchise. It’s mostly puzzle solving and story-based, which works considering how plot-heavy the game is.
Hiveswap is a point-and-click adventure game, paying homage specifically to those from the nineties. All in all, the game interface can be a bit finicky at times, but not enough so to take away from the fantastic work the design team clearly put in. After a few reconfirmations that it is in fact still Xefros behind me, however, I got the hang of keeping him out of the way. It can also be a bit fiddly to investigate backgrounds and other characters as I found the companion character sometimes gets in the way. There’s a few minor glitches where sometimes you can’t flick through your inventory, but it doesn’t appear to affect the gameplay. The toolbar doesn’t look intuitive at a glance, but after a few minutes of playing it’s simple enough to figure out where things are. Cut scenes images are typically drawn in a style that’s more similar to the preceding webcomic and provide a similar amount of humour no matter if your character is dying or not, which they often are. The trial sequence of the game has separate talksprites which emulate the distinctive style of Ace Attorney very well, including a host of typical exaggerated reaction sequences.
The character designs are cute and appealing, with some endearing animation carried over from the previous instalment. There’s some fantastically detailed background work done, especially in some of the elaborate train carriages later in the game. On a design level, the game is quite frankly beautiful. The backgrounds have a 3D element to them where the player can interact with the foreground and the background and move in and out of an otherwise flat plain. Whichever character you don’t choose will then follow you around the screen as a companion. There’s updated sprites and a few additional animations, along with the ability to switch from Joey to Xefros as your playable character at will. The graphics of Hiveswap Act 2 are much the same as its predecessor. ** Warning, the following review does contain mild to moderate spoilers. But how does Hiveswap Act 2 shape up as a much awaited continuation of the story? However Alternia is a very different society, which Act 2 demonstrates all too well. She swaps places with Dammek, a revolutionary from the planet Alternia, and must team up with his partner Xefros to get back to Earth. The first game in the series, Hiveswap Act 1, follows the story of Joey Claire, a 14 year old girl whose already odd life is turned upside down when she’s dragged through a portal into an alien dimension.
#HIVESWAP GAME OVER SRCREEN UPDATE#
The game series is a spin-off of the wildly popular (and oftentimes infamous) web-comic, Homestuck, the development of which has followed a similar sporadic update (or upd8) schedule.
Its release has been met with excitement and frenzy from fans, many of whom have been following the game since it was funded via Kickstarter in 2012. After a long three year wait since the first installment in the series, Hiveswap Act 2 made its debut on Steam on the 25th of November.
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