You awake in a desolate place, devoid of all color and sound. You see a terminal, once vibrant and now forgotten. In the past it was used to pilot a massive machine, but now without power it sits in silence. You find an elevator and descend into the depths of the machine with the task of turning it back on and restoring color and music to the world. This is Fract OSC.
Fract OSC is a music exploration and puzzle game. The love-child of Tron, Boards of Canada, and neon paint, Fracts soundtrack and aesthetics are just breath-taking. Exploring Fract is a visceral experience, with colossal structures bathed in neon jutting up out of the landscape. Puzzles are fun and intelligently designed while still remaining heavily inspired by synthesizers. All of this aside, Fract is not a perfect game. It falls prey to complications with it's overall design and although systems have been put in place to help they are not ultimately enough.
Good Things
Fract is a really compelling and inspiring game. Admittedly, I am a sucker for anything drenched in neon and spitting out electronic music, but the use of color and music in the game is nothing short of beautiful. The world that Fract builds is one that makes players want to explore it's nooks and crannies. Through exploration we see new things, hear new sounds and understand the machine all the more. To break up the exploration we encounter musically driven puzzles that are intelligently designed and incredibly compelling. The harmony between puzzles and exploration is one of Fract's biggest strengths.
Environment
The art and music of Fract are just beautiful. Walking around the environment and simply experiencing what Fract has to offer is riveting. The structures and architectural pieces are huge and complex. The cave system is expansive and offers a ton of unique areas that can be found and explored, some that have nothing to do with the overall task of fixing the machine. Plus, the whole environment is reactive to the player. Hallways assemble themselves, particles rise out of the ground and the world reacts musically and physically as the player gets nears. And the best part about Fract is that you can explore it all. All movement in Fract is physics based, there are no invisible level walls or insta-death zones that constrain player movement. Better yet, there are no loading walls throughout the entire machine. Players are simply let loose on the world. The order they choose to solve puzzles in, or explore areas in, it all comes out organically. Exploration is crucial to Fract's game design and the environment does an incredible job of eliciting this feeling from players.
Puzzles
Intuitive and compelling, the puzzles in Fract are just awesome. All puzzles consist of two portions, each unique to the area you're in. Most puzzles fit into the world that Fract builds very well. The puzzles tie directly back into the music that is being outputted as you solve the puzzle. For example, in the above puzzle lighting up different elements will change different notes that are played every beat. Furthermore, altering the effects levels on the stream of light will change the sound of the synth that is playing those notes. This process makes for feedback in the form of a song that is compelling and visceral. On top of that, the secondary puzzle in each area makes use of a sequencer for interaction. Individual notes are programmed on a screen to react with the world and also compose a song at the same time. These puzzles are designed very well and intelligently so that producing something that sound goods is also something that solves the puzzle. Unfortunately, in the primary puzzles, the correlation between puzzle and music is not as immediately clear as in the secondary puzzles. And Fract suffers a little bit from this.
Bad Things
Fract's game design is incredible when it works. Unfortunately, setting up such a loose design to afford player exploration may have ended up hurting Fract in the end. Having little to no constraints on the player ends up with the inevitable issues of a physics based environment. And with such an expansive world to explore getting anywhere quickly is just impossible. On top of these movement issues, the minimal design of the interaction system in Fract can also provide for a bit of a headache. To say that Fract wasn't aware of these issues is incorrect. But, the real question is were the systems put in place to counteract these issues successful.
Locomotion
Exploring in Fract is just awesome. The world is vast and interesting. All movement is physics based meaning you can walk or fall onto pretty much any surface. You can also fall, get stuck or clip into many surfaces too. The problem with physics based movement that isn't constrained is that a lot of the time players will most assuredly get stuck. In one level I was unfortunate enough to get stuck beneath an elevator. In another, I fell and landed on an area I shouldn't have been able to get to, there was no exit from this area either. Thankfully Fract has addressed this problem by having periodic checkpoints called stations and a respawn at last checkpoint option in the pause menu. Which, although a catch all solution, isn't very elegant. These same checkpoints make up the fast travel system in Fract. Fast travel in this game is necessary because simply walking around a world this expansive is a chore. The problem is although nice looking and aesthetically pleasing the fast travel system isn't really fast. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and pleasing, buzzing by your old completed puzzles making noises and spewing neon is an awesome feeling, but not after 50 or so times. Plus, some of the checkpoints are placed slightly away from the puzzles and it's possible to miss them, making for some very weird fast traveling.
Interface
The way players interact with puzzles and interfaces in the world of Fract is really cool. Right clicking brings up an interface where camera movement is locked and the cursor is free to move around the screen. This interaction system is actually really cool and intuitive, in practice it works very well. But Fract takes it another step further in hiding interfaces when the player isn't in this mode. This is also pretty cool because switching to this alternate view to reveal hidden buttons and knobs is a really fun mechanic. However, the problem comes from not always knowing where these interfaces are. When stuck in a puzzle or area this usually distills down to players walking around trying to look at everything in this alternate view to make sure they're not missing anything. Maybe having some kind of recurring symbol to signify a hidden interface would help this system a lot. But, as it stands, looking around and searching for interfaces that aren't immediately apparent isn't very fun. It's a really awesome interaction system but maybe providing a distinction to where it's needed would do wonders.
Final Rating…………………………………………………………………………..B
If you like electronic music, neon lights, or exploring interesting worlds this games for you. If you're just into puzzles maybe this game won't do it for you, it's more about the overall experience than the individual puzzles. But overall, I would recommend this game to people interested in it, it's worth full price.
Fract OSC is truly a great game. The setting is so beautiful, the music is nothing short of incredible, and the gameplay is very fun and compelling. Although it does have some issues that were addressed, albeit not successfully, one can easily look past these problems. It also helps knowing that this game was made by a group of very passionate indies. I had the chance to meet and talk with them at PAX and they were just awesome. So go ahead, treat yourself to the neon soaked Fract and support some awesome indies in the process.
After a bit of poking and prodding, I figure out how to activate some stuff that unlocks some other stuff in the studio. Then I fall off the world and go for a ride on FRACTworld's sweet mass transit system.
Do you like puzzles? Do you like TRON-like aesthetics? Do you like music? Do you want to learn how synthesizers work and make your OWN music? Then boy oh boy do I have a game for you. This is FRACT OSC, a puzzler with its very own music studio for you to compose your own tunes in, and it is amazing.
Phosfiend Systems to release award winning musical exploration game Fract OSC > http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/12/5499180/phosfiend-systems-releasing-musical-exploration-game-fract-osc-in
