Brand is an indie game created by Nine Dots Studio for the Xbox 360 arcade.
I like the idea. I bought the game and I was excited about it.
What is Brand?
Brand is a 2.5D action platformer where the player upgrades their weapon, a sword, by performing missions for the Smith, Mage, and Chemist. Missions take place in large maps in the Mines, the Castle, and the Crypt. You get 15 possible missions, excluding the tutorial, before you are sent to the King's Dungeon to test the mettle of your sword.
Each mission is performed for one of the 3 NPCs. Each success will give the player a point in one of the NPC abilities, either to purchase it or improve it.
Mage
Flame Spell – Fire wave on heavy attack
Time Bend Spell – Replaces dash. Stop time and slice through enemies
Shadow Spell – Spectral blades attack behind the player
Blacksmith
Refine – Increases efficiency of other enhancements
Strengthen – Increase Base damage
Sharpen –Increases Dash range / Lowers cooldown for Time Bend
Chemist
Poison Coating – Quick Attack poisons foe, can be stacked on enemy
Demon Blood Coating – Blocking unleashes damaging tendrils, but drains health
Sun Dust Coating – Chance for critical strike
I bought Brand years ago after I tried its demo. I immediately loved it and wanted to play more. I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of Brand and had a good, if not challenging, time creating my first sword. My second sword was far more difficult. Since graduating, I've been thinking of a redesign for Brand.
Why Redesign Brand?
I studied game design in college and we would do breakdowns of games periodically to point out strengths, weaknesses, and what we felt could be improved. I’ve genuinely enjoyed Brand and I love the concept. Exploring dungeons for the sole purpose of crafting a legendary sword? Sign me up! I love action games and small games where you craft something unique to yourself. The Quick missions, high replay value, and visually interesting levels are big pluses too. Brand ticks a lot of my boxes which is why I got to thinking how could it be improved?
Where it could do better
The major points of improvements were in Player feedback, Sword Upgrading and customization, and the Map.
The player has very little feedback about their actions or the world around them.
How much damage does a sword do each strike? The player can see sword stats in the pause menu, but otherwise has no indication of how much damage their attacks do. This wouldn't be as much of a problem, if enemies showed their health. As that would be a mark for judging strength growth.
The lack of visual and explicit feedback in combat discourages the player from seeing the deeper elements to it.What combos are there? Players can buy sword upgrades and abilities that create special combos. But, the combos are never explicitly indicated. This is especially bothersome when some hidden combos are extremely useful, such as one of the only means of healing.
How much health do enemies have? Enemies do not show their health, instead they have color tiers to show difficulty. However, there is no bar for judging differences between these tiers.
For a game specifically about crafting a legendary sword, the sword looks pretty much the same throughout.
On the Visual side, the Alchemist and Wizard upgrades apply various effects around the sword. These effects can obscure the sword itself which is a problem because the player is viewed from a distance, lowering the detail on the sword model. The sword upgrades make the sword sharper looking and the handle and pommel more ornate. However, the sword shape, the silhouette, changes very little from beginning to end.
This lack of change is made very obvious when compared to the other weapons shown to the player in the loading screens and final dungeon hallway. A straight sword with an arrow-like tip pales in comparison to a massive long sword with hooks at the end.
The lack of diversity in sword design and the obscuring effects of powers makes your sword seem underwhelming. The distant perspective adds to this effect, as the swords physical appearance is even less distinguishable.
As a comparison, Skyrim gives the player the option of a beginner sword or ax that do the same damage. Mechanically, they are the same, but visually they are very different. In Brand, the player only has access to a one-handed straight sword. Every weapon the player makes will be this sword.
Finally, the Map shows very little information.
While this tile method conveys basic pathing, it’s abstraction makes finding your way around frustrating, especially when the “Area of interest” becomes the entire lower half of the map. This in combination with the maze-like nature of the environments makes navigation unnecessarily difficult.
The secret Golden Switches are meant to be difficult to find and hidden. However, normal switches, locked doors, and persistently locked doors are part of progression, and shouldn't be hidden information.
At its core, Brand is a simple platforming action game with an rpg mechanic of upgrading and customizing your weapon. However, the overall experience is hampered by: the unnecessary difficulty caused by an overly abstract map, lack of information on deeper combat mechanics, and the low level of visual customization.
With these aspects discussed, we can move on to redesign portion. But that’s gonna have to wait for the next post.
Until next time, bye Everybody!