About Swing City:
I thoroughly enjoyed this little game, in the same way as I enjoyed surfing in CS:S. Similar vibe. The game revolves entirely around a very grounded grappling mechanic. You don’t have any air strafing, you don’t have any rope length manipulation. You just have a rope, a thing it’s stuck to, and your existing momentum. It feels unintuitive, but rewarding to master. It wasn’t until I was over halfway through the game that I really, truly grasped how the movement works. Until that point, I thought I had figured it out several times, but every time the next level would throw me for a loop by requiring me to think about the momentum from a different angle. It’s a very direct, simple game. In a good way, in my opinion. It doesn’t have any fluff. it just gives you a mechanic that you probably haven’t dealt with in exactly this way before, and then gives you a series of tests so you can hone your skills with that mechanic. As for the criticisms: There’s very little art/visual design, it’s a utilitarian pile of assets which is often ugly. The music is also distracting and unpleasant most of the time. The game is short, and could probably do with either “themed” sets of levels which would have more coherent art styles and gameplay themes. I’m imagining something like a “cave” set of levels where you’re dealing with lots of claustrophobic, mazey, quick gameplay, as opposed to another set of levels which might revolve around massive jumps and big open levels, etc.
