Of the games we’ve played so far, I think At a Distance uses
networking most effectively. I get that the idea is to have the two computers
side by side, but if they weren’t, I’m not sure if I would have ever figured
out how the two players are connected. Even being able to see both computers
next to each other it still took me a while to figure out how the game worked.
I’m not sure if that’s a testament to the game’s interesting design or my
inability to see the obvious, but it raised the game in my eyes.
The interesting thing about At a Distance is that the
networked element of the game wasn’t revealed at the start (besides joining a
server’s game) like it was in Joust and Sleep is Death. Nor was it too
difficult (after a bit of thinking) to see how it worked, unlike Between, which
I’m still not sure I understand.
I’m not sure I liked At a Distance from a pure gameplay
perspective, since platforming and puzzles aren’t really my thing - but I
enjoyed how the two players had to work together to move further in the game.
You could say the same about Sleep is Death, or any number of cooperative
games, but I think something about At a Distance sets it apart, at least from
the other games we’ve played so far. One player being the “key” and the other
being a sort of “world master” was a really interesting concept to me that I
personally haven’t seen explored in a game before.
At a Distance is the most interesting game we’ve played so
far. Joust was similar to other party games I’ve played before, and Sleep is
Death was a cool concept but was also a pretty simple example of networking,
since it was literally sending all of the data back and forth. Between’s
networking element was too hard to discern, which kind of turned me off from
the game.