Twitter has been on a lot of people’s minds, and for all sorts of different reasons. Even with the controversies that came with the change in ownership, Twitter sometimes it comes up with the goods.
A brief mention on Twitter of the retro game Lemmings was met with an invitation to check out Humanity. Judging by the Steam listing, this seems to share a similar concept, and has both VR and non-VR modes. I won’t be testing out the VR capabilities of the game as I don’t have access to the appropriate VR headset. But I will be giving the non-VR mode a bit of a run for its money.
Gameplay
The gameplay behind Humanity is very simple. You take on the role of a dog, and you must guide a long stream of humans towards safety. You do this by steering them around corners, helping them climb up walls, and basically steering them towards the exit.
The game is broken up into levels, with each level getting progressively more difficult. I may have given a big nod to the Lemmings franchise in the intro and there is a reason for that. This is basically a 3D VR-enabled version of Lemmings, which is why I suspect this was recommended to me.
I did stumble across a few annoyances with the non-VR version of the game. Getting your camera in a decent position with a keyboard and mouse can be an exercise in frustration until you get used to the controls. It did take me a few levels really to get used to it, partly because I’m not used to right-click and drag and also because the scroll wheel did not behave as I expected. I suspect part of this comes from being used to a different virtual world client where the camera controls are completely different, but it really wasn’t until I got about three or four levels in that I really got my head around the controls.
The other issue I had stemmed from being a keyboard and mouse user. The keyboard controls were a little bit quirky so to speak in that the direction I was turning the humans didn’t always match up with what I was expecting. Part of this may have been caused by the rather distant default camera angle and not being able to tell which way I was facing. I get the impression this would be a lot better if you were either in VR mode or were using a controller rather than keyboard and mouse, as well as having a better camera angle by default.
Aside from these slight quirks, I found the puzzles themselves to be challenging, but not necessarily in a bad way. One nice feature that allows you to cheat a little bit is a solution video for each level, which you can call upon if you’re getting stuck. Some people might see that as cheating, but sometimes you do get genuinely stuck trying to solve a level. Sometimes it’s also fun to come up with a solution that isn’t quite what the developers has in mind, as there is often more than one way to solve a level.
In that sense, the levels were really well thought out and it shows. This is not a game that you can passively play, it’s something that requires you to use your brain.
The big downside for me was how long it took me to get my head around the camera, and controlling my character. However the challenges were otherwise quite good. If you’re fan of problem-solving style games that make you think, and are prepared to learn the controls, the game is otherwise fairly decent.
Graphics
The graphics in the game are simple, yet effective. The developers seem to want to give owners of older hardware options for VR which is a noble goal, and the simplified graphics reflect that. Having said that, the graphics still work effectively well.
One thing that could be improved slightly is the camera angle, at least in the non-VR version. The rather distant and high camera angle that you get by default is likely to have contributed to some of the issues I had, and trying to fix that while trying to actually play the game can get a little frantic. This may work better if you’re able to use a VR headset, which I’m unable to test as I do not own that sort of hardware.
Conclusion
Humanity is let down a little by the camera issues and trying not to confuse myself with the controls. This did take away a little from the experience.
The game is otherwise well put together. It’s a challenging game that, if it weren’t for the time taken to get used to the controls, would have been a great experience. It just seems a game that’s better suited as a full VR experience, and suffers somewhat if you are using keyboard and mouse.
