The game itself is made in an abstract style, loosely resembling
shooting range like games. But instead of shooting targets, a player
has to constantly keep a beam on one target represented by a green
cylinder. Physical forces are applied to a player and the target, so
both of them are constantly moving along parallel lines. After 90
seconds player's accuracy is taken as the level's score.
The goal was to create simple and challenging, but forgiving game,
designed exclusively for a mouse as input controller. In BEAM, unlike
most difficult games, there is no '100 death after 1-2 seconds'
experience. No matter how bad a player is, playing until the end is
possible. Also there is now such thing as '1 error is a restart', so
frustration about unlucky patterns is kept to a minimum.
There are 6 'levels' in the game, a player can progress through. Each
of them is just a pattern of applying forces to a player and the
target. Difficulty is scaled from simple deterministic patterns to
almost random movements. A player has some additional information
about own force direction, draw as bars on a screen. And a cylinder
leaning represents force applied to the enemy. Movements are based on
physical forces simulation and have some inertia. So the game, despite
being very simple, has several parameters, according to those a player
can make decisions. Another important thing about difficulty is, the
game doesn't require to play longer for scoring more. It is always 90
seconds, so exhaustion factor is excluded.
It is a free to play game, available for windows and linux
systems. Hope your'll enjoy it.
