January is Get Organized Month! - Cole Hardware Cole Hardware

Have you ever tried to breathe the air of confetti and colored ribbons? Walking through a forest filled with newspaper trees? Looking with paper eyes at paper clouds, mountains, squirrels, deer? Dive into paper water and spray paper drops on paper grass? Not? And we managed to experience all this thanks to the proposed preview version of Tearaway, which appears on the Russian market under the name "Sorvanets".

Tearaway is being developed exclusively for Friv5Online, and for once the platform exclusivity of the project is justified. You can count on your fingers the crazy games that take full advantage of the functionality of the handheld console. In most cases, we received high quality products, with excellent graphics for a portable device and pleasant gameplay, but the latter was not particularly original, ignoring the unique features of Vita. Rare screen strokes in Assassin's Creed: Liberation that unseal a seal are unable to change the perception of traditional mechanics. Tearaway

valuejust the fact that it fully uses all the capabilities of "Vita", creating a unique interactive experience, in principle, not attainable on other platforms. The touch screen, the active back panel, the camera, the spatial orientation of the console - all these features here do not work as random appendages to the "button" gameplay, but constitute its essence.

The active use of all Vita features minimizes the distance between the player and his character. We can say that in this Tearaway corresponds to the spirit of modern art - the fourth wall narrows down to the thickness of a sheet of paper, and the viewer's position shifts towards the stage where the main action takes place. However, unlike indie crazy games, Tearawaydoes not fall into philosophical reflections, trying to prove to the user that it is here and now that the search for deep meaning should finally be crowned with success. Instead, Media Molecule tells us a story of genius in its simplicity, set in a colorful world with minimalist design and creatures that seem to have descended from the pages of the works of Lewis Carroll.

So, imagine that the device you are holding in your hands is not a console, but a real window into another world, designed as a colossal origami. There are two main characters; one of them is you, contemplating and interfering with everything that happens. The camera constantly captures your face and broadcasts the image to the cloudy heights of each of the levels, creating a "hole" between the worlds. The inhabitants of the paper universe discuss the creature hovering above them, calling it "the one outside." Thus, the very concept of levels contributes to a literal immersion in the game.

The second actor is the Messenger. He acts as our alter ego in the classical sense - he jumps, runs, interacts with objects. The goal of our hero is to deliver some important message to us personally. To do this, he needs to find a powerful cannon that can throw him to the window into the real world. Our task is to use the capabilities of "Vita" to break into the virtual space of the game and change it, thus ensuring the unhindered progress of the protagonist.

There is no plot as such, but the idea of ​​delivering a message and contemplation of one's own physiognomy create a kind of intrigue: what kind of news does the character want to tell us? Sometimes you start to believe that the Messenger can really fly out of the console screen! Despite the fact that he does not speak and lacks any biography, during the passage you experience a real emotional attachment to the character.

art lessons Tearaway achieves an unprecedented level of interaction between the player and the hero precisely thanks to the use of the technological filling of the Desura We have already said about the camera, which embeds your face into the architecture of the level; in addition, the Messenger has a camera with which you can take pictures of anything and immediately send your work to the Web. The principle of creating works is very similar to Instagram - there are a dozen filters and several shooting modes.

The camera also performs purely gameplay functions. So, objects that have lost their color are eager to get into the lens in order to return the paint. In general, we are not just traveling through the existing world, but transforming it. Paper people and things will constantly ask us to redesign them with some scraps of paper that depict eyes, mouth, or geometric shapes. A scarecrow wants to become the scariest creature on the planet, and a lone deer wants to update his wardrobe for the winter season and show off in front of his friends? We take a photo of anything in our reality - and the resulting photo, like a texture, will stick around the animal!

Even if you are not a fan of character editors and in most crazy games accept the default hero image in Tearaway as a working imageyou will love to unleash your creativity. The fact is that the art editor includes a huge set of paper body parts and various shapes that can be glued to any area of ​​the decorated object using the touch screen. An infinite number of funny combinations are possible - for example, nothing prevents you from making a pig with vampire teeth, and sticking a piglet instead of a nose for the main character.

Sometimes we will be asked to create whole objects from scratch - in this case, get ready to feel like an origami master cutting complex shapes out of paper. Even if nothing happens, it doesn't matter: in this case, the formula “the worse, the funnier” works. The king of squirrels lost his crown and asked to make a new one for him - what was his joy when a yellow saucepan was hoisted on his head!

All this pleasant creative fuss is a significant but optional element of the gameplay. Most of the time we will spend in moving the Messenger through the levels and solving simple spatial puzzles. In general, no difficulties should arise during the passage. Forget about the words "hardcore" and "challenge" - this is from another opera. Tearaway offers an easy and painless walk, but there is simply no time to get bored here.

As we have already said, “the one who is outside,” that is, the player himself, acting on the objects of the paper world, creates conditions for the advancement of the Messenger. Interactive areas emit a special glow. Slide your finger over the folded sheet - and it immediately forms a bridge over the abyss. Did the main character meet an obstacle of irresistible height? We hit the back of the display - and the ground under the feet of the Messenger throws him into the air.

However, the most interesting are the battles with the enemies. The Messenger copes with some of them himself, dodging blows, grabbing square carcasses and throwing them on a hard surface. However, we are allowed to deal with others personally. Attached to the back of the Vita, a finger is pulled out of the ground in the game world. It is perceived as if the virtual finger is a continuation of the real! Driving them along the "back" of the console, you can destroy enemies, as well as move various objects to build a passage for the main character.

All the action takes place in a universe with an original minimalistic style. At first glance, it may seem that the textures that cover the objects are devoid of careful drawing and, in general, are rather scarce. The field is a large sheet of plain green paper, the sky is a blue plane. But very soon, when you are imbued with the "paper" concept of the project, you begin to perceive the graphics as an absolute virtue. The characters who speak a funny language in the style of the minions from the cartoon "Despicable Me", as well as catchy music performed in the manner of the legendary Neverhood soundtrack, play along well with the schematic and primitive spirit of the project.

It may be thought that simple gameplay, cartoon graphics and all sorts of crazy-games in the style of art lessons are looking for an audience of Tearaway somewhere in the ranks of young and cheerful visitors to kindergartens. However, it is not. The creation of Media Molecule is capable of captivating a much older audience. The reason for this is quite understandable: an experimental approach to the organization of the gameplay turns a small console into an almost living creature that reacts to your every touch and thereby causes children's delight. Not paper at all, by the way.