When you start up the first level of Polygonal Fury, from new developer DogInLake, you may get a feeling of déjà vu. For some reason (boomshine), it feels very familiar, but it's hard to (boomshine) put your finger on exactly what it's similar to (boomshine, boomshine, boomshine).
The basic premise of Polygonal Fury is straight out of Boomshine, and the first level will seem very familiar to veterans of that game: Simply click on a circle, and it will explode. Any circles that touch the explosion before it finishes also explode, and so on. You only have a few clicks to eliminate as many as possible, so pick your shots carefully.
As you continue onwards, however, you will note that Polygonal Fury has expanded on this simple concept. There are two additional shapes: squares zoom off in one of the four cardinal directions until they hit something and triangles fire a sniper shot, eliminating one random shape anywhere on the screen. After a couple levels, shapes gain hit points, so instead of triggering with a single click, explosion, ram, or shot, some will need to be hit twice. In later levels, some take as many as four.
It is, however, not all bad news. Each level has three levels of "complete". Bronze gets you to the next level, but is only worth one point. Silver requires more shapes to be cleared, but awards 3 points. And Gold is the best of all, giving you 5 points for clearing almost all of the shapes. Once you've collected some points, you can spend them on any of 11 different upgrades.
Each shape has three types of upgrade, one that improves the basic shape, one that adds "Super" versions of it, and one that gives the super shape a chance to be even more powerful. For instance, you can improve the explosion radius of circles, super circles have an even larger explosion, and upgrading the super circles gives them a chance to deal double damage. Arguably the most powerful upgrades, however, are the two click upgrades: Double damage and additional clicks.
Each upgrade (with the exception of double click damage) has multiple levels, each more expensive than the last. Adding a second point of damage to your triangles will cost you 15 points, but the third point is another 20, for a total of 35 points or 7 gold medals.to upgrade them fully. Fortunately, you can redo earlier levels to improve the medal you have, and if things get truly desperate, you can click Reset and reassign your points as you see fit.
Analysis: Polygonal Fury could have easily been another cheap Boomshine clone, but DogInLake clearly put some love into making it. The level balancing is simply amazing, with the challenges you are forced to meet increasing right alongside the abilities you've purchased so that you're challenged by each new level.
The three shapes are also surprisingly well-balanced. Each one plays a specific role in continuing the chain reaction, a role which is reinforced by the upgrades given to it. Circles are short range, hitting everything nearby and sustaining the reaction. Triangles handle long range, hitting a single shape with pinpoint accuracy and spreading the reaction to new areas. And squares are hybrids, moving in a straight line, able to hit one or more targets at any distance, if they are timed right. A few of the later levels completely lack one shape, and those are some of the hardest levels in the game, because all three types are indispensable, even with full upgrades.
The graphics and sound of Polygonal Fury probably won't be winning any awards, but they get the job done. There's also a rather half-hearted attempt at a story that feels tacked-on and is completely forgettable. And at times it's a royal pain to click on the shape you want to, between its motion and the bizarre tendency for a click to hit a shape beneath it instead.
Honestly, though, all of that is unimportant. Polygonal Fury is all about skill, difficulty, and upgrades, and it has those nailed. Everything else is minor quibbling, because it doesn't really get in the way, and the core gameplay is a blast.
Does anyone have a non-Kongregate link for this game? Since they redid their chat system a few months ago, it crashes my entire browser every single time.
That's odd, what browser do you use?
Also, I love triangles. Delicious, delicous triangles.
Zack - we've managed to work out most of the bugs that cropped up with that release. If you're still having issues with the new chat, please email me: KongQA at Kongregate (dot) com. I'd be happy to help you and try to figure out what's going wrong. :)
AnthonyP: I talked to your support desk when it first rolled out. I'm on 64-bit Linux with the beta Flash plugin, and, while this is *less* crashy than the available alternatives, it's still bad. The odds are that it's not something you can fix, although if you do come up with a fix I would be quite happy. :)
I was completely addicted through most of the game, until the last level. The previously mentioned bug where clicking will hit the shape BELOW the one you're after made that level impossible. Make the game beatable and I'll surely go back to finish it up.
Warning: Insane 2 is an order of magnitude more difficult than any level that precedes it.
Zack - it was probably me who you talked to. Unfortunately, that's indeed one of the only issues we've been unable to fix (the 64-bit alpha release of Flash player for Linux). However, if they've gone to a beta release we'll have to re-examine it and see if we can get it working. We were just primarily hesitant to do too much work to an alpha release of an application. I'll talk with our developers and see if it's at a point that we can move forward with supporting it. Thanks for letting me know. :)
For anyone who needs an alternate link, I've set one up here:
http://polygonal.fury.fizzlebot.com/
Is there a reward for getting all gold medals? I thought it said something about that after beating the Insane levels, but nothing happened (and I don't want to play through the game again to see just what it really said).
At the top of the level select game, there's a link to the Reaction Chamber. It's pretty hard to notice, because it just looks like some random heading, not something clickable. -FunnyMan
What an insanely addictive game. The upgrades just kept me going--always going back to previous levels to see if I could better my score and get more upgrade points.
The insane levels are quite a leap in difficulty from the hard levels, but I eventually managed to get gold on every one.
AnthonyP: I see no bug in Kongregate new game display system but just wanted to tell you that since you use this system I just ignore any game on it.
I have children and the last thing I need is an obligation to be net-connected to play a game.
I don't care with adds inside downloadable games, but you won't get me let play my children in such a way they need to be "on the cloud" to play, even worse next to a chat.
Internet is NOT a place for children.
Oh, $#@^, only gold levels are needed for sandbox mode? I thought you needed the highest score possible (0) on all maps to get sandbox mode. Protip: Do not do this, for getting 0 on Insane maps is all up to the RNG, and you will likely go crazy trying to do it. Even if you don't go crazy, you'll loathe every minute of it, so just don't bother.
Bad interface, kept accidentally pressing "option" or worse still "back" buttons located on screen.
Some confirmation window or putting it somewhere else would have saved me from aggravation.
This seems like a good expansion of the boomshine concept. Navigation is tricky, but I'm relaly looking forward to diving into this.
Just got to insane level 2 and got completely stumped. And help on what order to upgrade?
Franp - I'm glad to hear that you're keeping an eye on internet usage of your kids - I think a lot of parents aren't aware of the risks online, and that's scary. While I disagree when you say that the entire internet is not for kids (there are indeed some safe places, like Club Penguin, and software, like Net Nanny, that you can use to help keep things safe), Kongregate.com is certainly in no way intended to be accessed by children. We don't allow anyone under the age of 13 to register for the site and we make it clear that we are a PG-13 site. Perhaps when they grow up. :)
By the way, I feel bad not posting on topic at all here - sorry 'bout that! I've actually played Polygonal Fury a lot (accidentally went to sleep an hour later than I intended one night thanks to this game) and it is indeed quite awesome and addicting. I was skeptical for the first few levels, and then found myself getting drawn in deeper and deeper. I'm currently stuck on Insane 4, but I've golded almost every other one (except for Insane 2). Looking forward to (hopefully) finishing it. :) Well done DogInLake!
The jump from Hard levels to Insane levels is just plain too much. I've earned gold on everything up to Insane 3, and Insane 4-6 are still up to the whims of the random number generator.
Everything up to Insane 1 was fun; after that, it's like pulling teeth. :-(
For the Insane levels, you'll want to try to get gold on all previous levels to maximize your chances of success (you can get by with a few silvers, though).
The trick to the first three Insane levels is that they omit one shape, so redo your upgrades and put them all into the two shapes present; of course, luck still plays its part - on Insane 2 I went straight from failing a dozen times to getting a Gold. The rest of the Insane levels are mostly luck, though it does help to look at the numbers of each shape in the level and redo your upgrades to best suit it before doing it.
And don't worry about getting a Gold or even a Silver on every Insane level your first time through, as once you beat all the Insane levels you get 52 extra upgrade points to help you.
How do you get a reaction started on the last insane level? I got all golds through the first three series, so I have upgrade points to throw around, but I just cant get anything to start!
It's hard, TAE. My strategy is to try and find two super-circles and set them off near each other. Hopefully a few other shapes will get caught in both blasts enough to set them off, and that'll start the reaction.
Best game of it's kind, took me a while on insane 2 till I realized you can reset your upgrades...
Now that I've got gold on all levels, having fun trying to crash my browser in the reaction chamber. 50 of each type of polygon takes a while but no crash yet. I'll increase by 10 each and come back with the crashing amount :-)
The Reaction Chamber is *almost* worth the price of admission (to so speak). Lots of fun.
(Once you're fully upgraded, it's interesting to see how many levels you can 100% (0 polygons remaining) in just one click. I'm up to Hard 6 or 7 so far...)
Loved it. golded all levels easily.
Hey,
I just wanted to thank you for this positive review. I realize this is over a month after the fact, but I was really overwhelmed by the response to my game when it first came out, and since then I've been hard at work with non flash-game related projects. Polygonal Fury was just about the first game I've ever made (just about, I've participated in Ludum Dare under the handle Gilvado).
I'm going to be starting on another project soon, and I hope that you'll enjoy it as much as you did Polygonal Fury! As for all the other (non game critic) people that enjoyed the game -- I'm glad that you did! You enjoying the game is the biggest motivator ever, and I'm dead set on continuing to make better and better games for you guys to play.
Sincerely,
Johannes Pauw
(DogInLake)
DoginLake, let me just say that this was a terrific game. I loved watching the last Insane level once I got it to take off. I'm not sure how you could improve on this game, but if you find a way, I'd really like to see a sequel. :)
For those of you having trouble on the Insane levels:
You'll need all the points you can get- make sure all the Easy, Medium, and Hard levels are gold scores. You'll most likely have to customize you upgrades for each level.
And for Insane 10:
I hugely recommend these upgrades, in order:
-Click double damage, and maximum number of clicks. This is pretty much a given; even with double damage, you'll have to use two clicks on the first shape.
-Super circles, with the largest blast radius and chance of double damage. Completely upgrade the circle.
-Triangles need to be at maximum damage. Get a few super triangles if you think you need to.
-Squares: Maximum penetration.
After that, spend whatever points you have left developing the Squares and Triangles as you see fit.
It is crucial that you start the level by clicking on a super circle (twice). It will likely be double-damage, weakening surrounding shapes. Then, quickly find a nearby super circle, and activate it. You may need to try this a few times; luck and timing determine the outcome of this one.
There are over three hundred shapes in this level. The advantage here is that once you set off a good chain reaction, the level will pretty much unravel itself. You'll have to be very careful not to click on overlapping shapes, though.
The bronze cut-off is in the lower thirties, and you have to get zero for gold.
Following this strategy, I set off a chain reaction that obliterated every single shape on the last level. It was immensely satisfying to watch and listen to.
Stuck out at insane 4. All previous levels except Insane 1 and 2 CLEARED! Insane 1 and 2 completed on bronze.
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