By Alec Meer on June 12th, 2009 at 1:37 pm.
This = proper lovely. It’s a very short, incredibly charming browser-based puzzle game, starring that old indie staple, a cute robot. Familiar elements perhaps, but with a gorgeous, genuinely delightful execution. This is exactly the kind of game that should be played on a Friday lunchtime, leaving you with a warm and fuzzy feeling all weekend.
It’s made by Slovakian outfit OneClickDog, whose previous game, Kutuke, I shall eagerly check out next week. Where Little Wheel departs from the vast majority of browser-based puzzles games is:
a) it’s more or less a straight line with zero room for confusion, but maximum room for the charming joy of pressing buttons and watching things happen. This is, trust me, more than enough.
b) its remarkable art and music style, which may well owe a great debt to World of Goo, but by electing to use only silhouettes, really nails that living cartoon aesthetic.
I don’t want to say too much because I suspect I only dilute what’s a perfectly self-contained experience by doing so – so, go play.
Thanks to Several Noble Readers for mailing us about this.
12/06/2009 at 13:46 bansama says:
its remarkable art and music style, which may well owe a great debt to World of Goo
Most certainly so. The second I saw the image for this post I thought of 2DBoy.
12/06/2009 at 13:47 Dan says:
Played this the other day, very nice game. The idea of using hotspot icons is a welcome one. The animation is really top notch too.
I’m really not a big fan of the fastgames links being plastered all over the place though, sort of detracts from the experience a bit.
12/06/2009 at 14:05 bansama says:
I’m really not a big fan of the fastgames links being plastered all over the place though, sort of detracts from the experience a bit.
Exactly what I thought too having just played it. I’m also not a fan of the music but other than those things, the game was fairly fun. A little too short given the 20 mins it took to actually load up though. But that was probably just their servers getting strained or something.
12/06/2009 at 14:09 LewieP says:
Played it earlier in the week, and loved it. More please.
12/06/2009 at 14:11 c-Row says:
Charming! This left me with a smile and the good feeling that maybe I am not too dumb for the puzzles some of today’s games challenge me to (I am looking at YOU, Braid).
12/06/2009 at 14:19 Ian says:
I think that’s the cheeriest little game posted on here since Sunny Day. I feel all warm inside my cold, stony heart.
12/06/2009 at 14:47 Riotpoll says:
That was a nice little game.
12/06/2009 at 14:47 Theory says:
Screw you guys, I’m going to be mean about it. The art is nice but it practically plays itself: there’s next to nothing to do!
12/06/2009 at 14:56 mihor_fego says:
These guys that made it really deserve a chance to work on something with a proper budget! Think of this game with a fully developed story/world, multiple tiny robot characters between levels and interaction with more on-screen elements without showing hotspots, leaving space for multi-screen complex puzzles.
This was a tiny sweet taste, but it’s there to remind what’s the exciting aspect of small developers: they love their work and it shows. It’s true that this owes to WoG aesthetics, but the concept of cutesy cartoony 2d is really as old as videogames.
I’d gladly pay 20$ for a fully developed version of this, as I did for WoG and Kudos2. The satisfaction I got from playing these two games and supporting their creators is many times more than many big titles. And it feels good paying for such games instead of spending the same amount for a game that you know the people that put their creativity in it won’t get but a tiny fraction of a big studio’s earnings.
12/06/2009 at 14:58 Meat Circus says:
What a darling little romp.
Yeah, that’s right, I said “romp”.
12/06/2009 at 15:01 Youatemycheeto says:
Not to be all correcty, but my last girlfriend was from Slovakia and the adjective most prefer is “Slovak” as opposed to “Slovakian.” Just fyi. :-D
12/06/2009 at 15:05 The Hammer says:
I liked this! I thought it was a bit too much like World of Goo in its art style to be totally fresh, but the music was cheerful, and some of the animations were well worth solving the puzzles for. I very much liked the train. Poor train. :(
12/06/2009 at 15:06 The Hammer says:
Actually, did that take a long time to load in for anybody else? I had to wait about three minutes for it. I’m presuming it was just a bad connection.
12/06/2009 at 15:18 Pags says:
Lovely, very much Samorost-esque too. Has gotten me wanting Machinarium a little more now, although hopefully that game won’t be quite as simple as this one.
12/06/2009 at 15:18 Pags says:
Oh and Hammer, I had to wait a long time too.
12/06/2009 at 15:30 Stuk says:
Took quite a while to load for me as well.
I really liked the animation, it has a nice weighty feel to it. Music was lovely as well. Not much of a game, although I enjoyed playing it, more like, as Meat Circus said, a “romp”.
12/06/2009 at 15:38 Wallace says:
Those are some sick silhouettes.
12/06/2009 at 15:45 teo says:
Played it to the crane
Might play more later, it was quite nice
12/06/2009 at 15:48 Lack_26 says:
@Drunky,
No, it wasn’t just you. It took me about that long to load.
12/06/2009 at 16:10 Schmung says:
The art and animation were splendid. Not a vast amount of game there, but a lovely way to spend five or so minutes as you toddle through it grinning to yourself.
12/06/2009 at 16:42 DSX says:
Haven’t tried yet, but the screens seem like almost a direct art-style copy of World of Goo.. not that it’s a bad thing.
12/06/2009 at 16:56 Brother None says:
Very nice, if indeed also very easy. But the style is hypnotizing, it’s got so much oodles of it, it barely needs gameplay.
12/06/2009 at 17:03 The Hammer says:
@Lack_26: Brrr. Old name, man. Old name.
(Glad to see it wasn’t just me with the long loading!)
12/06/2009 at 17:14 Diziet Sma says:
Saw this linked on offworld yesterday and played it through last night. Short and utterly charming, well worth a few minutes.
12/06/2009 at 17:36 The Innocent says:
Played it yesterday, and I must say that I actually enjoyed having the answers to the puzzles right there in front of me, leaving all the time to just enjoy the scenery. Most of the time I play a browser puzzle game, I eventually load up a walkthrough anyway, so this was just great fun. I laughed a little that there was a “walkthrough” link in the top right corner, when the game essentially highlights the answers to the puzzles already.
12/06/2009 at 17:37 Bret says:
Heh.
Fun, nice looking, give hints, even has a link to a walkthrough if you get stuck.
The very last bit, I am shamed to say, still took me longer than it should.
12/06/2009 at 17:50 Colin says:
played this yesterday, thought about emailing the RPS hivemind about it but looks like someone beat me to it. I wasn’t sure what to think – it really wasn’t that fun, just pretty. Am I allowed to like that? Should I? TELL ME WHAT TO THINK
12/06/2009 at 17:55 jsutcliffe says:
My wife showed this to me the other day, and I thought it was swell. The presentation is excellent, even though there’s not much to the actual game. The puzzle tip system made it all far too easy, reminding me a bit of the old Don Bluth games where you’re there for the animation not the game.
I guess it felt like a portfolio piece more than a full-fledged game.
12/06/2009 at 18:00 Jon says:
An excellent end to the week – played this in the last 20 minutes of Friday afternoon at work, and I’m now suitably relaxed for the pub.
I think it could have done with not highlighting the things you need to interact with though, which would have given it a little more life.
12/06/2009 at 18:02 Jon says:
Oh, and I agree with people’s loading woes. Even on work’s 100Mbps connection it took a few minutes.
12/06/2009 at 18:14 abhishek says:
Pretty cute game :)
12/06/2009 at 18:23 MrBejeebus says:
fun to play but i was dismayed when i suddenly reached the end, i thought it might at least last a bit longer..
12/06/2009 at 18:44 Zyrxil says:
Loved it. Short, simple beautiful. The Hotspotting was great. Adventure-game pixel hunting is crap anyway; Interactive objects should always be obviously, so in a world of silhouettes it’s quite an elegant solution.
12/06/2009 at 19:06 greenb says:
How is this functionally different from the much-hated Ludo?
12/06/2009 at 19:18 l1ddl3monkey says:
JAZZ! I liked the game.
12/06/2009 at 19:21 Gravey says:
@greenb: It won’t make you want to have sex?
12/06/2009 at 19:29 JohnArr says:
Great find. Kinda wanted all the other robots to just continue without acknowledging your efforts, but that might be overly cynical :P
12/06/2009 at 19:32 Pags says:
@greenb: well, there’s no element of luck to the game. Which basically means it is completely different from Ludo. Is that different enough for you?
12/06/2009 at 19:47 Bret says:
Also it has adorable robots.
Lovable robots are always better than Ludo.
12/06/2009 at 20:03 psyk says:
Didn’t load instantly must write comment on how slow it was RAWR
12/06/2009 at 20:07 a says:
But this is like ludo with a crap jazz tune.
12/06/2009 at 20:09 drewski says:
I haven’t even played World of Goo and I still got the art link.
I don’t get why the robots are excited when you finish the game, it’s not like they’d *know*.
12/06/2009 at 20:11 psyk says:
Cant seem to edit no more but the game itself isnt bad nice to look at and the animations were nice would of liked it if the hotspots were removed but thats just me.
12/06/2009 at 20:13 Pags says:
@a: not sure where you’re getting the Ludo comparison from. If it were like Ludo you’d just sit pressing the same hotspot for 20 minutes hoping eventually an invisible dice roll will let you progress to the next bit whereas instead you have to solve puzzles by clicking things in order. No luck, just very very elemetary puzzle solving.
12/06/2009 at 20:23 a says:
The point is there’s barely any game in there. There are only 4 pr 5 puzzles that have any kind of choice.
12/06/2009 at 20:23 Linfosoma says:
Very enjoyable, thanks for the link!
12/06/2009 at 20:39 Wulf says:
This…
This is stylish, and it’s clever. It’s a heart-warming and endearing self-contained storyline that’s short enough for anyone to be able to enjoy. It’s exposing people to a rather different kind of story-telling and environment, something perhaps even a little bit joyously alien, and… well, it’s just beautiful.
I’m also glad that it’s a natural tale, and one that doesn’t rely on chiefly structured and artificial instances of tragedy to try and jerk some kind of emotional response out of the audience. I’ve seen that used so many times in books and movies, and never well, it’s getting a little old. Sorry JohnArr.
The feeling of this actually reminds me of Discworld, if that makes any sense, because it’s genuinely charming, and it’s a story that’s a celebration of life, determination, and truly selfless acts.
As a game, it seems to be a natural evolution of Samorost, it’s the same kind of thing but it had more of a point to it, it was better executed, more focused, and it was a story.
And the background music was great, it was slightly perky but the jazz portrayed a slight feeling of sadness and loneliness, which was a fantastic undertone for the adventure, as it conveyed the feelings of our adorable little robot. All alone, but he knew how to fix that problem, and had hope that he could do it.
The English subtitles for the few parts where they exist are slightly shaky and could use a minor rewrite, but I can’t dock it down points for that. And the one Flashgames advertisement was a bit out of place too, but if that’s all I can find wrong with it, well…
10/10! If you hadn’t figured that out already.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much I played it twice, and then I downloaded it just in case it ever disappeared, because there are a few little flash games of the ilk that I’d never want to drop off the Earth.
http://fastgames.com/flash4/littlewheel.swf – if anyone’s interested, I tested it offline too just to make sure it doesn’t fetch anything from the server in order to run.
What I’d like to see is a series of self-contained mini-adventures like this, perhaps 10 or 20, starring adventures of the little robot. Perhaps now that he’s gained a sense of individuality, he wants to learn more about the World around him, and goes on a few jaunts of exploration and discovery.
I would seriously pay for this if they didn’t get greedy and overcharge for it, I bought Samorost 2 after all, and this would be much of the same. There’s definitely a future for games of this medium… it feels like Zeno Clash, someone just wanted to tell a silly little story, the digital age equivalent of an old man telling a story to a bunch of kids around the fireplace, and it works very well.
TL;DR: MOAR PLZ. HAVE MONEY.
12/06/2009 at 21:25 MarkN says:
Good Night Robots.
12/06/2009 at 21:48 Linfosoma says:
Thanks for the link Wulf!
12/06/2009 at 21:58 Wulf says:
Oh and…
@drewski
A basic understanding of computers and some observation should give you all the information to figure that out.
First of all, let’s posit that they had a backup generator, but that generator wasn’t functioning properly, I say this because when our hero gets to the generator, one guard is functioning, along with the robotic arm in the generator room, but not the generator’s maintenance robot.
Given the guard outside, that wouldn’t seem an unreasonable conclusion, it’s also possible that the backup generator was powering the shared consciousness of the machines, and that the drones were just a physical externalisation of that, each inhabiting the body they chose to.
What I’m getting at is that they all existed within a mainframe somewhere, and the actual robots were just terminals, without power the terminals couldn’t move but that didn’t mean that they’d all just died, simply that they couldn’t use their bodies, which must’ve been frustrating.
Then suddenly one of them finds that his body is accessible and he goes on a romp to restore power, and suddenly all those minds can use their robotic bodies again. Rejoice!
Is the idea of a mainframe a bit too much for you? How about this, the backup generator was powering a diagnostics system that had an atomic clock, and it’s still very likely that all the machines are networked, so upon revival they all get an update from that system and it’s simple for them to figure out what’s happened, and they feel elated.
These are just two possibilities given by the hints we’re given, and two rather likely possibilities, it seems silly to assume that a civilisation of robotic entities would be limited by human restraints.
12/06/2009 at 22:02 Mad Doc MacRae says:
This was magnificent. Take that haters, I enjoyed this game.
12/06/2009 at 22:43 DeliriumWartner says:
I loved this so much. I actually wrote a little note thanking them and asking for more, please.
12/06/2009 at 23:43 Smike says:
Charming game indeed. From the music to the animations where just fantastic.
13/06/2009 at 00:52 john t says:
It was a nice diversion for a few minutes, well done, in terms of story and character and design.
Barely a game, though. I really like the obvious hot-spotting, i wish escape the room games would do that.
13/06/2009 at 01:26 Wulf says:
“It’s barely a game.”
One could say that about Saomorost too, then.
One thing one might wonder though: Is it bad if it’s barely a game, or is that good? Also, is that relevant to what they were trying to do?
If you go in expecting a game, then you may find barely a game, and that observation would be fair. However, if they were offering an interactive story and you declare it barely a game because of your own expectations, then that’s another matter all together.
Expectations can ruin a lot of things, for example; if a person were to sit down for a bite to eat, they might expect a fruit dessert because that’s what they fancy. Then, if a chocolate dessert was placed in front of them — even if it happened to be the finest chocolate dessert in the world — they’re going to be disappointed and it’ll dampen their enjoyment of it. This would be in spite of whether they’d been told what to expect or not.
It may be barely a game, but as I’ve explained that’s not really relevant if it’s not supposed to be a game, regardless of one’s expectations. I find little gems like this to be absolute genius, and I wish they could stand by their own merits without being compared to games. To me, they’re interactive stories, akin to a graphical version of written interactive fiction.
And sometimes in IF, all that’s necessary is the occasional rudimentary input from those engaged with that IF, but at the end of hte day it’s still IF. This is similar, and I’d say it sits in its own genre as a kind of iconic visual interactive fiction, which sounds silly but it’s the only way I can think of putting it.
13/06/2009 at 04:54 Radiant says:
@mihor_fego
I disagree; this works /because/ nothing is fully fleshed out.
This and goo worked because it suggested a world rather then gave you endless detail.
This sets your own imagination running and that is, well should be, enough.
13/06/2009 at 04:56 Radiant says:
Which is the difficulty with that kind of story telling.
The less imagination the person being told the story has the less they enjoy it.
13/06/2009 at 04:56 Radiant says:
The narrative equivalent of “too long; didn’t read”
13/06/2009 at 11:14 Jayteh says:
Cute, fun and didn’t drag on.
13/06/2009 at 11:53 Stompbox says:
Stylistically it reminds me of ‘The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello’ which is an excellent short film by Anthony Lucas. You should watch it; unless you hate cinema, in which case you may continue chewing your side of mutton, spittle dripping and dangling dangerously on your sagging jowls as you scowl at the neighbour children preparing to berate them for their feckless ways, because ultimately you’re dead inside and you try to fill that hollow void with hate. I pity you.
13/06/2009 at 12:29 Thirith says:
Good call, Stompbox. A friend lent me his DVD of the Oscar-nominated shorts of the year when The Mysterious Geographic Explorations was nominated. I didn’t particularly like most of the other nominations, whether animated or not, but this one was stylistically fascinating, imaginative and didn’t go for the whole “man, this is, like, so deep, and personal, and poignant!” vibe that most of the other shorts had.
13/06/2009 at 15:30 Wulf says:
Hmmm…
First of all, I have to say that I do hate cinemas, but not cinematic work. A hearing condition has left me unable to enter something as noisy as a cinema without passing out, lots of fun that is. I wonder where that puts me?
Regardless of that, I looked the title up on YouTube and here it was, there were a few visual observations at first, such as that it seemed like a gothic version of Skies of Arcadia (with some elements being eerily similar) and that I loved Morello’s hair.
The more I watched it the more sylistic similarities I saw between that and Little Wheel, and it took but a few minutes to get me completely hooked right up until the end. I’m also so very, very pleased that it didn’t force an ending on us, and instead left that to the imagination.
For an ending probably would have been some forced tragedy in most cases, and that would’ve been depressing in such a way that it would overshadow the film. But the way it ended means that everyone can write their own epilogue, as did I. In mine, Morello survived and brought the creature back, and examination yielded a synthetic way to reproduce the cure, his wife was saved and they lived happily ever after. With no need to propagate the creature itself around the living colonies, there was no danger, and their World was a little better for it. Morello was vindicated from his past, accidental crime.
Predictable? Certainly, but I’m fond of predictably joyous endings.
Thanks for sharing, Stompbox.
13/06/2009 at 18:34 JonFitt says:
That was cute.
13/06/2009 at 20:39 cowthief skank says:
I really liked it, had a smile on my face the whole way through.
13/06/2009 at 20:52 drewski says:
Wulf – I find your interpretation unneccesarily complex for what was a throwaway observation.
13/06/2009 at 22:12 Wulf says:
@drewski
Unnecessary, you say? Well that’s imagination for you. And throwaway? I’d say that’s a bitter representation of not having noticed such an obvious hint yourself.
Indeed, I would posit that the designers placed little hints throughout the interactive story they wove to add detail and flavour. However, only those designers could tell us that for sure, and until then I admit that this is thoroughly subjective.
However, I’d say that the safe money would be with thinking that the designers would tell you the same thing. After all, this is a game that authors have been playing with their collective audience across various mediums for years; dropping hints at things that could be, so that an observant individual will spot them, and speculate about their nature. Thus leaving elements of the story open to the imagination and interpretation of the observer.
So to reiterate: I would imagine that the result would depend on which of us is correct; whether it was a hint added to the story to help the audience further extrapolate the nature of the World in which the story was set, or whether it was an amateurish mistake which had been overlooked (this, I would assume, would have to be your position).
I’m an optimist, so I’d rather believe it was the former, and that you’ve got egg on your face because you were looking for something to complain about or criticise, simply for the sake of doing so, and in the effort you picked something that I dare say anyone could have explained away easily.
With an effort like Little Wheel, I suppose one would have to scrape the barrel to pick out something wrong with it. But the problem with scraping the barrel is that you usually only get worthless scraps that really should have been left there.
But as I said, this is all subjective. I have my opinion, you have yours. Though I do hope that we get word from them, just so I can giggle about it.
14/06/2009 at 00:19 Muzman says:
Very cute. Reminds me of Portal with the whole ‘too simple to be fun’ debate.
I was racing back to mention Jasper Morello as well.
You can watch it here fully legit;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM
(though it’s not quite as cheerful as the above game)
14/06/2009 at 01:05 drewski says:
Wulf – you’re taking this way, way too seriously.
14/06/2009 at 02:40 Joseph says:
I absolutely loved it. Too short.
14/06/2009 at 11:34 James Hsieh says:
It is absolutely NOT too short.
FACT 1: Perfect work means NO PART OF THE GAME is boring.
FACT 2: The ENTIRE game was good.
THEREFORE
FACT 3: Game is the PERFECT length.
Q.E.D.