I’m not sure what kind of animals those are.

Hilomi is the opposite of a 2D platformer. In a platformer, you are given a character and an environment. You control the character to navigate the environment, collecting items and completing objectives. In Hilomi, you are given a character named Hilomi and an environment, but now you control the environment to help Hilomi collect pictures of animals and reach the gate to the next level.

The mechanics of Hilomi are pretty simple. The environment is made out of Minecraft-like blocks that Yamago repainted with better textures. There are different materials like earth, stone, sand, water, totem, wood, ice, and fire. All of them are good for something except stone. You can create and destroy blocks of earth, and you can turn materials into other materials. Making and destroying earth takes one mana per move, and converting materials takes two. My first problem with Hilomi is the contrived nature of this Minecraft alchemy. It makes sense that you can turn wood into totems because totems are often made of wood. It makes sense that these wooden totems can be turned into fire because, as any pyromaniac who’s received something from a Hawaiian gift shop knows, wooden totems burn quite well. If anyone understands the logic between being able to turn fire into sand, please, I implore you: leave me a comment and explain it to me.

Hilomi has a variety of environments, so you won’t get bored of the scenery.

The other contrived bit is the way you get more alchemy powers. In the beginning of the game, all you can do is make and destroy earth. Your alchemy powers are introduced one by one as you need them, with no explanation as to why you just learned a new trick. In fact, I don’t know who is helping Hilomi navigate these areas to take pictures of the wildlife. Hilomi is introduced in the opening cut-scene as a young, probably French girl who likes to take pictures of animals. I really like her as a character, but I have no clue who I am playing as. Am I some kind of benevolent god? Am I Hilomi’s subconscious, controlling a dream she is having? Am I a vampire who is working to gain her trust so I can eat her later?

That last one would make me feel better about the art style and music choice. In my preview of Forward to the Sky, I made a distinction between the kind of cheery that makes me feel like I’m going on an epic adventure and the kind of cheery that makes me sick. The art style of Hilomi is the latter.

My other problem with Hilomi is its loading times. My phone is a Droid Razr HD running Jelly Bean, and it took an average of 27 seconds of loading time to be ready to play. After that, there is a 5 second load time between worlds. This won’t be a big deal to some people, but when you’re waiting for your grandfather to get his hair cut, 27 seconds feels like a couple of minutes. The development team is currently looking at the issue.

Other than that, the game is really good. It’s easily the best mobile game I’ve ever played. While the cute art style annoys me, I like that the animals smile when Hilomi gets close to them. It has a rating system similar to the three-star system in games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Ten Second Ninja. Each level has three or four animals, and you must take pictures of all of them in order to get the highest rating. It’s incredibly satisfying to come back to a level that’s been troublesome and finally get all of the pictures. It also amuses me that Hilomi takes no fall damage but dies instantly in water like Cole McGrath from inFamous. Once you get past how contrived the game is, it’s incredibly fun. It has minor flaws that keep it from being perfect, but if you have an iOS or Android device, I strongly suggest you at least download the free version.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed on an Android-based device using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

One of these people is breaking the rules. Can you tell which one?

No Photos, Please! is a social stealth game in the works from The Basement Studios that has passed Greenlight on Steam, and after playing a few rounds of it with my little sister, I’ve come to the conclusion that it has a lot of potential. Two players share a screen with an isometric view of a museum and race to figure out which of the many 8-bit characters they are controlling. After this, the photographer must phase through each exhibit to take a picture of it, (no, I don’t get how that works either) and the security guard must get within range of the photographer and apprehend him. Anyone who’s played the Assassin’s Creed multi-player will feel right at home with this game. You spend most of your time not knowing which of the many avatars in the room are hunting you or breaking the rules, you have class-specific abilities to combat your opponent, and you have to trick your friend, sister, or mortal enemy into believing that you are just another brainless, computer-controlled drone. I really like the concept. The problem is that the photographer is overpowered.

When playing as the security guard, I won about half the time. When playing as the photographer, I never lost. That includes the time I was blindly fumbling about because I never actually figured out which character I was. There are two main things that contribute to this. One, as the photographer, you don’t really need to know who the other person is. If you act like an NPC, your anti-security abilities will delay the security guard long enough to get all the pictures. As the security guard, you need to figure out which avatar is yours, which one is your opponent’s, and then you need to get close to your opponent without giving away that you are more than another NPC enjoying a day at the museum. The other thing that tilts the game in the photographer’s favour is the time limit. When the photographer takes the first picture, a two-minute timer is started. If the security guard doesn’t find and apprehend the photographer before the timer goes off, the photographer wins. In fact, I found that the easiest way to win as the photographer was to take one picture and run out the clock.

The good thing is that this is Sparta! beta. No Photos, Please! is still in development, and if the classes are balanced, it will be a great game that I’ll have no problem recommending. No Photos, Please! is scheduled for release later this year. For more information or to watch some gameplay videos, check out its Steam page.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.