In the recently concluded Independent Games Festival awards(that took place in Games Developers Conference), Tag: The Power of Paint, developed by Digipen students, bagged the best student game award. Tag is a portal inspired 3D puzzle platformer.
It has you wielding a paint gun that you use you to paint the world. You do this because certain paint colours give you certain abilities like running faster or jump. Using this mechanic, you need to traverse around a level to get to the level exit.
Your paint gun has an alternate fire that works like an eraser(water) to clear any paint you don’t want. This is important as any remnant paint will get you bouncing out of the platform and mistake such as these are plenty in Tag. Thankfully checkpoints are placed strategically that it doesn’t become frustrating.
This isn’t to say that the puzzles aren’t challenging. Later levels get a lot more difficult with moving platform etc that a misplaced paint could get you falling to your doom. There really isn’t any premise to the gameplay at all. There is a lot of promise in smart level design and Tag has proven these kids potential.
It can’t be compared to the classic Portal though and I’m not sure exactly what it’s missing. Maybe the lack of a narrative element to make it interesting. Levels all look grey and progressing often feels like you are going through the same old thing over and over again despite the fact that each levels bring new challenges and interesting obstacles.
Regardless of the monotony of the game, I feel there is more to be positive about this game. This is after all developed by students who will be the next generation of game developers. Tag is a promising piece of game that I cant help but feel will be used as a prototype for an improved version.
Download the game here
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