Welcome Time Wasters!
This week my search around the internet for a game to play led me to an interesting game called 2030 Leagues.
2030 Leagues is an exploration game all about exploring the depth of the ocean and collecting pieces of meteorite. There isn’t much more to the story of this game.
The gameplay in 2030 Leagues is fairly straightforward. The player controls an underwater drone that has to travel around and pick up pieces of meteorite and bring them back to a ship sitting on the surface. Control of the drone’s movement is tied to the W,A,S,D keys and a grappling hook and flashlight are controlled via the mouse.
After collecting 100 pieces of meteorite, the player can return to the ship and empty their load. This will allow the player to take the drone even deeper than what it could before in search of more meteorite pieces.
The ocean isn’t always a safe place to be. Sharks, jellyfish and other underwater creatures can get in the way and pursue the player during their quest. Most of these enemies can be beaten with a few hits from the grappling hook, but some, such as the jellyfish, can only be dodged. Enemies get tougher the deeper the player goes and dodging/defeating them becomes key to moving forward in 2030 Leagues.
As with real life, the depths of the ocean is a very dark place. This is where the flashlight comes in handy. It’s linked to the mouse pointer and reaches farther the more the distance between it and the drone is increased. The flashlight is a neat idea, but not being able to see anything but a small bit around me did more to annoy than add to 2030 Leagues’ challenge.
The graphics in 2030 Leagues are alright, but they’re nothing great. More than anything, it’s hard to weigh in on them because the player is almost constantly surrounded by darkness. The few visits to the surface are enough to get a basic idea of how the world looks, it just sucks that most of it is too shadowed to see.
The sound effects in 2030 Leagues are pretty generic, but they aren’t anything bad. The music is simple, but has a nice upbeat rhythm to it and fits in very well with the setting of the game.
Overall, 2030 Leagues is an alright game. It’s nothing special that will tie the player down to their computer for hours on end and the average gamer could pass it by without really losing out on anything.
2030 Leagues finds 2 GiN Gems out of 5 hidden in the ocean!
(Edit: The guys over at Jade Escape contacted me to let me know that 2030 Leagues was an entry for Construct2030Jam. This was a game jam that gave developers about a month to create a game based on the idea of how things might be in 2030.)