Cool concept, but apparently I'm terrible at it. Frequent checkpoints would make it more fun, for me at least.

Destroy the Level is a great concept -- it's not the first game to have the player clear a path for a hapless, wandering character, but it's the first I've seen in 3D, and the first that uses physics to set up the style of play. It appropriates a lot of that tossing-box fun that people learned to love back with Half-Life 2, but it's a bit more accessible here in the 2D format.

That said, there's two serious issues at hand with Destroy the Level. The foremost is that the areas you need to click on (the objects) are moving and often small, and the game seems to use pixel perfect clicking. After playing for a while, I adjusted to this, but it's exceptionally frustrating to flail uselessly at an object; if the clicking point-of-contact were larger, or if you had some sort of hand or 3D represented object, it would be much clearer where you were grabbing at.

The other, more important detail is that the game takes place on a 2D plane, but is still in 3D space. This comes with some advantages, since some objects will bounce off the side of the field and out of your way, but considering that the best strategy I found involving pushing masses of objects up and away from the brain, it often led to a lot of raining blocks. Most of these blocks would be in the foreground of background, but with no shadows, clear focus, or other depth-of-field markers, it's often impossible to tell if an object is dangerous or not. This leads to an unnecessary panic mid game -- do you spend your time clearing the way for your brain, or trying to deflect potentially incoming threats. Making the wrong choice means failure, and the right choice is never clear.

I found that for a demo, the difficulty was perhaps a bit heavy-weight. The game starts you very close to beginning obstacles, meaning you need to master the basic mechanics before you can even see any more of the stage, and then later on the combination of small objects in large quantities and large objects that are hard to move makes it exceptionally difficult to continue onward. Additionally, it becomes clear that the missiles sometimes exist outside of the plane you can manipulate objects in, forcing you to luck out on a thrown object and hoping it spins, or grab the missile directly. Not impossible, but not a clear danger and more difficult than one would expect for such an early part of the game.

I like the overall idea, but it needs some tweaks. Admittedly, I'd like it more if the Brain were at least trying to avoid things, if sluggishly; it would mean avoiding a lot of very obnoxious failures. Hopefully we'll see a a more polished version down the line -- I'm betting that the finished product will be spectacular. :D

Not having proper control of ship is difficult to play.The developer have made a good game.

Wow, I was gonna write something about how frustrating it was, but I don't think anything I could say would illustrate my feelings better than greg above me. I feel exactly the same way. Except for I probably swore a bit more before I quit. :)

hehe, same here.. the game is very difficult and I'm not sure I understand how the grip works... it doesn't want to work half the time.

I can see this turning into a better game with a few additions...

objects like bombs, baseball bats, powerups like shields, time freeze, backwards.

and I'd be curious to see if it works with a free flying camera... side scroller or third person ( at an angle )

Concept that should be passed on to someone more competent.

The link doesn't seem to link to the right place anymore

Oh no, it links to the right place. A page full of mediocre games made on a mediocre game engine where the voted "best game" is a crappy farm-themed breakout clone.

Is there any game on that page that's not pure crap? So much technology wasted, I feel sorry for it.

The Survivors is the best MMO to grace western civilization with its presence.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed Destroy the Level

It took me about an hour and a half (two sessions) and i finally beat it.
Definitely fun but I agree with all the points above.
I'd like to see it from another view too!

I think the two issues Greg mentioned can be easily fixed.

To make the clicking less painful it should use a nearest object policy (with a limit of how far the nearest object is still accepted). The object you would move by clicking should glow brightly.

Secondly, the 3d look can be kept but gameplay should be 2d only - meaning every falling object should hit you on collision. This would make the game quite a bit harder, but the level needs some redesign anyway (I for one think it's nice that it gets to the point where it is hard quickly, though).

This game sucks. I can say that because I have published 0 games in my life, therefore I'm an authority on these things. You should follow everything that I say because your game will be better. I'm an Anonymous from the internet and everything I say is fact.

I really like this.

Can't complete the level, though!

I played through again earlier today; Nero, you're not alone. I swore quite a bit, particularly at the missiles at the end, since each is on their own plane and can't be (easily) knocked out by shrapnel.

RotateMe: I agree with the nearest object clicking, to a point; it may mean grabbing the wrong object when in a bunch. I imagine that if the player's 'click' area were a small circle instead of a point, and you grabbed whichever object had the most target overlap would have essentially the same effect but be a little easier to understand.

As for the 3D/2D disconnect, I like the objects flying around in to the foreground and background. My personal solution would be to exaggerate the objects in plane with the brain; make objects in the background very dark and objects in the foreground light and semi-transparent -- that way they'd never interrupt play and they visual effect would still be there. Additionally, I'd prohibit players from grabbing objects in the foreground (I frequently had problems trying to grab an object behind a falling chunk) and possible from the background as well, for consistency.

The level would be greatly improved if things were spaced out just a little bit more, and if there were a few more spaces of light terrain objects, like the trees or the sign. An the player should not be able to see the island at the beginning; starting so close to the trees is an enormous handicap to a new player.

>>>>This game sucks. I can say that because I have published 0 games in my life, therefore I'm an authority on these things.

As a matter of fact I have published a game in my life, yet that's not why I have any authority on judging games, as it's not any related (movie critics are obviously all movie makers, right?)

I do because I'm also a player. As a programmer I applaude the (not-so-hard in this case) work behind the game, as a player I can only advise not to waste your time with this crap game.

"movie critics are obviously all movie makers, right?"

While I don't agree that you need to have published games to have some sort of authority on the topic, being a player doesn't give you the authority either.

Critics and journalists who follow any particular media, be it Fine Art, Games, Film, Music or what have you, are (supposed to be) well versed in their medium, not just in the media itself, but in the theory and technique used to make that media. They don't have to do it, they just need to understand it.

Flatly saying that the game sucks, or calling it crap, with no quantified understanding about what you did or did not like about the overall production highlights that your aren't a critic, you're just an ass.

I love it when people try to justify why they shouldn't have to listen to criticism.

Oh please tell me that any of the games on that page is worth debating on -why- they suck precisely. The controls suck, the gameplay sucks and that's when it's understandable.
And this critic is as complete & polished as those games themselves, so they don't deserve more.
However I (or any critic ass) shouldn't be blindly trusted - I would just advise to try them if you really have time to waste.
But you could also use that time to try the many other free games & maybe you'll find a gem to tell us about.

"Oh please tell me that any of the games on that page is worth debating on -why- they suck precisely."

You're missing the point a bit. When you say 'it sucks' and someone else says 'it's cool', all anyone knows is that two random yahoos on the interwebs had opposing experiences. The comments are meaningless, since there could be an infinite number of reasons why the game was good for one of you and not the other.

Even if you just add a single line of detail, "It sucks; the controls are awful" -- now your comment is meaningful. Compare that comment to "It sucks; flying brains are stupid". Bad controls are a red-flag, but the relevance of the game's aesthetics are unimportant to me and most players.

"However I (or any critic ass) shouldn't be blindly trusted"
You've got my full agreement there. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt. But understand why I have higher expectations that many on what qualifies as 'criticism'.

I went back and played some of them. I take back my poorly worded and empty criticism. I indeed enjoy them greatly.

After some thought - I have decided that a few of the games listed are actually better then the one I published. In fact I hope to one day publish another game as great as some of them!

I'm already aware of the difficulty problems. I used the same test level for days when I fixed some technical issues and when you play one level for something like hundred times it gets way too easy :)
Should have tested the level with other people before submitting to the contest.

About the tecnical problems:

The click area is going to be bigger than single pixel and if there are multiple objects in the area the nearest one will be dragged.

The gameplay is not going to be 2D like some people suggested, but I will either add shadows or make objects change color when they are not on the same z plane with the brain. This way it's much easier to spot the objects that are going to collide with the brain.

sauli
The guy who made the Destroy the Level prototype

Like the idea, but did'nt come after the first hill, difficulty is too heavy:
-jerky scrolling is disturbing
-falling objects are too slow or the brain speed is too fast
-why can't i push the orange tree but the green ones can?

I must agree that making objects in the background having a shadow (and being visibly smaller) and objects in the foreground being transparent (and visibly bigger) is better than changing back to 2d.

Still I think it would help if the object you are about to grab glows brightly.

The ground texture is to depressing, try using mre cheerful colors and see how this turns out

"

I went back and played some of them. I take back my poorly worded and empty criticism. I indeed enjoy them greatly.

After some thought - I have decided that a few of the games listed are actually better then the one I published. In fact I hope to one day publish another game as great as some of them!"

Yeah, you suck at fake imitation.

Now, this could be insanely fun if fleshed out. Much as I love the brain, it still screams 'placeholder'.

"Yeah, you suck at fake imitation"

Wow, did I post that? I guess so. I write the damnedest things when I'm not quite awake. Sucks to have to keep responding to ones own comments. Sorry everyone!