The Let's Play Archive

Puddle

by Psychedelic Eyeball

Thanks! We like it too.Why not check out some similar LPs from our recommendations?
What would you like to tag this LP as?
Tag

Original Thread: Puddle (PC) - Water physics, meet Trials HD. (Video Let's Play)

 

Introduction



A FEW WORDS ABOUT THIS GAME

Welcome to this Let's Play of Puddle! This game has been developed by Neko Interactive and first was released on XBLA and PSN, in January 2012. It was later ported on the Playstation Vita, the PC and finally there's a Wii U version which is stated to be released soon. This indie game was conceived by a small group of French students from ENJMIN (l'Ecole Nationale du Jeu et des Médias Interactifs Numériques, located at Angoulême) as a first year project in 2009, then was later shown at the Independant Games Festival 2010, where it won a student showcase. That attracted people from Neko Interactive, which offered them to further expand on the concepts they brought forth in this early version. Finally, it also got to Konami’s attention, which accepted to be their publisher. I will be playing the PC version for this Let’s Play.

WATER PHYSICS, ZEN AND GENERAL MAYHEM

Puddle is a very tricky game to describe. In short, it’s a water physics simulation game with some adventure elements which is also pretty action based. In this game, you have to move a puddle of water through increasingly difficult obstacle courses, but there’s a catch: you are unable to control the liquid directly in any way. You can only interact with it by tilting the screen left and right. You also have to contend with friction, gravity as well than the particularities of your fluid, as you will have to guide around various types of liquid; it can be water, weed killer or even boiling lava. In each stage, you have to contend with several types of hazards, like flamethrowers, lasers and even sawblades!

The key element to Puddle is its sheer variety. Through the course of the game’s 8 chapters, you will visit all sorts of places and interact with many different devices and liquids which all move differently. With a few exceptions, there are barely 2 levels in this game that are the same. The game manages to stay constantly fresh and it loves to throw surprises at almost every single turn, keeping you on your toes.

Another fun aspect of the game is its competitive side. Puddle feature medals that you obtain by reaching the end of any level of the game fast enough. To add further to the challenge and the time-aspect of the game, you are also credited time as you manage to bring more liquid to the end of a stage. It will eventually cause a dilemma for some levels; should I move quickly with reckless abandon, concentrating only on getting the minimum amount of liquid to finish the level or should I take it slow and ensure all of my liquid makes it safely to the end, thus having a lot of my time subtracted? You have to choose whatever strategy will suit you better but be aware that no level in the game is played the same. To further add to the fun, the game has online leaderboards and you can compare your times (only for the overall savegames though, having a level-by-level leaderboard would have been nice).

With that said, Puddle is, for the most part, a pretty hard game. A lot of the levels in the game feature trial and error gameplay and you will lose a lot. While it was a big problem with most other versions of the game, which brought you back to a 5-10 second long loading screen every time you lost a stage, restart times are almost instantaneous on the PC, making the experience much more fluid. Heck, you can even use the Spacebar to instantly be booted back to the beginning of a stage. How cute.

To remedy that problem, the PC version comes with two difficulty settings: Normal and Extreme. For the most part, Normal provides a much easier game than on its console counterparts, simplifying some level layouts or changing the way your liquid or obstacles around you behave. With that said, it’s still not an easy game. Extreme difficulty pretty much gives you the game the way it was initially designed, and boy they are not kidding with the description they’re giving off of it. You will indeed end up retrying many of the game’s levels over 20 times before you get a successful run through them. But hey, this difficulty setting will allow you to get on the leaderboards, which Normal players can’t access. I will be playing both difficulties side by side; the regular videos will show me play the levels on Normal difficulty in order to showcase the levels and there’ll also be videos of me getting all Gold Medals on Extreme difficulty.

HOW IS TIME COUNTED EXACTLY? THAT LOOKS CONFUSING!

I never really explain this in the videos, so here’s a tutorial on how time is counted in this game after you finish a level.



T stands for the time it initially took you to finish the stage. It is the basic element that will determine your final time and in most cases, the most important. In some levels, you may have to rush in and get as little liquid as possible, other times you must do the opposite.

In order to subtract to your time, the game counts the number of liquid particles you brought to the exit that weren’t necessary to finish the level. Depending on the level, each bonus particle will either remove 0.25 second, 0.5 second or 1 second. This can do all the difference in these levels with lots of water particles, but other times, there’ll be so few of them that the bonus time is almost entirely useless.

The graph will give a good idea of what kind of performance you’ll have to put forth if you wish to get a medal. In this example, if we brought home the 4/5 of our liquid while finishing at the same time, a gold medal would have been ours. Guess we’ll have to try again harder!

Videos


Enough words, here’s for the video content now! All videos are available both on Baldurdash and Youtube. Have fun watching the Let’s Play!



Coffee Break, Wastewater, Oil BurnerBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Roller Coaster, Waterfalls, pV = nRTBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal runBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Green Fingers, Herbicide, Green FlowBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Dionaea, Fertilizer, BulbBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal RunBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Lab Bench, Lasers & Beakers, PetroleumBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Trinitrate, Kieselguhrs, RecipeBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal runBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Normal PlaythroughBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal runBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Normal PlaythroughBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal runBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Normal PlaythroughBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal RunBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Apollo, Alloy, Thermo-MouldingBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Infrared, Bolometers, 2011 VintageBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Extreme Gold Medal RunBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload



Normal PlaythroughBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Pixels Level + Extreme Gold Medal RunBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Loose EndsBaldurdashYoutube HDDownload
Archive Index