With a new gaming interface comes anticipation for new game mechanics that previous methods of controller input couldn’t have allowed, but also a chance to use old genre conventions in new and refreshing ways. This may be a reason that after its original release on the iPad, Capybara’s Sword & Sworcery seemed to be the first iOS game to get the full support of the gaming media behind it. At its core, it is a point and click adventure, but by navigating the world by touch rather than scrolling a mouse, it made a connection with players by cutting out that input device and allowing the game world to be tangible. It also featured an art style, soundtrack, and voice that really felt like a thesis statement for the direction that Canadian indie dev studios were heading.
That made the notion of playing Sworcery on PC or Mac (which as it happens is the version I’m reviewing for you here) an iffy one because it risked robbing the game of the interface that was the source of its individuality. Sworcery on Mac is no longer a fresh take on the point and click adventure, but simply an adventure, sans ‘fresh take,’ to be judged among the decades of other adventure games. However, even experienced as traditionally as possible, Sworcery is still a remarkable achievement.
The game stars the Scythian, a girl traveling to find the Megatome and destroy it for reasons unexplained, but pertaining to cosmic balance and such. You play, however, as yourself, a participant in experimental treatment for acute soul-sickness. The game handles these two levels well, because it sets them in motion and never forgets about them as the game moves forward. The awareness that Capybara has for the two worlds (the game world, and the world where you are holding a mouse or Apple device) is handled cleverly, and by making jokes about the odd situation they’ve created, they really gain a sense of familiarity with the a player. They get to establish a voice for the game in these opening moments, and it stands with the likes of Portal 2 as a game that so concisely and confidently knows what it wants to say.
The gameplay can’t be described satisfactorily without describing the musical score as well. On paper, the game has you clicking or tapping your way around the world, solving environmental puzzles with the Megatome and entering touch-based combat sequences. But the music is always one step ahead of the gameplay, changing the way you perceive each situation by putting you in the right state of mind to properly appreciate it. All told, it might be the strongest score in video games. If muted, each puzzle would be revealed as pretty shallow, easily solved by aimlessly clicking around the environment. With the music, it doesn’t matter that the puzzle is shallow, because I don’t care about solving it. I care that each click adds a harmony to the music's underlying rumble, and that the world on the screen gets more beautiful the longer I look at it, and so does the world I’m living in outside of it, and these guys weren’t joking when they said that they were connected.
There is a point where the game opens up and the remainder of its goals are opened up for you, and the obtuse way they direct you to complete these goals gives you the minimum amount of direction needed to then explore the world and see how it works. Exploration of the world, as well as not taking the rules they give you at face value, is heavily rewarded in the game, and while there aren’t a lot of secrets to discover in Sworcery, they make sure that the ones they have completely change the experience.
But exploration later in the game is hindered by procedurally generated combat sequences. The combat is serviceable during the games big battles in creating a tense and ethereal atmosphere, but it really became a drag when it became forced on you during times that you’d rather be exploring. This becomes a bigger issue as the game goes on, when the long travel time to get from one puzzle to the next is made longer by repeat fights.
Another issue comes in the form of puzzle variety. While the moments of puzzle solving are strong thanks to the great ambience, only a few stand out as interesting puzzles in and of themselves. All of them work within the context of the game, but the few especially strong puzzles, which have you manipulating the landscapes in really interesting ways, make the other puzzles feel lacking in comparison.
Both the iOS and Mac versions of the game have their strengths, so any preference for one or the other depends on which aspects of the game you value most. The iPad version might be a nice compromise, but having played the game only on iMac and iPhone, I can say that it scales beautifully to a large high definition screen. On iPhone, the tiny screen doesn’t do the artwork justice, and also makes clicking the icons difficult when they account for only a few pixels. The mouse feels snappier than touch controls, but it does remove that hard to articulate, organic feeling the game world has when you can manipulate it with your hands. Some touch-oriented moments are removed from the Mac version altogether, such as sections that have you pulling the world apart with two fingers, shaking a lightning bolt into a nearby tree, and tilting the Scythian into her combat stance.
But the game is best enjoyed if you allow yourself to become fully immersed in it, and I can best rely on that type of environment when I’m sitting near the desk in my apartment, in front of a beautiful screen plugged into my home sound setup.
It’s hard to express what separates the special games from the merely great. While great games need tight mechanics and striking art design, special games merge those two so strongly that it becomes impossible to separate them. When you play games that strong, they’ve got you in the palm of their hand. They can manipulate you, empower you, and like Sworcery did for me, change what you look for in games going forward.