Clone Bound

Simple concepts are not in any way less likely to become popular and adored by the public, since you only need to think about games like Minecraft or Portal to see that. However, the simplicity must be exploited after the initial phase, otherwise the idea goes nowhere. Cubes and portals are great, but people get bored if they do not get to use them in a variety of ways.

Clone Bound is an arcade game with a basic underlying idea, yet it has the potential to turn into so much more. In short, your goal is to move over a few platforms that alternate between safe and deadly, while paying attention to the pattern that causes them to switch. It’s quite easy in theory, but when the speed increases and you have to move over longer distances, things stop being so simple.

There is no story to explain who you are or where you are, although it’s pretty obvious that the action takes place in space. The platforms in question light up in some kind of blue flames, and one touch from them is enough to send your character to the grave. Speed is everything, but not before you take the time to analyze the switching patterns, otherwise you’ll run straight into the flames.

Whenever you manage to finish a stage, the game rewards you with an award and a short summary of your run. Both the time it took you to get to the end and the number of deaths along the way are counted, so you can always improve on it later in. There are no online leaderboards to compare your scores, but even so, there’s enough incentive to keep getting better times.

As far as the graphics are concerned, you shouldn’t expect anything too great, because both the models and the backgrounds are pretty basic. Granted, there’s no need for flashy graphics in the genre, because you’ll barely have time to notice them anyway. Still, the camera is a bit tricky to use, given the fact that you can only zoom in and out.

In the end, Clone Bound can certainly be improved, and it would be nice to see it evolve in the future. A smoother difficulty curve would keep players more engaged, and it might also be better to add some variations in the gameplay mechanics, or at least more types of obstacles.