Mekka
Hornet Game Evaluation
Genre - The Genre seems to be a
mix of Retro and Indie. It was primarily a top down shooter with maybe Japanese
based influences.
Gut Reaction - My gut reaction is that the normal
levels are a lot harder than the final boss. The final boss had a powerful move
set, but it could be easily exploited, while the basic enemies were hard to
avoid and sometimes had lightning fast attacks that drained the already small
health bar. The Health needed to be bigger to allow the players a fair chance
against the standard enemies.
Content – The game looks and is
styled in a Japanese theme. It seems to have Anime and Manga inspirations due
to its Mecha theme. Its music is also very intense which also sees to be a
factor in Japanese games. The character
is a bug infused with an engine. Due to this, they are Cyborgs, which is
another Japanese theme. The colours are quite dour, with greys and dull browns
being used frequently within the environment. The environment is set high up in
the sky, with the player being a ‘Mekka Hornet’ fighting other cyborg bugs. The
fonts could also be described as ‘Exotic’ due to its ability to stand out
compared to more generic fonts like calibri.
Construction- The gameplay is structured
in a linear fashion, with the player being forced into a straight path. The
player has to keep going, or they are automatically swept along. The same
applies to the enemies who mostly fly past, apart from one enemy archetype.
This gives the game a retro feel to it. This is further reinforced from the
games top down perspective and the fact if the player dies, they have to straight
from the very beginning rather than having ‘checkpoints’. Due to this, it gives
the game another primary staple of retro games, a harsh and almost unforgiving difficulty.
The enemies attack in swarms with no warning given, and the player has to
constantly stay alert. Even if the player is distracted for one second, they
can be killed instantly. Another enemy archetypes attack is to swarm the player
in large groups. The game also has no tutorial, and just throws the player into
the level with only the basic commands. This is another example of difficulty.
At the end of Project Mekka Hornet, there is a boss fight. This is another part
that seems to be arcade based due to old arcade games giving the player a boss
to fight at the end of a level or stage.
Target Audience – Due to the games arcade
influences, I believe the game is targeted to grown men and women aged around
30 to 40. This is because when they were growing up, games were styled and made
the way Mekka Hornet is. Due to the Retro genres popularity, the game would
appeal to many different audiences, but it would appeal to adults more than the
rest.
Mekka Hornet
Inspiration
I believe
Mekka Hornet had a variety of inspirations. I believe the primary inspiration was
from the Japanese genre of video games. This is due to the inclusion of Mechs
which are a primary staple of the Japanese genre of videogames. The art design
of the game is based around dull colours such as grey, dark yellow etc. These
are commonly seen within the Japanese genre of video games, which also rubs off
on the art design of Mekka Hornet. The style of the game also is similar to
anime and manga, with the Mecha theme. This
leads me to believe that anime and manga played a large part in the making of
Mekka Hornet. Another inspiration seems to be space invaders. I think this because
you play as a Character who can fly; similar to the space ship in Space Invaders,
and you also move forward at a solid pace, while enemy’s flying directly
towards you, firing projectiles which force the player to fly side to side
avoiding the projectiles, while fighting back. This gives Mekka Hornet not only
a strong Space Invaders theme, but a strong arcade theme in general.
