KonoTest
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: N/A (Begun 1997)
Levels: 1
Author: Roger Levy
Website: rogerlevy.net
Related games: Fireworks, Andy in Asunderland
KonoTest is a tantalizing glimpse of a platformer that might have been. At around age ten, Roger Levy began to tinker with RSD's engine and produce highly Nintendo-inspired resources. The character is quite similar to Kirby; the levels and mechanics are borrowed from Super Mario Bros.
Although the venture was quickly abandoned, likely due to some technical awkwardness, the surviving material is rather miraculous. The environments look lush. The character, Mogo, is polished in design and vibrant in animation, full of an effortless charisma. The whole effort shows how much visual design can elevate a project.
Though there's not much to the game, at a glimpse KonoTest feels like a professional production. Given some more sympathetic mechanics, the mind boggles at what could have been, both here and more generally at the kinds of games that Game-Maker to which might have lent itself.
Technically, the problem here seems to be the old Miyamoto chestnut of monster stomping. Anyone who steps into game design does so with some preconceptions about what a videogame is, based on the kinds of games he or she has played before. If you think of a platformer, you're thinking of a certain stock set of mechanics that people tend to repeat without much question, simply because that's the way that things have always been done.
Here as ever, Game-Maker does not much lend itself to a priori concepts, and here as in many places the author seems to have been frustrated in his attempts at recreating something familiar. Mogo is meant to leap on enemies and kill them. Going back to Penguin Pete, there have been countless attempts at making this concept work. They never really do, and although Levy did better than most the effect is far from seamless. He seems to have been stuck on that mechanism, and without it the design seems to have quickly become frustrated.
Some other things to note. The monsters here all seem to be borrowed from Andy in Asunderland, unless that game borrowed them from here. More pertinent is the small non-game Fireworks, which appears to be a test for a special effect or interstitial scene for use in KonoTest, much like the cutscenes and level introductions in Levy's Asunderland. Clearly Levy had big plans for KonoTest, before he met one stumbling block too many. It's a shame, but an illustrative one in many ways.
Contents
Story
N/A
Instructions
On numerical keypad:
- 7,8: Walk left, right
- 7, 8, 9: Leap left, up, right
- 2: Stomp attack
Credits
by Roger Levy
Background
Roger Levy:
- I've got a playable demo about a purple ball thingy that can stomp on a couple monsters and fall into a pit and die.
Availability
Prior to this archive's online presence, this game is not known to be publicly available.
Archive History
In December 2011 a passing reference to Game-Maker in the TIGSource forums led to direct communication with Levy. On December 30th he provided the sum of his surviving Game-Maker work, which was then added to the archive.
Links
Downloads
- KonoTest (91 kB)
