Art Style: Intersect (EU)/Digidrive (US)

Title:  Art Style: Intersect (EU)/Digidrive (US)
Format: DSi Ware
Developer: Q-Games
Publisher: Nintendo of Europe
Release: 02/10/09 (EU) 16/11/09 (US)
Official Website: Art Style: Intersect

Beguiling. That’s what Art Style: Intersect is. A game made by the same people who have brought us the Pixel Junk series of games on PSN have now put out a game on DSi ware and I’ve been playing it almost obsessively over the past 2 weeks, since its arrival. So what makes me keep coming back to it and why am I so ‘beguiled’ by it? Well read on and I shall try to explain!

This game isn’t actually new! It is a port from a GBA game that was only released in Japan. Released as part of the bit Generations series of games and was called Digidrive. The game has been ported to the DSi and is one of the many games that appeared in the bit Generations collection that are now finally arriving in the West. The original developers of the GBA game, Q-Games have been brought on board to update the title from it’s GBA roots but adding a splash of colour and touch control to the mix.

Art Style: Intersect is one of those games that almost defies classification, but it could be argued that you can file under the puzzle/strategy genre, if you really must feel the need to categorise anything. The aim of the game is to push a sphere or ‘core’ as it is known along a straight road by giving it with fuel. This fuel is provided by small cars of varying colours that drive through an intersection/cross roads, hence the name of the game. The player is required to funnel these cars into teach road of the intersection. This must be done in order to maximise the yield of fuel from the cars, which is achieved by making sure that only vehicles of a matching colour drive down the same road in the intersection. Unless of course you wish to split 2 fuel reserves up to open up a road for another colour, but I think I’m digging a little too deep there, so we’ll come back to that later.

The play area is split into two; the lower screen of the DSi is where all the action occurs and thus is where 90% of the player’s focus is drawn to. The other is a marker to show how the player is progressing or indeed how close they are actually failing. The lower screen shows the intersection, with cars whizzing through it at an ever increasing rate and pattern complexity. The upper screen displays the above mentioned sphear. Appearing at the bottom of the upper screen is a spike. This spike is constantly edging its way towards the core. The minute the spike touches the core, the game is over. It is the existence of this spike that forces the player to make quick decisions in order to ensure that they can get the core to move up the road, away from the spike.

If all of this sounds terribly abstract then I’ve done my job of accurately describing the game, as it is supposed to be presented in such a way. All Art Style games are generally hard to describe and are best understood by playing them in the first place. Sadly such an option is not available to me here, so I shall continue on by attempting to explain how the game plays out further.

As the player funnels cars into the branches of the intersection it becomes rapidly apparent that the old ‘no-u-turn’ rule is very much in effect on this particular piece of highway. This means that the cars can only ever make 1 turn. Such a limitation makes the filing of cars a certain colour somewhat of a challenge, especially when 3 colours of car show up and you only have 4 branches to place them in. This forces the player to juggle between them and know when to open up a branch for another colour to maintain the supply of fuel for the core. Just like most puzzles, nothing is sacred. If you find yourself building up a branch and declare it a ‘red only’ lane you’ll find yourself in a pickle very quickly as a troop of white cars come barrelling towards it.

Despite this complication, it is possible to establish dedicated branches at which point they change colour to the cars that have been sent to that road. If this done for all branches the game enters ‘overdrive’ mode. This results in each car instantly adding fuel as they drive down each branch, as opposed to massing to 5 in number before shedding any fuel. This has to be done quickly as the colours fade from the branch rapidly and can only be recharged by a car of an appropriate colour driving down that branch. If the colour is left to fade or a car of a differing colour is sent down a branch then the mode ends.

As fuel is gathered it does not automatically go to the core. Instead it appears in phials of varying shapes on the side of each branch. As the phials are filled they change shape. It morphs from a triangle, then a square, a pentagon, a hexagon and then finally a circle. Once it becomes a circle the phial has reached its maximum and should be fed to the core. Once this is done the core will move along the road. The further the core travels, the higher the score. At least that is the case for the ‘endless’ mode. The name of this mode is a bit of a misnomer as it implies it does not actually end. What it is trying to purvey is that yes it can in theory go on for ever, but will in fact cease once the above referenced spike touches the core.

It is not required of the player to wait for the phials to fill into circles before their contents are sent to the core however. They can be emptied at any time, provided there is at least one other phial present within the intersection. It is also possible to add fuel from another phial by driving a car of a different colour into a branch with fuel in it. So long as there is at least one other phial, the fuel from that branch is transferred across. If a car of a differing colour is driven down a branch with fuel and there are no other phials present, then that fuel is lost. This is not a good thing and usually spells doom when it happens more than once, unless the player rallies themselves and turns things around. Lone phials can only be sent to the core by special multicoloured cars that appear at random. They are simply directed to the phial and as they reach it the contents of the phial are sent to the core.

There are two other modes present, both very similar in that they are adversarial in nature. Called ‘Vs’ and ‘Vs 2P’ they pit two intersection controllers against one another to see who can generate the most fuel in the shortest amount of time by pushing a core away from them and towards the opposition. Powerups are presented to each player as they amass their fuel. Some assist the player directly by pushing the core away from them for example without any fuel or some slow down the opposing player’s cars and thus their rate of fuel gain. The winner is the player who manages to push the core to the edge of the screen that is furthest from them.

This mode can be played in either single player against an AI opponent or a 2nd player via ad-hoc WiFi. It is possible for one player to send the game to another DS/DSLite/DSi if their intended opponent does not have the game themselves. Before you ask; yes it is indeed possible to play this game on a DS or DS Lite via this method. I know this for I have tested it on both a DS Lite and DS ‘fat’.

The game has a very sparse presentation, again similar to other Art Style games. Consisting of only 3 colours it none the less does an excellent job of communicating to the player what is going on. Sound wise things are much richer, with a sound track that alters dramatically depending on how the player is performing as well as audio queues and voiced alerts that do an excellent job of explaining what is happening on the screen. It’s as if the game has a rhythm to it that the play is being enticed to flow into. I certainly found myself tapping my feet as I played the game and it’s not even a rhythm action title! That is a blessing of course as I really can’t abide that genre.

I realise that all of this has been very descriptive and there is a reason for that. The game is very hard to fathom and to offer any opinion is moot until the game is understood by the reader. Now that we have that established (I hope!) I can finally give you my verdict!

Art Style: Intersect is a really good addition to this family of quirky games. At 500 Nintendo Points it’s an absolute bargain considering how much game play I got and am still getting from the game. It’s very addictive, with the pull of the ‘one more go’ constantly bashing away at my gaming nerve. The careful balancing of risk-reward mechanic that runs right through the game shines through and it is that is what keeps me playing. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve almost missed my stop on two occasions playing the blasted thing during my commute. In addition; I believe it carries on the spirit of the Pixel Junk games, especially Pixel Junk: Eden. I felt that they seem to share a commonality thanks to the music score that interacts with the on-screen action.

So if you have 500 Nintendo points on your DSi lying about I’d recommend you pick this up. It’s such a shame that it is available to such a small audience as it could appear on many other platforms in my view, including the iPhone/iPod Touch. We can only hope eh?

- Chris “Kropotkin” O’Regan