The Webcam is Mightier than the Mouse

If one were to make a list of the most essential components for PC gaming, it’s likely that “PC web camera” and “color printer” would not rate highly on the list. (Heck, though fellow GotGame writer Brett Mangold may disagree with my selection, I would often rate my bag of kettle chips higher on my list of must-have gaming accessories.) Ratloop’s Mightier teased me with the ability to properly redraw the game protagonist on the left, if I’d only had a web camera.

GotGame Man: Custom-made protagonist showing why no one will pay me to draw.

Mightier is an independent action puzzle game developed by Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka. The plot is simplistic and straightforward: a Galactic spaceship has inexplicably exploded, with pieces of it falling to the planet on which the game’s action takes place. The player’s goal is to collect these pieces, called Datagons, and use them to uncover the mystery of what caused the spaceship to explode in the first place.

The twist is the means by which the player collects these datagons: before the player’s surface Actionaut can successfully reach the Datagons, the player has to reshape the stage’s map using an orbital laser. The player uses the laser to draw enclosures around numbered crystals, with the numbers corresponding to the height the enclosure rises.

This laser is directed in one of two ways. The player can print out an overhead map of the stage, draw their solution to the puzzle, and use a web camera to take a picture that goes back into the game; or they can use a mouse to draw their solution on the overhead map within the game. To prevent confusion, the game’s early stages gradually teach the player the basics of planetary reconstruction.

The overhead mouse interface of a stage. This allows the player to direct the orbital laser (thereby manipulating the land) via mouse.

The player can use the same interfaces to re-design their Actionaut and his equipment. This doesn’t confer additional gameplay benefits aside from the primary reason to game: enjoyment.

Puzzles scale from simple two-loop solutions...

I found the simple beauty of Mightier to lie within the sheer fun of creating everything. An artist might draw beautiful, intricate solutions to the puzzles. A pervert may see how many puzzle solutions are anatomically correct. A ten-year old may be inspired to create a flatulence powered jetpack.

The difficulty level of the game is perfect; early puzzles are easy while later ones take time but are not so complex that a non puzzle-oriented gamer might spend hours on one solution. The final puzzle of the game differs from the format but wraps up the game’s simple concept nicely.

...to more complex arrangements.

As I hinted in the introduction, this game really made me wish I had a web camera. With only 15 stages, this wasn’t the kind of game to make me justify the cost of such a peripheral. However, as I amused myself more and more with the customization I found myself really wanting to use handmade drawings instead of mouse-drawings. My Actionaut, GotGame Man, was missing something when drawn with a mouse. It might just be straight lines.

My lack of artistic ability aside, I found Mightier to be a fresh take on old concepts, turning out to be a pretty amusing little game. Best of all, it’s freeware, so take advantage of that fact and try it for yourself.