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My kitten has a new favourite video gameShe loves watching me repair roads in Sebil Engineering
She loves watching me repair roads in Sebil Engineering
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FrogStore
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FrogStore
Like so many of us, my kitten enjoys seeing shapes and colours move. But while she usually watches games and television with casual interest, she’s losing it overSebil Engineering. The great new physics puzzle game involves repairing roads while vehicles zoom across, endless streams of cars and buses that skid and flip and crash and tumble and oh, she cannot get enough. On one hand, I’m glad she enjoys me playing it. On the other, it’s quite difficult to play when she’s leaping at my monitor and batting buses. The game is good, and my cat is cute. Yes, absolutely this post includes a video of my cat.
Sebil Engineering - ReleaseTrailer_final_final 2The official launch trailer, which does not have my catWatch on YouTube
Sebil Engineering - ReleaseTrailer_final_final 2
Rather than build anything new, all our fixes come from raising and lowering roads and ground. You can only manipulate sparse specific points in the low-poly terrain and roads, which shift only their own sharp-edged triangle. Left-click to raise a point, right-click to lower it. It would be easier with more nuance, sure, but that’s not the deal here. You’re working within a budget too, each alteration costing cash.
Early levels start simple, having you route cars down bad roads or ramp over a fallen pizza parlour sign. Soon, multiple directions of traffic are smashing together, different vehicles nead to reach different destinations, gravel roads bring new problems, you’re ducking obstructions, and so on. It’s a joy to feel out freeform solutions in real time.
Making cars jump wasn’t working out, so I’m reworking to give buses ramps while still giving cars enough direction to survive the slight turn |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FrogStore
Unlike boring building games where you lay out a design then run a test, here an endless torrent of simulated vehicles stream in as you work. Raise this bit and watch them now drive off the left. Prop up the far end and no, now they’re losing too much speed. Lower the point on the other side and oops, now the buses are ramming into the cars and no one’s getting anywhere. Yes, of course they slam and nudge each other about. In some levels, a bit of argy-bargy has even been part of my solution.
My kitten loves Sebil EngineeringYou know, little cat, it is quite difficult to play while you’re being all cute and sillyWatch on YouTube
My kitten loves Sebil Engineering
My little cat adores watching Sebil Engineering. Even the sound of the cars can bring her running to watch. Her little head shakes from side to side as she watches cars come and go, sometimes trying to catch one. As buses tumble off the edge of the level, she pokes her head under my monitor to see where they went. She’ll even rear up and try to slam a particularly enticing vehicle with both paws. While normally she might tap a game or movie once or two, here she cannot stop herself. I’m not trying to encourage this but it is very cute. I might feel differently when she breaks something.
The excellent level select menu has your in-game arm and mouse move as you move the cursor, while a torrent of traffic blasts past your window |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FrogStore
It’s pretty funny beyond the inherent daftness too. An engineer introduces each level with a funny explanation, his giant abstract model standing in the middle of the road and gathering a collection of crashed cars at his feet. And I really enjoy the dashboard camera view which pops up after you win a level, showing quite how terrifying my solution is to drivers. I also appreciate the silly/terrifying option to run about the level on foot, rather than floating in the sky, and build in a first-person perspective while dodging cars rocketing off the ramp I just created. Good japes, good puzzling.
Sebil Engineering is out now onSteamandItch.io(where you get downloads plus a Steam key), priced at £10/€12/$12. It’s good. My cat is good, too. It’s important that you recognise how good my cat is.
The game came out earlier this month and has already added variants of levels for extra challenge on return visits.Future plansinclude new levels and co-op multiplayer.
