Entwined

Hover mouse over screenshots for commentary.

December 2015

Entwined was announced at E3 2014 and released the same day. It was created by a small team of game design students, which I think is pretty cool.

In Entwined you control both a fish and a bird at the same time. They are zipping down a tunnel and need to avoid obstacles to get to the end. The left joystick controls the character on the left side of the screen, and the right joystick controls the character on the right. It takes a bit of practice to get the controls down, but the game does a pretty good job at easing you into things. When you have gotten through enough of the level without errors, the fish and bird will combine into a dragon, which you then fly around to collect some stuff. The basic game elements work well and the gameplay is engaging, but it gets old after just a few levels. It's a short game that could have benefited from a few more game mechanics, but it's not bad overall.

A nice title screen.	The fish and the bird. I suppose there is some romantic angst as they can never be together, but that's about as far as any storytelling goes.
The birds on the left and the fish on the right. You control each one with the left and right joysticks.	And when you do well enough in a level, the fish and bird combine into a green dragon.	You need to steer the characters through those colors coming down the tunnel. Those obstacles are curved so you have to get the right movement down if you want to progress.
Did you know that if a fish and a bird mated they would give birth to a dragon?	Flying around as a dragon.	The basic tunnel structure of all of the levels are the same, but there is a different aesthetic each time.
	The open areas at the end of each level are different as well.



		Some of the later levels are frickin' hard.


That's the whole game design team. Pretty cool that they could make this while still in school!