DYO
DYO is a puzzle platformer (much more the former than the latter) that sorta snuck up on and surprised me. It is another game where you control two characters at the same time (it also has two player co-op), although fortunately here it does not require you to ever have to move both characters at the same time and in truth almost never requires much in the way of reflexes at all. It goes with two characters for a different reason: the entire game takes place in a split screen set-up with one half of the screen tracking one of the two characters.
The reason it does this ties into the central gimmick the entire game is built around, which is that at the press of a button you can freeze the view on one half of the screen while allowing the character on that side to freely move around said screen without the camera moving and following it around. On its own this is mostly of limited use but when both side of the screen are locked at the same time the rules chance as they then cease to be a split screen and both characters have free reign to go anywhere on the now unified screen that they can reach. In the above screenshot that means the bull guy on the left side can jump over to the right side of the screen and act as a platform for the goat fellow to be able to jump to the ledge overhead. In fact the goat guy once there can then walk over onto the left half of the screen and be right at the exit door.
That would seem to indicate that the puzzle is solved, but there are a few rules in place that introduce certain limitations that can make the proceedings much more puzzling. The most important rule is that while when the screens are unified either character can go anywhere on said screens, you will only be allowed to unfreeze either half of the screen if each half has one character in it. If both active characters are on the left side you will not be allowed to unfreeze things and will likely be prevented from completing the puzzle. I say active characters as it is possible depending on how you set up the split screens to have two copies of the same character present (yes, it is one of those kind of games) and the active one is colorized. The other rule is that while there is only one exit door there is two versions of it, one on each half of the split screen. Once a character enters a door it is then closed on that half of the screen, so you have to set it up so that a character can reach the exit door on both sides of the screen in order for that puzzle to be beaten.
This is a pretty solid set-up for a puzzle game, if you played Four Sided Fantasy (covered earlier in this thread) it is a bit like it although a bit tougher and more puzzle focused. You make your way through the first ten or so stages getting a grasp on the basics, some of the latter ones quite tricky to wrap one’s head around and then hit a three way branch in terms of which puzzles you can tackle. Each branch adds a new mechanic to the proceedings and has several puzzles exploring what they mean in the context of the base mechanics. I won’t cover two of them but one I want to mention as it is particularly clever.
In these set of puzzles the main difference is that one half of the screen has a more pulled back view of the action than the other (also you can see the desaturated non-active double of a character in this screen). This seems like a rather insignificant change as how much of a difference could being able to see more of the stage at once mean? That’s not the important part, and I’ll give you all a chance to take a second to think about what this actually means.
…
You ready?
…Alright.
That’s what happens when you switched the creature on the zoomed-out side with the creature on the more zoomed-in side. Like I said before, it is that kind of game. The base concept on its own is rather clever and fairly uncommon even in the exploding subgenre of “let’s control two characters at the same time” games. It then comes up with three variously clever ways to tweak that concept even further and tests you on each of them. These tests are not easy, DYO isn’t the hardest puzzle game I’ve played but it is definitely harder than average. When you finish all the routes you see two of the branches come back together (you can figure out what that means) before you have a few final puzzles to complete before you conquer the maze and escape.
I want to take a second to note that while it isn’t really shown off by the screenshots here, I did think that there were a few nice aesthetic choices in the game. It’s never a wower visually but it is always clean, and they sprinkle a bunch of background statues and details around the stages to give them more personality than was strictly needed. I appreciate the effort.
Like I hinted at earlier, when this game came up I wasn’t expecting a ton from it (I have played a lot of control two character games and they often run into issues) but it genuinely surprised me by having a well-executed and rather unique mechanical gimmick explored very well throughout its 30 stages. I have a few minor nitpicks with it (I’d have liked to have seen the final set of stages build more upon mixing the three later distinct twists together and just be a bit harder in general, the last two puzzles are easier than anything in the prior twenty) but this one is definitely a keeper, and while legit tricky it is creative enough that I think it could capture the attention of some who normally would not bother with a puzzle-heavy game. I enjoyed my few hours with it a great deal.
