Review of Sokoban by Peter Bakota (Sorel)

Written by Zap (June, 2005)


INTRODUCTION

This is Sokoban - It hardly needs an introduction. 
Or rather, it's Sokoban redone in FreeBasic, with 
a few new features. The download is 67KB, which 
includes over 300 maps (both the classical and other 
ones), well-written and commented sourcecode, and 
ofcourse the compiled game. You can download the 
game from this url.

I'm going to refer to this Sokoban as FB Sokoban 
throughout this review.


GAMEPLAY

The gameplay of FB Sokoban is well-known to 
everyone who have played computer games for 
more than 5 years, since it is exactly the same 
as classical Sokoban, hence the name. There is 
no changes in gameplay from it, and there need 
not be.

To those of you who have not have the chance to 
play the classical Sokoban (or any other port here 
of), I'm going to explain the concept, which is 
very simple yet entertaining: You control a character 
who has the abilities to walk around, and push at the 
boxes scattered around the level. Your sole purpose 
is to push all of those boxes onto specified positions 
in the level. This may sound easy, but very often 
you will find that you have made a mistake that will 
prevent you from completing the level. Sokoban 
requires you to think, and you will likely spend 
most of the time you play starring at the screen, 
wondering how the heck you are to complete that level!

Here enters a flaw of FB Sokoban: If you can't 
complete the level, one keypress will take you to 
the next. This might or might not have existed in 
the original Sokoban, I don't know that, but I 
definitely think it's ruining for the gameplay. Once 
you find that feature, you stop trying to complete 
the level; you stare at it, see if there's anything 
obvious, and if not, you just skip it. It removes any 
sense of completion, since there's no showing how 
many levels you've actually completed, and which you 
have skipped.

If that feature was removed, it would be natural to 
add a highscore aswell, since there would then 
actually be something to brag about in reaching 
level 50.

Gameplay Rating: 7/10

The gameplay is not original, but that doesn't 
make it any worse, except for a single ruining 
feature. 


LEVEL DESIGN

FB Sokoban has huge bunch of levels included, 
actually more than 300 of them. They will keep you 
busy for hours - if not days. There are all sorts 
of variations, for example a whole set consisting 
of only very small maps, and ofcourse there's also 
the classical map pack. The game works seamlesly 
whichever map pack you choose, and you can download 
new packs off the internet (the file format is a 
commonly used one for Sokoban games); check the 
readme file for more information on that.

I don't know if any of these map packs are made 
by the author himself, but I like the fact that he 
included them for playing.

Level Design Rating: 10/10

They are good, challenging and there's a big 
bunch of them to keep you entertained. 


GRAPHICS

The graphics in FB Sokoban is pretty simple. 
The player is represented with a circular smily-like 
creature, the walls are gray and well... wall-like, 
and the boxes also look abit like boxes. With that 
said, I have a few points where it could be improved.

First off, the player representation could use a 
loving touch. The smily creature gets boring to look 
at after a while, also because it has no real 
interaction with the boxes it pushes. There's no 
walking animation either, the smily just warps 
from position to position, and same goes for the 
boxes; not even a slide.

Secondly, the "inside" of the levels are just as 
black as the blackness that sorrounds them. Some 
floor tiles would have been nice.

However, even if these features would make the 
game more interesting to play, there's nothing 
wrong or gameplay-limiting with the current graphics, 
I'm just giving advice on how to make it better.

Graphics Rating: 5/10

Simple, it works, but could be more interesting. 


SFX & MUSIC

This often ignored side has been ignored once 
again. Considering how easy it is to add music 
and sound effects with FreeBasic, I'm really 
dissappointed that there is none. While this 
doesn't destroy the game in any way, it would 
definitely make this game even better. Some 
fitting background music, and effects when pushing 
blocks, moving, and so on.

Sound-side Rating: 0/10

None, it would improve this game very 
much if there were. 


CONCLUSION

I havent rated this game for originality or anything 
like that, since I'm just glad to see a well 
carried-out port of this game - and this one definitely 
is. It does have several points that could be 
improved on, however, for example actually having 
sound/music would greatly improve the game, and 
smaller things like animated player graphics would 
be nice too.

Overall Rating: 55%

Well carried out port, hours of gameplay, but 
has a number of points to improve on before this 
game is anywhere near perfect.