Ballpoint Universe – Infinite (PC)

Ballpoint Universe – Infinite knows its big draw and makes sure to put it front and center in the title: this is a game wholly drawn in ballpoint pen. Every object, enemy, and environment exists as a showcase of this art style, the game rightly assuming the visuals alone will draw attention to it. It certainly takes no shortcuts in executing this visual direction either, the ballpoint pen playing into its strength to create vivid (albeit occasionally monochromatic) images that can be stunning when viewed as a still image, the effort immediately apparent in the intricate pen strokes that have built up the so-called Ballpoint Universe.

 

The art style cannot be understated, but it does seem to be a game counting on the impressiveness of its aesthetic. When the gameplay is viewed, it seems a little at odds with itself. Ballpoint Universe – Infinite should be classified as a sidescrolling shoot-’em-up when you view the core gameplay, but that gameplay is connected by large environments where platforming becomes the main focus. Neither side is negligible enough to ignore in the full consideration of the game and neither can you dismiss the way the visuals interact with them, so the relationship between them becomes essentially the deciding factor in whether or not Ballpoint Universe- Infinite succeeds at being more than a visually intriguing video game.

 

The shoot-’em-up sections are Ballpoint Universe – Infinite’s most complex area of play. Although it is a side-scrolling shooter, using your Ink-Ship to shoot down waves of enemies isn’t just a test of proper shooting and dodging techniques. Going into a level, you are given the chance to customize your ship, the player able to collect ink by beating enemies and completing levels to open up the possibility of purchasing parts for your vessel. The Ink-Ship has a top and bottom slot as well as a nose and wing slot, each one serving a different purpose. The top and bottom slots are positions on your ship where you can affix weapons, the game letting you work your way up a purchasing ladder of steadily better rapid fire guns and melee weapons. The guns are the most natural and easy to understand, and while they can have odd shot types like only shooting diagonally or shooting at a slower pace for more firepower, they’re good for covering the screen to ensure your flying foes don’t get in too close. The melee weapons aren’t entirely useless though, the game smart about having the swords and spears dish out heavy damage as well as launching or swinging when close to an enemy to ensure they hit and sometimes even catch other baddies as collateral. There are also shields to be purchased that will just protect part of your ship, but they seem an incredibly poor investment considering how slowly ink is accrued, the general difficulty of the game, and how little you benefit from forgoing a weapon. You can carry two weapons into a level, one on top and one on bottom, and while a melee only build is feasible and sometimes perhaps preferable, there are enemies that are designed to discourage going for double guns with reflective shields and armor. The nose will determine which super move you use when you’ve killed enough enemies without taking damage but it is certainly the lesser investment compared to your main attacking power and the wing slot, where you get specific bonuses to things like health, ink collection, and other small forms of assistance.

Shooting levels themselves do manage to pack in some good enemy variety both designwise and visually, although the game does sort of shoot itself in the foot by having the enemies be Logicians, logical beings who are made up of very traditional geometric shapes who aim to convert the more detailed drawings into Logicians. The game does try to add some more unique variety by nominally changing the concept behind a level, such as having a level in a forest to justify seed enemies, an area where some rather abstract doodles are being corrupted, and perhaps the strangest level idea being… a level where the allied forces are betrayed by their allies the owls. Most ships and characters in this game are clearly fictional creatures, interesting corruptions of real world objects like cigar-chomping boots and living bullets, or the spaceship like designs of Logicians, so the owl concept is deliberately presented as a bit absurd. The enemies you fight in the levels vary in their effectiveness and durability, their strength usually pretty reliably tied to how many you’ll face at once. There are foes that count on crowding the screen, ones that will fire back at you, and then ones with unique movement patterns or defenses that are often the more aggressive and worrisome enemies, but tight controls allow you to weave through them and take them down reliably. Surprisingly though, Ballpoint Universe – Infinite is very forgiving, the player able to weather multiple hits (unless they crash into something) if they’ve shored up their health stat and beginning levels with five lives, sometimes able to grab another in the harder stages. For the most part, failing a level is barely even on the table, the game instead hoping that you’ll be interested enough in earning the gold ranking for not losing any of your lives to make the admittedly short levels fill more time.

 

The low difficulty also couples rather oddly with a few facts about the upgrading and building of your ship. Right as you start the game’s story the first thing you find is the Infinite mode, and Ink is much easier to accrue here than through level completion, enemies dropping it in droves and the design tossing together a bunch of enemies throughout the game you haven’t played yet to feed your reserves. You can already afford a fairly good setup so long as you don’t die too early in the brush with Infinite mode when you only have the basic gear to start, and while later weapons are stronger, faster, and can be upgraded to be even better than the fully upgraded early game items, you’re not really going to need them due to how weak most enemies are. Perhaps the place you will feel it most though is during bosses, as they dominate the end of levels with their long battles and huge health pools. Just like the levels, the bosses have some varied visual design and theming despite the Logician limitations, but the fights wear out their welcome as they refuse to end. Large foes with often small weak points or moments for you to lay down shots can lead to battles that drag on, and while you can grind in Infinite mode to get better weapons, it doesn’t really fix that these bosses were designed to be long rather than challenging. Some bosses will leave the screen even and force you to wait until you can actually do something, making them a drag especially if they crop up in Infinite mode as bosses will repeat in that mode inevitably.

While there are a few things working against the shooting mode, having a good setup for your ship is still enjoyable as the game tosses enough enemy types at you and unique level hazards and shakeups that it doesn’t grow dull outside the drawn out boss encounters. The odd thing about Ballpoint Universe – Infinite though is that these stages aren’t the only part of the game you play. Connecting stages is a platforming overworld that just feels like a completely unnecessary addition to the title that undermines what works about its shooting stages. Ballpoint Universe – Infinite’s overworld has you walking around as a strange long-nosed creature interacting with the weird denizens of your doodle world, the characters either being the ones you need to talk to in order to play a mission or just providing background information on the game’s plot. If you only needed to walk from place to place, these segments wouldn’t be all that bad, as they are quite clearly meant to be a venue to display the incredibly detailed artistry that is this game’s main selling point.

 

Unfortunately, platforming had to get involved, and the only word that truly encapsulates this game’s jumping mechanics is “floppy”. Your little character always jumps a set height that is fairly high and when they drop they bounce on the top of their head, meaning you can’t always get another jump going until after a recovery period where your character’s movement is more slippery than usual. If you jump into a wall or other obstruction, your character also bounces off of it, meaning that a jump that kisses the ledge of a platform can send you falling backwards into danger. At first, the platforming is essentially just for finding the extra collectibles called Golden Sketches, but later in the game it has you actually have to execute proper jumps between moving platforms, straining the poor design and making the areas frustrating instead of functional. Another oddity is the non-linear world, the player only able to play certain levels if they go off the beaten path and find the hidden mission giver. There are already too few levels considering they’re where the properly designed skill-testing gameplay takes place, so it’s a shame so much visual design was spent on fleshing out the overworld where annoying navigation undermines the spectacular locales. Thankfully, if you want to retry a level you’ve beaten for a better score, the game lets you access every flying level by the pause menu to avoid backtracking, oddly leaving out any sort of instant stage retry option though that would have been appreciated if you’re going for the perfect run. Thankfully, death in the platforming segments just pushes you back to a usually recent checkpoint and for the most part, the really bad moments of it are found near the end, meaning you don’t have to struggle through the controls too much during your playthrough. There are some points where the physics cause your character to glitch and get stuck in the level’s ground or walls though, but again, these were at least not all that punishing since you can just exit and reenter to solve it.

THE VERDICT: Ballpoint Universe – Infinite knows it looks good, but it can seem a bit like a vehicle for the art style rather than a proper video game at times. The shooting areas are enjoyable and varied outside of some slow boss battles and the upgrade and equipping system for your ship is underutilized due to low Ink intake, but it would have been a fine companion to the ballpoint pen aesthetic if it didn’t have the platforming segments stapled onto it. The odd platforming physics don’t work well when they’re put to the test, making them a necessary evil to get to the small selection of shooting stages. Luckily, they jumping tests aren’t prevalent enough to completely destroy the strength in the mix of projectile and melee ship combat enhanced by the detailed visual direction.

 

And so, I give Ballpoint Universe – Infinite for the PC…

An OKAY rating. Ballpoint Universe – Infinite’s major focus is its graphics and it of course succeeds in making those impressive, but it seems a bit confused about where to put the rest of its focus, leading to a title that misses some of its greater potential. Stinginess with Ink means you aren’t allowed to explore the weapons and upgrades as much, limiting the direction the levels can go. Sure, you can swap out weapons and wings to better tackle a level packed with certain enemies or obstacles, but the price tag discourages it, leading to the moments where a level boss goes too slowly. Having to accommodate the second layer of the game besides shooting no doubt drew attention away from fine-tuning it, but it at least came out with solid shooting and enough shifting enemy approaches to ensure the ease of completion doesn’t mean you’re breezing through a stage. Some players might find its packed areas and aggressive enemies more challenging and the forgiveness found in the health system’s design will let them make it through, but the platforming just seems to be a poor idea in general since it’s all about an unintuitive relationship between a player who expects to navigate the world they’re in well and a character whose animations take priority over the effectiveness of their actions.

 

Ballpoint Universe – Infinite is a sight to see and can sustain the player’s interest by continuing to deliver on more and more intricately designed visuals, and while that gives it a unique visual appeal, its unique ideas for the gameplay are sadly not given the same level of love, turning it into decent fun in stunning environments rather than an equal and excellent partnership between its cosmetic and interactive elements.