About the Game

Short Decription

And Yet It Moves is a puzzle-platformer, set in a unique world, made of ripped paper. Within the paper collage, you can jump, run and last but certainly not least: rotate the world. Learn how to apply the physical consequences of rotation to master the many tricky situations you may encounter.

You can play a race against the clock on different levels, too, competing against previous clocked times. Your run will be recorded, as a »Ghost« which can be submitted, along with your time, to the global high scores online. You can download other users' Ghosts to compete with friends and strangers around the world and see who found the fastest route.

Following the acclaim of the previously awarded prototype for And Yet It Moves, we present the full version, containing three exciting and beautiful environments and lots of new challenges.

Key Features

Advanced platforming:
Not only can you jump and run, but you can rotate the world in 90 degree intervals, as well.

17 levels with a unique look & feel:
Mind-bending puzzles set in an extraordinary paper collage world, with three different environments, enriched and brought to life with handmade sounds and music.

Speed Run mode:
You can compete against the clock or previously recorded Ghost Runs on each level, with marathon runs throughout the entire environment.

Online high scores and shareable Ghost Runs:
Go for the high score by challenging your friends or complete strangers and polish your skills of rotation.

Gameplay

And Yet It Moves is centered around the enhancement of players' abilities in a 2D platformer. Its core mechanism is the power to turn the world in 90 degrees intervals any time the user chooses to. This has clear implications on the game environment: walls become floors, tunnels may suddenly be used as downward slides and a stone resting on the ground may fall, becoming either a dangerous obstacle or useful object for catapulting.
To successfully progress through a level, a player must apply the physical consequences of rotating the world to the avatar, and to other moving objects, like stones, drops of water and branches, as well as to living things, such as bats, monkeys and much more.
Our goal was to cater to players with a reasonably high game literacy, along with newcomers to our domain. We carefully introduce our core mechanism, and slowly build up the challenges, so that one can improve while playing. During our intense user testing sessions, we refined and polished that process, in order to provide a satisfying gaming experience.
A great amount of effort was put into supporting the fresh and interesting gameplay, with many additionally added special objects to interact with, and a large variety of puzzles distributed over 16 levels in 3 environments. It's amazing how much there is to do when you're able to turn the world around!

Art style

And Yet It Moves is notable, parallel to its polished, focused gameplay, for the unique artistic style that was to inevitably arise. Our team lacked a specialized visual game artist, so we looked for a style we liked that we would be able to produce. The roughness and analog feel of a world set in a paper collage provided just what we wanted, without the necessity of 3D artists building it. Each object, plant or animal that the player encounters is ripped out of a photo or movie image and brought to life using current realtime rendering techniques. Every level was designed through a meticulous handmade process, including various back- and foreground layers, making it more interesting to play through.
The same analog approach was also used for the acoustic design of And Yet It Moves. In addition to visual finesse, the world is enriched with handmade sounds and music, all originating from our sound designer, Christoph's, voice.
If a player must spend a moment determining how to overcome an obstacle, the visual and acoustic beauty offers a great deal to enjoy in the meantime.
We split up the levels into three visually and thematically distinct environments. The first few levels are set in the winding corridors of a cave, beginning visually quietly so the player may focus on learning the mechanisms of the game, increasingly coming to life as the player advances. Once the character is able to escape, they find themselves in a lush forest, surrounded by canopying trees and mysterious plants and animals, which may not be always be very welcoming.
Many challenges must be overcome within the beautiful homage to nature, until a snake bite casts the character into a world, transformed with abstract challenges.
Without any further spoilers, we invite you to explore the visual, acoustic spectacle of gameplay for yourself!

Online capabilities

A great interest was shown in the high score tables of the prototype of And Yet It Moves, showing us that even platformers can be racing games.
Therefore, we officially included the social community phenomena of Speed Runs, which accompany so many other platform games, but which have always been carried out via YouTube, among others.
Each run through a level in And Yet It Moves will be recorded as a »Ghost« and can be submitted with its time to the global online high scores. With the ability to download other user's Ghosts, one is able to compete against friends and strangers around the globe. The recorded Ghosts may be used to observe how others play through a level, to show shortcuts to friends or to learn new tips and tricks for increasing one's skills. Extra effort has been put into making the user interface as simple as possible so that the times and Ghosts one wants to compete with can be found most easily. A player can filter the high scores to see the best times, the times one is most likely to beat or simply the times of a specific user or location. Our vast assortment of high scores, therefore, allows a way for players to define their own competitions, not only trying to top those of others skillful enough to compete for the highest places.

How it all began

And Yet It Moves was conceived as a game concept for a computer science course, held by the Department for Design and Assessment of Technology at the Vienna University of Technology. Thanks to the wisdom of our supervisors to constrict us to a 2D engine, we focused on giving a player more control and abilities within a 2D platformer. You can download the old Prototype of And Yet It Moves here (pc | mac).
The prototype for And Yet It Moves was a 2007 Independent Games Festival Student Showcase Winner and a 2007 EUROPRIX Top Talent Award Nominee.
It was additionally included in the 2007 Independent Games Showcase at E3, is an IndieCade Finalist and was shown at IndieCade @ Open Satellite 2008. Our prototype has also made its way into the Australian Center for Moving Images in Melbourne, where it was shown in the 2007 Best of Independent Games Festival exhibition.
Due to the aforementioned interest in the prototype, we decided to build a full version of the game. We strongly believe that we have created a noteworthy successor.