TouchTone

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For the telecommunication signaling method, see
Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling
.

TouchTone
Single-player[1]

TouchTone is a 2015

global surveillance disclosures of Edward Snowden
. The tone of TouchTone's story grew from satirical to serious over the course of the game's development.

The game was released on March 19, 2015, for iOS devices. The review aggregator website Metacritic characterized TouchTone's reviews as generally favorable. Critics praised the game's visual style and story but criticized the way the game did not allow players to skip puzzles. Reviewers found the light-bending puzzle premise unoriginal but appreciated its thematic connection.

Gameplay

In TouchTone's puzzles (left), the player rearranges the items onscreen to redirect a beam of light to its destination. The player is at the center of a story about government surveillance told through hacked emails (right), which are unlocked by completing puzzles.

As part of a

cardinal directions.[3]

The

hacked emails are pertinent to national security. The ethics of government surveillance are a core theme of the game.[4]

Development

Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend

AAA game like BioShock or System Shock".[5]

TouchTone found its theme following the

global surveillance disclosures in mid 2013, as Mikengreg felt they could provide satirical commentary through the "hacking" element of the game.[5] The story shed its jocular tone as it and its political content grew deeper and more serious.[5] Boxleiter wrote most of the script, which totaled over 20,000 words in length. It was his first effort at professional writing, and it took him five months. He and Wohlwend would conference after each chapter for coherency. Boxleiter wanted the story to explore the "questions ... floating around the national consciousness" rather than be "heavy-handed" and prescriptive.[5] Despite this work, Boxleiter felt that the story and the gameplay "don't necessarily interact with each other", with the story serving to drive those less interested in puzzles through the rest of the game.[3] They playtested the game in public at the theater in Logan Square, Chicago, though they acknowledged difficulty in playtesting the story's private experience.[5] Mikengreg decided against including an option to skip puzzles, which they felt would spoil the game and the player's capacity to adapt to increasing difficulty. They attribute this game design philosophy to Derek Yu of Spelunky.[3]

TouchTone was released as an

iOS App Store upon its release.[5]

Reception

TouchTone received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game

review score aggregator Metacritic.[7] It received Pocket Gamer's silver award.[1]

Reviewers praised the game's aesthetics and criticized its unoriginal puzzle concept.[2][8] TouchArcade's Shaun Musgrave wrote that the game's "striking" visuals and "politically charged" message were not completely reconciled but were "individually strong".[2] He described its art style as similar to Wohlwend's previous work and its political statement as indicative of Mikengreg's strong opinions. Musgrave praised the game's writing but thought the actual puzzles were weaker.[2] 148Apps's Jordan Minor found the "clinical, minimally-colored cyberspace" and 1970s thriller film aesthetic "chillingly appropriate" for the theme's tension.[8] He also chided the puzzles for not being "a reward unto themselves" and the gameplay's "monotony" for being similar to that of Papers, Please without serving the same dehumanizing point.[8] Minor called TouchTone "essentially a series of the hacking minigames ... [from] BioShock, Deus Ex, or Watch Dogs."[8] Pocket Gamer's Craig Grannell appreciate how the game "often forces a kind of upside-down thinking" and compared its message to that of Blackbar.[1] Gamezebo's Jim Squires said that TouchTone is "perfectly designed for a certain set of mobile gamers" and compared its gameplay to the 1987 Deflektor.[9] Despite the game's similarity to "countless light-bending puzzle games", he found Mikengreg's implementation "fiendishly clever" in the way the player moves rows of tiles rather than one at a time.[9]

Reviewers did not like the inability to skip puzzles.[2][1][9] Musgrave wrote that moments of being "stuck on a mandatory stage" detracted from the player's investment and sense of immersion in the story.[2] Grannell of Pocket Gamer wrote that TouchTone's linearity was its "only downside", though he also wished for options to "undo" mid-game choices and to save puzzle progress upon leaving the game.[1] Multiple reviewers appreciated the game's story.[2][9][4][3] Wired's Kyle Vanhemert felt that the act of determining whether messages were pertinent to national security was a "powerful experience".[4] Squires of Gamezebo considered the story one of the game's strong points, and unusually so for a puzzle game. He wrote that there was sufficient "intrigue" to want to finish the story, and that the reward of more story encouraged him to get through the harder puzzles.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Grannell, Craig (March 23, 2015). "TouchTone review". Pocket Gamer. Steel Media. Archived from the original on March 25, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Musgrave, Shaun (March 18, 2015). "'TouchTone' Review - Tricky Puzzles, Touchy Tone". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d Kuchera, Ben (March 20, 2015). "The $3 game that wants to create a totalitarian surveillance state with puzzles". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on May 10, 2015. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  4. ^
    Condé Nast. Archived
    from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dotson, Carter (March 24, 2015). "'TouchTone' Developers Mikengreg on How a 48-Hour Game Jam Game Took Two Years to Become a Politically-Charged Puzzler". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on April 29, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  6. ^ Willington, Peter (March 18, 2015). "TouchTone is a game about future technology, big brother, and the power of the individual in society". Pocket Gamer. Steel Media. Archived from the original on May 4, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  7. ^
    CBS Interactive. Archived
    from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d e Minor, Jordan (March 19, 2015). "TouchTone Review". 148Apps. Steel Media. Archived from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Squires, Jim (March 20, 2015). "TouchTone Review: Puzzling Is Your Civic Duty". Gamezebo. Archived from the original on May 27, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.

External links

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