Indie | Fig. 8

By Fraser McMillan

Sometimes, life can get a bit much.

Responsibilities flying all over the place, desperately piecing articles together, having the flu, nearly collapsing from exhaustion, chasing people up via email and stressing about upcoming deadlines are all things I’ve experienced this past week, and none did I particularly enjoy. Other than a sojourn to the pictures to see a surprisingly fantastic comedy, it’s been practically non-stop – but a man needs a break from it all, does he not?

Fig. 8 filled that gap nicely. Washing its inherent pleasantness over me all too readily, it was a relaxing little piece that did more to preserve my sanity in ten minutes than, well, just about any leisurely pursuit I’ve participated in for about a fortnight. Parisian accordions and softly strummed guitars can have a surprisingly soothing effect on a person on edge, and to say this game has charm in spades would be as understated as it is trite.

In Fig. 8, the player takes charge of a bicycle from a bird’s eye viewpoint, steering it with the arrow keys and avoiding every black line on the background “sheet”. Constructed to look more or less like a tech diagram, the clean and smooth visual style serves the game incredibly well, contributing to the chilled atmosphere immeasurably. It’s not taxing at all for the most part, with infinite respawns available from every checkpoint should the cycle crash and a sensibly gradual difficulty curve, though with even the perpetually accumulating score tallies – incorporated beautifully into the backdrop, it must be noted – able to knock you back to the last restart area, it can become a tad irritating further in.

//Nil points
The addition of scoring is dangerous; it doesn’t quite sit right with Fig. 8’s easy-going core, despite the fact the concept was, according to creators Intuition, built almost entirely around this very mechanic. It’s unfortunate that the developers appear not to have had enough confidence in the purity of their work’s fundamentals and caved in to their traditionalist instinct. It integrates well with the world, but that doesn’t mean it squares well with it, and the omission of any option to simply ride without the high-score counters is at best a grating oversight.

Though I can (and did) force myself to ignore that purple multiplier line that emerges when the front and back wheels’ respective blue and red trails run into each other for a long enough time, it was certainly a challenge. We may not want to care about the Xbox 360’s Achievements system, but by Zeus’ beard do we not succeed in the opposite, and the same applies when scaled down. If the carrot is there for the tanking, it’s nigh-on impossible not to grab it with as much vigour as someone who genuinely wants it. This is my chief – but possibly only genuine – complaint with Fig. 8. The colourful shapes the wheels cut are a lovely contrast to the black and white, but when “x2” flashes up for the fourth time in six seconds it can become either distracting or all too tempting.

That said, criticism of Fig. 8 is slightly unnecessary, because it still achieves, for the most part, what it sets out to do. It’s a laid-back, slickly produced and supremely satisfying nugget of videogame. It’s in flash, available here, and well worth your time. It works far better than a stress buster by my reckoning (at least the first two thirds), so anyone sitting in the office and drowning in paperwork would be strongly advised to make time for a spot of Fig. 8 in their life – it may just prevent you from losing your marbles completely. So, go play; you can practically smell the fresh baguettes from here.