Extended Practice Game Play and Collectibles Research: Emperors New Grove

The next game that I wanted to look at was the Emperors New Grove game as this for me is a great example of how a children's game can include actually some very nice mechanics for its time as well. The idea of the game is that you play as Kuzco, who has been transformed into a llama, this provides his with the ability to run on all fours, something that works well as you feel more grounded to the floor when on four rather than two legs.

The general mechanics of the game are pretty simple, being able to easily run around an environment that is fairly large as well, meaning that there is a fair amount to explore. The general movement then goes on to be slightly more complex as the character can also jump onto platforms and traverse them, giving the game a lot more height to it. There are also enemies to take into account, who will hurt you if you get too close, so he has various attacks to be able to kill them. The overall movement and platforming is slightly difficult and doesn't always move smoothly due to the clunky movement, especially when jumping, but when exploring flat land, or racing around the environment, it feels fairly solid.

Lastly I wanted to look at the collectibles system which was actually very nice for the game and gave it that part that made the game a lot better. The collectibles that you had to find were mainly silver coins, and there were a certain amount in each level so that once you collected them all you would get a gold coin to finish. Throughout each level there were also secrets to find, these usually gave you those last few coins that you were missing. Then finally you had to collect and item called Wompy on each level which is the character teddy, this allowed you to go back to our last checkpoint when you died instead of having to go back to the beginning. It's an unusual system but works well for the game.