Influence Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: Influence
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
  • Reviewed on:

How can one lone idea spawned in the mind of a genius or of a monster spread? How do the masses get converted, sometimes without even being aware, to the good and the bad ideologies that have sprung up throughout the history of humanity? There are a lot of theories, sociological, political and psychological, that seek to answer the above question but one of the most beautifully rendered answers has come my way via a rather casual yet deep strategy title called Influence.

Influence was created by Blanket Fort Games and is a mix between a simple but engaging strategy layer, a music creation tool and a puzzle game. The player creates an id, using a set amount of points to determine how quick it moves around the game space, its resistance to other ideas and how quickly it responds to the commands of the player.

The id then gets dropped, with its competitors, into a bleak universe, populated with neutrals that can be recruited. It's easy to understand how the conversion works and the different strategies associated with various id setups, but once in the play, it's a pretty frantic race to convert neutrals and then destroy competitors.

The confusion is somewhat enhanced by the fact that agility is much more important than it seems at first sight, given the indirect control scheme of Influence.

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Gaining the upper hand
Shades of yellow
The first couple of real games after completing the tutorial stage were for me chaotic affairs and I was never really sure what my aim was and how I should proceed in order to reach it. All the rules I seemed to learn so quickly flew out of my head and I easily fell prey to better ideas that mine.

After just watching a bit and studying what the computer does I started doing better, starting as strongly as possible by separating loose neutral ideas to gain numbers as quickly as possible and then by looking around to see which of the colored ideas are less powerful than I am so that I can take them out and gain the upper hand.

As the game plays, interaction between different ideas generate sounds which are laid upon a background to create a sort of a wordless audio chronicle of the battle between ideas that rage, getting powerful and spectacular in the final stages, when two big blobs of color fight for ultimate domination.

They can be saved and replayed, not the sort of music one would actually listen to in order to relax but interesting nonetheless, especially given the product they are integrated in.

The multiplayer adds another twist as players can work together as long as they pledge allegiance to the same overall idea in the Options tab. Here the mix of actual id characteristics for different players becomes more important than in the offline mode and the fact that a human intelligence drives the competing ids adds another layer of complexity to the game. As always, it's a good idea to get friends to play than strangers and population could become an issue, but the experience is interesting.

Influence has a great core idea that could be developed well beyond its current stripped down form, although expanding on its minimalism could actually make it less appealing. As it is, it represents one of the most surprising gaming experiences I have seen in some time, one which could easily be delivered on gaming consoles as well as on the PC and one which could actually make good use of motion tracking.

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story 9
gameplay 8
concept 10
graphics 7
audio 9
multiplayer 8
final rating 8.5
Editor's review
very good