Years back, when PomPom – genius developers of slithery arcade treats – wanted to patent an idea they’d just come up with, an idea about controlling elements of a game by dropping little bubbles of air around them to knock them this way and that, the terminology they came up with, I think, was all about “expanding boundaries”. It worked a treat – control that felt thrillingly indirect at times. You’re in charge, but then you’re not in charge. Pick a direction, work out where to plop your expanding boundary. Off you go! Good luck!
I am tempted to say that it’s been a little too quiet for expanding boundaries ever since. We need more of them in games. But here’s Onde, of which I have played about an hour this morning. It’s a meditative musical game with abstract shimmering art – a touch of the deep ocean, of the tiny creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water, but also, bracingly, something of the spirograph and those geometric sunbursts you get on old bank notes. And guess what, at the heart of it all? An expanding boundary. So far anyway.
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