Digital floundering

Conventional videogame design wisdom holds that if you’re conscious of what you’re doing with your hands while you’re playing, something’s probably gone wrong. It’s generally accepted that best practice involves make the player feel one with the controller – that their digits should be able to dance around the buttons, sticks and triggers instinctively, allowing them to concentrate on what’s happening on the screen. It’s particularly vital when you’re playing something like Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course (we vividly recall having to remap the original’s controls in order to get anywhere with it), but within moments of tucking in to this delectable DLC we’re fully focused on the gorgeously animated action unfolding before us – and the many, many projectiles headed our way – as we dash, duck, dip, dive and dodge without really thinking about it.

Going from that to The Last Clockwinder, then, is quite the culture shock. Indeed, part of the appeal of this clever VR puzzler is the way it makes you acutely aware of your actions: solving its intricate challenges requires you to record a few seconds of your handiwork, producing a robot clone that subsequently mimics your movements in a loop. Evidently we’re long overdue some throwing practice.

Nerial’s Card Shark, meanwhile, falls somewhere in between. In order to cheat a succession of French nobles without attracting unwanted attention, you need to master a wide variety of tricks – rehearsing techniques until they become second nature. Yet between timed button presses, precise analogue-stick movements and splitscreen presentation that demands you pay attention to two things at once – not to mention the pressure of a suspicion meter – it forces you to be cognisant of your movements at all times. It’s another reminder, in a game all about flouting traditional notions of fair play, that some rules are made to be broken.