This is the two hundred forty-first entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. This particular entry is also part of the Keeping Score series about games and their soundtracks. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred forty-first random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is manipulating space to escape a labyrinth. It’s DYO, by Josia Roncancio (with a team of three others), and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Two Minotaurs trapped in a maze.

It’s always mazes with these minotaurs, isn’t it?

DYO is a puzzle platformer for 1-2 players. I played it by myself, but the itch.io page recommends 2 players. Honestly I’m not sure if a second player would have helped me or hindered me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Whether played solo or with a partner, DYO stars two minotaurs, controlled independently. In that sense, controlling it solo felt a bit like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, except the minotaurs do not explore a three dimensional world. No, they are limited to the flat plane of a classic platformer, shown using split screen. In order to escape the labyrinth, the minotaurs must take advantage of DYO’s central conceit: at any time, the minotaurs may “lock” their screens in place and move between the two sides. This simple idea creates all manner of devious puzzles to solve.

Early on, I struggled to wrap my head around this. The minotaurs can move and jump, so I would start exploring the level until I found a ledge I couldn’t reach. I’d wander a little more until I realized that locking the screens together would create a platform I could use as a stepping stone. That done, I’d resume wandering, maybe freezing the screen a few more times to get past some more obstacles, and eventually both of my minotaurs would find their exit doors, without me really understanding how I’d managed it.

This was because I hadn’t fully grasped how DYO works. I hadn’t realized that the minotaurs are navigating the same space, but in separate planes of existence. The two sides of the screen depict the same location, but unless the minotaurs lock their screens and interact directly, they appear to each other only as shadows. But they’re shadows that can still interact with each other. This is critical, because it’s not enough to simply open up one path to the exit. Both minotaurs must reach their doors. You can’t cheat and just move both minotaurs onto the same side of the screen and leave them there; locked screens can only be unlocked when there’s one minotaur on each side. So, if one minotaur let the other jump on its head so it could reach a higher ledge, I needed to work out how to help the other one up, too. Sometimes I could do that by manipulating the split screens into a new configuration, other times I needed to use the minotaurs’ shadow forms as stepping stones for each other.

Given the way each level ramps up the complexity and adds new mechanics, I think Josia Roncancio expected players to figure this out faster than I did. Before I’d wrapped my head around these basics, I found myself tackling something new, and was easily overwhelmed. I even had to look up a few solutions. If I’d written this post then, when I was only partway through the game, I would have labelled DYO as too difficult, too obtuse. But I persevered, and found that things suddenly clicked. I went from aimless fumbling to logically dissecting levels, and I started to have a lot more fun.

Would a second player have helped me reach this epiphany sooner? Perhaps. But trying to solve DYO’s puzzles as a pair might prove even harder. Many puzzles require both minotaurs to be positioned just so in order to freeze their screens in the proper configuration, and then coordinate their movements before unlocking the screens again. Doing that when both players have figured out what must be done would be tricky enough, but what if only one had intuited the solution and needed to explain it to the other player? I fear it could easily descend into frustration. There is a rewind button to let players undo mistakes, but it can be triggered by either player at any time, potentially letting them annoy each other even more.

On the other hand, having someone to talk things through with would have been helpful, especially as things get more complicated later in the game. After a few levels, DYO offers three different paths on the level select screen, each with a different new mechanic added to the mix. My favorite of these were the levels where one of the split screens is more zoomed out than the other. This means that the minotaurs can switch sides to change their size. If the zoomed-out minotaur crosses over, it will find itself tiny, able to fit into smaller spaces. The other minotaur, by contrast, will be a giant on the zoomed-out side of the screen, able to clear high jumps with ease. Navigating these levels was a lot of fun, and the other twists on the other paths (which I won’t spoil) were satisfying to unpick too.

This one is a cautious recommendation. If DYO clicks for you — or if you have a partner you like to solve puzzles with — it can be a fun challenge. But if you struggle to understand how its split screen manipulation works, you might find yourself lost and fumbling. I experienced both of these, and ultimately enjoyed the game overall, so it is probably worth at least trying it. Which is easy, because DYO is offered for any price you wish to pay, including free, even for those who missed the bundle. A separate free download contains the Collector’s Edition content, including an artbook that highlights the game’s excellent artwork, styled like it’s been hand-painted and full of wonderful background details including a varied array of statues. There’s also an early prototype version of the game, and the original soundtrack. Which brings me to…

The Score:

The DYO soundtrack, credited to Ragnar Thomsen, consists of six tracks spanning nearly 23 minutes. The first track, “Title” is only 11 seconds long, but the rest are around 4-5 minutes in length. Familiar melodies recur throughout the whole soundtrack, making the tracks feel more like different renditions of each other than separate pieces of music. The overall mood is very relaxed, almost ambient, with sparse percussion and slow melodic passages suitable for pondering a tricky puzzle.

A synthesizer chorus and synthesiser strings create much of the melodic structure, with the rest taken up by flutes, string plucks, or melodic percussion. The arrangements almost sound orchestral, but are far too sparse, with copious reverb lending them an ethereal quality. On “Archives”, an understated synthesized organ lays out the chord progression, emphasized by the occasional timpani hit, while “Ballroom” replaces these with strings playing a waltz rhythm. Both tracks, however, rely on a flute to carry the main melody, and ultimately sound rather similar as a result.

I suspect that crafting music for a puzzle game is a tricky affair. Players may spend some time stuck, trying to work out a way through their predicament, so the ideal music will encourage creative thinking without drawing too much attention to itself. It must not be too repetitive or too energetic, but neither should it be so ambient as to be lost completely as background noise. Ragnar Thomsen has managed that balance well here, but it makes for music that is ultimately unengaging to listen to on its own. It’s likely a good accompaniment while working or doing some other task, but I doubt I’ll purposefully reach for the DYO soundtrack very often. Still, it’s pleasant enough, and a nice bonus to include with the game.

That’s 241 down, and a cool 1500 to go!