Scattered Verse review - “Gateway to the mystifying realm of poetry”

• Learn to love poetry through platforming
• Revel in charming aesthetics, wonderfully unique for every stage
• Most importantly, you can make your stickman look dapper with hats!

Raise your hand if you only skim literature, like poems or short stories, to get a passing grade. To those dissecting poems, I tip my hat to you. To those who don't, including my past self, who dozes off every time "Charge of the Light Brigade" comes up, fret not - those days are about to end with today's entry. 

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From teacher-turned-developer Tony Dong, with dynamic duo Mark Samani and Meg Short as composers, comes Scattered Verse. It poises itself as an ice-breaker for the obscure world of poetry, done through the format of a platformer. Available currently on the App Store with a Google Play release teetering on the horizon. 

Dream-like gateway into a land of illusion

As Cao Pi has put it in his maxim: “Writing is the great affair of managing a state and the wonderful business of achieving immortality”. In the Old World, when the first bud of civilisation bloomed, wordmanship was a prized skill, as it defined your status and respectability. 

Aside from the entertainment and enlightenment that works of poetry provide, they also permeate courtroom politics from ancient Greece to imperial China. Glory and pleasure last only a lifetime, but writing endures the test of time.

Hopefully, this preamble sheds light on the significance of poetry and piques your interest, much like how Ishmael glorified the perilous career of whaling in Moby Dick. 

In Scattered Verse, you experience poetry by filling in the gaps to make the poem whole again. Presently, there are eight stages out of thirty dedicated to a unique poem.

Once you spawn, incomplete stanzas appear line by line on the screen. Relying on either your inner Shakespeare or Google cheat codes, you can dart around the screen to collect letters. Use them to spell the missing words. The controls are simple: swipe and release to leap; swipe and hold to dash on land and in mid-air. While in mid-air, you can perform a triple jump. It demands absolute precision in your haptics as you don’t want to overshoot a ledge.

All the world’s a stage, and you’re the actor and player

Stage progression diverges into three predetermined paths after Christinia Messessen and Robert Frost poems. Each pathway contains two poems with contrasting themes. 

There’s never a dull moment when it comes to stage designs. Most of them have a personality and reflect the message within the poem. Jean Toomer's Evening Song is a great example of this. There is a hanging crescent and riverbanks that decorate the stage.

Aligning with the resonant nature imagery, it reflects Cloine's tranquil inner world expressed in terms of the moon and sleepy waters. Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken takes a minimalist, symbolic approach, featuring a forest draped in yellow as its backdrop and long winding roads.

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Verily, some stages are an odd bunch, pointing to Jalaluddin Rumi's This Is Love. There are whales and stingrays you can ride to reach further parts of the stage. As to the choice of these aquatic animals, it opens up to ample guesstimations. Could it be an allusion to the author’s birthplace Baran which is known as a port town? Hit me up if I turned out right on the money.

Intermediate stages that centre around abstract concepts like Struggle or Up lie ahead of your journey too. Not only do they pad out playtime, but the stages also double as subtle hints to what's to come for the poem. The stages before Countee Cullen's From the Dark Tower combine themes of Search and Darkness, and everything that comes before. Even if you are unfamiliar with the poem, you can always gamble on intuitions to guess the correct words.

In spite of their watered-down scale, they retain their own flair for the abstract concept each represents. You can expect verdure if the theme revolves around Earth and forestry. Some of them come with gimmicks. As is the case with Search, your visibility is greatly limited and it feels like navigating through the pitch-black Rock Tunnel without Flash in Pokemon Leaf Green.

Flabbergasting and flippant ways to grasp poetry

There are many elements to take into account. It includes grappling with water and wind physics, as well as clinging to ropes and swinging from them. You’ll also be bouncing on mushrooms to get to higher ground. 

Even in such an innocent game, there are obstacles: an urchin. Your avatar won't blip off the screen any time soon, but bumping into one can scatter your letters and hamper you. Also, poor placement or combination of stage elements can ruin the experience, like the clusters of urchins submerging in the lake in the stage Quiet.

Handholding is a feature that invites both praise and scorn in these types of experiences, and Scattered Verse does so in moderation. There is no hint box if you feel stuck, so you’re on your own. Still, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that if you get a letter wrong, the red font colour serves as your sole indication.

With that said, Scattered Verse hit the home run on music composition. Its treasure trove of serene ambient background music exerts a meditative effect. Playing this is like taking a leisurely stroll at your local park or a zen realm.