I was given this game to review for the GMTK game jam. I think leaving a respectful and comprehensive rating & review for any game means completing it. Because of the unassuming artstyle, I thought this game would be a quick dunk, and onto the next so I could review all 10 of my suggested games today. But do not be fooled by the purposefully dated art style, the limited color-palette and the cute rocket boy.
This game is: 100% rage-enducing, 10% relaxing, 100% skill-based, and the dev is AT LEAST 80% sadistic.
I have played this game, not kidding, 9 hours. In one sitting, with around 2 hours of break total, because I was getting thirsty and hungry by the end (Those 2 hours are excluded from my playtime). This is way more than any other game of this jam so far.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS is my recommendation if you're thinking of downloading this game:
IF you like rage/foddian games, you should play this game. Up to the end of Level 2. Whatever you do, DO NOT play Level 3, this might seem click-bait, but I am not fucking kidding.
This fucking boring ass level 3 constitutes the last 7 hours of my playtime; and I FUCKING GIVE UP, i can't do this shit anymore I wanted to fucking win so I could spoil the ending for any other poor souls; because every 4 seconds I wished the game would just end, I wished I would just magically beat it.
However, if you somehow like `I wanna be the BOSHY` or `SuperMario Maker`'s bullshit player levels, you might somehow like this too. I will say I would like to see some players speedrunning this game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is my only 3 pieces of advice if you hate yourself enough to play this game:
- Use your ears to time the count
- NEVER lose track of the count
- create line ups for every jump.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is my review of the game as a whole:
The movement is snappy and perfectly skill-based. The level design is ingenious and I have fallen into almost EVERY single pitfall, almost EVERY single spike trap and slipped off EVERY platform. In level 3, I have fallen for every single trap the dev put in, not 1 was spared.
-5★ gameplay-
Now those were the strong parts. On the weak parts, there is the artstyle and the audio.
The artstyle is like you took a game of the 90s and developped half of it, the backgrounds are missing and all textures but the jump pad and lava dont have animations, so only level 2 looks interesting.
The music is straight torture, it will throw you off your count, which you NEVER want to happen, it lasts like 10 seconds, and there are 3 tracks, and you loop them over hours.
Also an interesting, if not sadistic, design choice is that pressing the ESCAPE KEY in the HOPES of reducing your music volume so you can hear your friend on discord or the drumsticks better will reset your whole game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes this is a rage-game, no binding escape to reset and not letting us mute the music does not improve the gameplay experience. Without mentioning that turning off the game means restarting from the beginning.
-3.5★ overall-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now here are my thoughts on each level along with a few tips for any who care:
The first level is the weakest, it really is just a tutorial in disguise, but it's really too simple and the pacing is slow, so if you download the game and play 5-10 minutes, that's all you'll see and you'll leave bored.
This game is a proper hidden gem when you get into the second level, for the first 1h30 of playtime.. That's because this level is amazing!, there is finally animated textures! The game looks lively, the jump pad mechanic skips the count down mechanic, which fixes all pacing issues, the game becomes fast-paced and nervous, the jumps are challenging, and the end cave utilizes the count-down mechanic perfectly, it feels very fluid and well-paced!
(If you struggle with the jump pad, and think it might be pixel-perfect to be able to ascend at the difficult part, it is not. Lets say you were trying to jump up and to the right : I learnt that what you want to do is first jump to the left, and then when you reach the half-way point of the jump, you hold right, if timed correctly, it should land you on the higher jump pad you were trying to get to.)
Good job, you beat it that was a fun level right!
Now level 3 is a level you shouldn't even get to know, I AM STILL NOT FUCKING KIDDING. This level drags on way too fucking long, the count-down puts the run-back of Dark Souls 2 to shame, this won't be a 5 minute run-back, it wont be 10 minute run-back either, you will lose patience, you will lose focus, you will be thirsty, the random fucking bloke outside your window running laps around your neighborhood for 2 hours from 11PM to 1AM revving his engine loudly at every stop WILL throw you off your count, and you WILL sometimes phase through walls randomly, and you WILL die to it. The run back for me was around 20-30 minutes. It really felt like being a headless chicken and randomly trying inputs until i slowly inched forward every few attempts. This is where I gave up, I made it to the fun bouncy part with spikes, but its so far into the level it's impossible to reach in a reasonable amount of time to get any fun out of it.
(My best advice for beating this level is to create 2 line ups for yourself.
- When arriving at the T-shaped pipe, you want to practice jumping onto the pipe without touching its sides, specifically you want to jump and hold Right at the very apex of your jump. if done correctly you will notice a wide parabola on your trail at the top. This jump line up is to be used when resuming the blue rocky area, where there is a tall jump with a spike above it. I recommend not touching the wall when performing the jump, I found more consistency hitting the jump that way, but it might be placebo.
- The second one you create is on the 3rd spike of the level. THAT jump that is needed to clear THAT spike is the EXACT same one needed to beat the next jump after the vertical spike jump.
- Finally, this isn't a new lineup, but if you manage to beat those vertical spike jumps, the next section with the jump pads I found a slight bit of consistency doing the same trick as in level 2, where I would do a jump backwards and come back forward halfway through, to clear the first jump pad, the other jump pads aftwerwards seemed trivial but I didn't get enough attempts to try them properly, and I dont know whats in the weird box above.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now lastly this is the criticisms and suggestions I have for the dev:
- Please let us mute the music. And unbind Escape from `reset run`.
- Give us 2 checkpoints in level 3, the level is WAY too hard, I have my doubts you even beat the game yourself fully, in one sitting, like you intend us to do. The length of this level is so long it is no longer interesting, no longer funny, no longer rage-enducing, it is simply boring. The level of patience you need to beat this level is only attainable by becoming completely apathetic to the game.
- This is a nitpick, but the countdown font is hard to read to me because of the doubled middle line, I think using a font with a single line would be better.
- As a post-gamejam thing, please give us a gamemode where we control our jumps, and only use the countdown at the end of level 2, in the cave section. The count down mechanic makes the pacing of the game AWEFUL. Waiting 4 seconds to play the game every jump killed the mood for me. And why does hitting a ceiling turn the countdown to 3s?? It breaks the audio cue timing of the empty beat that helps you time your beats and just wastes more time because now you must waste 7 seconds to make a confident jump.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall I am really sad I didn't get to experience the ending of the game after 9 hours of torturous playtime, I would say I am above average in skill in most games, except starcraft-like and management games.
I hope some devoted speedrunners pick up this game and show us what the ending looks like and what a good run of this game looks like! This game is definitely going to be underrated.