While I'm not quite at Sean “Chair-Smasher” Sands' level of rage, I frequently get angry with my games. A challenging game can almost seem like it's taunting you, holding the possibility of success over your head while constantly smacking you in the face with defeat. The sign of a really good, challenging game is that it gets under my skin by with its carrot-shaped-stick gameplay. It looks like a reward, but it's really just an excuse to smack you around some more.
Give Up, Robot takes this theme of challenging puzzle games and brings it to the forefront, it's a jumping-puzzle game with a very solid grappling-hook mechanic. The game stands out because of the computerized voice egging you on: She will give you encouragement, praise and, occasionally, laughter when you die. When you do finally succeed after many, many deaths, she expresses annoyance. This sounds simple, and it is, but it's also amazingly effective. The computer's taunting is more compelling than achievements and gamerscore combined, the sense of schadenfraude when completing a difficult level is palpable.
While the levels are a seizure-inducing collection of flashing pixels, the art style is effective and fun. For a Flash game, the controls are spot-on and really make the game's clever puzzles shine. The levels start out fairly easy, the first 10 are basically a tutorial for the various abilities of your robot and the obstacles he will face. The next 50 very gradually ramp up in difficulty. I hit my own personal wall on level 29, where I just kept getting angrier at the puzzle and the computer's mechanical laughter when I died. It's a testament to the game that I just couldn't stop. There's 60 levels in total, though I haven't beat it yet because the game gets fairly hard in the later levels.
Why You Should Check This Out: Give Up, Robot is a simple jumping puzzle game with very solid controls and a fun grappling-hook mechanic. The computer voice that taunts you every level adds another layer of frustration and determination to an already challenging shooter. It's a perfect example of why SHODAN is one of the most memorable video game villains of all time: A challenging game is all the more compelling when it's taunting your failures.
[size=20]Play Now[/size]
Comments
I loved this game. I didn't like how the grappling hook control worked, but once you get used to it you can make it go where you want pretty well. The puzzles get super fun once the difficulty starts to ramp up after level 20 or so.
Website | Twittah | Tumblr
The last level was painfully hard. It took me more time than all the previous levels put together. Still enjoyable enough overall.
Steam : Latrine | Curse: MeanShift | Origin : LambdaLatrine | Battle.net : Latrine#1784
I'm not sure if this game should come with a more pronounced photo-sensitive seizure warning, considering the levels consist solely of strobe-light blocks and other flashing rainbows. Has rabbit seen it?
Nevertheless, the game was fantastic. It has a small tendency to raise the difficulty significantly at certain levels (mine were 42 and 50, and ALL of Hard Mode), but overall it was an enjoyable experience.
Hard Mode... is indeed very hard.
Honestly I kinda figured the screenshot was enough of a warning. I would put a big warning in flashing red text ... but a seizure warning in flashing text kinda seems to defeat the purpose.
I saw this in a front page post at Destructoid earlier this week and played it non-stop to level 50, where I finally stopped because after many attempts, I just couldn't beat it.
Very fun game.
Steam: [GWJ]MeatMan | "Now I know where to go if I have a hankering for testicles." –Higgledy
Had to take a break on level 50, let the hand cramp subside. Came back and got it after several tries. Total time 66:42.33, score of 17,598,610.
The computer voice didn't really add much to the experience for me, since it was unintelligible and I could never tell what it was trying to convey, except when it laughed.
Certis: Quintin is both smart and attractive.
Fedaykin98: Good lord, I wouldn't have expected brilliance like that from that nemeslut Quintin Stone!
Yonder: It's weird to say this, but Quintin Stone may be the wisest person here.
Oh my god, hard mode is ridiculous. I'm on Hard 7 and it's breaking my mind.
Edit: Okay, finally finished Hard Mode. Took almost two hours and 900 deaths. Level 10 was the best.
Steam : Latrine | Curse: MeanShift | Origin : LambdaLatrine | Battle.net : Latrine#1784
A) Make a game with single-frame twitch skills necessary.
B) Make a game that occasionally skips or loses a frame.
Pick one of these. If you pick both, like this game's programmer did, I am not interested.
This is sadly what I've come to expect from people now, all mouth, and a questionable amount of trousers.
I'm stuck at hard level 7. I will finish this game!
I don't know what the ending is, but the one I would write would be:
This one's a baby puncher for sure...
I'd disagree on the "solidness" of its grappling hook mechanic though... I blame half of my deaths to its clunky response/feel.
Okay that game is too addictive, that's going to seriously hurt my productivity today