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The Amazing Launchman Review

Rating:

Launchman is a simple game that twists one traditional aspect of platformers - you can't jump, but you can launch yourself in any direction. This very basic premise creates an entertaining title that just screams for more levels.

Additional Info

DeveloperZachary Hinchliffe, Joe Pierce
GenrePlatformer, Puzzle, Physics
PlatformsWindows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
EngineGame Maker 8
Filesize2.4 MB
Webpagehttp://www.wearethelayabouts.com/sites/funsize/

Full Review

Launchman is a puzzle platformer that was developed by Zachary Hinchliffe and Joe Pierce of the Layabouts for their "Fun Size Games" series of mini-games. The game features some random dude with an oddly shaped helmet who has crash landed on a mysterious planet and needs you to help him find his ship. He can move left and right by tapping the respective arrows on the keyboard, but there is no jump command. In jump's place, you can use your mouse to determine a desired direction for our hero to launch himself towards.

I simply love the mechanic, but it feels muffled beneath the restrictive level design. The idea that you can launch yourself into the air like a human cannonball is very very fun, however, the level design requires you to constantly control your aim and power to just fit into little niches and crevices to proceed in the game. While these are legitimate and good challenges built upon the core mechanic of the game, I miss chances where you can just explode into the air and land somewhere random. I keep trying to do this despite the level design, which mostly ended with my death, but one time I managed to skip a bunch of platforms and weave through a formation of spike balls to land at the spot you see in the screenshot. Crazy fun. Maybe this can be incorporated into the level design by having places where you see no indication of whatever is coming next, and you just blast yourself into the unknown like what I did.

The other problem I had with the game was the length. I understand that the game was intentionally short, but I would really like to see some more levels created for this. The format of progression in this game is very much like Sonic - levels are pretty long with checkpoints you activate on touching and warp back to upon death. With this format in mind, the game is only 1 level long, but worth about 7-10 minutes of gameplay (with repeated deaths).

Graphics-wise, this game follows Remar's Hero Core, sporting a monochromatic retro look, rendered in low-fi pixel art. Like all retro-themed indie games, it works well by reducing the player expectation of realism from the get-go and allowing for enjoyment of its simplicity. Additionally, it also helps when making these "Done in three days!" games because it reduces the amount of frames needed in animation without making it feel like a slideshow.

This game is available for download over a the Layabouts website for free at a little more than 2 MB in size. You can find the download here.

Posted by Zhou Xuanming on May 18, 2010 Comments (3)


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