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They Need To Be Fed Review

Rating:

An excellent example of game design... in places. They Need To Be Fed becomes more frustrating as it continues, and it's minor faults become more devastating.

Additional Info

DeveloperJesse Venbrux
GenrePuzzle, Platformer
PlatformsWindows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
EngineGame Maker 8
Filesize9.2 MB
Webpagehttp://venbrux.com/work/268

Full Review

It's refreshing to find a game like They Need To Be Fed. It doesn't have a terrible story, or useless cut scenes, or even an obtrusive tutorial. It's a remarkably pure example of game design, a far greater aspect than its simple visuals or expressive characters. To describe it as 'man avoids obstacles, gets eaten by giant face' simply doesn't do it justice.

No, the true strength of TNTBF lies in its level design. It's controlled only with the arrow keys and 'space', for jumping between various shaped platforms on your way to the goal. It adds new platforms of different shapes, sizes and movements every level or so, and there are also equally diverse ways for your cute little guy to be brutally murdered. Each new aspect is introduced to the player steadily, so that they can understand the game's internal logic, before the designer really starts to test the player with some ingenious combinations. It's absolutely excellent at points, and a really solid example of good game design.

It's a shame then that what few faults it has become so game-breaking.

The game is focused entirely around gravity, particularly manoeuvring 360 degrees around objects. The problem is that controls don't work relative to the screen, but rather relative to your little guy. On top of a platform, you press left to go left, and right to go right, but when standing on the bottom of the platform, left is right, and right is left. It doesn't seem much of a problem at first, but as the levels become more frantic, the time it takes to adjust yourself based on this oversight becomes vitally important, and can lead to some unfair deaths.

It also seems that, as the game goes on, the various elements of the game start to be used in conjunction more and more, and they begin to pile up on each other. It's interesting the first time you have to dodge missiles, but when you have to dodge missiles, jump between unstable platforms and dodge spinning black holes at the same time, it doesn't seem clever: only tiresome. Latter levels are so frustrating I wondered aloud whether this game was even made for humans, rather than some incredibly advanced robot.

TNTBF is one of those games that I played through not because of its story, or its graphics or any kind of unlockables. I played it because at its best its breathlessly enjoyable to play. It's disappointing then when this isn't the case.

Posted by Joseph Gribbin on June 09, 2010 Comments (1)


Danik said at 2010-07-06 02:37:

Lots of fun to play. It was in some of the later levels ridiculously hard, but I played it through anyways and had died I think 200 times when finished. One thing that is very annoying is that you have no way of telling where you missed a diamond, so the only way to find it is to play the whole thing over from the beginning.