Feel for Games - April/May 2024
Indie Platformers and an Esoteric JRPG
April and May have been a drought period for me in terms of gaming. This barren period came about due to a few factors: Ramping up busy work in my personal life; other projects that required attention; my actual job; obsession with a pair of games that consumed most of my time.
However! We are back with some of the stuff I managed to get played since last we spoke. June is going to be incredibly interesting in terms of gaming for me, and I am excited to share some articles about what I am getting to experience this month!
Under £10 - Felvidek: Eastern European Surrealist JRPG
Feeling: Surrealism, Comedy, and a whole bunch of other emotions
Ever wanted to know what it would be like to play as a drunk Slovakian knight during the 15th century? To travel across the land, fighting invading raiders and eldritch horrors? And for the mechanics to be an off-kilter JRPG where instead of magic you bash people with shields?
Well if the hyper specific scenario above applies to you, then Felvidek is the game of your dreams. I didn’t know I had such a dream until I saw it in the store, randomly browsing at the latest released games on Steam and finding it right at the top at the end of March. The trailer was engrossing immediately, the unique look and style of the game allows it to stand out amongst its indie competitors.
Felvidek has us playing as Pavol, a knight who has been gripped by alcoholism since his fair lady left him. During the night, as he is with a bottle of booze, he notices the old castle across the valley suddenly aflame. Alerting Jozef, a stoic noble with a strangely esoteric collection of board games for a man living in the Slovakian highlands of mediaeval Europe, he sends Pavol to investigate the castle with the local clergyman - a monk by the name of Matej.
This journey sees them fighting off threats mundane and monstrous, as they dig up a local cult doing Lovecraftian stuff to peasants and guards who have gone missing. The dialogue writing is spectacular, and endlessly funny at times. The main cast of characters are fascinating, and it is incredibly fun to watch them engage with the strange machinations of their enemies.
The game is very short, you can complete it in under 4 hours, and that would be taking your time to explore every room within the castle and village. The combat is interesting, using a fairly standard replacement for mana in the form of “Tools” (although I don’t know what tools allow Matej the monk to heal people back to full health in a second). If you have ever played a JRPG you will know what to do immediately, and the length of the game means that the combat never gets exceedingly difficult.
Finally, the music.
I get frequent reminders of my music taste, quarterly exams informing me of my addiction to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and such. However, a new song by the name of Giant Stabs has been working its way into that top list of songs - coming from the Czech prog band Marcel Gidote’s Holy Crab. This new entrant into the list came when I listened to the soundtrack of Felvidek and immediately hunted down playlists on YouTube where I learned the name of the band.
The music is spectacular, as enticing and weird as the game it was written for.
Go play Felvidek.
Short and Sweet - Gunbrella
I played a short demo of this game last year in London at a Devolver Digital showcase at WASD Live. At first I thought it was just going to another standard pixel platformer, displaying the gimmick that it was using front and centre in its title. There was something about it that tickled my mind, and when I saw it was available on Switch - and also having a strange love for the eclectic publisher that is Devolver - I pulled the trigger.
We open up with a classic hook - simple revenge. Our character, Murray, arrives home after collecting mushrooms in the nearby forest to find his house aflame, his wife dead, child missing, and a strange contraption left behind by the culprit. Wielding the fearsome Gunbrella, he now seeks revenge - we start off disembarking a boat and investigating the local area.
I loved the atmosphere of the world immediately, the steampunk trappings alongside the protagonist who looks like he rode right out of a Spaghetti Western movie. Silent and on the path of vengeance, he encounters vicious wildlife and a cult summoning creepypasta monsters early on. He keeps track of his endeavour and odd jobs in a notebook that has a coffee stain (I am easily entertained and amused by such simple visual elements).
The first boss battle dragged me further in, an eldritch nightmare monster that really ups the difficulty and tests what you have learnt so far about using the Gunbrella. While leaving the hideout I completed a simple side mission - to acquire a gem that was hidden by the cult. I was then presented with what I thought was a simple choice: to give the gem to a merchant who had given me the key to access the hideout; or to hand it over to Sewert who lived in the gorehound-infested underground beneath the town. At first I thought this wouldn’t be a massive decision, as I decided to give it to the merchant.
For the next few hours I kept seeing references to that decision - people would talk about people who heard what I had done from Sewert, and rumours that by pawning the gem the merchant was establishing a monopoly over the town that was the central hub of the game.
The story continues along with setbacks and dramatic encounters not just with the murderer of our wife, but with the nefarious and obviously evil group that he is cozying up to. The worldbuilding is a brighter star compared to the plot, as areas develop over time and the game is excellent at creating the feeling of a world on the brink of something horrible that lurks on the horizon. When I felt the game was wrapping up, the rug was pulled from underneath my feet and I was greeted with a screen stating 3 YEARS LATER.
We now find the world after we crossed some terrible threshold, walking through the wreckage of past journeys trying to find the survivors we knew from before. Characters I thought were one note are still here and now changed as the world is ravaged by the lost and the damned. Our arsenal increases to match these threats, but the best we can do is allow the dead to rest as the living have already moved on. Our character still has to make choices between the groups that inhabit the world and the town that we are based in, old allies remembering who you are from years ago.
At this point, other themes of the story make themselves known. The main one being the danger of fossil fuels and climate change. In the story, the world’s resident Shady Corporation mines something called Crude (haha) that takes the form of crystals that provide electricity and powers the steampunk elements of the world. Turns out, Crude has a different property than the fossil fuel we have in reality - that inside of it rests ancient vengeful spirits that are unleashed when the Crude is unearthed. This is… quite unsubtle to say the least. Also, Crude seems to be running out on top of unleashing murder-ghosts.
Since the timeskip I wanted to see more of the transformed land, continue talking to old pals/enemies/frenemies and roaming this world of danger. However, we hurtle towards the final act and for that we have to go to the totally-not-evil paradise island that the original owner of our trusty Gunbrella escaped to… gaining admittance by bringing our missing daughter with him. For me, this final stage isn’t as interesting, if you have seen any setting and that story has a paradise place that seems too good to be true, then it is too good to be true.
I am conflicted about how this story progresses in the final act. There is a climactic confrontation which is emotional and for a while I thought there was going to be a real gut punch in the ending. Yet, Gunbrella pulls the hardest hit by having your nemesis do something so comically irredeemable that we no longer have to feel guilty about perforating him with our trusty shotgun parasol.
Overall, I enjoyed the game! At times it has the subtlety of a rampaging herd of buffalo with its theme and subtext, and key roles in this type of story (our love interest, our nemesis) have little depth to their personality compared to side characters (the junkyard boys, the redeemed cultists). But, the dialogue is brilliant in parts and the moment-to-moment gameplay is visceral. It is definitely worth a look if you want a fun pixel art platformer.
Favourite (Obsessed) - Pizza Tower
Feeling: Motivation, Triumph, and the Indomitable Human Spirit
Pizza Tower is a spectacular platformer that originally shook up the industry last year, a game that was in many conversations for being the best indie game of the year. The game is uniquely stylish, the animation style messy and energetic. The crazed drawings of the perpetually shaking and fidgeting main character, Peppino Spaghetti, sets him apart from another Italian platforming hero and his clean-cut art style. He isn’t a hero - just a man desperate to save his pizzeria from the machinations of the evil Pizza Face.
Peppino doesn’t feel like a hero, instead someone who is trying to survive the whacky adventure that he has found himself forced into. To help him along the way are a number of baffling powerups, a motley crew of allies, and his bottomless rage. The game is based on the old Wario Land games, but taken in a new direction. It features a moveset similar to how you would control Wario, and the levels use a plethora of power ups that are comically odd and entertaining.
From the first level, you will know if Pizza Tower is for you. Peppino moves like a whirlwind, sprinting madly from room to room, clambering up vertical surfaces faster than a black bear and smashing most enemies and obstacles in his way. The game is fast and the main part of first learning how to play is ensuring you can use Peppino’s moveset to ensure you stay fast.
That first stage will ease you in - Peppino is the only tool you have. After that most stages have a new skill you get to use in your quest to climb the tower and defeat the mighty Pizza Face. These powerups are wild in their variety and usage, and I struggle to think of any that appear in more than one level.
This means that every single level is a unique puzzle, mixing the skills you have learnt as Peppino and throwing in new abilities to incorporate. Not only are there items to pickup to get stronger, but also some obstacles require you to get hit by specific enemies to progress further.
I don’t want to write them all out, but I want to give a brief list of some of my favourite powers:
Magical sword that turns you into a knight begins sliding whenever they are on any inclined surface
Calling in Gustavo (Peppino’s biggest supporter) and his friendly rat Brick
The Devil Slice, so spicy that it allows Peppino to melt ice
A gun
Pizza Tower is one of the few games that is designed for people of all skill levels. Outside of boss battles, Peppino doesn’t have health - he can take any number of hits and carry on towards his final goal. This means newcomers or people who aren’t too great at platformers are able to explore the beautifully drawn environments and enemies.
On the other end of the scale, Pizza Tower caters to psychos and perfectionists… like myself. Each level has five pickups that give plentiful points towards your highscore. There are also secrets scattered in each level, leading to a trio of side areas that revolve around a specific mechanic/enemy within the level. There is also Gerome, the blockhead janitor who can give you access to a treasure room which usually lies off the beaten path.
When you reach the end of a level in Pizza Tower, you destroy a pillar called Pillar John. At that point, a timer starts as you have entered Pizza Time. Now you have to race back through the level, with previously closed paths now open as the seconds tick down while one of the best songs in the game plays. Once the clock hits zero, the evil Pizza Face is spawned and chases you - if you get caught, then you have to restart the stage once again.
Once you get used to the moveset of Peppino, you will go from barely scraping past to absolutely smashing the return journey. With this confidence and skill, you can attempt LAP 2. The music amps up once more, as you return to the spot where you destroyed Pillar John and have to complete the entire Pizza Time portion for a second time. The clock doesn’t reset, so you have to completely haul ass. It is incredibly hype, the feeling of throwing yourself into the fire just to prove that you can do it - it is triumphant and audacious in equal measure.
Now you have all the elements to achieve a S rank in Pizza Tower: complete the level; complete Lap 2; Acquire the secret treasure from Gerome; find all three secret side levels; reach a certain score threshold. This is where you get high end gameplay, pushing to get everything a level has to offer, and when you finally get that achievement…
You find out there is a rank more prestigious than S Rank.
I will talk about my adventures chasing that dream in another article, as it has caused me to think about other games I have been obsessed with.
Finally, the bosses.
I have played Mario most of my life, and for most Nintendo games I know what to expect from boss battles in platformers. You have to avoid the enemy, wait for them to get tired out/find an opening and then strike when they are weak. Bowser is a lizard who is a fan of the classics - for decades he has stuck to using the same attacks and strategy with minor improvement and variation.
The bosses in Pizza Tower are larger than life, their brief screen time more than enough to communicate their personalities and hatred towards Peppino. Out of them, the fight against The Noise (a rip-off based on the advertising The Noid) and the final boss are my personal favourite fights. Learning the pattern of attacks that Noise unleashes and being perfectly able to counter him felt like I had entered a strange zen state. On the other hand, the final confrontation with Pizza Face is grand. At last, Peppino gets to punch the source of this ordeal and the accompanying trauma. He doesn’t let the opportunity go to waste, as the desperate clash at the apex of the tower brings the story to a dramatic finish.
I will be talking about Pizza Tower again, guaranteed.
And what is to come…
I hope to get into a better rhythm with writing these articles. These months were dominated by a LOT of Pizza Tower gaming. I also got a chance to meet up with local game developers and hobbyists, which was an amazing chance to get my hands on interesting demos and promising games to playtest. I will be writing about the local scene in the next few weeks, as another event is imminent…
I also want to talk about Pizza Tower a lot, as it reminded me of the strange personality change I have undergone in regards to gaming. It will span over a number of games, the first one that started this strange journey was Hotline Miami, a game I still consider to be in my top five games of all time.
Thank you for joining, for coming back after the break, and I hope you are excited for what is next!