"You'll Think I'm Dead, But I'll Sail Away"...

Review by demonxz95 on Sunday, December 11th 2016
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Click to play Wave of Mutilation

Wave of Mutilation is a game created by flumpisback

Introduction

Hey guys, this is Demonxz95 here for a review of Wave of Mutilation by Flumpisback. Hmm... that title. Is by any chance Flump a fan of The Pixies, or the name just a wild coincidence? This is Flump's first featured game which is always pretty exciting. I remember how happy I was when I got my featured game back in 2014. Now, will this be a good game that deserves its feature, or will this game be so bad that it will mutilate me?


Review

Off the bat, one of the main things I can say about the game is that it's fun. The fun factor of this game is definitely very big. This is accompanied by the fact that there's almost always something happening wherever you are. This gives the game a nice pace. In the game, you'll find just about everything. There's puzzles, there's combat, there's cool gimmicks, and there's platforming (the creator is called the Platformer yet almost every featured game it isn't about platforming in any sense). Most of the cool little gimmicks in the game revolve around auto-turrets or enemies shooting barrels or blocks which blows them up or gets rid of them. This had to have taken a lot of playtesting to get everything right. This is good because playtesting is one of the most important parts of game making. A lesson to everyone reading would be to playtest your game often. Sometimes I even playtest even when I don't add anything after the last session and you should too.


This is probably one of the least linear games I've played in a while as there always seems to be several ways to go with a few short little side-trips here in there. Despite the number of paths and areas here, I never felt lost since navigating my way around was easy and it was easy to remember where I had gone and where I had not gone. There's also a few little small areas to gain some additional goodies like an extra life (pro-tip, get the extra life) or an upgrade for something. You know almost immediately where you're supposed to go and how to get there. It's overall well designed as you explore a lot of the map but you aren't overwhelmed by complexity or difficulty.


So far, this review seems like it's completely praising the game and that this is perfect. While yes, the game is very good, it isn't perfect. For one, the game is rather short in length. It only take about 5 to 10 minutes to beat it. This isn't a huge issue and actually some games do benefit from having a shorter length, especially puzzle games like this one, but at the same time, someone looking for something a bit longer may not be satisfied with this game's length. In addition to that, the scenery is quite frankly a bit boring and plain, consisting of the same floor and background tiles throughout the game. This isn't a problem for me at all, but I can also see the 8-bit option rubbing some people the wrong way. Once again though, these aren't huge issues and definitely don't bring down on how good this game is.


Pros and Cons

Pros

Fun

Very well designed overall

Lots of diversity (you have action, platforming, etc all melted together)

Non-linear but not too overwhelming

Neutral

Short length

Some people might not like the choice of the 8-bit option.

Cons

Not the best scenery.


Conclusion

Well, this review was short but the game is short so it's fitting in that regard. Anyway, I think this game is pretty good so I think you should give it a go. It'll be fun for a lot of people and I recommend it. It's one of the better Platformers I've played in a while in my opinion.


This is Demonxz95 giving his goodbyes. See you in the next review.